To SKJoss72 - I have quoted parts of your post for illustrative purposes only, to show what could actually be going on. I'm NOT saying any of this is true of you or your (prior) team, only that the moral of a story is somewhat dependent on who tells it and to whom it is told.
I read the APA horror stories here and in other forums, and sometimes I have to smile - I read them a little differently than most. Here are a few of the things that went through my mind as I read SKJoss72's post:
I recently dropped out of the APA league I played in, We had a 1st place team all season, but ended up losing in the play-offs to a wild card team, reasons well. there were several...
This is where I thought to myself "I bet none of the reasons is they played well and we didn't"...
1 st the night before playoffs there was a meeting in which none of our team were told of. they raised the skill level of a guy who had been a 3 for like 6 seasons to a 4 w/o any just cause because of other teams *****ing and crying
"*****ing and crying" means skill level complaints, but only if they are made against you or your teammates. When I read this, I thought "hmmmm, probably a skill level complaint coming later"
this guy won 3 out of 8 matches all session.. all over 15 innings.
I actually chuckled out loud when I read this part. Why the need to point out that ALL the wins were over 15 innings? Is 15 some magic number? Why are you remembering how many innings he had in all of his wins? Are you counting? Why are you counting?
the last match which raised him was off of a time out called by me in which a safety was played.
Sure, that match alone is the reason he went up. LO's hear this one all the time. Maybe that one match was enough to push him over the line, but he had to be standing with his toes on the line for that to happen.
In other words, it's never one match. It could be a couple of great matches last session or even the session before that, matches that pushed him right up to the line, and this session he had a match or two that are better than the rest of the matches he had back then, so he's now over the line.
None of that really applies in this specific case, though - it was the top secret meeting the night before playoffs.
now after I quit. this poor guy is still a 4 and has not won a match since.
You know this happens a lot, right? It's another thing LO's see and hear a lot. Someone goes up and loses a lot of matches in a row. The LO now has to decide if the player is over-rated or if there's something else going on. More often than not, it's something else. I usually look to see if the player is getting to the hill. If they can't even get to the hill, it's not the skill level - it's either intentional or psychological. I mean, if the player could win two games before going up, why can't he win two games after going up?
the other reasons we lost was the 4 I played (I am a SKL 6) won 3 straight in 4 total innings.
Ah, there it is. I knew it was coming.
and because the genius LO raised our 3 to a 4 we had to forfeit the last match in which we were 2-2 in a race to 3 nice HUH?
When an LO reads this line, the first thought is usually "Seriously? One player goes up one skill level and now the team can't field 23 at all?" Then we go back and look at the roster, and it's either "Wow, I didn't even notice that" or "What a moron - they could have met 23 with a different combination" or "No, they forfeited because the player they needed wasn't there". Either way, my point is that the ability of a team to meet 23 is not the LO's concern when adjusting skill levels - the accuracy of the skill levels is the only concern. It has to be that way, otherwise the LO is enabling sandbaggers.
While there are probably a few LO's who would do this to spite a team, the majority don't even notice, the majority of those who do notice will put skill level accuracy ahead of the ability to meet 23, and the majority who do it intentionally are doing it to a team that deserves it (cheaters).
Again, to SKJoss72, I'm not trying to attack you. For all any of us know, your LO could be an a-hole who likes to screw innocent teams. As TCIndepMo says, there are some bad apples everywhere - maybe you got one. I just wanted to point out that sometimes the villain in the story isn't the LO. I could have picked half a dozen posts from this thread to make my point - yours was just the most recent.
