Spinoff: Batting average

I wrote a more detailed description of the batting average idea in the post at this link:

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?p=686403#post686403

I can relate. We're in the middle of what could end up being an 8 or 10 week break for our team and it's hard to watch our ranking drop a little with every completed contest. I feel like I'm on the sidelines of a game saying "Let me in coach, I'm ready to play."

Each system of rankings has it's ups and downs. I could argue for or against just about any of them. There really isn't a right or a wrong way. Each is a little different and each provides a slightly different perspective. But in the end, the top teams always end up at the top of a rankings list no matter how you slice it and dice it.

If I had the data, I would certainly provide information like average % finish (i.e., coming in 10th out of 100 is 10%) in each category. It would be cool. Until KCBS starts issuing teams unique identifiers, it would be quite a burden to track every team at every contest. Right now the only thing we have to go on is the team name listed on the score sheet. There's a lot of manual processing to keep those team names straight (dupes, typos, spelling variations, etc.). Tracking a full contest could take 5, 10, even 20 times longer to process than just the Top 10 teams. The data is available. We just need someone with a lot of time on their hands to scrape it and clean it up.

One thing you can do is use the DIY rankings on my site and set the contest limit to a small number (like 3 or 4) and see where your best 3 or 4 contests stack up against other teams' best 3 or 4 contests. Even then, you'll notice the rankings don't change that much (although Rhythm n Que goes from 17 to 4).