Are there really leagues that draft completely from scratch every year?

[BuckeyeGuy]

So what might be a way to assign rosters without evals?

 

[Rocketech1]

Our local rec league would do 1 day player tryouts over two weekends, to give the players an option which day they want to tryout and to accommodate all the players. Each division did their own evaluations from propspective coaches and a few additional scorers and/or boardmembers.

For example, if its 12U with 90 players, you evaluate only that division's players, generally in groups of 8 kids for 20 minutes of 5 stations: Hitting, Fielding grounds balls to SS and throwing to 1st base, Catcher throw downs to 2B, Catching outfield fly balls, and Pitching to a catcher. All kids, do all the stations. If a kid has never pitched before or doesn't want to pitch, she will throw only one pitch and be done. If they are experienced pitchers they might throw 4 or 5 pitches. Generally, you can recognize the talent within seconds of them doing the drills, as some players have been playing for years and others are brand new to the game. Highly recommend that leagues have player evaluations every season and have a "fair" draft to the extent possible.

 

[Momo'sDad]

So what might be a way to assign rosters without evals?

They do a blind draft after pitchers and catchers are assigned. Previous year's All-Stars are on a tier of their own. Everyone else is after that. In a league where everyone gets decent pitching, the rest seems to fall into place.

You could away with no evals at all if all the pitchers are known to the assignors.

 

[TimothyJ]

We do evals for 8u/10u and 12u
Two nights each, kids picked ONE of those nights to come.
Players that wanted to play up, had to attend tryouts for both the division they want to play in, and their own age group (so the younger coaches could see them if not select to play up)

Since there's typically snow on the ground during eval season, it's done indoors and we try to run through it pretty quickly (500+ total players)

A few ground balls and pop-ups, and 5 swings. Then anyone that doesn't want to pitch can leave.
Pitchers stay behind and get 3-5 pitches, maybe more depending on how many are trying out, and if older kids want to show off-speed pitches

Managers (or their representative if they can't make it) attend the tryouts and do their own evaluations. I'm not real high on having independent evaluators, sometimes coaches are looking for things that you can't see in just numbers on an eval sheet
(personally, I watched the kids attitude, how they interacted with other girls and their parents..I put smilie faces on the eval sheet net to girls that looked like they knew how to have fun)

On draft days, we'd draft the older division first so that the younger kids wanting to play up could be selected for their age group the next night if not chosen for an older team.
Coaches kids are placed at the appropriate level on the draft sheet by consensus, and it's serpentine from there.

When I played as a kid, I was drafted at 9 and stayed with the same team (minors, then majors) for 4 years.
While I do like that we were a "team", and I've been back in touch with most of those guys 35 years later (via FB), what I really like about this re-draft system that my kids went through is that they got to know a LOT more kids through their playing years.
from Tball through 12u, Spring and Fall seasons.. We're talking potentially 150 different kids they've been teammates with over the years (vs my 12 buddies from my LL days)

 

[smddad]

Little League Minor League teams are REQUIRED to re-draft every year. The only property players are in the Major league and above.

 

[1bucketmom]

League does draft based on eval with a pitcher round to start. Eval includes catching 3 pop flys and throwing them in to second, hitting 3 pitches from a machine and running the bases. They should really have a good old fashion catching and throwing session because bad habits can be hidden in only seeing three catches and throws.
The thing that truly needs to be improved is the quality of the evaluators. Seems to me they evaluate also on player size instead of pure ability or "potential" as opposed to existing ability. Oh - they need to develop a catcher round but that's just coming form a bucketmom.

 

[Rocketech1]

The one thing always fascinating to me is that some DFP members will strongly argue that no position player is more important than any other player and yet in almost every draft across this country the first round almost always involves the pitcher being selected over every other position player....but I digress....carry on....

 

[BuckeyeGuy]

Somewhere in here was a sentence regarding players who miss the evals, but I can't seem to track it down. What to do with those? What about parents who have their kids sandbag?

 

[Rocketech1]

Somewhere in here was a sentence regarding players who miss the evals, but I can't seem to track it down. What to do with those? What about parents who have their kids sandbag?

If a player misses tryouts and she has played in the league before, before the draft starts, anyone who has knowledge of the player's skills can speak up and talk about the players talent. Then she can be picked just like any other player, on any round and will be given the average score of players for that round.

Regarding sandbagging at tryouts, most coaches know the players history and whether or not a player does well or not in the tryouts, they will score her based on their experience and less on how the actual tryout went. This pretty much eliminates much of the sandbagging but it can happen for a new player in the league (albeit, a very rare situation). Also, the coaches' DDs will also have higher scores assigned to them by the other coaches because the higher the score the more likely the coach will be picking later each round (we had a cumulative score each round so a coach could in theory be picking last each round if he had a monster talent in the earlier rounds). This is one reason why its good to have some board members and other league officials score the players too so the more people scoring the better to help balance out the score manipulation that can go on sometimes.

 

[BuckeyeGuy]

If a player misses tryouts and she has played in the league before, before the draft starts, anyone who has knowledge of the player's skills can speak up and talk about the players talent. Then she can be picked just like any other player, on any round and will be given the average score of players for that round.

We have such turnover with our coaches, not sure this would work for us. I'll add it to my list, though.