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Online now: 2 members: AJ11, TABLE SETTER 11; 94 anonymousDiscussion: OLD TOPIC BUT
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| Aug. 23, 2019 Paco12 19 posts | OLD TOPIC BUT Quick question for you smart people. If you have a product that don't sell and don't make you any profit; wont you slowly get rid of it or just stop selling it all together? So why senior softball keep having a Major plus division beyond 55. As of now there are 5 60M+ going to Vegas and in the Mid-Atlantic area is really just one 60M+. Look at the 60Major and AAA (32 and 35 teams respectively). Is having the 60M+ division making or costing you money? I can guarantee that if the 60M+ were to play the 60M teams, the 5 60M+ will not be 1-5, one of us might win it, but it will be very competitive. I believe that is pass due to reconsider getting rid of the M+ division beyond 55 or start moving teams up...and that is all what I have to say about that. PR NINJA OUT; REMEMEBR IF NOBODY ELSE LOVES YOU "JESUS DOES" |
| Aug. 26, 2019 grayhitter59 Men's 60 345 posts | Paco, I think they should take the top 20% finishers in each division in Vegas and automatically move them up, do this every year. |
| Sept. 3, 2019 Paco12 19 posts | Four 60M+; 31 60M and 34 60AAA. what is wrong with this numbers? Is time to get rid of the 60M+. The numbers don't lie. |
| Sept. 3, 2019 TimMcElroy 942 posts | You've played on a strong 55 Major team with it's share of Major Plus talent for years and the idea of merging divisions was never raised. You play half of this year with a 60 M+ team and now the Association needs to do the right thing for the betterment of the game. Laughable. |
| Sept. 3, 2019 Paco12 19 posts | Not for the betterment of the game, the game is great. It just makes no sense to have a division where there are no other teams to play with, even at the gran daddy of them all, you have 4 teams. How many you had at the Eastern, TOC...etc. Common sense my friend. After 55 there should be no M+ division is my point. Sure we can play against other 60M+ but there only a hand full and only one in the MIDLANT area. |
| Sept. 3, 2019 Dugout 18 posts | I am not there yet at that age ...just 54....but my thoughts are.. would it really hurt to try what Paco suggested ....if it dont have balance then return it the way it was... |
| Sept. 3, 2019 DaveDowell Men's 70 4317 posts | Dugout ... The very last thing we would want to do is to allow/force Major+ teams to play DOWN into a combined bracket with true Major teams, where the lower rated (Major) teams would have virtually no chance to win ... There's another association that already does that and we frequently hear "...We're sure glad you don't allow that to happen in SSUSA!..." ... The true issue and challenge for us is how to fairly move up Major teams that should move up as opposed to ruining it for the Major division teams by moving all the Major+ teams down ... |
| Sept. 3, 2019 TimMcElroy 942 posts | This entire conversation is nuts. Does anyone really want Venom 70 M+ or Timberworks 65M+ playing back in the Major division? For that matter does anyone recall how Omega became a Major Plus team? They won the 55 Major and 60 Major worlds- and the TGS along the way. |
| Sept. 3, 2019 mck71 Men's 60 344 posts | Paco if you did a little research, you would see that numbers don't lie: 2019 4 31 34 2018 9 31 43 2017 9 34 42 2016 9 25 39 Seems that this is just a down year at 60M+ same as 60AAA. Dugout - M+ sent us home at East Nationals, they scored 27 runs in 6 innings (didn't have to bat in the 7th , we lost by 8 and got 5 runs) so are we supposed to request to move to AAA or just show up and maybe we can win a game? Or maybe someone will come on here and tell us to get better? We didn't complain, we showed up, played hard but got beat so we went home, no big deal but to me I believe that shows that they are better than most 60M teams so what is there to try? |
| Sept. 4, 2019 Paco12 19 posts | I am glad that it took some traction. Please understand I am not talking about Omega or any other team. Dave, made the point that I am asking for, if you are going to have a M+ division then move teams accordingly. It just sucks that on every tournament you have to give 5 runs to teams that are as good or better than you but are rated lower(The bank, Sweet construction, Spare parts, Reality Check, and few more) move them up and move some of those AAA to M. Sure since we are the only M+ teams at times we get to win our division without winning a game...that to me is embarrassing to be named an all tournament team, but team did not win a game or maybe one or two. To the point that Dave makes about ISSA, I believe is a cheap shot, there are a lot of teams that don't play SSUSA because don't want to play M+. So both associations are flawed some what. The point here I can guarantee that if the 4 M+ teams were to play against the M teams we will not come out 1-4 at the end, perhaps one of the M+ might win it, but even that is not guaranteed. There is virtually no difference between the upper level 60M teams and the 60M+ teams. Mck71 thanks for the stats, you made my point clearer 1/3 are 60M+ the numbers should be at least half...to many major and AAA teams when compared to the M+...and I can only imagine that it gets even worst with age. Tim, those are perhaps are two outliers, heck if I am still alive at 70 and still playing, I will be just be happy to be able to move. |
| Sept. 4, 2019 grayhitter59 Men's 60 345 posts | I don't want to play against weaker teams, I just think that if you place high in a 30 to 40 team bracket, that team needs to be moved up. If you move 6 or 7 teams from Major to Major plus a year, those bracket will be larger and you will see more teams in tournaments. this will make it worth your while to travel to Vegas and other destinations to play against more than 1 team 2 out of 3 games or worse show up and win by default. My 2 cents |
| Sept. 4, 2019 DaveDowell Men's 70 4317 posts | Manny ... Please don't undervalue your 2¢ worth ... Your suggestion has a lot of merit in my (personal-one-vote-on-the-Rules-Committee) view ... Other meritorious potential adjustments to be considered include ... • Reducing the number of allowed "out-of-rating" exemptions from three to some lesser number, phased in over time; • Reducing the number of Major+ "out-of-region" exemptions from four to some lesser number, with consideration for those individual players who may be geographically remote from any other Major+ teams; and • Refining the criteria and potentially the waiting-period (longer) for Medical Exemption rating experience downgrades ... Many medical "circumstances", as contrasted to chronic recurring problems, actually disappear through shoulder/hip/knee surgery, which serves to improve the player's skill level performance rather than indicate a legitimate reason for a write-down ... Your initial suggestion would also be applicable for the migration of top level AAA rated teams to Major ... Thanks! ... |
| Sept. 4, 2019 Hitman 34 8 posts | I always get a big kick out of this discussion. This is the 15th year the New Jersey Hitmen have existed. We have moved up and down between Major and Major+ in every age group. We always accept wherever SSUSA puts us and try to improve and play our best. Because there are so few Major+ teams in the east, 2 of us, the tournaments aren’t much fun for us anymore. It’s hard to give Major teams 5 runs in most games where you never get to play 7 innings. We’re looking forward to going to Las Vegas where there are 4 teams!! Last year there were 5....WOW! I’m not sure the solution, but I’m confident Terry and the smart people can figure it out. It’s hard for us to get out of area players because they don’t want to travel to the northeast to play in tournaments with 3 Major teams and then play the other Major+ team best 2 of 3. That’s if both Major+ teams show up. The last 2 years we haven’t been able to play in the Northeast Championships because there wasn’t any 65M teams either. That caused us some issues this year because that was the qualifying tournament for us to go to The Eastern Nationals and Vegas. To SSUSA’s credit we worked it out. We have no outside players on our roster, so that rule doesn’t help us. I believe there are many 65M teams that can play M+ because it is less of a power game at 65 than lower ages. Anyway, no solutions, but my 2 cents too. Jeff Hitt |
| Sept. 4, 2019 NCS13 Men's 50 13 posts | SSUSA is a class organization and I have thoroughly enjoyed the last decade or so of playing in their tournaments. Every single staff member I have interacted with is top-notch. With that being said, I think the Major Plus program needs an overhaul. Trying to figure it out is way past my pay grade, and I enjoy playing the best competition in the country, but unfortunately that only happens at the World Championships. Every other tournament has turned into basically a Best-of-3, 2 team tourney or 3 team max RR. My wife has told me that variety is the spice of life... I like the idea, at least at the smaller tourneys, of pushing M+ into the Major bracket and spotting runs all the way through bracket play but using the M+ home run limits. I know a lot of Major teams would argue against this but, quite frankly, I've seen a lot of Major teams (more teams than not) that could compete in that format. Especially if SSUSA is hesitant to move said teams up to M+ for fear of the all-too-common outcome of teams disbanding or asking for a ratings change because of a few poor showings. The dearth of 50 M+ teams has forced my team to play a number of 40 tourneys just to get some action. We'd rather see 10-20 different teams than play the same 1-2 teams, three or four times a tourney, 3-5 times a season. Other than that, SSUSA runs a clean operation and on many occasions has worked through difficult scenarios to deliver a decent product. They historically have been very receptive to new ideas regarding equipment and scheduling to accommodate their customer base, so I'm hopeful that there is a solution to be had here. Best of luck to all at Worlds. Sean Morgan West Coast Aftershock 50 M+ |
| Sept. 6, 2019 kel 31 posts | Dave.....with all due respect, please don't generalize medical exemptions and impose a longer waiting period because personally I was a much better player when I was able to use my " own two knees" while not having to constantly be concerned if the mechanical equipment is suddenly going to fail and become loose from twisting in the batters box or being in a collision in the infield and displacing one's knee. And this doesn't include the idea that I have to get runners all the time which limits your opportunities to play at a Major Plus level.....just my 2 cents and I recognize that other players in my situation with 2 new knees may have better experiences after surgery. Pat Kelly Carrot/Madalena Construction 60 Major |
| Sept. 6, 2019 DaveDowell Men's 70 4317 posts | Pat ... No disrespect was intended ... We are not medical professionals, which puts us at a disadvantage in terms of being qualified to know much about any specific application ... But we are statisticians to a certain degree and this is what we can say with confidence ... The vast majority of "medical exemption downgrades" are submitted by players who are currently on Major+ rosters ... And a majority of that subset come from players who's teams was recently moved to that rating, with the big annual spike following the upgrades following the World Masters Championships ... There is no doubt that technique is in the "playbook" of a lot of managers, and it's somewhat odd that so few of the applications involve Major players seeking AAA or AAA seeking AA status ... There are a few, but that number pales in comparison ... And we don't believe it's a mere coincidence that a lot of teams that have a player re-class application pending are trying to get from "4" or "5" Major+ history guys in order to slip under the allowed maximum of "3" ... It would be naive to think all application are truly valid, and equally unfair to think none are ... We are seeking a difficult to determine fix here with the goal being competitive balance and teams playing where they should ... Thanks! |
