About handicaps in bowling

Handicaps, like in other sports such as golf, are designed to level the playing field between higher skilled players or teams and newer or less skilled players. This recalculation uses 90% of 200 as the handicap value. This means you get 90% of the difference between your current average and 200.

By way of example, a player with an average of 100 will start with 90 pins where a bowler with a 150 average will start with 45 pins. If you compare a full team of players that average 100 against a team that all averages 150, team A is likely to score around 400 where team B is likely to score around 600. Without handicaps, that match is basically over before it starts. Including handicaps, the averages turn into 760 vs 780. While the stronger team still has the advantage, now it's only 20 pins. The winning team is much more often the team with players that bowled well (above average) that day, not just the team with bowlers with better averages.

Key features in this recalculation:

Handicaps are 90% of difference between your average as of that week and 200. Averages and handicaps update each week
Week 1 uses your week 1 score to establish your handicap for that week as well as week 2.
Top 4 handicap scores count for the team instead of scratch scores
Teams with fewer than 4 people for a week use their next best absent players average (minus 10 pins) to fill out their scoring so if you only have 3 players show up and an absent player has an average of 125 they will count as 115 (plus their handicap) for that week giving your team a chance to still win.
Playing the Bye Team is not a guaranteed win. You are basically playing against four 0 average players that carry a 180 pin handicap. This essentially means your team must bowl around their averages (up to around 10 pins less) to win.

Why

The short answer is I think it's a more fair and fun way to run a league though the folks at BoB don't seem to agree with me.

The league is advertised as a casual, not too competetive, social league. While that's largely true, every week teams are matched up and there is a winner and a loser. After 5 weeks the top teams play each other to crown a season champion. I consider that to be the definition of a competition. In a casual competition more people should have a chance to win, hence handicaps.

If you are suddenly super passionate about the idea of handicaps (hah!) in the league, consider including that in a response to the mid-season "how are we doing" email that BoB sends out every season. Maybe if they hear it enough they;d make it an option.