This. Once a team gets to major level the guest player deal becomes a thing. Kind of ruined our youngests' teams chance to make a deep run in 14u bc our team didn't play thay game and all the others did, but whatever. It's a business now more than anything.
My kids wouldn't trade it for anything. They had great experiences with their friends playing a game they love. It was usually a 3.5 month season, not year round and always done by july 4th. We weren't a completely crazy travel team though, a couple trips to des moines and quad cities per year along with one fun destination trip like the Dells, kc or Omaha. To each their own.
A little bit. At 9u, there aren’t many majors teams in Iowa or IL. But some of these heavy hitting IL teams should technically be at the majors level. Using my example, the QC Barnstormers AAA team could grab a player (or multiple) from the AAA Moline team.
Is a season just summer ball? That seems insane, but if it’s actually covering a calendar year with a couple play windows, it’s high, but less insane.
I wouldn’t exactly say it is prevalent, but it certainly happens. My sons 12u team has been triple A since 9u. I see it more with major teams than any other. I’ve learned to live with it and take pride in knowing our roster hasn’t changed much since 7u. It makes victory over teams with “guests” even sweeter. And also, teams that do the guest thing a lot of times end up with rough chemistry between players and parents. Usually worse with parents and adults. JMHO.
Everything you mentioned in this post tracks with the little info/experience I have when it comes to guest players. We will not have them unless any sort of fluke injury happens. And the team that is trying to round up a couple of guest players has terrible chemistry.
All pretty accurate until the last part. The vast majority of the varsity players in the state, especially at 3a/4a schools, do indeed play high level travel baseball growing up.
I can only use one of my grandson's USSSA teams as an example...of the 11 kids on the team, maybe three will make a DM area high school varsity team, imo.
If they were majors state champs, more than 3 will play varsity baseball. You don't win major state in Iowa without having at least 6-7 extremely talented kids. I went thru from 8-14u with two kids/teams who played mostly major baseball, and I've followed a lot of the kids we competed against throughout their high school and beyond careers. MOST kids playing and succeeding at major baseball, even at 11, don't just fall off by high school.
Don't take this as me calling you out, but I'm basing my prediction on some things that play into the equation that may be unique to the team I am referencing.
Fair enough, but based on my experiences and observations over the last 10 years, since club ball has really taken off, that hasn't generally been the case. Most of the top teams in 4a over the last 5 years were made up of almost exclusively high level travel ball kids.
Good for you for doing it. Soak it in and enjoy it. I was kind of relieved when the youngest finally was done with travel ball but damn it was a lot of fun when we were in it. and I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it. My rotator cuff doesn't though. Guarantee that fvcker has 100,000 bp pitches on it if not more.
Would it be inappropriate to ask for pics of Johnny and Brad's moms?
I umped a 12u game last week and the starting pitcher for one of the teams pitched the entire game and threw 120 pitches. Crazy.
9u kid from NW Iowa team threw over 180 for the weekend, and is over 125 on weekends regularly.
The politics topic has been brought up a few times. Can someone give a little more detail on the politics side of this discussion? Is it that Johnny gets to play over more deserving kids because his dad coaches?
For softball, Central Iowa Sports, also USSSA, reviews teams and moves them up if their power ranking gets too high.
The innings rules instead of pitch count rules for pitching is ridiculous. With pretty much everyone using game changer now it wouldn't be hard to keep track of.
Yes. Include adding and dropping kids based on parent/coach relationships, where a kid plays vs where another kid plays etc... we moved a couple kids off our teams early on where a kid was on the fence skills wise, and not gonna lie, pita parents were part of the deciding factor. As a volunteer coach you're only going to get bitched out by a parent so many times before you cut ties.
Hell, isn't that the fun of club ball? All the drama and BS from parents?
This opinion is shared by many. In our area they say "you can't make the HS team if you don't play travel."
For the record, my kids’ parents are heavy and they are all normal size. And 2 of the 3 played varsity. The other would have but for a torn labrum. One played college baseball and the other would have played football in college if he hadn’t torn up his knees. And all of the kids on the Super State baseball team my youngest son’s senior year were kids who he played with and against in USSSA. I believe by 14 all were at the majors level.
I’d say the kids playing AAA or Majors at 13 or 14 will likely play HS varsity and beyond. Younger than that and they’re still developing. I see a lot of AAA and Majors teams at the 8-12 year-old range made up of a mix of good players, kids who are already peaking, and kids whose parents bought their way onto the team. I’ve also seen kids playing on A and AA teams in that age range end up studs in HS and beyond.
I can see the nature / nurture dynamic definitely being a thing. Our 10 y/o is a decent player on a good AA team (not AAA or majors) but let's just say my wife and I won't be doing him any favors on the nature front has we both are about as physically average as humans can get. We have to look up to talk to most of the other parents of kids on the team. So we we have pretty realistic expectations in the coming years and just encourage our kid to have fun, open to just doing rec league if he ever wants, etc.
Pairings are out for state. What division is your grandson in? Maybe we can cross paths for a HORT hello.
