Determining if a team...

[CoachCeetar]

You can start going to tournaments whenever you want.

It is going to cost. 400+ entry fee, insurance, travel, etc. For some reason we need a t shirt from every single tournament.

To make it worth your while you need some form of resemblance of actual softball. If you you are walking in the run limit every inning cheaper alternatives are probably the way to go.

Maybe best to go observe, then decide?

registration for one of the local tournaments we played in last year was $400. There were 12 girls. so $35 to play a tournament? Not a huge deal. Part of the registration cost to sign up, which pretty much covers that and ump fees and uniforms. It's pretty well budgeted, and it's less or comparable to other sports in town. We're not playing private teams of hardcore training and recruitment. We're mostly just playing other towns of kids of roughly the same age. How outmatched could we be?

 

[steve1244]

What is "ready?" No matter who you think you are, or who you actually are, if you have girls and/or parents that have never played a tournament and want to test the waters, I say go for it. It's a valuable experience and the information everyone obtains from it will help level set and calibrate how you look at the near and medium term future, individually and as a team.

 

[Rolling Hard]

I didn't read all the post but nobody is discarding kids. All I was saying is that softball is exhausting without strikes being thrown. So you need 2 players that are willing to practice 30 to 40 minutes 3 times a week. They don't need lessons necessarily. There is enough free info to get them started. With a little dedication and two bucket parents you could have two strike throwers in as little as a month. Maybe faster. Fastball and then a change up. Then go play and have fun.

 

[JOHNN]

Determining if a team is ready to start entering tournaments.
Or shouldn't.

What to look for GO DFP__________!

This really depends on the age. At the 10u level, obviously you need 2 decent pitchers but in my opinion having a good catcher is absolutely crucial. I still remember that for my daughters first year of 10u we had a really good pitcher that would have 10+ strikeouts a game but the majority of those batters ended up on 1B bc we had no catcher that could actually hang on to the ball. Overall though, there are tournaments for every skill level out there. If the team is pretty sound on defense, has a couple pitchers that can throw strikes, and you can hit the ball, then why not try it out. The good thing about tournaments is that you can enter as many or as few as you want.

 

[PJR202]

I didn't read all the post but nobody is discarding kids. All I was saying is that softball is exhausting without strikes being thrown. So you need 2 players that are willing to practice 30 to 40 minutes 3 times a week. They don't need lessons necessarily. There is enough free info to get them started. With a little dedication and two bucket parents you could have two strike throwers in as little as a month. Maybe faster. Fastball and then a change up. Then go play and have fun.

Nah, you're all good. I'm the one discarding them. I have a save pile and a discard pile. File 13, as us 80's kids used to say. We're so deep with our 12 HS athletes with an average of 3 years of experience, so File 13 is always full 'round these parts. To the brim, son.

 

[canyonjoe]

Determining if a team is ready to start entering tournaments.
Or shouldn't.

What to look for GO DFP__________!

If you have an idea of the level of the tournament and think you can compete go ahead and play assuming you have the money,insurance,etc.