Interesting Dilemma on Roster Size and Playing Time

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Sep 17, 2009
1,637
83
Given your team's age I would think hard about where you want this team to be in a year or two. If you have girls wanting to play in college you will need to be able to compete in top tournaments and gain entry to top exposures. To do that you will need a team that can accomplish those goals. As others have said, you'll likely need a bigger roster due to high school conflicts. You'll also need enough talent to compete. Given both of those things, I'd take the strong, well-liked player. No brainer. For the girls who 'just want to play varsity in high school' you should be able to provide them a good training/game-play experience, and if they sit a bit more than when they were 12U they should be able to handle it. For the girls that want to get exposed, you can accomplish that too. And trust me, having a team that compete and win at a high level is more fun for everyone.

People who warn you that keeping a big roster will cause players to walk....what kinds of teams are those players going to move to that don't ALSO have relatively large rosters? It's common at 16U/18U competitive teams.

I do NOT believe you need to have an all-exposure team to succeed or to stay together. The team you describe can make it though to the end, but it's not easy. I see you trying to make it work for the right reasons. I like everything you've said about how your run your teams. Be upfront with everyone, girls and parents, and do the very best you can by them and you'll likely be alright. Even then, it might not work out but you can know you tried to do the right thing. Good luck.

(I also strongly agree with Orange Socks that 14U is a strange age with 8th grade/HS cross-over. Once you get everyone in high school things will feel and run very differently than at the younger ages).
 
Mar 28, 2014
1,081
113
But he didn't say they wanted to take things to a higher level. He said --

"Our primary goal is still development, but we keep getting better and now have the ability to play at a high level. We are certainly not a National level, and we typically keep most of our players season after season. We could easily improve our team through tryouts each year, but we keep a close knit group and have very little turnover."

Does that sound like a team whose goal is to keep trying to get better and better? There was a reason I asked him the questions I asked him because the answer to this original questions depended on his answers to my questions. Y'all keep giving him answers to his original question without considering his answers to my questions.
 

radness

Possibilities & Opportunities!
Dec 13, 2019
7,270
113
Hissy Quit= Two girls were clearly no happy, and a third girl ended up leaving the team immediately following the last game.


RAD is right. Your team is not an A level team especially with girls that just want to play Varsity and play with their friends even though you may be playing against A level competition. Look in the other dugouts of those teams. How many kids are on the rosters? If you want to take it to the next level, pick up that kid to make your team better so the parents start getting used to have slightly larger rosters. You should be always open to bringing in players that will make your team better. This will send a message to the other players that you want the team to compete, and this is what we need to do to take it to the next level. Because you start with a roster in the fall, doesn't mean all will stay. You need to imagine what your team needs to look like next year and the year after. Not all parents are going to be down with you, but you will need to communicate with them...if you have to. As we got to the 16u/18u divisions, parents didn't really talk with coaches and there was no need to have parent/team meetings. We had one intro team meeting each fall and that was it. From time to time the coach would ask me about a certain player he was considering, but there was NEVER any talk about where and when my DD played. This was his team, not mine.

14U spring is tricky too. What is your plan? How many 8th graders on the team? How many 9th graders? Are you going dark in the spring? At 14U and up, is when families float in and float out jockeying for the best team fit. Start managing your team like the Big girl teams. My buddy who had an older DD 4 years ahead of our two DD's would always say. This ain't baby ball no more! Let's get after it!

My DD's first real deal TB team was 8th grade 14U. When we joined the team we didn't realize that this team came in from outside of the organization as a 1st yr 14u team. They picked up 3 new players that included DD during organizational tryouts. We had a paid coach with team agreements and rules. After the first team meeting discussing the rules, a family quit. A few tourneys later another kid quit. Then 2 pitchers left. They were still in the baby ball mind set. We starting getting better by having open practices throughout the year. Unfortunately, the team daddy manager did not have the skill set in communicating with the players and lost the core at the following year tryouts. So we bolted and the team folded. I would have loved to stay with the organization because I felt they were doing it the right way. If I can recall all of those players from that team. 2 currently play D1, 1 D3, 1 freshman at Juco and 1 plays coed Slow pitch!
😁 Hissy Quit=
Haaahaaa funny!
...now i have to go back and read the rest of your post 😏

Edit: nice read @Socks, great added views about plan where team is going!
 
Last edited:

radness

Possibilities & Opportunities!
Dec 13, 2019
7,270
113
But he didn't say they wanted to take things to a higher level. He said --

"Our primary goal is still development, but we keep getting better and now have the ability to play at a high level. We are certainly not a National level, and we typically keep most of our players season after season. We could easily improve our team through tryouts each year, but we keep a close knit group and have very little turnover."

Does that sound like a team whose goal is to keep trying to get better and better? There was a reason I asked him the questions I asked him because the answer to this original questions depended on his answers to my questions. Y'all keep giving him answers to his original question without considering his answers to my questions.
Here's the 'tell' in the story!
ZAP by Texasheat! 👍
 
Jan 5, 2018
385
63
PNW
😁 Hissy Quit=
Haaahaaa funny!
...now i have to go back and read the rest of your post 😏
Hissy quit...I believe credit goes to @ericF on that one.

It entered our vocabulary....and now my DD refers to kids as hissy quiter. She points them out when she sees them. "Dad see that girl over there....she's a hissy quiter...left XYZ middle of tournament..." HA HA

A label you don't want!
 
Jul 16, 2013
4,659
113
Pennsylvania
Here's the 'tell' in the story!
ZAP by Texasheat! 👍

I agree. That is a B level team in my opinion. The team I coached was very similar, and by design. We often played against A caliber talent, but we were a B level team in theory. Our focus was on our players, and we did not bring in other players unless we had to. In fact, once we were at 16u we stopped having tryouts. Any roster openings we had were discussed with the entire team and each player provided input. We always had a pool of players that were interested in joining our team, so we narrowed it down based on position need and then discussed with the team. This process worked pretty well for us over the years.
 
Feb 3, 2016
502
43
If you add the stud to the team getting it back to 13 the parents and kids on the fence will leave eventually. Now you're putting another player that could be getting rep's on bracket day on the pine.

By the time it's all over you could find yourself with 9-10 by the time all the dust settles. Team would be easier to manage and be better.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 
May 2, 2018
200
63
Central Virginia
keep roster at 11 or 12 and have coaches kids sit 3 innings every game. that will solve all play time problems. i have never understood why teams are going over 12 players if they are not doing regular week long tourneys or showcases. DD's old team non parent coached struggled to rotate 13 players and then the next year went to 15. DD was the starting pitcher and they wondered why she walked. it's because the coach failed to make good rotations and the bench was toxic and DD wasn't having fun anymore. JMO

Why is the solution to have the coaches kids sit 3 innings per game? How is that fair to them? Was this sarcasm because if so it went over my head.
 
May 7, 2015
842
93
SoCal
Here's my .02... A close friend of mine had a good group of kids together from 8u to 12u rec all stars and all things considering, did pretty well. The team was a multiple B level CA state and Western Nationals qualifier. They played 14u travel after 12u gold all stars.

Anyway, on with the story. Team composition was much like yours, some better than good players, some good, some OK. Goal was to "keep kids together and have fun playing the game". The coach was diligent about teaching the game to the kids. They started by taking their lumps in 14u travel in SoCal. As the kids got older, the kids priorities started shifting. In an effort to keep the kids together, practices started getting "funner". By the end, it looked like elementary school recess. Footballs, tag, just shooting the breeze. The team completely folded because it was not fun competing with teams that were focused and driven. The performance gap was widening and eventually was too much to overcome.

The moral of the story is, there's no faking softball at 14, 15, and 16yo. The kids that are on the fence at 13 will usually be out of the sport at 16. Once travel and HS kick in, the kids still playing get GOOD and the teams they play on are just silly.

If you have a DD or a group of kids that you care about that want to play the game as older players, pick up that new player because if the team starts to struggle, fun won't be enough to keep the talented kids.. They will go to teams that are competing making your team less and less fun and creating a snowball effect.

As I said, just my .02
 

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