What's your philosophy for choosing tournaments (12U)?

I like to try to play at our level about 1/2 the time and next level up the other half.

Also I like to define a 'goal' tournament at the end of the season. Either a nationals or state championship that we can talk about where all the work is headed. i.e. We are not just getting better by challenging ourselves but we are getting better in preparation for the big tourney at the end of the season.

I always planned tournaments with the end and most important tournaments in mind. It would also depend on what I wanted to accomplish with my team in the year. A 14U B team should have the fundamental skills at 70-75% by now and might be working more on tactics and mental training. I also made sure that I allowed balance as in only playing every other weekend so that my team didn't get burned out which always shows at the end of the season. I think playing up is a good idea but not necessarily to be mercied because building confidence is the goal moving through the season. Playing in a tournament that is a slightly higher level is a good idea to test the skills periodically through the season. The important thing I always felt is to have a purpose for each tournament. If the tournament is to develop technical and tactical skill consistency then a bilateral level is good because the stress is not as high. To ultimately test the skills and tactics then playing up is good. I used a season plan to determine when I wanted to test and when I wanted to develop skills. For example I might schedule a challenge tournament just after the season starts and then more towards the end of the season for refining. Just my thoughts on a great topic

Spindaddy said:

If all the parents were onboard with playing "over our heads" for a couple tournaments then I can see it working without sowing discord.

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I think this is a very important factor, especially with younger teams. Some parents are fine with 'the process' and allowing their players to gain experience and get better over time by playing against tough competition. Some parents are all about those plastic trophies. It is important to understand the culture of your particular team before developing a schedule for them.

I have seen teams win less than 1/2 of their games over a season, but become stronger as a result because of the level of competition they were playing against. I have also seen a team completely implode because they were eliminated in their first game on a Sunday after winning the tournament they were in the previous weekend.

FP26 said:

I think this is a very important factor, especially with younger teams. Some parents are fine with 'the process' and allowing their players to gain experience and get better over time by playing against tough competition. Some parents are all about those plastic trophies. It is important to understand the culture of your particular team before developing a schedule for them.

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In my experience, even when the development agenda is spelled out ahead of time, parents tend to get grumpy when a team doesn't perform well in a tournament. Even if the realistic expectations are low from the beginning.

Softball Tutor said:

... I think playing up is a good idea but not necessarily to be mercied because building confidence is the goal moving through the season.

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That's the rub. In order to have our best hitters get a significant dose of high level 12U pitching I think we need to play in a few tournaments that typically draw only the higher level teams. In any given B-level tournament within our traveling area I think there's a decent chance we'd face a B or maybe even an A level team with pitching that would be more of a challenge than what our best hitters usually see, but it's not a guarantee and it likely wouldn't be more than one game over the entire weekend.

Your mercy vs. confidence point is a good one. But if one of the goals for the season (in my mind, at least) is to periodically challenge our best players in real game situations, I don't see how we do that without occasionally playing up against teams with great pitching (and hitting) - and the inevitable run-ruled games (and possible blow to team confidence) that will result.

As mentioned, if player/parents/coaches are on the same page before the tournament schedule is set, perhaps that would mitigate confidence problems coming from lopsided tournament losses.

Eric F said:

In my experience, even when the development agenda is spelled out ahead of time, parents tend to get grumpy when a team doesn't perform well in a tournament. Even if the realistic expectations are low from the beginning.

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So I guess the question is: Is the value of giving your 4-5 top players an opportunity to see how they stack up against solid "A" level talent for one or two tournaments worth the possibility of irritated parents? Risk/reward scenario for sure. I'd say yes, assuming, of course, that you think you have a group of reasonable parents to begin with.

Spindaddy said:

That's the rub. In order to have our best hitters get a significant dose of high level 12U pitching I think we need to play in a few tournaments that typically draw only the higher level teams. In any given B-level tournament within our traveling area I think there's a decent chance we'd face a B or maybe even an A level team with pitching that would be more of a challenge than what our best hitters usually see, but it's not a guarantee and it likely wouldn't be more than one game over the entire weekend.

Your mercy vs. confidence point is a good one. But if one of the goals for the season (in my mind, at least) is to periodically challenge our best players in real game situations, I don't see how we do that without occasionally playing up against teams with great pitching (and hitting) - and the inevitable run-ruled games (and possible blow to team confidence) that will result.

As mentioned, if player/parents/coaches are on the same page before the tournament schedule is set, perhaps that would mitigate confidence problems coming from lopsided tournament losses.

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I definitely agree, playing up to periodically challenge the team is important to the improvement process. I would just have hard time putting my team in an intentional mercy situation

Eric F said:

In my experience, even when the development agenda is spelled out ahead of time, parents tend to get grumpy when a team doesn't perform well in a tournament. Even if the realistic expectations are low from the beginning.

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It is a long haul, so I really don't care what some parents say about about one weekend. There are going to be great weekends when you over perform and also weekends when you under perform. it happens. As long as you are not stringing weekend after weekend of under performing you are good. People love to complain no matter how good the situation is.

There is a happy zone of winning for most teams. Most happy is those that are winning between 55% and 70% of their games. Mostly happy those between 45%-55% and 70%-80%

The worst are the less than 25% wins and the over 90%..

Less than 25% wins and you are in the constant losing cycle and that is awful. Unlike rec leagues, there is no time between losses to get over it. The losses come in bunches, and you feel like you are subsidizing all the extra games on elimination day the better teams are playing. Getting whipped ALL the time sucks. And no one is happy.

Once you get over 90% every loss is a disaster. Normally because 85%+ teams are playing competition inferior to them way too often so losses are generally to teams that are not as good as them or are to another team also playing below their level. Wins are EVERYTHING to these teams and the parents are generally nuts, so though they win a lot these teams are always unstable.

And happy doesn't mean everyone is happy. Even the happiest teams turn over players as players leave softball, look for greener pastures, joining friends, looking for a chance to play SS or CF or C or..., more circle tome, move, etc, etc. I always expected to turn over 3 players every season and if we don't, well that is awesome.

In Kansas if you win one Tournament they move you almost automatically. USSSA is really bad in KS. OK, TX you can win 5 or 6 tournaments in a row so I guess I'm saying geographically depends what I would do (not endorsing either of these examples I've described...both suck). ASA is mostly what will need to play as politics involved in USSSA are to detrimental to our team.