2nd year teams playing "B" at States and World Series

The local rec league that my DD grew up in has 2 travel teams in every age group that are B teams. They have no business playing A.

ASAHawks said:

Reason I asked for opinions, to see what the "general consensus" was. I've coached for almost 20 years myself and I'd never want to Coach or have either of my Daughters on a team that feel they need to play B at the 2nd year at age group.

Click to expand...

I just don't see what age (2nd year) has to do with it. You are what you are. Around here teams don't play "B" their first year and "A" their second year.

Some "B" teams can knock off lower level "A" teams. To me it doesn't matter if you are "second year", "travel", "not travel", "all-first year", "a mix of years"...you are the talent level of your combined team. When the coach makes his tournament schedule he should plan accordingly. That could be playing up an age level, up or down a team level ("A" or "B"), and could change from week to week.

Also me stating that I coached for 20 years doesn't mean much. I was just implying that I have been around awhile.

Looks like location in the Country may have a lot to do with choices you make and opinion on teams doing it. Most people are probably honest, but I do believe it leads to the proverbial "Trophy chasers"

....................................................................

I've seen teams that should be playing in higher brackets or tourneys play down, and I've seen teams who have no business playing in the top brackets/tourneys get their arses kicked for entire weekends. Neither scenario is ideal, but as long as you let teams self-identify, or play where they want if they pay the fee, there isn't much you can do. My DD's have been on the teams that play NSA B ball even if they were older than others because they had zero chance at competing at the higher brackets. We had a good time, didn't win anything, but it was still fun

The org that DD plays for has their own set rule that first year teams register as B and second year teams register as A. We are registered as a 14A team, but the reality is that we are just a decent B team. We went to the 14U A state tournament and got our butts handed to us. In open tournaments that allow A or B we do fairly well. That being said plenty of so called B teams are out there that absolutely should be A, but I don't know that it should be determined by being first or second year.

Ds team is an 18B. This is how they stacked up this season.

vs RecordAvg Scored Avg Allowed
16A 1-0 3.00 2.00
16B 1-3 2.50 6.00
18A 3-1 2.33 1.17
18B 7-7 2.56 2.63
Looking at the team record, they struggled the most with 16B team but did the best facing 18A teams.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

mudrunner said:

The org that DD plays for has their own set rule that first year teams register as B and second year teams register as A. We are registered as a 14A team, but the reality is that we are just a decent B team. We went to the 14U A state tournament and got our butts handed to us. In open tournaments that allow A or B we do fairly well. That being said plenty of so called B teams are out there that absolutely should be A, but I don't know that it should be determined by being first or second year.

Click to expand...

Pretty much how we've run our teams, first year B/second year A. Think at especially World Series, when you have 10-15 States represented. It's hard to "judge" teams place to play and level of competition. Age is something that is black and white, easy way to sperate teams

As others have mentioned, this varies by region. In CA, "B" teams are rec league all-stars, and may not include any players who played on a travel ball team after March 31. The pinnacle tournament is USA Softball "B" Nationals. All travel ball is "A"...no matter how good/bad or young/old they are.