Rec league competitive guidelines?

[Orange Socks]

We stopped honoring the "these girls have to carpool together" requests, as they were wildly abused (sadly).

Funny how this applies across the country.

 

[uncdrew]

Funny how this applies across the country.

Truly insane how badly some parents want to win 10U Rec ball.

 

[Orange Socks]

Truly insane how badly some parents want to win 10U Rec ball.

I just made sure to have a pitcher dad and her twin sister on my team and then fill with Summer All-star players.

 

[stox]

I am wondering what sort of guidelines other towns/leagues have to prevent team stacking for rec ball. I read a couple of other threads and see that it's a fairly common problem. I would like to hear what you have seen implemented that has worked (as well as can be).
We are in a multi-town rec league. What we've seen is towns essentially create an all star team with two other teams who's best player is worse than the primary team's worst player. It's frustrating because we destroy these other teams, neither teams involved in these games are having much fun. Then, conversely we can also get destroyed by the all star teams, again, not much fun for either team in non-competitive games.
The league has rules against this practice such as travel ball player/involvement limits and requiring travel ball players to be split evenly. It seems to not really be enforced... adults want their kids to have rec ball trophies.
I have a couple thoughts that I want to bounce off the forum to see how feasible you think they are. Or, if you have things you have done/seen done with success or tweaks you would recommend. Our area now has low participation rates for older girls because of this and other things (not rotating, forcing poorer batters to bunt/slap instead of developing them, etc.). Maybe it's a pipe-dream but I would love to see larger agencies (ISAA NSA) recommend reform around these things.
1. Create a point system based upon previous year stats and have roughly equal points among a towns players. I think with Game Changer frequently used it should be possible to look at batting stats like slugging, OBP, errors, ERA etc. from the previous season to divy up girls.
2. Force mid-season trades based on records (I imagine granting 4 players protection but allowing you to pull other girls like when pro teams with expansion drafts while sending some girls back).
3. Banning any towns that have allowed obvious stacking from tournaments.
4. limit of one bunt in fair play per girl per game
5. Require travel girls to play one outfield inning per game
I'd love to hear feedback and ideas. Thanks everyone. (This is my first post but I've read the forum all the time. The people here are great. I know the focus is mostly on travel but poor rec ball is possibly one thing holding the sport back).

I would probably just create balanced teams within your town and just have them play against each other only.

Then also create an all star team for your town through tryouts and schedule additional games with other town's all star teams.

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[4Martini]

Yup.

We do a skills assessment, including pitchers and catchers. Then divvy out the girls, make sure the pitching/catching is as fair as possible. We stopped honoring the "these girls have to carpool together" requests, as they were wildly abused (sadly).

I totally understand this- but at the same time girls are very social and not being able to play with their friends is probably a negative to them wanting to play as well.

My daughter played rec through 14u (but she was 12). Her team got to stay together and they were pretty dominant - their coaches were better than the other coaches. They were just local kids that started together and developed friendships and played. Half of them for the sport, half of them for the social part. But the ability for a team to grow over years is special. We left because she wanted better competition- but I’m not sure she would have kept playing younger without being able to play with friends.

I wonder if there can’t be more rules about switching the pitcher and other position players around when the game gets lopsided. Also some of the tournament seeding encourages coaches to run up big leads to get better seeds in the end of season tournament. Heck, there were times I wished we could swap pitchers with the other team so my kid had a chance to hit a strike.

 

[Orange Socks]

I totally understand this- but at the same time girls are very social and not being able to play with their friends is probably a negative to them wanting to play as well.

My daughter played rec through 14u (but she was 12). Her team got to stay together and they were pretty dominant - their coaches were better than the other coaches. They were just local kids that started together and developed friendships and played. Half of them for the sport, half of them for the social part. But the ability for a team to grow over years is special. We left because she wanted better competition- but I’m not sure she would have kept playing younger without being able to play with friends.

Why stay within your bubble? DD played on 8 different Rec ball teams and I drafted a different team every year. Yes, I was able to get a few of the kids that I coached previously or knew from other sports. Guess what! She got to make new friends every season. We played Rec in order to play All Stars (5 summers). That's where we were able to keep a core group of girls together.

She wasn't best buddies with all those girls over the years. In fact, she barely tolerated some. However, they were teammates.

 

[4Martini]

Why stay within your bubble? DD played on 8 different Rec ball teams and I drafted a different team every year. Yes, I was able to get a few of the kids that I coached previously or knew from other sports. Guess what! She got to make new friends every season. We played Rec in order to play All Stars (5 summers). That's where we were able to keep a core group of girls together.

She wasn't best buddies with all those girls over the years. In fact, she barely tolerated some. However, they were teammates.

That works for the kids that play because they love the sport. I just always thought rec was a place you could play with your friends. I think a number of kids on the team my daughter was on would not have kept playing if it was a random draft. They showed up to do an activity with their friends. We don’t have all stars and you can’t play rec if you play travel -so the dynamic is different from a lot of places I read about. A lot of kids are looking to do something fun with their friends in town.

 

[GunnerShotgun]

1. Create a point system based upon previous year stats and have roughly equal points among a towns players. I think with Game Changer frequently used it should be possible to look at batting stats like slugging, OBP, errors, ERA etc. from the previous season to divy up girls.
2. Force mid-season trades based on records (I imagine granting 4 players protection but allowing you to pull other girls like when pro teams with expansion drafts while sending some girls back).

Identify how many (real) pitchers and catchers this will determine the number of teams that you will have. Don't use the total number of players to determine the total number of teams.

You either need to do a skills assessment for everyone prior to the season AND/OR do a redraft halfway through the season (I don't recommend this unless you can get everyone on board).

No carpool teammate crap and I wouldn't let coaches group together either. Pick the head coaches and let them worry about the assistants from the kids they get assigned.

If you want to go next level get the kids to coach the games and have a dugout "mom/dad" to keep it organized/safe. Bonus points if you can get kid umpires as well.

Good luck.

 

[lostcreek1]

Why don't you just make each team only be allowed to roster players that actually live in the town or area immediately around that town.

 

[lostcreek1]

Wonder why there are 1000 teams that show up to Colorado every summer? At the upper crust TB can be expensive if you truly travel across the country for competition. Or you can stay in your immediate region and not travel. A family can choose the experience that matches their needs. Plenty of lower socio economic families playing TB.

If by lower socio economic families you mean middle class i agree. Around here there are very few poor people playing TB, the few I do know are being subsidized in some way. I do know quite a few girls that play rec because they cant afford to play TB.