Your TEAM SCHEDULE vs the competition levels.

[lostcreek1]

... and that will go down.

My experience (curious about others) is that we practice less now in 14U than we used to. I generally think it's fine. Girls are working on their own, bodies tend to get hurt more easily, school is harder, team is no longer "local".

I agree, at this age they are learning how to play softball. It is hard to learn how to play softball by yourself, so you need a lot of team practice. As you get older not so much time needed on how to play softball, as there is on your specific skill set. Which is can be accomplished at a much higher rate on your own or 1on1 with an instructor. If an older girl is a very high level P,SS,1B etc. how much team practice does she really need to be a benefit your team. IMO very little she can basically just show up and play.

 

[RADcatcher]

Mostly I think individual goals guide these different decisions.

There are people who are fine putting in quality time training themselves. They do it routinely and it is part of their normal schedule. They do not need to be stimulated by a group to do what they want to do for themselves.
This group could include people who are comfortable going to a defensive workout with a bunch of people they do not know.

Then there are those who don't do that.
If they're going to be on a team they will rely on a team practice schedule. This could be including people who need to be stimulated by a group activity. This could include a group of people who are uncomfortable unless they are around people they already know. And for that may not go to defensive type workouts aside from their team.

 

[NJZoo]

I think it's easy to say, "You should schedule to be .500!", or you should have a certain ratio of quality of teams, or you should always play the best, etc. The reality is that there are too many variables for a one size fits all approach. Are you a first year team? Are you a local, regional, national team? What type of tournaments are in your area (unaffiliated, showcase, USSSA/USA/PGF/ALLIANCE, etc.)? What is the competition like in your area? Are you a team with a lot of players who are new to the team, so you aren't sure what you have? Are there certain tournaments your team/organization is committed to every year?

For example, our team is not going to travel outside of 2 hrs for a tournament. So we try to put the best schedule together given the expectations of our parents, coaches, players. Some seasons are more successful than others based on where the other strong teams in our area are playing. There are a few tournaments in our area where you know the competition will be strong every year. However, there are also educated guesses made months in advance. Again, sometimes those pan out and sometimes they don't. The key is if the expectations of the level of play of the coach/organization match those of the parents/players.

 

[quincy]

Dd's team finished 0-22 in 2 different yeas so I have no option.

 

[benjey]

For teams outside of the softball hotbeds this is really influenced by travel. Never thought about their winning % at the time just knew DD won the majority of their games. So I just went back to Gamechanger and looked for her 4 years on a national team playing 16u and 18u they won 80% of their games. It might seem they needed to play a tougher schedule but when you look closer you will see the cupcake games were almost all in the fall prior to the 6 week recruiting window so doesn't make sense to spend a lot to travel or in the winter when they played in a couple of indoor tournaments in the northeast. During the fall recruiting window and the summer they traveled to high end tournaments PGF, Alliance, Legacy, Colorado etc. they also would do one Florida winter tournament which some parents would complain about because even though the competition was good it was a big expense for a tournament with no college coaches allowed to attend.