Travel baseball’s offseason and the race for more

**Admin note: This is our first guest blog. This topic came up in a recent email exchange with a reader and we asked them if we could share their thoughts.**

 

It's winter and another baseball season is behind us. It was a shortened season, but we still saw some a good amount of baseball. For many, our last experience of the season was a great series between outstanding baseball teams end with one team hoisting a trophy, and the other team lamenting the "what ifs." Heading into the offseason, however, many teams and players aren't looking back celebrating the past season. For many teams and players, November and December bring with it the start of a new season, the start of free agency. A time when rumors begin to fly, teams are looking to enhance their roster, and players are on the move. And if you think we are talking about Major League Baseball, you are sadly mistaken.

November in youth travel baseball heralds the start of perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of youth baseball: "free agency." We call it free agency, not because of collective bargaining agreements or contract law, but because the players and teams truly function as free agents during this time. This is the time of year when rumors begin to fly about teams, programs, coaches, and players. And trust us, we hear a lot of them. They range from the mundane ("Coach X won't be honest with you about playing time for your son") to the more alarming ("Your friend, Coach Y, has been talking poorly about your son to other teams"). But all are used in an effort to persuade people. They are a troubling part of the youth travel baseball scene, and one that we'd love to see go away. Unfortunately that does not appear likely for one simple reason: the race for more.

 

The race for more

The race for more, as we refer to it, is the seemingly incessant search coaches, parents, and players participate in to try and continually enhance their baseball experience. For coaches and programs, this manifests as seeking out the next best and brightest player. This can be as simple as replacing players on a roster, which is the natural evolution of any team. It can take on a life of its own when the race for more takes over, and becomes a goal in and of itself. When coaches and programs lose sight of their mission statement, any kid with a bad season becomes fair game to be cut.

We have even seen coaches who offer a "free" spot on their team or fund an entire team to induce higher level players to come to their team. Sadly, our experience has been this usually leads to a situation in which the child of the team benefactor becomes a player significantly below the level of the rest of the team. Participating in these cutthroat styles of roster management usually ends poorly for the teams and players. Those teams seeking to enhance their roster just for the sake of winning a bigger tournament the following year almost always end up falling apart. And if you think your age group is different, it's not. We have observed this pattern in every age group for years. Look at your own team's current roster and compare that to the roster for the same team from two years ago. How many kids remain? We recently reviewed the roster of one of the top teams in North Carolina in a certain age group. We observed they did not have single player on their current roster who was also on the roster just 2 years ago. That sure feels like a team being built for the coach rather than the players.

Parents and players have their own unique role in the race for more. Often as kids progress through youth travel baseball, parents may see their son having more success than some or all of their teammates. Frequently, the instinct of the parent is to believe their son better than or too good for those teammates or that team, and to seek out a team at a higher level. But what happens when their current team is already at a high level?

Let us introduce you to "national" youth teams.  These are teams consisting of children and families from multiple states who come together to play tournaments. These national teams begin as young as 9 or 10u, but in general by the time your child enters 12 or 13u, there are many of these teams in existence. Why might you want your child to participate on one of these teams before they even have the opportunity to throw a pitch from 60 feet in many cases? The common answer we hear is that parents want their child "to play at the highest level." Never mind the observation that the majority of players participating on these teams are those who get to and through puberty the earliest. When your child is developmentally a 14-year-old but chronologically an 11-year-old, playing for a team based 500 miles away who is trying to win a Perfect Game event 3 states over can seem an attractive option. Perhaps another option could be to simply have your son play up an age group or more, but this is not something we see occurring with any regularity.

 

 

Free agency

As we mentioned above, November and December are peak time for free agency. Teams and families have had a few months in the fall to grow weary of one another, despite only being a few months removed from the first free agency period of the year once the summer seasons end. Teams are looking to win more tournaments in the spring, and parents are looking for the next best situation. More playing time at their ideal position, a higher spot in the batting order, national events, more innings to pitch, and laughably even the promise of playing for scouts at 12 or 13u. What this usually brings about is a rampant rumor mill. One that pits friends and teammates against one other, ruins reputations and relationships, and sees self-interest rise considerably on the list of priorities. Very often, rumors going around have only a small basis in fact, but are used to a give a team an edge in the recruitment of a player, or a player an edge over another player in their quest to join a specific team.

Instead of acknowledging the craziness of it all, we as parents and coaches are the ones driving it. We hide behind comments like, "we are letting our son make the decision about which team he will play for" without recognizing that we wouldn't even let that same child make decisions about what the family will eat for dinner because we know our 9, 10, 11, and 12-year-old children don't always have the capacity to make the best decisions. So we go right along with it, misleading parents about what a plan for a given player might be or misleading a coach about how interested or not we are in having our child play for that team. We speak negatively about people we have never met, and have only interacted with in a competitive atmosphere. We claim moral superiority over others on ambiguous, amoral issues like "arm care." And in the end, it feels very few make decisions remotely resembling their stated "goals."

 

Remembering our goals

Why does your child play travel baseball? No, really. What is the actual purpose of your child playing youth travel baseball? For some, it is to play baseball with their friends at a higher level than what can be offered in a recreation league. For many, its to develop traits that we think sports, and baseball in particular, may engender. Goal setting, competitiveness, work ethic, and learning to fail and succeed are all examples of positive traits that can be acquired from youth travel baseball. Perhaps you and your child have other goals. Playing on a high school team, getting a college scholarship, or even playing professionally are also great goals for players to have, even at a young age. But there are no scouts at youth baseball fields. There are very few present even at the 14u age group. And for good reason. Consequently, no scholarships or pro contracts are being given out at that 11u Perfect Game event in Atlanta. Nor will a college coach or professional scout ask your 16-year-old son about their 12u national championship.

For coaches, what is the goal of your team? Is it to win youth championships? To beat some other team? If it is, ask yourself who that goal serves more, you or the kids on your team. If you, as a youth baseball travel coach, have any goals which serve yourself more than the children on your team, you are doing it wrong. Your goal should be to develop the kids on your roster. That doesn't mean coaches shouldn't look to enhance your roster, but it does mean they should have a "mission statement" for their team and they should stick to it. If the mission is to be the best 11u team in the country, we'd say that's an odd goal but good for your team. If the mission is to develop players, then develop them. If it's to create a great team to surround your own son with, well, perhaps you should consider a different mission. Whatever the mission or goals are, be up front about them and then act in ways that are consistent with that mission.

November and December are a time everyone involved in youth baseball should revisit the past year, and determine whether their experience was consistent with their goals. If not, some introspective questions should be asked: Did we stray from our goals? Have our goals changed? Does our current environment allow for us to achieve our goals? The answers to these types of questions should guide how coaches and parents approach this time of year. Discussions can and should be had between coaches and parents, and roster movement may often times be achievable without discord or damaged relationships. Think of all the rumors you have heard about players, coaches, and teams, including perhaps your own. Does this aspect of youth baseball feel like an enhancement of your family's experience in youth baseball, or a significant detriment? I know how we feel.