Position tryout criteria

We have a lot of girls on a first year 10U team who all have similar skills. We would like to set up some form of "try outs" for poistions to determine who fits best and where. We also want to avoid the "coaches daughters play the position they want" arguement from other parents. This will be a travel team with 13 girls rostered and 10 "starters".

Any thoughts?

Good for you for trying to run it without favoritism. Try not to go the other way and not give your kid a fair shake. I'm sure there will be lots of good ideas on this one. Much of it is the obvious. Who moves well, who fields grounders well, who judges a fly ball well, who's gritty enough with a big arm for catcher and so on. Having said that, you won't know for sure till you play games.

I have a try-out form in which I time arm strength glove to glove from every position.

To begin I put every player in groups of 3,4 or 5 depending on total # of players at 1B, 2B, SS, 3B and hit grounders to all of them (3 apiece; throws to 1st and double plays) then rotate them clockwise and do the same until every player has been to each position. This way I can see infield fundamentals and footwork. I can usually then determine who fits or can fit in certain positions.

I do the same thing with the 3 OF positions throwing to all the bases.

I time them during these periods.

You as a coach know who you want where, the gradesheet just gives you a way to show the parents something on paper how you and your coaches graded and what they need to work on. (I do have people outside the team, such as coach friends score the players also. I combine them and modify if necessary and give them to the parents and players.

If you want a copy of the form e-mail me at coach_dorsey@yahoo.com

Hope this helps.

Are you asking how to determine who is best suited to play which positions, or asking how to prove who is best suited to play different positions to parents?

If they are all same ability, thats tough to do, but it also wont matter. If all same ability why are 10 "starters" and 3 "extras"? I have never seen a group of girls where they were all same ability. They all have different strengths and weaknesses. As a coach you have to maximize the strengths at positions, and minimize the weaknesses to have the best defense possible. This means comprimise frequently. You might have a girl that plays X best, but has to play Y because no one else can satisfactorily.

Everyone should play. Everyone should start sometimes. Everyone should be practiced at multiple positions to give you lots of choices and possibilities to work girls in. Rotate them frequently, by games, by innings, etc.

Your initial choices of who to play where may be right, but will often be wrong. It doesnt matter how you start the season, its how you finish it that counts. Thats why we play nationals last.

I did say the were of "similar" ability not the "same". They are all first year 10U "travel" players. What I mean in respect to starters and extras is that last year at 8U we would rotate positions almost every inning so a girl would only play SS maybe two innings per game. This season we would like to have 1 or 2 solid ss that we could develop and the same for other positions. Out of the 13 we have lots of 4's and 3's and a couple of 2's if you were to rank them with 5 being the highest. We had a no cut tryout and took all 13 girls. We have no problem coaching and teaching but we felt at game time it was important to have a set starting unit that practices most together, maybe that view will change and our approach at 8U was very similar to your second to last paragraph.

Regardless of age, 10, 12, or 14u I have not had any tryouts for positions. Noone gets a warded a position & it is theirs for the year.We will work the entire team on ground ball drills & outfield drills & see who just naturally seems the best fit where. It is important to identify key positions early on though, especially catcher, , ss & 3b. Typically if you have chosen a travel team by taking tthe 11 or 12 best athletes available, you should be able to teach some one or maybe several of the remaining girls the remaining possitions. Especially at 10 under I would be flexible about teaching & playing the girls at multiple positions. In my oppinion, catchers are the hardest position to fill well & I would start there . During this process I am assuming you have allready identified sufficient pitching depth at team tryouts or you are in big trouble.

I guess that one thing we are going to do is put girls in what we think are the best positon for them. We have identified a couple of girls who at this level are probably not ready to play the infield, but we want them to have a way to play there if they improve. If we have a girl come to us and say "I want to try SS" We can then lay out the skills she needs to show to play that position. Then we can have her "try out" for that position. If she is better than who we have there then she can play there. I do not envision our first day infield and outfield to be our last day team. We do have two solid catchers, a really good pitcher, and three very capable pitchers, all taking private lessons, so I think we are good there. Thanks for all of the ideas.

I'm with JC - at 10U we have ALL players do both infield and outfield drills. It will become quite obvious who can play middle infield and who can't or who can play infield period and who can't. The catcher position is also one where you probably will only have a handful of girls, if that, "trying out" for that position. For me it's not so much a matter of having a tryout for that position, but US as coaches trying this handful of girls out in that catcher position during practices and scrimmages and even games. If you will be in tournament situations, it's ideal to have at least 2 players you can count on to do a decent job at the catcher position.

Like JC I also think that each player should probably get time in at least 2-3 positions. Some games will allow you more flexibility to try different things than others. I don't think, at 10U, it's so important to have one "first team" set of players practice more together than others. You want them all to be comfortable playing with each other because at that level chances are they will not play with a certain "set" more than with other players.

For example, often times the short stops are also the pitchers. If one is pitching the other is at SS - a 2nd baseman (who may also change from time to time depending on other personnel placement) will have to be familiar with playing with both.

Also, if you have different catchers, sometimes that will change your personnel on the field too. When one catcher is not catching, she may be your 1b or your 2b or your CF - as a result, other shifts are made as well. So trying to have one "set" group is probably not something I'd concentrate so much on.

We also tell players and parents up front that not all players will get to play infield. Like you said, some are just not capable of that yet. I, as a coach, will not put their safety in jeopardy by putting them in a position they cannot competently "defend" themselves in. This is made clear from the beginning. If a player DOES improve skills, they our staff will allow them to try positions we feel they are most capable of playing.

I seriously doubt that if there is a player who is NOT an infield player at all in the beginning of the season, that she will ever beat out all other players at the SS position.

In practice, however, from time to time, we do have every player take ground balls from every infield position (even at the high school level) - same with outfield. This is just one way for all players to practice basic fielding, throwing, catching, fly ball skills.

Nothing wrong with having a first choice infield, etc that plays when its important, game on line, tournament on line, etc. But you will play a lot of pool games too, and also be in situations where a game is clearly won, or lost. There is a responsibility to develop all the girls whether they are stars or not, you dont know what they will be in another 2-3 yrs.

It is easy to make a girl feel like an unimportant or second-class part of the team, and that would be bad , even unintentionally.

Even if they arent ready to play IF for your team , I think its still important to practice them there somewhere. They might go to a lesser team next yr and be the star SS on it. Ive seen that happen.

I think that 10U is awful early to specialize kids into or out of particular postions, with the exception of pitchers and maybe catchers. At that age, kids are growing, developing their skills, getting stronger and gaining confidence. Excluding them from certain positions may prevent them from developing those necessary skills, and really does them a disservice. I am not suggesting any type of mandatory rotation ever other inning, or anything like that. But at scrimmages and during pool play, I think the kids should be given the opportunity to play and develop at multiple positions. That also increases their versatility, which is a real asset as they get on to more competitive teams. By the time they get to 14U they will have gravitated to their more natural positions, but that will be the result of having opportunities at different spots.

I am also not sure what is meant by "10 starters". I think by designating 3 players as "Bench Players", you are degrading them and putting up a wall between them and the "Starters" (not to mention the parents). At 10U all the kids should have the chance to start games, particularly in pool play.

Having said that, during elimination play, you should be definitely be putting kids in the positions that will make the team successful, and give them the best chance to win.