Wonderful advice for TB Coaches

[JumboJack]

IMO that's outcome based thinking.
Playing time depends on skill and skill is relative to the other athletes on the team. My DD will pitch one out of 3 games in travel. That's enough as she faces top teams. Now if I wanted her to get a ton of time I could move her to a lesser team but what will that accomplish? Her goal is to face the best teams she can to get her ready for college ball. It is all about the goal of the kid. I assume this coach was addressing kids who want to play at her schools level. If that's the case 18-22 kid rosters are commonplace and all the athletes are good. Everyday is a competition and that readies them for programs like Washington.
Also if the kid is that good she will play every game in HS. That's 30+ games there too.

Not all players are pitchers. With a ton of kids on the team there is just not enough available playing time when you have 9 subs.


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[BT3100]

Not all players are pitchers. With a ton of kids on the team there is just not enough available playing time when you have 9 subs.


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When we play top teams from So.Cal they have 23 players. Usually 3 or 4 pitchers. They manage to get most if not all placed in college

 

[wheresmycar]

I've walked this scenario, DD travelled to FL from SoCal and got zilch playing time. She was so far down the batting order and 3rd string catcher (on a roster of 18) that even in friendlies, she was getting squat for playing time. It was a DARK time for sure and I was ***this*** close to pulling the plug. Decided to go the other way with the negativity and remember that DD made a team where over 100 players tried out. They saw something in her.. So I doubled down and paid for 3 batting lessons a week, gave DD an opportunity to work her butt off and it paid off huge. She found a gear that would've never been discovered had we pulled the plug.

Ok, your DD persevered, and won more playing time... awesome story! But, that means someone else is sitting... eventually someone will bail...

Or, should the other parent pay for 4 batting lessons per week? Will you counter with 5 lessons per week?

 

[radness]

[QUOTE="RADcatcher, post:
Perhaps if she commented on a 'minimum' for a roster her comment may have better reasoning?
in other words~
How many players on a roster does it take to 'compete' for a spot?

Maybe she was speaking to rosters with only 12 ?!
[/QUOTE]
Posting my other lost again...
*Because no-one knows what roster size she was speaking towards!!!!
*Maybe she was speaking toward small rosters. Like 12.

Cant imagine at all Coach Tarr suggesting t.b. roster sizes grow to say 25.
She already knows she gets players from roster sizes of 20 in travel ball.
Hmm? Could she be simply saying~
Teach players to compete!
That's what i got from it!!

 

[wheresmycar]

Coach Tarr wants her bench players to be happy and inspired while they spectate. So she can have options when she needs them.

YES! She wants her top recruiting prospects to be happy riding the bench, and not think about the transfer portal... If only those team hopping TB players would learn to compete!

 

[erniekru]

Garbage. At best you can say that they MIGHT be quitting the team. But it isn't black and white.

1) Who cares what Coach Tarr wants if your kid is miserable
2) Sometimes it doesn't matter how hard you work, you can be out talented/out politically maneuvered/not mesh/out biased/etc, etc.
3)Sometimes what the team says it is, isn't. Sometimes it just sucks.

I will take a basketball saying "You can't teach height' and you "the first step in playing like Michael Jordan is being Michael Jordan".

And it is great your kid was talented enough and you were willing to commit those resources for her and that you got a result you and her with happy with, but it could EASILY have gone the other way. In those sorts of teams often because they bring in the next 'best thing'.



Sure, but make sure it is not "lets stop having lots of fun for less fun somewhere else."
Fun is however you define it. Your goals can be different - being the 'best' isn't everyone's goal - and that is absolutely fine.

My DD had plenty of D1 offers but in her Junior year decided that a D3 school was for her. She played EVERY inning for a very good (but nat national stacked D! commit team) and had an absolute blast. She had an open door to go to most of the stacked teams but she would have hated it and it wasn't what she wanted or needed.

I will add to this: I umpired a 10U rec game last night. Talent/skill wise it was terrible - but every kid and parent and coach had more fun and enjoyment out of that game than some travel teams have in a season. Take from this what you will.

Look, I don't call your OPINIONS garbarge... I put more than enough clarifiers in my post to reflect that this is NOT A ONE SIZE FITS ALL.

I refuted a claim that a poster that said.... "REAL competition cannot occur on travel ball teams because players will jump ship. Yes, that can be true, but what I demonstrated CAN be true too..

If you leave a team, you are quitting no other way of looking at it. If you get cut, that is something different. I didn't say quitting was bad, I said that probably Coach Heather Tarr is probably not interested in quitting when there is adversity. I know of a LOT of players who quit teams and moved to others and it worked out at P5 schools, like really really freaking successful at some of the best teams in the nation. But when they left they analyzed their predicament and decided to quit. Good for them.

 

[erniekru]

Ok, your DD persevered, and won more playing time... awesome story! But, that means someone else is sitting... eventually someone will bail...

Or, should the other parent pay for 4 batting lessons per week? Will you counter with 5 lessons per week?

Look, I get it. We're of different opinions regarding the subject but in actuality, probably not that far off. If player in front of DD is better, and deep down after much honest reflection, if DD is not going to and can't beat her out, I think of course quitting and moving teams would be an option.

I looked at my DD"s situation and thought with a little bump in hitting she can get what she wants from the team. Boom it happened, slowly at first, but then she came into her own and has put her stamp on batting and the position of catcher. Started out 3rd string catcher, ended the season 1st string RF and the next season, the team cut #1 and #2 catchers.

So theoretically, if another parent pays for 4, would I go 5 (keep in mind, it doesn't need to be 5 paid, could be working 5 times)? Hell yeah, that's the very essence of COMPETING. Everyone elevates and you gotta do whatever it takes to be better.

 

[Strike2]

When we play top teams from So.Cal they have 23 players. Usually 3 or 4 pitchers. They manage to get most if not all placed in college

How many of those who rode the bench on that 23 player roster signed a Division I/II deal? Probably not many. I suspect most end up at a smaller 4-year or a JUCO on the strength of their HS play and perhaps the name on their TB jersey. There's certainly nothing wrong with playing at a smaller school, but that same outcome could be accomplished without the sitting or the high-dollar expenditure, and with far more actual playing. As I mentioned previously, nearly all of DD's team mates are in or on their way to a college program ranging from JUCO to Div I. That outcome came from being on a solid team with smaller roster of mostly the same players over the course of several years.

 

[erniekru]

How many of those who rode the bench on that 23 player roster signed a Division I/II deal? Probably not many. I suspect most end up at a smaller 4-year or a JUCO on the strength of their HS play and perhaps the name on their TB jersey. There's certainly nothing wrong with playing at a smaller school, but that same outcome could be accomplished without the sitting or the high-dollar expenditure, and with far more actual playing. As I mentioned previously, nearly all of DD's team mates are in or on their way to a college program ranging from JUCO to Div I. That outcome came from being on a solid team with smaller roster of mostly the same players over the course of several years.

Our orgs 18u team has 19 rostered. There are six 2021's and all 6 are D1. Three of them are not starters

 

[Lobster Birch]

I thought you were only competing with yourself?

At least that's what I learned from a book, When It Mattered Most, authored by one of coach Tarr's good friends.