Cut or keep?

I have a player that I am on the fence on. Never hustles, never practices outside of team practices, misses a LOT of practices and wants to pitch. She pitches ok at the level we were playing but will get hammered at 18u. She is a young girl on the team (15) and could develop into a good ball player. All of this screams cut.

Problem is that there is no real fit for her on another team. Parents enable her to not show up and defend her wanting to pitch more etc. Outside of me being a friend of the families for years, there really is no motivation for me to keep her. I've spent hours coming up with a practice plan for her to develop as a pitcher and she just doesn't do it.

She isn't a cancer to the team per se. It isn't fair of me to take her money knowing she isn't going to play as much as they think they should due to her work ethic or is it fair to the girls that want to develop and work hard. We arena competitive developmental team so we aren't at showcases every weekend.

We have talked about hustling, showing up and working on her own.

I have thought of flat out cutting her and giving her an ultimatum of sorts. Like miss 3 more practices and your out.

Leaning heavily towards cutting her. Our season is over. I don't really have a need for open tryouts as I have enough girls to keep moving although we are doing a player evaluation on Tuesday. Mainly that is me going over the season stats and creating goals we want to reach individually to attain team goals.

Wow Slappers,

Do you think she might change and start showing up (on time), getting motivated, and working outside of your practices? If so, have a chat with her and a recap of that chat with her parents that she agreed to your expectations. If not, you may well lose a friend of the family.

I see TB teams as a job. Staff and players always have a job to do, and be part of the team while doing those jobs. Be a good teammate! If friendships are made, that's secondary but it's a beautiful thing.

Good luck. This stuff isn't easy, even if you are thick-skinned, you're still human.

I agree. I have a responsibility to the rest of the team. I guess I just struggle with it because at the end of the day they are kids. Maybe this could be a lesson she needs to learn about effort.

I know where you are coming from. Very seldom does it work out well. You could bend over backwards and she won't show any loyalty. If she is truly dogging it, it is better to cut her. I have seen kids get injured because someone else failed to move 2 feet to catch a ball.

Slappers said:

I have a responsibility to the rest of the team.

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What is that responsibility? What are the goals of the team? How do the other players feel about her? Do they care that she misses practices and doesn't hustle and will not be that effective in 18U?

Also, what level are you currently playing? I don't see much difference between 16U and 18U except at the very highest levels.

My responsibility to the team is to develop the players that work hard and not have them lose playing time to someone who half asses it. We are making the jump from 16u C to 18u B. I don't think that really matters though. There really isn't much difference but I only had one pitcher that could consistently throw strikes and hit the mid 50's. Now I'll have three. She could be one of them if she tried. She also plays the outfield and will defer to the center fielder on gap shots. Like jog and watch defer.

If it were me, I'd make sure of two things before I cut her -- that she was aware that she was not meeting your standards and got fair warning, and that her teammates would support your decision. Not that you need the players' approval for everything, but if they don't care if she half-asses it, then their goals might not be as high as yours.

We had a similar situation on our team this summer. HC gave her the option of working hard at home and practices to improve as well as hustle during practices/games or sit the bench most of the time during elimination play. She made her choice and invariably, the HC made his. She didn't work at home, she didn't hustle or work hard during the two team practices let alone the pool play games so she sat the bench the next tournament during elimination play. The player quit the team the following day. I'm not saying that this was or wasn't the correct course of action for the situation. I'm just telling you how it was handled in this instance.

Having them as a family friend always adds stress to the situation and it is likely that it will end badly no matter how you handle it. All I can say is good luck!

I have heard grumbling a from players about her effort. I can't fathom how she isn't aware she isn't meeting standards. We've had multiple talks about it. It also doesn't set a good precedent if I let one get away with not trying and still gets game action.

Cut her. I am sure the other kids know she is dogging it. I am sure the kids who have to sit the bench, even in pool play just so she can see the field a little are not happy. This is not 8u or 10u. The team must come first.