Are there really leagues that draft completely from scratch every year?

[quandofloo]

I don't really mind the way we do it. The only issue I had this season was that weather killed our chance at evaluations and we have other issues that push the majority of our talent away from our league into travel so we end up with some pretty tough teams to coach in the rec. Our normal process is evaluations are set up with stations for all girls to go through. All of the coaches watch the girls hit (off a machine unfortunately), run the bases, field ground balls and throw to first from short, field easy fly balls at short, then pitchers and catchers stay and do their own evaluations.

The next day, in private, coaches meet with the league director and we draw lots for a serpentine draft order.
DD's are taken off the list first and just not considered in the draft list.
Round 1 - Top Pitcher's are taken based on each coaches evaluations.
Round 2 - End - Anything goes.

The only required limitations are the "Will Not Play For X Coach" forms and siblings are on the same teams. If they request to play on the same teams for travel reasons then we try to accommodate but no guarantees are made. This year we had 4 10U teams and 3 legitimate pitchers. Without a chance to have evaluations it made for a crapshoot of a draft and a very long year.

 

[NoVA Softball]

Our old rec league transitioned to a full draft after a run of 10U teams going undefeated through league and championship play (and of course the flip side of winless and 1-win seasons for other teams). Some of that was age sorting (someone upthread mentioned the cycle of taking your lumps as 9 & 11 year-olds and dominating as 10 & 12 year olds); some of that was initial luck in the randomized 8U assignments (and players who usually wanted to stay with whatever teams they started with); and some was different coaches doing better developing skills.

There was much resistance to the draft initially (including from me) but overall I think it was a positive for the league. Over time more kids know ALL the other kids their age in the league and not just the other 10-12 on their team. More kids get exposed to different coaches who may be better/worse in some areas and/or may just have a coaching style that "clicks." The biggest benefit: no more 12-0 or 0-12 seasons.

The draft format was pretty simple -- We did a tryout that all coaches attended. The coach who got first pick in the first round was selected out of a hat, and then selections went serpentine. Each coach's DD was assigned a round by consensus of the other coaches and the coach MUST pick DD in that round (unless he doesn't intend to select his own DD). For "package" deals (sisters, carpools, etc.) players must be drafted in back-to-back rounds -- so if a natural 2nd rounder and a 6th rounder are a pair, they'll probably wind up picked in the 3rd & 4th or 4th & 5th round. No guaranteed AC's -- if you want a particular AC, you better draft their kid when you have the chance. We didn't have any specific pitcher/catcher rounds... coaches were savvy enough that the first three rounds were usually 2 pitchers and 1 catcher per team.

We moved away the year after the draft went to into effect, so I don't know how/if it evolved over time. The first season it seemed to work pretty well, despite growing pains for a new system and the drama of change especially for players/parents/coaches who had in some cases been together as a unit for years.

 

[GoCaboNow]

Our LL draft starts for 10u play. We are not a big league, typically 1-2 teams per division and then we interlock with other similar size leagues for play. Experience from our league, and others we have gotten to know, is established coaches are able to keep a core together even with a draft. Coaches tend to honor that a particular kid has worked with a certain coach for years and draft accordingly. I take my kid, you take your kid. We do run across parents that mention DD played for coach x for three years and this is their first year with a different coach so the "honor" system only goes so far.

 

[NVfishing]

Our league drafts from scratch every year. We use evaluation day.
Then coaches draft in a serpentine fashion with their daughters slotted in at the appropriate round according to their skill level.

Same here.

 

[djcarter1966]

Pretty much what I was going to finish posting a couple days ago. It is becoming pretty clear.

All new every year. Evaluations a must. Pitchers first. HC and one AC coach are only guarantees. We draw for pick order then snake system (1,2,3,4,4,3,2,1etc.).

I instituted this system after the year our commissioner basically had his team as stacked as the all star team and the three other teams struggled. He was actually pretty nice about it understanding that it was really best for the league.

 

[3bmama]

Our league in Nebraska did. Evals were done in a gym-I guess they showed you who has actually thrown a ball before, pitchers got 10 pitches or something, lol. Here where we live in MO they allow a coach to bring in 4 players, the rest are random. We haven't played rec here so I'm not sure how that works.

 

[3bmama]

I should mention that even with the "fair" system, the commissioner ended up with a team of 2nd year 10us who looked like pros compared to the rag tag group that I coached bc of an email sent out the day before practices started saying there wasn't a coach for the team. So I didn't get to be involved with the draft process .

 

[BuckeyeGuy]

So, for those who do evaluate and draft each year, what is the number of girls in your league? No evals at 6U? And I assume from the comments that coaches are already selected at the time of evaluations. If I do evals for 8U-12U, I'm looking at 600+ girls to get through: running/sprinting; fielding grounders; fielding fly balls; batting; and pitching and catching for those so inclined (they all want to pitch it seems like).

Would it make sense to have coaches from a different division do the evals?

 

[Momo'sDad]

We assign teams in 6u, then re-draft annually starting in 8u. After Evaluation Day, a live draft is held. We don't have a separate pitchers' or catchers' draft round, but encourage coaches to address pitching first. And if their DD is a game-ready pitcher in a year when the pool is not very deep, we don't allow them to take a pitcher in the 1st round. But, they do still get a 1st-round pick, which essentially means that team gets 2 1st-rounders. I've been unsuccessful in driving this point home in order to have the structure modified. Each team can "protect" 2 players in the draft. One thing we no longer allow is having the parents of the 2 best pitchers teaming up to coach, unless there is a legit game-ready pitcher for every team. In general, coaches' kids come off the board in rounds 3 & 4 for 2nd-year teams and in rounds 4 & 5 for 1st-year teams. Again, this is something that technically allows the parent of a 1st-year stud to gain an advantage in the draft. Since making the changes to prevent coaches from manipulating the system to get 4 pre-draft selections (e.g. "oh, this is my manager and they've got a 3-player carpool", etc), the competitive balance has been a lot better.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we also allow players to be traded for an hour after the draft. All trades must be approved by the executives present at the Draft (president, player agent, and 1 other). Multiplayer deals are allowed, but a player may only be traded once.

If you could design the perfect parity system for a league, how would you do it? What rules for roster building?

My response is based on a mid-sized league, as I don't think large leagues with 600-700 players or more could do the same sort of on-field Evaluation Day event the smaller leagues can. Logistical concerns aside, that would just be too much information for coaches to deal with.

1) Evaluate the pitchers.
2) Evaluate the catchers.
3) Evaluate the position players.

We'll still allow each HC to select 1 AC prior to the evaluations, unless both are parents of the top pitchers. But since everyone knows the prohibition going into the process, that should not be an issue anymore.

In addition to the coaches, all players would also be evaluated by an executive committee who have no players in that age division. If an HC's or AC's DD is an obvious 1st-rounder based on the overall talent, then she becomes that team's 1st pick.

Draft Day

1) Pitchers round
2) Catchers round - reverse order of pitchers draft
3) Position players - jumbled order (with coaches' kids assigned to appropriate round by Committee)

Let's say there are 8 teams, but only 6 pitchers and/or only 6 catchers. The teams which don't get a pitcher would get the top catchers, plus would be allowed to make a player selection as well. Getting an extra top position player in no way makes up for not having a decent pitcher, but it's the best remedy we can provide, other than sharing pitchers. Sharing pitchers is not a problem in 12u or 14u, but we don't want the younger pitchers throwing too many innings a week.

 

[Momo'sDad]

So, for those who do evaluate and draft each year, what is the number of girls in your league? No evals at 6U? And I assume from the comments that coaches are already selected at the time of evaluations. If I do evals for 8U-12U, I'm looking at 600+ girls to get through: running/sprinting; fielding grounders; fielding fly balls; batting; and pitching and catching for those so inclined (they all want to pitch it seems like).

Would it make sense to have coaches from a different division do the evals?

For a big league, I believe you should still do pitcher evaluations and maybe catchers, too. You have to evaluate the pitching. Our neighbor league puts previous year's All-star pitchers at the top of the list and then rank all the others. Let's say you've got 12 teams in a division and 24 pitchers. The pitchers are ranked 1-24 and then #1 is paired with #24, #2 with #23 and so on. It seems to work out pretty well for them.

Our league max has been just over 300 girls. I wouldn't trying to do live evals with too many more than that.