PDad wrote:Last year's invites for 18U did better than the teams that qualified. See
PGF Qualifier Berths for a breakdown of how all types of 18U berths fared.
I'd expect the invites to out perform the teams that qualified. You'd have to be a really bad at knowing who the top teams are to get that completely wrong. That said, they still got more than a few wrong.
PDad wrote:Which teams do you feel are/were undeserving of an invite this year?
Lets see...
Returning Berths - 10 Teams
Jersey Intensity - 33rd
Gold Coast Hurricanes - 49th
Texas Glory - 49th
Invited Teams - 21 Teams
Atlanta Vipers - 33rd
Tennessee Fury - 33rd
Texas Bombers Gold - 33rd
Virginia Legends - 33rd
Arizona Storm - 49th
Irvine Sting - 49th
NW Bullets - 49th
Minors Gold - 65th
I'm not saying any of these teams aren't great but are we to believe these teams would have made it past a qualifier so easily that they were deserving of automatic return or invite berths? Clearly the people picking the invites are as good at picking the bottom finishing teams as they are the top finishing teams (lets hope they aren't doing that on purpose but we'll never really know will we). Automatic returns are as likely to fall to the bottom as they are to stay at the top.
This is why people don't like invites. They really aren't that reliable. Returns at least earn it on the field but even then its not that reliable of an indicator across the broad group from year to year much less across several years which is what it would take for a few of these teams to drop off (and there's a few that probably never would)
There's a reason why the Yankee's, Bulls' and 49rs are not automatically in the post season every year despite their past legacy. They have to earn it every year and no year is a guarantee.
ASA, for all its faults, was a level playing field. Everyone traveled to the hell hole locations. No one was assumed to be sooooo gooood that they didn't have to at least show for a qualifier. Everyone played the crap filler teams...who by the way, also played in a qualifier.
I doubt if PGF were to drop the invites and possibly even the return berths, no one would defect back to ASA on those issues alone. That is, unless those ARE the real reason some teams are playing PGF.