Tryouts Advice

I am looking for some advice on how other organizations handle tryouts when more than one team is expected at a particular age group. For example, at our tryouts at the end of this summer we will likely have our current 10U team moving up to 12U and our current 12U (young 12U, all but 3 players have '02 birthdays) returning at 12U. Do you limit it strictly by birth year ('02 can only play for older 12U and '03 can only play for young 12U) or do you allow teams to take older or younger players based on other factors? We have not done the best job as an organization in the past in handling tryouts for multiple teams at the same age group and are looking for what has worked for others.

Thanks

Our local rec league generally follows ASA rules. So 12U teams are comprised of 2001 and younger, including girls that play up. The local league makes an exception for playing down if a girl is a rookie.

We were faced with this issue this year. Either way a team or both teams are diluted. We have an 11 year old team and a 12 year old team so both teams are diluted to some extent. Only 3 11 year olds would have made the 12 year old team and they are the best catcher and the 2 best pitchers in the 12 u. Had we went w an A team and a B team the B team would not have been able to compete

The way I've always seen it done is; the coach with the strongest personality takes all the good players he needs and the other team can pick from the rest...(unless he may want them later)
... I assumed this was the norm.

We always try to keep players of the same birth year together so they can stay together for more than one season. Otherwise you end up in a situation where some kids have to move up and some can stay down. Most organizations would like to have at least one team for each birth year to keep the "pipeline" full.

Our organization has gone to pure birth year teams. I like it and am one of the strongest supporters amongst all our seven head coaches when it comes to this. In the past, we have seen very good players go elsewhere simply because they were one of the two or three 11 year olds on a 12U team, the rest of which moved up to 14U together. Adding the second (younger) 12U team in 2013 (my team) was the last step in this process and we now have two age-specific teams at 12U, 14U and 16U to go along with a 10U team that carries an extra 4-5 8 and 9 year olds as developmental, non-rostered players to keep the pipeline humming.

The coach of each respective birth year team gets first crack at any girl who tries out that is born in their year. If that coach doesn't keep her, then the other team is free to take her if they want. Our older ('01) 12U team has one '02 girl because of this. Ditto for our older 14U team. Neither is guaranteed a spot on the following year's team of their own age and this is made quite clear to the families that accept spots on older teams.

Our league is a little messed up too. We have players moving up, DD included, and it dilutes the younger teams and everyone wants to move up. It is a viscous circle.

We have had some exceptional players, not DD, that needed to move up but it was the exception opposed to the rule. DD is one of the better players on her older Team, I do not know if that should have allowed her to move up an age division.

They are trying to fix it by not allowing players to move up but it is hard when you have allowed it in the past so they are kind of starting with the younger age groups.

The risk is some players leave to other places to get what they want and some good players lleave that you want in your league.

The current thinking is let the players leave and have a stronger program from the bottom up. We will replace the stronger players with even stronger players in a few years.

The real answer is Keep Ages together (if you can / the best you can) at lest up till 14U.
at 14U it matters less - because skill level and size start to even out.

you should have
a 9U team (2004) and a 10U team (2003) playing in 10U tournaments
an 11U team (2002) and a 12U team (2001) playing 12U tournaments
a 13U team (2000) and a 14U team (1999) Playing in 14u tournaments
Then build your Gold Elite Platinum Titaniam Showcase teams with the better 14s on up thru 18u and paly 18U tourmnaments

We went by birth year this year.

last year was only the 2nd year our org had softball and it was a mixed 13/14 14u team and a mixed 11/12 12u team.

Most of our 12u moved up with 4 players staying down. So at try outs we went by birth year and now we have 11u, 12u, 13u, 14u teams.

There were a couple of 11u who are stronger than a couple of our 12u but we stuck with birth year.

Our organization holds completely separate tryouts for both teams. That way, players get to choose which team they want to try out for, which coach they want to play for. If they don't make the team they try out for, there is discussion with the other team to see if they can do a private tryout there (if they want).