Adding 10th batter in the middle of a game?

[heroes]

The league our team belong to the biggest amateur league in the States, National Amateur Baseball Association, allows teams to add extra batters in the middle of a game.

For Example, the game starts with 9 batters and in the middle of the game you can add 10th batter to the lineup without taking anyone out to be replaced. Is your current/next version able to accommodate that?

Also, I have not tried but I'm curious if your current/next version supports "courtesy runner" due to the injury to the batter runner? (the courtesy runner will come out of the game and the injured player will come back in once he is treated)

Also, the league allows players to come out of the game and go back in again.(a sort of like a hockey?? ) My team almost never do that so it wouldn't be a big deal if there isn't the feature but is that possible?

I'm trying to spread this program over among the teams in the league.

thank you!

[FTMSupport]

Working backwards in your requests....

You can substitute players in and out without a problem. A player can leave and re-enter a game.

You can add a 10th player to the lineup as long as the lineup has not wrapped around. Once you have returned to your first batter (i.e. as soon as a batter has batted twice), you can not insert additional spots into the lineup. Is that allowed in your league even after the lineup has batted around? What position would the new player bat in in that case?

We do not currently have a "courtesy runner" option, but will add it to our enhancement list for a future release.

Thank you.

[heroes]

hi there,

so I made sure what I was asking for was really what the league rule was. I checked with our NABA league administrator and here is what it is.

Team may add any number of players to the bottom of line-up at any time during the game, but must finish the game with the largest number of batters at any given time during the game.

In other words, we may add 10th and 11th batter to the bottom of the line up even after the second round of the order. But we must finish the game with 11 batters in the line up once we add 11th batter at any given time.

It does sound like a strange rule but I'm just asking you if there's any way you can accommodate this. I have scored one of the games that had that situation and already I'm stuck.

I wonder if somehow we can figure this out without causing you too much work. I know this is a special case indeed.

National Amateur Baseball Association is one of the biggest amateur leagues in the States(we have 24 teams in San Francisco league alone) and I assure you, this feature will be critical to teams on the league. I have already sent out to team captains in the league and some told me that they are considering getting Itouch just to get this application!!

Anyhow,
if this isn't a biggest programing challenge for you guys, I hope you put some consideration into this.

thank you so much

[FTMSupport]

Can you provide a link to the rules so we have it for reference? I tried searching on google, but could only find National Amateur Baseball Federation (NABF), and not sure if that is the same or different than the National Amateur Baseball Assocation (NABA) that you mention.

When I search NABA, I get National Adult Baseball Assocation.

Anyway, a link would be helpful so we can consider it for a future release.

Thank you.

[heroes]

oops, sorry...

yes, it is National Adult Baseball Association. My bad
http://www.dugout.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false

and the SF one is

http://www.sfnaba.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false

The rule of this particular case doesn't look like it's on the website.
It is on the rule book that's distributed to team managers.
Can I email that page to you as a pdf file? (what email address would that be?)

d

[FTMSupport]

The best email address to reach us is support@fasterthanmonkeys.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false.

Thank you.

[TheJesse]

I am also in a league that allows batters to be added to the lineup throughout the game. Furthermore, my league also allows what are called shared lineup slots where two players share a lineup slot and divide their at bats in any order the manager sees fit. Will your software be able to accomodate this need?

[FTMSupport]

A shared lineup spot is not a problem... that would just be one player or the other acting as the "pinch hitter" for that spot in the rotation.

Adding batters after you have already batted through the lineup once is quite a bit more challenging. If you expect to be adding a 10th batter later in the game, you can put in a 10th batter, but skip that batter the first time through the rotation, then let him bat in future innings. He must be put in prior to batting through the entire lineup the first time though (even if he is there just so you can skip him).

[TheJesse]

Are you saying that your program allows someone to pinch hit multiple times in a game? I ask because the shared lineup slot is a very flexible slot in the lineup. The first guy may hit twice; the second guy may hit once; and then the first guy may hit again. Sometimes it's as simple as the two guys taking turns, but that's not always the case.

A lot of adult leagues allow lineup additions throughout the game. While your suggestion does, in a way, address that issue it still lacks the fluidity that is required to make it go off without a hitch. Sometimes we have no idea who or how many batters we're going to add to the lineup and when. We have been known to bat 14 guys in some games. In some instances our lineup starts that way and in others that's what we eventually lengthen it to throughout the course of the game.

Also, does your program allow defenders to come in and out of the game? Our league also has unlimited defensive substitutions. Guys can seamlessly move on and off the bench defensively regardless if they are in the hitting lineup.

Thanks for addressing all of these concerns.

[FTMSupport]

Yes, you can switch offensive/defensive players any number of times. iScore Baseball will allow that. We have said before that we are not trying to enforce rules --- just trying to allow people to score within their rules.

I am not sure when we will allow adding players to the lineup after you have batted through as that really disrupts the flow of a lineup. The best suggestion I can offer is to make sure you have enough players listed to cover the number of players you expect to show up in the middle of the game, and keep skipping those lineup spots until the players do show up.