East Cobb PG 2010 WWBA 2012 Grads/16u National Championship

Upstate Mavs, Coach says it's gonna be great!

Georgia Hurricanes. It is fun. We were in the 18u, we are now playing in the 17u and we'll be at the 16u. Hope to see you there. Good luck and have fun.

The schedule is out. We are in Pool J.

I am assuming that there is a playoff for each pool winnier, right? Is there not a skills showcase in this?

We are in pool O.

There is no skills assessment in this tournament. Pool winners advance to bracket play. They will usually add a few wildcards. Everyone will get a consolation game on Saturday or Sunday if they don't make bracket play.

I have a couple of questions about this event:

1) How are the pools drawn? (alphabetically/rankings/out of hat)

2) Is East Cobb the "host" and that's why the Astros have all of their games at their home field, while everyone else may get lucky and have one game at the EC complex?

3) If there are crosscheckers there, can you pay a fee to have your player evaluated and his scores updated on the player's bio? If so, how do I arrange that?

4) I see where bballman suggests they thow a couple of wildcards in the T32. I never knew that, and admit it excited me! How are those determined?

Thanks so much for any answers you may provide! I love this board and enjoy spounging off all you knowledgeable baseball fans!

quote:

1) How are the pools drawn? (alphabetically/rankings/out of hat)

Pools are done by taking the top teams based on our opinion and placing one in each pool. Then the next best teams and placing one of them in each pool. This is done to benefit lesser known teams so they will play against the teams that college recruiters and scouts tend to follow the closest. This method also gets the top teams playing each other in the playoffs. Some would call this seeding but if so the seeding is based on our opinion. We have found this is the fairest possible way to run this type of a tournament.

2) Is East Cobb the "host" and that's why the Astros have all of their games at their home field, while everyone else may get lucky and have one game at the EC complex?

East Cobb maintains the complex. They are responsible for field maintenance and preping fields for every game. They also need to be at the complex when bad weather hits. There staff is at the complex from early morning until late at night. It would cause big problems if they were at another field. There are a few other teams that are in charge of fields and they usually play all their games at that field.

3) If there are crosscheckers there, can you pay a fee to have your player evaluated and his scores updated on the player's bio? If so, how do I arrange that?

We have at least one scout at every game played. All notes are entered into our database. It's not an individual showcase event. We don't run the 60 or workout players. What happens won't change a previous "grade", but it could have a huge impact on how we "rank" players. So the answer is "no" you can not pay to update a grade. If anyone at the tournament says they can do that for you... Run!

4) I see where bballman suggests they thow a couple of wildcards in the T32. I never knew that, and admit it excited me! How are those determined?

Best overall record by second place team in a pool based on our tie breaker rules.

Yeah! Just learned today that my son's team will be playing in the tournament. The MGBA Nationals 16U. The team is actually mostly 15U with a handful of 14U and just two 16U. They haven't been playing well recently but hopefully will peak for this tournament.

Good luck to all of the participants!

Thanks for the scoop, PGStaff! Like others have said, I'm always impressed that you take the time to answer our questions here!

I've always wondered how the pools were drawn, as well as who got to play at East Cobb and who didn't. (I'll be honest and say that I was a little disappointed in the grounds when we went there earlier this year. In the last 5 years of playing at EC, I've never seen so much trash and deferred maintenance. We actually had better field conditions at some of the high schools we visited. Hopefully they have things looking nice again...the boys really get a kick out of playing there!)

Thanks again for the 411 and if we don't see you this week, hopefully we will in August!

Field 1 will be unusable due to the grass dying. It is being resodded. I'm afraid you'll be disappointed again.

PG, can a player from socal get on a team in this event?

Our team does not go.

Does PG have teams here similar to the jupiter event?

thanks,

yard

gonyard,

It's a bit late now. However to answer your question, there are no PG teams in this event.

Gotta admit, little disheartening for sons team to go 4-1 and only giving up 10 runs and not making it in to a Championship round. Their only loss was there first game, a 1-0 loss.
Seems to me if you just stacked one day where each team plays 2x then it would allow for more teams to make it to the Championship round, I mean with 216 teams it would seem reasonable to take more than 32. But, thats just my opinion.

We won our pool and play at 9am tomorrow. Hopefully we will go a little deeper in the tournament but we didn't bring extra pitching, just our twelve man team. One team here has 21 players. Wow.

I am proud of our boys and it has been a great experience for them.