A Look Inside Perfect Game’s 10u Top 100

There's a growing trend in youth baseball to provide rankings for the participating teams. From our own rankings, to Baseball Youth, to the Travel Baseball Rankings Project, there are several different organizations and entities trying to provide state or national level rankings. On February 15th, Perfect Game posted their attempt at ranking the top 100 10u teams in America. North Carolina was well represented as were the surrounding states with North Carolina landing 4 teams among the top 100 teams in the nation, as well as another team listed among the "Regional Team to Watch."

North Carolina Representation
10u #1 SBA Futures was named the top 10u team in the United States by Perfect Game.

4 North Carolina teams made the top 100 including our #1 team SBA Futures, our #2 team SBA Nationals, our #3 team West Raleigh Blue, and our #4 team Dirtbags Black. We've long said the SBA Futures (previously Park Sharon Nationals) are perhaps the most dominate team in any age group in North Carolina. Posting an overall record of as 66-8-1 as a 9u team including a title at the USSSA Demarini Elite World Series was a demonstration of that. Perfect Game named these guys the #1 10u team in the country, and deservedly so. West Raleigh Blue came in at #56 in Perfect Game's rankings while the SBA Nationals earned the #68 ranking. West Raleigh posted an overall record of 35-4 as a 9u team and 16-2 record this past fall, while the SBA Nationals were 48-4 as a 9u team and 13-5-1 this past fall. Dirtbags Black also made the top 100, coming in at #74, after going 41-11-1 as a 9u team and notching a 13-8 record this past fall. Our #4, Park Sharon Nationals - Pirro were listed among the "Regional Teams to Watch" after going 17-1 this past fall.

Beyond North Carolina 

Our #1 and #2 teams in Virginia, VA Seminoles - Dowdy and Stars Baseball - Colangelo, came in at #45 and #40, respectively, in the national top 100. Seminoles - Dowdy posted a 12-0-1 record this past fall, while Stars - Colangelo went 16-3 this past fall and 41-7 as a 9u team. Our #3, #4, and #5 teams, SYAA Surge, Southside Crew, and Tidewater Drillers were all listed in the "Regional Teams to Watch" list after posting records of 20-4, 23-5, and 15-5, respectively this past fall. Our #1 team in South Carolina, Team 24 Gamecocks - Ashley came in at #19 in the top 100 after posting a 37-3 record this past fall and am 88-9-1 record (!) as a 9u team. Our #9 team, the Palmetto Prospects was listed at #64 after notching an 18-5 record this past fall and a 33-9 record as a 9u team. 4 South Carolina teams including our #2 Grey Sox (22-2-1 this past fall), #3 SCBA Pirates (17-0 this past fall), #4 Gameday Shockwave (6-5 this past fall), and #5 Carolina Bruins (18-3 this past fall) all made the "Regional Teams to Watch" list.

 

 

What Perfect Game got right

Ranking youth travel baseball teams nationally is an exceedingly difficult task for obvious reasons. Despite that, Perfect Game appears to have done a nice job going far beyond results in just Perfect Game tournaments in order to rank these teams as many of the teams they ranked have never played a Perfect Game event. It's hard to make any statement regarding the accuracy of the majority of the rankings, however. For instance, is there really a good way to differentiate Beaver Valley Red (PA), who were ranked #46, from the TCA Colorado Grizzlies, who were ranked #72? Probably not, but we nevertheless appreciate the effort.

SBA Futures probably have as good a claim to the top spot as any team in the country. They took home the title after an 8-1 week at the USSSA Demarini Elite World Series last summer that included wins over teams ranked #5, #7, #9, #11 (x2) and posted a 20-3 record this past fall.

What Perfect Game got wrong

There's little to criticize with these rankings outside of the glaring obvious:  beyond an inability to in any way accurately stratify teams across the entire country, one has to wonder why Perfect Game would even bother with national 10u rankings. Any reasonable person, including those at Perfect Game, must acknowledge it's impossible to accurately rank teams nationally at this level. By extension, the cynic also wonders what is the purpose of ranking 10u teams in this way? In support of Perfect Game, rankings like these (and ours) are simply the product of what people, in this case travel baseball parents and coaches, want. In that respect, then, Perfect Game is just responding (appropriately) to what consumers are asking for.

 

We like these types of rankings as they provide a spotlight for excellent teams and let people know who the top teams are so that they might have some insights when scheduling. We're also a bit unsure if they based these rankings off performances in previous age groups (e.g. 9u performance for the 10u rankings) or fall performance, or both. Nevertheless, at least reviewing the teams in this region with whom we are familiar, we feel Perfect Game nailed who the top teams are.