Position tryout criteria

Sounds like you are doing some good things. Concentrated drills are a very important part of practice, thats where the skills are taught and learned. A common one is to split the team into two parts, line half up at SS and half at 2B, with a player or two at 1B,and 3B and drill/teach everyone to play the infield positions, especially turning double plays from 2B and SS positions. Everyone practices this, even C and P. It goes very fast. Rotate players from one position to the other for several cycles. You will know who your #1's are , but you will also develop depth of players at all positions, and know well how they stack up vs each other.

Not sure about playing girls where they want to play, they should still play where they are best suited, but should have a couple choices and include an IF and OF if possible. Even though they should drill at most positions in IF and OF, not everyone is suited to actually play every position in games. Example is a very slow heavy girl would probably not be a choice for OF in a game, but doesnt mean she shouldnt be taught and practice it. She might shoot up 6" and be much lighter and quicker in a yr or so. Pick maybe 3 choices for each position in IF if possible , and practice them there in depth, and alternate/rotate them in frequently in games. Try to give all girls chance to play IF sometimes in games. The worst may only do it in pool play against really weak teams, but they still need to do it.

We have one 2 hour practice and one1 1/2 hour practice per week. We absolutely practice everygirl at every position. But as most of you have stated at this point of the year it is all about drills and building skills. When they show up for practice their are no infielders and no outfielders, we do have set pitchers (who practice and take lessons on their own) and we have identified a couple of catchers, so they will work out together. What we do inside is an hour of fielding, throwing drills and then situational fielding. Then we do hitting with tees, soft toss, and sometimes the machines. We do not take three girls and have them sit out the drills because they may not be our core group. What we are trying to quantify is who will play where when they lace 'em up this spring. Do we have an idea where they will play? Yes. Do we have 10 girls that could play 2B right now? Yes. We are working ways to explain to girls how important the OF will be this season. After 8U it is a hard sell, very few balls made it out there last year, and even fewer in our limited fall ball schedule of first year player pitch. I know things are different now but I remember in Little League baseball, I asked to play infield and my coach told me my best shot to play consistently was at catcher, I was dissapointed at first but then I worked on that as much as I could and eventually became a pretty good player and played into High School. I regret using "starters" what I should have said Sunday lineup or something like that. We really strive to treat all of the girls equally, as someone had mentioned "they all pay the same" and I feel they all get equal attention. To the other side, the girls who need more work always get it.

Newsoftballdad

I think what you originally came her looking for was metrics. Ways to quantify with a number skills at certain positions such that you have an objective way to judge who is/isn't ready to perform at certain positions.

Here are some basic metrics that are used at each position they do not wholely decide who is/isn't capable of playing a position, but they can be used as you intend and one of the real benefits of using metrics in my experience is that whenever you measure something (stop watch, gun, competition) the instensity level amps up and effort level approaches game time intensity.

Catchers
Glove to Glove time: Starting in a crouch behind home plate how long does it take ball to travel to 1B, 2B, 3B time starts when ball hits catchers glove time ends when ball hits fielders glove.

While there is a lot more that makes up the catcher's position (Catching, Blocking, framing, pitch calling) you need to put one of the best arms behind the plate, doesn't have to be "THE" best arm, but shouldn't be someone with a weak arm.

Infield
No reason this same metric can't be applied to 3B and SS throwing from a cone at a deep position, Again you need to put the stronger arms on the longer infield throws and if you are measuring this suddenly little suzie will find motivation to work with Mom or Dad on it outside of practice to increase her arm strength.

You can also have each kid field ten grounders at all positions and rate on scale how they fielded it, and the strength and accuracy of a subsequent throw to first. Give them a score for the 10 tries. Same time your doing that you can have kids evaluated at 1B for ability to catch the ball and set up on the bag. Nothing ruins team confidence than having a 1B that drops balls that should have been outs and nothing is sweeter than a kid digging bad throws out of the dirt to bail out a teammate

Outfield
Set a pitching machine to throw fly balls to a specific spot and set up a ring of cones at a radius around that spot. Record a kids ability to catch the ball running at it from all angles then increase the cone distance and repeat.

Throwing Strength
Another Contest I like is setting the kids on the goal line of a football field and seeing how far they can throw in the air

Metrics can be a great motivation tool, but there simply aren't metrics that can properly quantify every skill a player has, so using them to roughly group kids (A B and C Infielders) is okay but I wouldn't recommend setting your lineup based on a stopwatch. I do think that Metrics provide the parents and players who are weaker something defineable to work on which is better than them feeling that they are not starting in key games because your and idiot or you hate their kid which would actually provide negative incentive to work on improving skills.

I haven't seen anything in your posts that makes me think your a win at all costs coach, I've seen plenty of 10U coaches who not only play only 9 players on Sunday pretty much do the same on Saturday and only work in practice with the kids they think are worthwhile. My take on what you've written is that your looking for a way to keep those less skilled kids motivated that doesn't involve simply telliing them they aren't good enough which no 10yr old girl needs to hear. Telling them that you need them to field on average 7 out of 10 grounders cleanly and be able to throw from SS to 1B in 3 seconds prior to cracking the infield on Sunday is a goal that can motivate them to work outside of practice which might prepare them for playing at a higher level later where working on your own outside of practice is the norm. Good Luck

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Metrics is an excellent way to describe what we are looking for. This way the girls know what they need to improve on, again we took 13 girls because that is how many came out. It is not like we had 30 to choose from. We need to build the skill sets in practice. I guess as I move forward in this sport I will see coaches that act the way some here have tried to paint me, that is unfortunate. I never expect to coach a high level team but as long as my daughters are involved I will be.

New, along the lines of metrics, I have found that girls will give you their best effort if there is competition involved- I am not saying they need to be competing for a spoton the field, just competing for the fun of it. We do a lot of drills on the infield & outfield that involve a stopwatch as Snocatz has suggested & have had great success at getting the most out of our girls. One byproduct that you are going to find is , after a short while, you will know your athletes abilitys better.

Absolutely. We have added some fum competions into our practices. Home Run Derby with wiffle balls, timed sprints and the "winner" of the heat gets to sit the others run again, wehn we are aoutside we have the "outfield club" in BP if a girl hits it in the air to the grass she is in the "club" I agree you learn a lot that way.