Rec Ball Select team

[Bchbum54]

Is your league in the Fall Federation (i.e. Rancho Trabuco, Huntington Beach, Long Beach Heartwell, Laguna Niguel, East Whittier, Capo, La Habra, Aliso Viejo, San Clemente, Orange, Canyon, Newport Mesa, Brea, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Tustin, and Fountain Valley)?

If so, I always found it odd they advocated playing the same age group as the previous Spring instead of moving up like travel teams. They do allow up to 4 players to play up in the Fall and you can petition for more. They also have 2 levels of "select" teams, Gold and Silver, so all-star players could play either 10U Gold or 12U Silver. See their website, Fall Ball Federation, for more info.

A lot of 12U players move on to travel, so I doubt there will be many studs staying at 12U in the Fall.

Yes we are part of Fall Federation.

I had heard and understood that only 4 girls could play up like you mentioned. We have 3 All-star teams right now and we are anticipating our gold team is going TB. Between the 36 girls in our division their are only 7 first year 10's. So out of the remaining 29 girls minus any girls who go Travel only 4 can move up to 12U Select? The rest have to choose between 10U select or 12U regular rec ball? That's what I understand or was told but I haven't read the official rules yet. Its the parents who have to make this decision who keep coming up to me and ask if it's worth it or not.

 

[left turn]

What's the difference between Select & All Star?

 

[left turn]

In Jersey, everybody moves up to the level they would be playing the next summer.

 

[SoCal_Dad]

I had heard and understood that only 4 girls could play up like you mentioned. We have 3 All-star teams right now and we are anticipating our gold team is going TB. Between the 36 girls in our division their are only 7 first year 10's. So out of the remaining 29 girls minus any girls who go Travel only 4 can move up to 12U Select? The rest have to choose between 10U select or 12U regular rec ball? That's what I understand or was told but I haven't read the official rules yet.

You're allowed 4 per team, so the total varies by how many teams you form and that will depend on how many of the 12U all-stars play Fall Ball. The Federation website has their rules posted and also has contact info for last year's commissioner. I recommend reading the rules and then contacting the commissioner to get her take on it.

 

[Momo'sDad]

Lol we call those teams "Trophy Hunters". Yeah our league in the past has really pushed players to play up in the fall but this new "Select" idea has parents second guessing it. Fortunately for me DD is '04 and we get to try it first and then next Fall make a decision based on our experience and not speculations.

Yes, we were definitely built as a trophy team. This was one of those All-star teams that competed well with and beat some travel teams during the fall. My DD is an '02, so it was the right team for her, but that group would've benefited more from going 12u since they were all moving to TB in the spring anyway - Mojo went 10u, and the rest of the team went 12u.

If you're running into roster mandates that will limit your DD's fall league options, because she's a top 10u, my suggestion is to go ahead and move her to TB. She's already made All-stars and even if she wasn't the #1 pitcher and leadoff batter, her softball arc will be much bigger and broader once she leaves rec.

 

[Momo'sDad]

What's the difference between Select & All Star?

All-stars are voted by the leagues' coaches and maybe division rep, while select teams are generally put together by the individual coaches who will take a team, with some modifications depending on what your league wants to do. The Fall Fed they're talking about here has a set of rules that govern the overall fall program, then individual leagues may have even more specific rules, e.g. no team may have 3 pitchers unless other teams in the division already have 2.

Up here, the main governing body has program guidelines as well which deal mainly with rules of play and player eligibility, but the leagues currently have the ability to form teams however they wish. So, a fall team could be the same as a summer All-star team.

Some leagues are used to having the talent spread out, but some of the mid- to small leagues will prefer to stack teams in order to compete with the deeper talent pools of the bigger leagues. Naturally, the parents of the better players want those rec teams stacked, so when it's disallowed for whatever reason, many of them will go ahead and depart the rec leagues.

In NorCal, there is a seeding tournament at the beginning of the fall season and the results from that determine which divisions the teams will play in. The All-star teams go into the top division, while the newcomer teams go into the lowest division, etc. and the fall season is always competitive regardless of your team's level of play.

 

[left turn]

All-stars are voted by the leagues' coaches and maybe division rep, while select teams are generally put together by the individual coaches who will take a team, with some modifications depending on what your league wants to do. The Fall Fed they're talking about here has a set of rules that govern the overall fall program, then individual leagues may have even more specific rules, e.g. no team may have 3 pitchers unless other teams in the division already have 2.

Up here, the main governing body has program guidelines as well which deal mainly with rules of play and player eligibility, but the leagues currently have the ability to form teams however they wish. So, a fall team could be the same as a summer All-star team.

Some leagues are used to having the talent spread out, but some of the mid- to small leagues will prefer to stack teams in order to compete with the deeper talent pools of the bigger leagues. Naturally, the parents of the better players want those rec teams stacked, so when it's disallowed for whatever reason, many of them will go ahead and depart the rec leagues.

In NorCal, there is a seeding tournament at the beginning of the fall season and the results from that determine which divisions the teams will play in. The All-star teams go into the top division, while the newcomer teams go into the lowest division, etc. and the fall season is always competitive regardless of your team's level of play.

That is so different than what we have in northern Jersey.

In our association we only have one group of teams by age. So there aren't upper and lower teams. Also we have a standard tryout process with a defined criteria and we use outside people to evaluate the players for the travel teams. We try to get competent assessors and they cannot know or have any material interest in whether the player makes the team. There had been so many bitter feelings about who makes travel teams, so we had to do something. So we developed the process to drive out as much bias as possible. Also our evaluation considers a historical rating (from the coaches) as well as the tryout result. We also communicated the tryout process to the community for transparency.

So here's the most interesting thing that happened when we implemented this process. Even though we are executing a process that is as fair as we could possibly make it, complaints did not go down significantly. These bitter feelings only went down a little. Just two weeks ago a player was cut from the travel team whose dad has been heavily involved with the board of directions. He still lost his mind and embarrassed himself. He couldn't accept that his child did not make the team.

 

[left turn]

All-stars are voted by the leagues' coaches and maybe division rep, while select teams are generally put together by the individual coaches who will take a team, with some modifications depending on what your league wants to do. The Fall Fed they're talking about here has a set of rules that govern the overall fall program, then individual leagues may have even more specific rules, e.g. no team may have 3 pitchers unless other teams in the division already have 2.

Up here, the main governing body has program guidelines as well which deal mainly with rules of play and player eligibility, but the leagues currently have the ability to form teams however they wish. So, a fall team could be the same as a summer All-star team.

Some leagues are used to having the talent spread out, but some of the mid- to small leagues will prefer to stack teams in order to compete with the deeper talent pools of the bigger leagues. Naturally, the parents of the better players want those rec teams stacked, so when it's disallowed for whatever reason, many of them will go ahead and depart the rec leagues.

In NorCal, there is a seeding tournament at the beginning of the fall season and the results from that determine which divisions the teams will play in. The All-star teams go into the top division, while the newcomer teams go into the lowest division, etc. and the fall season is always competitive regardless of your team's level of play.

That is so different than what we have in northern Jersey.

In our association we only have one group of teams by age. So there aren't upper and lower teams. Also we have a standard tryout process with a defined criteria and we use outside people to evaluate the players for the travel teams. We try to get competent assessors and they cannot know or have any material interest in whether the player makes the team. There had been so many bitter feelings about who makes travel teams, so we had to do something. So we developed the process to drive out as much bias as possible. Also our evaluation considers a historical rating (from the coaches) as well as the tryout result. We also communicated the tryout process to the community for transparency.

So here's the most interesting thing that happened when we implemented this process. Even though we are executing a process that is as fair as we could possibly make it, complaints did not go down significantly. These bitter feelings only went down a little. Just two weeks ago a player was cut from the travel team whose dad has been heavily involved with the board of directions. He still lost his mind and embarrassed himself. He couldn't accept that his child did not make the team.

 

[Little Angels Softball]

Even though we are executing a process that is as fair as we could possibly make it, complaints did not go down significantly.

This is because if there is a league involved, there has to be politics. Period.

While some may not think it fair, I'd say the only place you can truly get a fair shake is in travel ball, where (some, not all) coaches are selecting players purely for ability. It will leave some girls out, but the method is fair.

 

[left turn]

This is because if there is a league involved, there has to be politics. Period.

While some may not think it fair, I'd say the only place you can truly get a fair shake is in travel ball, where (some, not all) coaches are selecting players purely for ability. It will leave some girls out, but the method is fair.

Little Angels Softball, it is interesting how you crafted your words.

I was being careful with how I described the process. When we say we are "making it as fair as possible" we understand that we cannot have a perfectly fair system. We understand we are amateurs and parents and that the decisions we make are often colored by self interest. So the board talks about how that affects decisions and try to come to decisions that are for the greater good.

Even though it is not possible to eliminate bias, we are attempting to make a good faith effort to drive out as much bias as possible. We have a written process with tryouts and we consider coaches historical rating and we use outside people to do the evaluations. We come up with a numerical rating and those fall below the line do not make the team. 2 of the past 3 years we have had children from the board that either got cut or were placed on the "B" team.

From what I have seen, there is less bias in general with club teams, but it is by no means an oasis of morality in terms of choosing players.