Tournament seed question (home vs. visitor)

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

He didn't mention a home "field" advantage, he said home "team" advantage, which is always advantages in that you get the last at bats.

But even if they had a home field advantage, baseball is one of the few sports where none of this matters, even with the last at bat. It just means you bat last, it does not mean you get an advantage from being the home team.

Peace

[Eastshire]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

But even if they had a home field advantage, baseball is one of the few sports where none of this matters, even with the last at bat. It just means you bat last, it does not mean you get an advantage from being the home team.

Peace

You know exactly how many runs you have to score to win. That is an advantage. We can argue later about how big or small it is.

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

But even if they had a home field advantage, baseball is one of the few sports where none of this matters, even with the last at bat. It just means you bat last, it does not mean you get an advantage from being the home team.

Peace

That's just wrong. Baseball absolutely has the BIGGEST home team advantage (especially when played on a neutral court). Crowd likely means the same thing to every sport, so take that away. Each sport has MINOR differences for the home team (football excepted), baseball/softball has the greatest difference, in that your scoring opportunity always comes last.

Why does that matter? Because in late inning situations, you know exactly how many runs you need to win. In a tie game in the last (or extra) innings, the visitor has to make a strategic decision about whether to go for a big inning or sacrifice an out to get across a run... the home team KNOWS how many runs it needs, and can avoid that choice. They would not sacrifice if they needed 2 runs and only had 1 person on. Ditto stolen base decisions, etc.

In bigger baseball without DH, the pitcher also gets to go another inning than he would if he was visitor, all other things being equal, before being pinch hit for.

[eric0531]

Originally Posted by Mountaincoach

The original #1 seed has a chance to come back out of the losers bracket and face us in the championship game. So here's the question--should the original #1 seed still get the "home team" advantage (by batting last) or do we earn the "home team" advantage by remaining in the winners bracket?

I don't know if there are any hard and fast rules on this, but in my experience where home/visitor are not decided by coin flip then these are often handled with the team at the top of the bracket being home team.

For what it's worth, our LL has a long tradition of taking visitor when winning the coin flip in tournament games, the logic being we want the opportunity to be the first team with runs on the board.

[Steven Tyler]

Originally Posted by Eastshire

You know exactly how many runs you have to score to win. That is an advantage. We can argue later about how big or small it is.

You also know many runs you can afford to let score. If I was up two runs and the home team had R3 and R1 with no outs, I would gladly trade a double play for a run. That and you had very good pitcher to close the game.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by mbcrowder

That's just wrong. Baseball absolutely has the BIGGEST home team advantage (especially when played on a neutral court). Crowd likely means the same thing to every sport, so take that away. Each sport has MINOR differences for the home team (football excepted), baseball/softball has the greatest difference, in that your scoring opportunity always comes last.

Why does that matter? Because in late inning situations, you know exactly how many runs you need to win. In a tie game in the last (or extra) innings, the visitor has to make a strategic decision about whether to go for a big inning or sacrifice an out to get across a run... the home team KNOWS how many runs it needs, and can avoid that choice. They would not sacrifice if they needed 2 runs and only had 1 person on. Ditto stolen base decisions, etc.

In bigger baseball without DH, the pitcher also gets to go another inning than he would if he was visitor, all other things being equal, before being pinch hit for.

The biggest advantage in all of sports? MLB used to alternate the home field games every other year and now they use the All-Star Game as the standard for who gets the home field. I have not seen any games in history be that greatly affected by who the home team is in such a way that it was a guarantee that the winner at home would win. It is certainly not even close to what you see in the NBA for example or even in the NFL where the team with the home field often goes to the Super Bowl in the Conference Championship.

It is one thing to have the last at bat, but if you score enough runs you are going to win the game regardless of what your opponent actually does anyway. And it has been proven in post seasons in the pros and even college tournaments that the team that hosts is not always the winner or the team that necessarily has a distinct advantage if they are the listed home team on the game. And then when we take this down to the youth level, this means even less. Just because a team knows they have to score a run or two to continue the game, certainly does not mean they will accomplish that feat. And it does not mean it is common that they do either. I know with our HS post season it is not unusual to see the top seed (who gets the home position) often has lost. In my state they seed teams by Sectionals and if a team wins the Sectional they go onto something called the Super Sectional which is one game to determine who is going on the State Finals (Semifinal level for the title). I have umpired many of the games in the Regionals and Sectionals where the home team lost the game in a big way. And if we went to the bottom of the last inning, they certainly did not miraculously win the game because they knew how many runs they had to score. And at the youth level if you just have the better pitching or the better defense, then none of that usually is going to matter.

It is one thing to say what you know you have to do; it is another to accomplish what you know you have to do. And with youth ball that "knowing" often puts more presser on the team to do something and when they cannot do anything the kids often panic and do not come through.

Peace

[ozzy6900]

Field and crowd is strictly a "mind" thing. What matters is never letting up on your game. Steal, bunt, move the men around the bases all the while, keeping the opponent at bay. This is where I get into arguments with people in "letting up" under sportsmanship. I never changed my game plan, neither did the teams I played for. The object was to win and be in 1st place at the end of the season. Granted this is on the professional side but in my time, I have seen so many teams 'ease off" because they were beating the pants off the opponent, only to see a few bad plays and the opponent is right back in the game.

Please, let's not argue about this. I have never conceded the issue in all the years on these boards and no one will ever get me to change my mind. My feelings always were if I have to let up to allow you to play, you should not be here to start with!

[LilLeaguer]

This article explains that MLB seems to have a lower percentage of home teams winning games than NBA or NFL, though.

[DG]

Originally Posted by mbcrowder

In a tie game in the last (or extra) innings, the visitor has to make a strategic decision about whether to go for a big inning or sacrifice an out to get across a run... the home team KNOWS how many runs it needs, and can avoid that choice. They would not sacrifice if they needed 2 runs and only had 1 person on. Ditto stolen base decisions, etc.

Decision may hinge on who is at bat, but agree, decisions to be made for visitor, but nevertheless they are made throughout the game, and in a youth league tournament it don't matter much.

Home matters for teams who actually play at home fields, they know every nuance of the field. Playing LF wall in Boston is certainly an advantage for the home team vs. the visitors. Who is home team for youth league players in tournaments on neutral fields is hardly relevant.

The question asked was about how it is decided in youth league tournaments, not whether advantageous, and for the most part that has been answered.

[Mountaincoach]

Originally Posted by eric0531

I don't know if there are any hard and fast rules on this, but in my experience where home/visitor are not decided by coin flip then these are often handled with the team at the top of the bracket being home team.

.

For the record, that is exactly what eventually happened. We won 15-10!

[Eastshire]

Originally Posted by mbcrowder

That's just wrong. Baseball absolutely has the BIGGEST home team advantage

FWIW home winning percentage is highest in professional soccer, not baseball.