Playing Down

I am curious to why you'd would play a 11U team down at the 10U level in the Fall and what are the benefits. I believe you should move them up to 12U in the fall and let them get used to the speed, larger ball and greater pitching distance. What am I missing?

The benefit is the $4 piece of plastic they'll get for it. I can't think of any other reason.

Winning is the benefit. It doesn't benefit the girls who are winning but in some instances it helps grow organizations and feed the pockets of the adults that run the organization.

Sometimes circumstances over run common sense, I would need to know a lot more information before I would care one way or another.

Last year our coach put us in a low-level tournament because he had a vendetta against the coach of another team that was playing in it, leftover from 8U all stars. Definitely no benefit to the kids there.

grcsftbll said:

Last year our coach put us in a low-level tournament because he had a vendetta against the coach of another team that was playing in it, leftover from 8U all stars. Definitely no benefit to the kids there.

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Look for another team, pronto!

BB875 said:

Look for another team, pronto!

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Oh yeah. This is just one of many reasons we left after fall season for another team.

mickeyedwards74 said:

I am curious to why you'd would play a 11U team down at the 10U level in the Fall and what are the benefits. I believe you should move them up to 12U in the fall and let them get used to the speed, larger ball and greater pitching distance. What am I missing?

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I'm not familiar with 11U being a distinct age group. If you're talking about players with an 05 birth year, they can legally play 10U until Dec 31 of this year (in most of the alphabet orgs). However, it generally benefits the players a lot more to play in the fall against the older age group they will be facing starting in January. Teams staying in the younger age group as long as they can tend to look a lot more at win-loss record as their measure of success than they do the skill development of their players.

Eric F said:

I'm not familiar with 11U being a distinct age group. If you're talking about players with an 05 birth year, they can legally play 10U until Dec 31 of this year (in most of the alphabet orgs). However, it generally benefits the players a lot more to play in the fall against the older age group they will be facing starting in January. Teams staying in the younger age group as long as they can tend to look a lot more at win-loss record as their measure of success than they do the skill development of their players.

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Around here in Norcal at least the Utrip tournaments age up september 1, but they change the official classes up a year so 14U is 15U, 12 is 13,etc. We used it last year as we had all 01 players except 1 pitcher who was an 00 to allow us to still play 14U (15 U officially) since all the kids were still 13.

So let's say that I have a team that must move up on Jan. 1, but I choose to delay that graduation, and my 10U team then goes 10-10 that fall. They get a little more confidence, and they get a few more games than they would've in 12U tournaments where they're likely to go three-and-out. Sounds like a plan. Second-year 12U teams play first-year 12U teams in the summer. How is that so different than lower-level 10U teams that stay back 3-4 months?

If you think it's better to move on up, that's fine. Maybe it's better to struggle, play tougher teams.

But to be consistent, shouldn't we then frown on any team that chooses not to seek out tougher competition at all times? If you're a 12U-B team that goes 10-10 this fall, shouldn't you have taken your lumps at A ball? Are you trophy hunting to play B? Don't you aspire to A ball? Aren't you trying to get better?

Or what if you're a A team that goes 16-4 this fall in 12U. Shouldn't you be playing 14U? You do want to be good at 14U, right? So why not go ahead and get used to it? Isn't what you're asking these weak 10U teams to do, the ones that stay down?

Point is, I'm slow to judge someone else's strategy on what is best for their team to reach the next level. If we're going to judge them, judge everybody that does not play the absolute toughest tournaments possible.