11/12

This is going to sound harsher than I intend, so please do not get offended.

Why not allow 11's to play up if they will help the 12U team? It should be about what is best for the organization not what is best for any one team. Last year we had 2 11's starting on our 12U team. My son was plugged in as the back up SS/C and OF, but won the starting SS job by the 3d practice (he hit 2nd and had the #2 BA at season's end) and we had another 11 playing RF, batting 5th and our #2 P. The team finished 17-8 and made it to BR states.

The argument of depriving a 12 from tournament ball by allowing an 11 to play holds no water as the 12 shouldn't be playing if he can be beaten out by an 11.

I'm sure you have a couple players that could make the 12U team stronger. No offense, but 11U as far as BR goes is nothing. Not only will allowing the players to play up help the team, it will expose those players to a higher level of ball and develop them also. You may actually be hindering their development by keeping them on your team. If you're already strong, you gain nothing by beating the same teams as years prior. Let the best kids play up, take 2 more 11's and develop a stronger base for next season, play 12U tournamnets with your team to get better not just collect trophies.

As far as tryouts go, you almost have to have them. If you don't feel like notifying the kids that cut, then maybe you should let someone else take the team. Cutting players is part of managing at the travel level. Love it or hate it, you have to do it. You could always just post the roster at the fieldhouse. Depriving kids of trying out because you don't want to cut them is extremely selfish on your part. You should never deny a kid the chance to succeed.

I'll be doing the 12's also this year (as coach or manager) as well as my travel team, so I know what you're going through. The kids that are 12 now have a good record. They won 3 tournaments at 9, lost in District smei's at 10 (but won 3 locals), had a decent year at 11 without their top 2 P's (also 3,4 hitters), and at 12 will be even better because we will be making changes and fine tuning the roster. Allowing the 2 boys to play up last year gives us more 12 y/o tournament players to choose from as well as the 11's that can make the team (they went to BR Regionals as 10's).

Another thing our league does is not allow the divisional VP to manage the tournament team. The board approves the manager from all the candidates that apply. The person in your position in our league cannot even manage in that division for house play because of the possible appearance of impropriety. How does it look if the guy in charge has a team and then gets the tournament team? Obviously it's not a very democratic process. I'm sure some will accuse of you of using your position on the board to get good teams. I do the scheduling for our league and I make the schedules for my division before the teams are evn picked, but I still get accused of giving myself a soft schedule. It's just too much a political football for us so we eliminated it.