Being best player on bad team, or bench player on good team?

[Strike2]

If you're wanting to play D1, being a 2B isn't a reliable path. As D1 teams are often able to put a former SS there, being primarily a 2B is not drawing much, if any, athletic money. There are mid-majors where even the 1B was the SS on a pretty good TB team. Those who can't play another position well, such as OF, end up as pinch runners and practice-only players. Of course, all of that can work out differently if the player is effective at the plate, or there's an injury.

 

[Orange Socks]

My girl has played on good teams before, her 14u team was a PGF premier team, top 10 in Alliance.

Why didn't she stay with that team? Why leave a competitive team and then go down a level?

 

[RADcatcher]

My observations

The question should be asked
on non-competitive team
(how about we call it a B Team.)
Does the coach get players connected with D1 colleges?

It was commented earlier that the Op daughter has already made connections with colleges. The question should be asked were those connections made through the coach on this B team? Are those colleges part of the daughter's academic goals? Perhaps the coach is paying attention being a good advocate for the player.

It is also interesting to try and comment what a player should do with this team or another team without actually seeing video of the player to make some sort of softball analysis along with this discussion. Not saying the op has to provide video but it does factor into the level of players in these type of discussions. *Particularly when people are thinking their goal may be D1 versus other opportunity!

Other than the player wanted to win more games it doesn't appear there are any problems with the team they are on.
When you get to College there's no guarantee what type of win-loss record that team may have. Could very well pick a college that's absolutely a perfect fit except for the win-loss record.

 

[RADcatcher]

We're in SoCal too and play on a good team that includes a girl similar to your daughter. It's been tough on her and her family. She's an OF and gets a few innings of OF time and a few ABs in friendlies. In tournaments, she doesn't hit or see the field at all and only occasionally pinch runs. She's good, but what she had to do to get time out of the gate was mash the ball as soon as she showed up. She didn't, and the net result is that there is a roster full of girls that are better options than her on both O and D when the games count. When the games don't count, i.e., friendlies, she gets developmental opportunities, but not a lot because she's one of 5-6 other girls that play OF and need innings.

My bet is that if your daughter hits, she'll play and if she doesn't, she won't. 2Bs with great gloves are not uncommon in high level travel and fielding in general doesn't get you on the field unless you're an unbelievable catcher, SS or CF. Conversely, if you hit, you can have a cast iron skillet for a glove, especially if you hit for power.

Compliment the way you shared daughter's Journey with that team.
Agree with the observations you have shared. How has your daughter endured that situation? Is she comfortable with how the situation is? Or Is there anything you can add that might have helped her team situation wise?

 

[Corleone]

If you're wanting to play D1, being a 2B isn't a reliable path. As D1 teams are often able to put a former SS there, being primarily a 2B is not drawing much, if any, athletic money. There are mid-majors where even the 1B was the SS on a pretty good TB team. Those who can't play another position well, such as OF, end up as pinch runners and practice-only players. Of course, all of that can work out differently if the player is effective at the plate, or there's an injury.

I'd be just as happy if she went D3 or NAIA as long as her school is paid for. She's a 4.0 student, so it doesn't need to be athletic money. She's played SS, 2nd and OF. She's actually played quite a bit of SS, but probably 75% of her TB has been at 2nd base.
Also FTR, the team I'm referencing has it's 2nd basemen committed to D1, so it's not completely out of the question, but I do understand that SS is the easier path.

Why didn't she stay with that team? Why leave a competitive team and then go down a level?

It's a very long story, I'll keep it as brief as I can but I don't care for the head of the org. I got into it with him during covid when he insisted on dues, threatened to kick us off because I wouldn't pay dues during covid (because I just couldn't justify spending money without anything going on) and finally we left after the season. She went to an Ohana Tigers team, the team was mid level, but she had a lot of fun, played 50/50 short/second base, then we got a call that the previous team had an injury, it was February and they wanted her to come back and be their second baseman until PGF (August), at no charge, so we made the tough decision to leave Ohana and go play, and once you do that, there's no going back. We probably should have stayed (with Ohana), but there were a few factors that went into it that I don't want to get into (daddy ball situation with one of the coaches was pissing us off). So she had a nice run, went to PGF and then we went our separate ways because we wont' pay another dime to the owner of that org, but she got some cool hardware and 7 months of high level competition for no charge.

So I had known the coach for this new team (her current team) for a few years, back then his 18u team was better than it is now, but I did know he ran a good practice and was a very nice and fair guy. We also had a family friend who played for him, she went to college and couldn't say enough good things about him (getting to know him, we actually feel the exact same way, we like the guy a lot). Figuring that my girl had just turned 15 at the time, thought it'd be a cool challenge for her, and she immediately responded, her first weekend guest playing against batbusters and a decent firecrackers team, she had 6 hits in 3 games, including ITP HR, it seemed to fire her up, and she hasn't really missed a beat since then. Literally, our only problem with this team is that about half the girls don't belong in travel ball, to put it bluntly, they suck, they don't put in the work, and they don't care about the sport the way my girl does. It frustrates her, and she's really the one who wants to play for a better team, personally, I'd be happy with her staying, because we have fun seeing her stand out, she's never on the bench, many times gets an extra at bat or two because she's leadoff, and I actually think it's forced her to be better because she has to raise the bar for everyone else.

 

[steve1244]

Compliment the way you shared daughter's Journey with that team.
Agree with the observations you have shared. How has your daughter endured that situation? Is she comfortable with how the situation is? Or Is there anything you can add that might have helped her team situation wise?

It's a teammate of my daughter, not my daughter. Great girl, great family. She's been on the team since the start of the season and the coaches were open with her about what her path likely would be when she joined. She works hard and has gotten better. As a hitter though, in-game at bats are vital, and she just doesn't get many. All the lessons, tee work, front toss and batting cage sessions in the world don't replicate real at bats and, if you're not getting a decent amount of them, its (a) hard to improve quickly and (b) show positive results in a large enough sample size to get more opportunities. Are they comfortable? I don't know. Not playing is hard, especially when you're paying the same as everyone else on the team in terms of dollars and time. Travelling cross country and paying for a hotel and then playing 1-2 innings and batting twice in a 3 day tournament sucks butt.

I will say that this is a much different decision when you're 13 as opposed to 15. At 13, i.e, first year 14s, if you want to bet on yourself and be optimistic that a steep upward development curve will occur, that's more realistic and, in my opinion, a safer bet than at first year 16s, because you have more time to try to pay off the gamble, meaning that she has two seasons to see if she can turn into a solid rotation hitter on this team when 16s start. By contrast, at first year 16s, there's a significantly more compressed amount of time to make big things happen as a hitter/position player, unless the player has a high floor and comes out of the gate decently hot with the bat.

 

[RADcatcher]

.




So I had known the coach for this new team (her current team) for a few years, back then his 18u team was better than it is now, but I did know he ran a good practice and was a very nice and fair guy. We also had a family friend who played for him, she went to college and couldn't say enough good things about him (getting to know him, we actually feel the exact same way, we like the guy a lot). Figuring that my girl had just turned 15 at the time, thought it'd be a cool challenge for her, and she immediately responded, her first weekend guest playing against batbusters and a decent firecrackers team, she had 6 hits in 3 games, including ITP HR, it seemed to fire her up, and she hasn't really missed a beat since then.

Literally, our only problem with this team is that about half the girls don't belong in travel ball, to put it bluntly, they suck, they don't put in the work, and they don't care about the sport the way my girl does. It frustrates her,

I imagine that frustrates the coach as well. Unfortunately coaches are limited to the type of players they can pick up and they have to work with them while they're either developing them or filtering them out of the situation.

and she's really the one who wants to play for a better team, personally, I'd be happy with her staying, because we have fun seeing her stand out, she's never on the bench, many times gets an extra at bat or two because she's leadoff, and I actually think it's forced her to be better because she has to raise the bar for everyone else.

Good read!

 

[RADcatcher]

It's a teammate of my daughter, not my daughter. Great girl, great family. She's been on the team since the start of the season and the coaches were open with her about what her path likely would be when she joined. She works hard and has gotten better. As a hitter though, in-game at bats are vital, and she just doesn't get many. All the lessons, tee work, front toss and batting cage sessions in the world don't replicate real at bats and, if you're not getting a decent amount of them, its (a) hard to improve quickly and (b) show positive results in a large enough sample size to get more opportunities. Are they comfortable? I don't know. Not playing is hard, especially when you're paying the same as everyone else on the team in terms of dollars and time. Travelling cross country and paying for a hotel and then playing 1-2 innings and batting twice in a 3 day tournament sucks butt.

I will say that this is a much different decision when you're 13 as opposed to 15. At 13, i.e, first year 14s, if you want to bet on yourself and be optimistic that a steep upward development curve will occur, that's more realistic and, in my opinion, a safer bet than at first year 16s, because you have more time to try to pay off the gamble, meaning that she has two seasons to see if she can turn into a solid rotation hitter on this team when 16s start. By contrast, at first year 16s, there's a significantly more compressed amount of time to make big things happen as a hitter/position player, unless the player has a high floor and comes out of the gate decently hot with the bat.

Lots of great perspective in your words! Thanks for sharing

 

[Corleone]

It was commented earlier that the Op daughter has already made connections with colleges. The question should be asked were those connections made through the coach on this B team? Are those colleges part of the daughter's academic goals? Perhaps the coach is paying attention being a good advocate for the player.

Not directly but I'm going to say yes because he's put us in position for these schools to see her. There's been a few connections made at showcases, a D2 school talked to her, and a top 10 NAIA team was very interested, they even pulled her off the field while she was on base and they had to use a pinch runner, the coach had watched her for two days it seems and they have also been in contact through email.
The team also sets up sportsrecruits accounts for it's players, which we had no idea about, and my daughter has been very active emailing schools and posting her highlights and skills video. She's had a lot of interest including a d3 team which says they can get her full scholarship from her grades, and a few prestigious academic schools with decent teams have also been in touch with her a lot. Without the coach pushing his players to do this, I don't think we'd have been as proactive as we have been, and I have to give the coach a lot of credit for this, his focus is on getting the girls to a school that fits them and it's one of the reasons I really don't want to leave.

The more I write in this thread, the more strongly I feel about giving this team more time and sticking around.

 

[uncdrew]

That is the very reason I always say hitting has to be your #1 position then whatever other position you play is #2 only exception being for some older age group pitchers. "If you can hit you can play"

Yup. Teams are looking for hitters and pitchers.