League Format

Our league is much like Splitters allowing only 10-12's in Majors except that good 10's go quick, fast, and high in our draft since you get them for 3 years.

Pros on 9's: If a 9 can get experience practicing and playing with 10-12's the nines will improve playing up. If you have a strong group of 8's winning tournaments who are going to be 9's, then bringing them up to majors at 9 is the competative thing to do. However, the competative thing may not be the right thing for LL. It depends on how competative your league wants to be and is it right to take away from the 10's who could be up making them wait another year.

Cons: The 9's will ride the pine in majors when they could be getting more playing time (PT) in minors. After all, PT is what makes it fun.

Case example:
A nearby LL brought up a group of 9's into the majors during the 1999 season. The parents took over the LL board in 1999 to get it done because the kids had tournament success finishing 2nd as 8's in 1998. Many 9's were on the bench during the 1999 season but perservered. However, in the 2000 season the 1999 9's who are now 10's took district. Yet, I would say that their allstar teams improvement was more due to the 3 kids who started playing travel ball as 10's and took private lessons who were doing the producing. Playing up as 9's did help the others improve when they were 10 but not to the level of the 3 travelers who in some cases were not necessarily the better athletes. IMHO, for a talented player I would rank private lessons higher in importance followed by playing competative baseball, and then playing up as 9's as the fastest routes to player improvement.