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USA Junior Olympic Cup update

What's on your mind?

by Inthestands » Tue Mar 31, 2015 7:59 am

I tried searching this on ASA's site and can't find it. Did it get the traction they wanted or did it wash out?
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by Goldball4 » Sun Apr 05, 2015 9:11 pm

Quick question, where have the Gold coast hurricanes, East Cobb Bullets, Wichita Mustangs, and Texas Bombers disappeared too off the 18 Premier list? If this what i think happened, this cant be good news !
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by Goldball4 » Wed Apr 08, 2015 9:42 am

Well spaz, that answer sums up Pgf quite well! So I guess the invites they replaced them with are better ? Its called arrogance spaz. Trying to take over the softball world, and fortunately tripl crown, and ASA are standing up. Teams now are starting to see the light. It will no longer be the best of the best period. Until there is a true qualifying system, the invites are a joke at all levels. Now most invites are great teams, how do some teams get invited with never even playing in the damn thing before!? How you can sit there and say the Wichita Mustangs, Gold Coast Hurricanes, and East Cobb Bullets organizations are irrelevant? To me thats just a hard slap in the face from you people in California.
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by PDad » Thu Apr 09, 2015 3:21 pm

Goldball4 wrote:... It will no longer be the best of the best period. Until there is a true qualifying system, the invites are a joke at all levels.

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.

Now most invites are great teams, how do some teams get invited with never even playing in the damn thing before!?

I expect PGF gets recommendations from credible sources and looks at other high-level results to identify teams to recruit (i.e. invite).

Which teams do you feel are/were undeserving of an invite this year?
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by crashsdaddy » Thu Apr 09, 2015 7:09 pm

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.
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by exD1dad » Thu Apr 09, 2015 11:26 pm

The way I see it is if you eliminate the invites all the teams that got them will get in anyway through qualifiers expanded opportunities. Let's not forget PGF is a blind draw.

So crashdaddy what places did the other 62% of invited teams come in? Why don't you compare the top ASA national teams finishes with Premier & Platinum finishes compared to the invites of those same teams & post that data
"It's not giving up if you discover you've been chasing the wrong destiny" -Morley LA street artist who posted this on Melrose Avenue in Jan '14
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by crashsdaddy » Fri Apr 10, 2015 3:26 am

exD1dad wrote:The way I see it is if you eliminate the invites all the teams that got them will get in anyway through qualifiers expanded opportunities.


That's quite an assumption when a third of the invited teams finished in the bottom third. How many teams didn't quite make it in through a qualifier but would have had there been 31 more qualifier spots? How many of the invited or returning teams would have actually filled those spots? Most probably but certainly not all.

exD1dad wrote:So crashdaddy what places did the other 62% of invited teams come in?


Higher of course but if the invited teams are assumed to be teams that would automatically qualify, why are such a large portion doing poorly? The invite process doesn't work possibly? Anyone can pick the top 5 to 10 teams. But picking the top 20 to 30? No, its a guessing game at that point and the results prove that. There are teams getting short changed in the qualifier process because some other team is getting a free ride into PGF.

To say that's just the nature of the beast in trying to hold the best tournament possible is also unfair to the players. Explain why free passes are the right thing to do to a girl who's team isn't getting a chance to be there because on paper, in someones opinion, some other team located a 1000 miles away was perceived to be the "better" team and thus there's not an additional qualifier spot to be earned.
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by Sftbll4ever » Fri Apr 10, 2015 6:53 am

I have no problem with the top teams being invited back every year. BUT, I think the other invited teams should be placed in platinum and if they want premier, they need to play to earn it.
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by exD1dad » Fri Apr 10, 2015 9:39 am

I see nothing wrong with PGF remaining loyal to org's that were there from the start (supporting them over ASA from day 1) & have solid teams year after year. Somebodys gotta finish in the bottom third whether they were invited or qualified thats a simple fact. If a team is 1000 miles away & they didn't get in to Platinum then are they really as good as those that got invites? The business world is full of "relationships" & nepotism, why should PGF be any different? the biggest thing in ANYTHING is you can't please everybody.

Who said the invites were the top 20 or 30 teams? Sorry you mentioned it was "assumed" there you go.

Back to the 2 tourney's my DD played PGF 3 years in a row with 3 different teams from 3 different states, 1st 2 in Premiere & last year in Platinum. 2 of those teams had invites(both non SoCal), the other chased & finally qualified after 4 different tourneys in 3 states. All the teams have numerous players going to the next level (1 had 10) Last years team lost to an ASA top 15 finisher by 1 run against a team with 7 or 8 starters most of them already 19 yrs old & 10 verballed to D1 schools & they didn't pound anybody in platinum. This proved to me the parity & necessity of both tourneys due to the high number quality players in the USA.,
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by fastpitchdad05 » Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:40 am

Just in case anyone wanted the ASA link to this tournament to check it out:

http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Softball/Pla ... ament-Info
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