Youth Baseball discussions

[Point Beer Is Best]

I assume there are several posters here that are currently, or have previously been, involved in some capacity with youth baseball.

 

Both of my boys (age 9 & 7) have been involved with our local rec program since they were in 4K and have coached the program's "tournament" level team for my oldest son's age group since he was 7. The Board that oversees the Rec & Tourney programs recently made some changes to the Tourney program and I'm wondering how other programs operate:

 

1) When does your program hold tryouts (Fall, Winter or Spring)? Before the change, our program help tryouts in August for the "A" squads from 9U through 14U (no "A" squads formed for 7U & 8U). Then in March, there would be tryouts for the 7U, 8U, and 9U-14U "B" squads. What the program has changed is that they will not form A/B squads until 11U and up, so no tryouts held for 7U-10U until March and those teams must be evenly split if there are enough players to form at least 2.

 

2) Do you allow cuts at the Tourney team level? Before the change, there was the possibility of cuts at all levels to keep rosters manageable. After the change, you are no longer allowed to cut any kids at those age groups (except in circumstances where it is clear the kid cannot protect himself on defense). If you have a situation where you have 28 kids that want to play, you have to figure out a way to split them into 2 teams of 14 but schedule tourneys in a way that each kid plays an equal number of tourneys but not taking more than 12 to any one tourney.

 

3) If you have to form more than one team at an age level, how do you split the teams (A & B or evenly)? Who determines that? Presently our method is for independent evaluators (board members) select the top 9 kids for the team, and then the coach can fill out the rest of his roster as he sees fit.

 

4) If you are located in WI, what tourneys have you done that you would highly recommend or avoid?

 

Thanks in advance for anyone that replies. I think we all agree that if there was one perfect way to operate, everyone would do it that way. Just looking for new ideas we haven't thought of as we look at having a dialogue with our Board on some options to take into consideration.

[Samurai Bucky]

I have had three girls play softball -- all of which are adults. I also have a son who is a sophomore. I have coached all four kids at one point or another. There are similarities and differences.

 

Our youth girls program wasn't very strong and was too far behind the times to have a travel team. All three played for a club team instead of a tournament team. Our son played on the community travel team until 8th grade and now plays for an academy team.

 

1) Tryouts. Typically tryouts are held in the fall. This is to line up practices, fundraising events, etc.

 

2) Cuts. For our son, we had two teams until 7th grade. The roster was going to be only 14 or something like that, so cuts needed to be made. There might have been enough for another team, but nobody stepped up to coach.

 

3) A&B teams. This goes back to #2. My personal opinion is that kids just need to play -- especially at the age groups you mention. If you stack a 10-year-old team with the best players, then the players on the "B" team will lose interest. The key is to get the teams in a league / tournament that fits their skill level. Believe it or not -- college coaches are not looking at kids that age, so winning isn't the only thing (although it is nice). As I mentioned, we had two teams in 5th and 6th grade and the talent was as evenly distributed as it could be. Team 1 won some tournaments and team 2 won some others.

 

The thing that gets some people worked up is who is coaching each team. As an example, let's say Billy's dad played college ball and is going to coach team A. (Most) Everybody's parents are going to want their boy to play for team A. Your club needs to have a program that all of the boys learn from -- whether on team Green or team White (no A or B ).

 

4) We are from the southeast side of Milwaukee. From what I remember, Whitnall has a nice tournament and some nice fields. There was a nice tourney in Oconomowoc at Pabst Farms. Greenfield has a nice youth baseball tournament at Alan Kulwicki park. The Rock pulls in more competitive teams and is probably more expensive.

 

I hope that helps. The one thing I learned is that the kids, whether boys or girls, need to have fun playing. If they enjoy playing, they can put in more time as they get older. They may be on fire in 8th grade, but could get burnt out in high school. Have fun watching them play because there will be some awesome memories.

[Point Beer Is Best]

Thanks for the response. I agree that kids need to be playing and having fun above all else.

 

Our age group will begin "kid" pitch rather than machine pitch (9U) this year. I agree that going A/B is really tough because chances are all of your kids that can pitch will end up on the A team. I received a lot of feedback from my parent group (none of which I can do anything about since I don't sit on the Board, but have had a dialogue with them). Most believe that you should have cuts because there already exists a format where every kid can play (the program's recreational league), and that tourney ball should be reserved for the kids with a higher skill set. Parents of kids who would likely be on the A team obviously don't like being split evenly because they want to be as competitive as possible (our age group lost 2 kids that went to play for a Travel-only program despite the hefty price tag they charged). And I was somewhat surprised that several of the parents of "B" level kids didn't like an even split because now their kid will likely be playing OF and not competing in tourneys set up for "B" level competition.

 

What I proposed was, in the spirit of trying something new and maybe satisfy everyone a little bit, was be allowed some movement between the rosters. Maybe play 7 tourneys per team, where 5 are played with the same evenly split teams and then mix in a couple of "B" tourneys and send those kids there (I would coach that squad as that is where he would fit best) while the "A" kids go to another tourney. Whatever the decision ends up being, I would communicate with the parent group from the get-go what was going to happen. I've been pretty fortunate the past two years that the parent group has been really supportive of all of the kids and has become a close group. I've never had a situation where a parent questioned anything or asked for favors for their kid in terms of positions or playing time. And the rarity of that is not lost on me.

[Patrick425]

Coached my one son from age 5 to age 16.

 

1) Always had tryouts in August. We are in Waukesha. There were/are multiple competing select baseball organizations in the community (no Little League affiliated org). Seems like the tryouts were earlier and earlier each year as the competing organizations tried to have their tryouts b4 other organizations.

 

2) There were not really "cuts", but each coach decided on their own how many kids they wanted on the roster (at least beyond the t-ball level). Every team was a "tourney" team. Each team was allocated the same amount of funds and then decided on their own what tournys to join and would suit their team the best. During the last few years (at ages 15-16), I tried to keep my roster at no more than 11 and then we also had "subs" to call on if we ever had a crunch. So, the roster may have actually been 14 or 15, but only 11 were considered every game players.

 

3) Each age level had more than one team, some had 3. Their was usually a hierarchy to the teams with the top team filling the roster first. Teams were not built from scratch every year. If you had players that decided not to play the next year or players that decided to jump to a different organization or team within the same organization (there were restrictions and rules regarding that), then you filled those holes using tryouts. It was also possilble that a player or two at tryouts was better than the one or two players on your team (or was a better fit). Then, unfortunately, there were cuts. However, those cut players could usually find positions on another team.

 

4)I'm sure things have changed since when I coached, but yes, I'll also say the Whitnall tourney was a good one. We always tried to space our tourneys out. Do one in May, 2 in June, and one in July. Also did some travel tourneys to Cooperstown and Myrtle Beach.

 

One thing I will say, especially after looking back at archived emails from that time period. None of it is important as it seems at the time. There was a lot of drama with parents, coaches, etc that, looking back, I can't believe I got so wrapped up in. It really just did not matter.