At the very bottom I've posted the rosters of the Chicago-based teams that made Nationals (unfortunately formatted just as lists). I'm hoping this thead from an educated community of knowledgeable folks can help generate a consensus score a given player, an archetypical example player for each score, a fair range for a player given their playing circumstances, etc.
Now I'm approaching this as all being relative. If you believe that the scores should show a straightline distribution or bellcurve, you will come up with different results. But hear me out...
Tim Halt Hensley Sejour Vijay Menon Kevin Cho Bill Finn Tyson Park Chris Fuchs Brody Felchle Bjorn Gunderson Joel Wooten Brady Meisenhelder Akira Yamaguchi Matt Clarke Bill Bostrom Mike DeNardis John Kolb Nick McDuffee Mike Droske Matt Stupca Ryan Butler Zach Thompson Joe Ferrari Kevin Klipp Eric Leonard
Candice Tse Leah Schoepke David Hoffman Carlo Ruth Ryan Carrizales Dan Benjamin Nate Volkman Rob Berg Chris Dube Laura Ley Christine Cheng Nikki Rodell Curry Gallagher Steve Rodell Georgia Bosscher Brian Schulz Jarrett Bialek Paul Callaway Ness Fajardo Rob Bruggner Tony Ruth Claire J Adam Verner Phil Broering Steve Philips
Example line of thought: Tim Halt is the best player in Chicago. He has a case to be the best player in the region, and one of the best in the country. Almost impossible to cover. Huge throws (especially forehand). Been and done. He's a 20. That makes me at worst a 19, as I don't have breakout throws. Bill Finn, Vijay, Joe Ferrari are all with me. Matt Clarke is newer and huge, but not as good a thrower. He's a 18. Kebo is sickly athletic but raw as far as skillset. He's a 18. That means that the range if you're on Machine last year is 20-18. Maybe maybe maybe Finn, Vijay, or Ferrari would try to make the case that they are 18s. Which bumps Clarke and Kebo down to 17, so the range becomes 17-20. Tim is your archetype 20. Pick examples them. Kebo or Clarke become your archetype 17. Etc.
This scale does not work as well for women in the city, as I don't believe there's a breakout, top XY nationally level woman. If you set the top end to 20, then you have a problem if Alex Snyder (insert example) suddenly moves to town. The top players on Nemesis aren't far behind that, but there's a gap I think. So Hellyer or Lyrica are like 19s? And on down from there?
And so on.
Aside from firming up what it means to be some number, I think rating everyone would be useful. I believe that most of the league rating 'fudging' is going on at the top, among a small group of folks who want to get in with their friends. The cap is not that high, hence the pressure...
This is where the captain being required to re-rate their players at the end of the season would really help. Yes you can get new players in at too low or high of a rating but they will only spend one season at that ranking before they are re-ranked closer to where they actually fit. There is still the potential for problems when you have a group of friends who want to stay together so the captain leaves everyone where they are, but at some point you are going to have to trust someone to be responsible in rating the players and it's to large a job for the league admins to handle on their own.
It shouldn't take a captain that long to re-rate the 20 or so players on their team, and it would help balance the league in the log run.
Akira's first scale is what I think it should look like
Tim is a 20 no question, being that the league forces me to be a 20, I would have a hard time saying Finn, Vijay, etc. are not 20s, but realistically I think you can add the guys that can take over a game athletically and who have good/solid throws and knowledge also as 20s or great throws and very good athleticism should also be 20's (Vijay, Tyson, Cho, possibly others I don't know)
And I can see someone more 1 dimensional still learning like Kebo possibly being rated as low as 18, but I still might lean toward 19
Whitey- having captains rerate is cool and all, but that doesn't help with the application of a single standard. So the league should have one as reference.
Ok.. extending my and Gary's line.. to trying to fit a whole team. I'm a bit more conservative applying top scores b/c I like to leave headroom for someone to set the bar higher.
Another thought as I do this-- the rating system has flaws. I guess we've established that. Just do the best we can. The approach that seems to work here is to cut guys into tiers then put them on the scale, then last assign the points to the categories. The last part matters less. It's the total that hooks ya.
[These guys have toplevel all-around game.] 20 7/7/6 Tim Halt: Tim is the model 20. Best player in the city. At the top in the region and nation. Uncoverable, great and huge throws on both sides, lots of experience and knowledge. 20 Kevin Cho: I think Kevin's a 20, especially after the beatdown he was laying on Kris Bass in the play-in game. Too bad he's leaving. 20 Tyson Park: Much like Tim but more up and down.
[These guys are close but have one or more areas that are vg not great.] 19 7/6/6 Akira Yamaguchi: Example 19 thrower.Separated from the 20s by throwing, especially consistent length. 19 7/6/6 Joel Wooten: Example 19 cutter.Dude is a beast. Good thrower but not great. 19 6/7/6 Joe Ferrari 19 Vijay Menon: Another example 19 cutter. 19 Bill Finn 19 Brody Felchle 19 Mike Droske 19 Nick McDuffee: Stealth 20. 19 Matt Stupca
[These guys have one or more areas that are just good.] 18 7/5/6 John Kolb: Nice throws but still learning to use them. A notch below the guys with > 1 year elite experience. 18 7/5/6 Zach Thompson 18 7/5/6 Bjorn Gunderson 18 7/5/6 Matt Clarke: Example 18 cutter. 18 5/7/6 Chris Fuchs 18 Bill Bostrom: Example 18 thrower. 18 Mike DeNardis 18 6/6/6 Ryan Butler 18 7/5/6 Eric Leonard
[These guys have at least one hole in their game.] 17 5/6/6 Brady Meisenhelder: Example 17 thrower. Brady's throws are brilliant but not the biggest or most powerful. Injuries have slowed him down athletically. 17 7/4/6 Hensley Sejour: Example 17 cutter. Developing throws but inconsistent. Sick athlete. 17 7/4/6 Kevin Klipp: See: Hensley.
Thoughts? How did I do with my very rough first pass?
Edit- any example scales (7/6/6) are based on trying to apply the player's proposed rating to the old scale. The distribution of points (but not the total) changes using my new proposed verbiage.
Oh yeah. All of these numbers are 'at least' or 'no less than'. This also means that if you went with Machine to Nationals last year, you're no less than a 17. And then only if you have some special circumstance, like physical breakdown, or 'project' element to your game.
Ok.... gotta say... I know a lot less about rating Nemesis than the men. And this matters.. 'cause if you get the scale right for this you can use the two to rate Briefcase. And so on.
Unlike the men, I don't think there's a 20 in the city-- player who's out and out best in the city, and rates regionally and nationally. If you set the best woman here to 20, you have no room if Alex Snyder moves to town. Or whatever. That makes the scale harder to establish. After some thought and discussion, I've been convinced that for league purposes, the gap between an example awesome woman and the best women currently in the city is smaller than worth delineating.
Same thought process then. Try to lump the players I know into tiers. Worry about how to allocate the points later.
I'll try to add comments later. I'm noticing that when I edit a post it does not appear to bump to the top. So you may not notice edits and comments unless you look...
I guess I do know how to use a computer after all...
Anyway, I have a few thoughts about this. You know I'm usually all about stats/numbers/rankings, but I think there are some things that aren't being taken into consideration. I don't as yet have suggestions about how to change that.
1) The tendancy of everyone with any skill to become a thrower, especially with a shallow league with many new players. It's fine to say that Brady and Hensley are both 17s, but my opinion is that assuming they are the best players on their respective teams in summer league (all other things equal) Brady's team will win more often than not as they will both end up behind the disc.
2) Related to the above - my own thoughts that the throwing skill curve drops off substantially faster than the cutting skill curve. End-to-end throwers can make an average college cutter a threat all over the field but the converse isn't true - a superstar cutter can get open more and save bad throws but can't extend the range of the thrower.
3) Since the ratings are added together for a person before being added together for a group it doesn't take into account balance. Example: Which 34 point team is more likely to be successful - Brady + Hensley or Kebo + Hensley? It might be interesting to add the categories first and cap each of them independently along with an overall total...
Anyway, I just figured I would weigh in since it looks like Akira keeps talking to himself.
I'd be more scared of a team with Kebo and Hensley, remember while Brady and Hensley may both have t obe the #1 thrower in a league situation, they probably also both have to cover one of the best players on the other team.
Fair enough - From a purely numbers-based point of view those teams should be considered as "equal strength" given akira's rankings. If you don't think that's the case is it something that can be captured in the ratings?
Having never been a captain I'll ask this - do teams have male and female totals for strength or just a single total?
Ok. Since I've never been a captain (just a summer league winner as part of an unplanned stacked team) - please feel free to ignore all of this.
That seems somewhat odd to me, to be honest. I'm not trying to get in the middle of the whole gender debate (4/3 etc), but assuming there aren't maximums and minimums per team for both men and women I don't see the point of splitting hairs as finely as Akira seems to be doing it. If the system as designed says that a team consisting of Tim, Tyson, Cho and three women who've never played is eqivalent strength to a team of Lyrica, Hellyer, Mel and three men who have never played I think there are bigger issues.
If I ran the world it would go something like this - In the last three years, have you... - Been to men's or womens nationals? You're a 20 - Been to mixed nationals, single sex college nationals, or top 5 single sex club regionals? You're a 15 - Been top 5 at college regionals or high school nationals? You're a 10
If not, have you... - EVER (not in the last three years) been to club nationals? You're a 12
If not... - How good of an ultimate player are you on a scale of 1-10. That's your ranking.
I think Gary has sufficiently addressed the Brady + Hensley vs. Kebo + Hensley question. It depends. Ultimate is great b/c it's a well-rounded game there are lots of ways to win. I might take Brady + Hensley, but I'm not sure. Kebo + Hensley.. sooo athletic.
There's a single team number, no per gender tabulations or requirements. I recognize this is a flaw. However, I'm trying to work within the current structures.
Here's what I'm trying to fix... an example core which I've heard about through the rounds...
The Seinfeld league rules are 87 < core points < 112 for 8 players, at least 4 women. Well, this team has at least 4 women- check. But how does it do on points?
By my book, Lyrica's a 20. Tormey's is a 19. Josie is an 18. Jake Cooper is a 17. Maaaaaaaybe a 16.
That makes the total 73 or 74. Assume the new woman is actually a 5 (a freebie, and probably some degree of generous at that), and I'll even throw in Jake as a 16. That only leaves 34 points for... (here it gets a little fuzzy b/c I haven't really stopped to consider these players' teams)
Rachael Thompson- i would start the discussion with rough equivalency to Lorna Barr ~14. Leah Schoepke- never seen her play, but just went to Nationals with Briefcase, making noises about trying out for Nemesis this spring. ~16? Cam Berry- no slouch. absolutely positively no less than 14?
So we're not even close. Problem is, cores like this have skated through in the past.
I would posit that if you continued to build a rough equivalency scale for Briefcase and Haymaker you would find many big discrepancies .
Additional thought from another source-- if players are going to get rerated and cores dinged, wouldn't it make sense to start that process early/now? That way cores have time to adjust and reconfigure themselves. I'm not sure if that's the current plan given that the core review period is slated for Fri-Sun after entries close.
It's a legit concern of mine that changes to the system and process like this don't screw those affected. They are, after all, our friends, teammates, and opponents on the field.