Guest players

[TimothyJ]

Thats a hypothetical question, right?

Even when you NEED a player to fill a gap, you will have almost every parent on the team complain.

The girls may not care,unless they are shafted on playing time already. The parents will resent her, and probably treat her parents a bit coldly too, not like the others.

If you have parents who are already malcontent about DD playing time, they will be very vocal and try to instigate dissent amont others. Money, especially comes up. How much did she pay, did she pay like everyone else, are others footing her costs?, etc.

Feel free to do it if you expect the girl to be a future part of the team next year. Consider the repercussions if its only truly for one tournament.

Actually, it's not so hypothetical. My daughter was asked to play in a tournament last weekend, because the team only had 8 players that could go. She agreed, we went, and the players treated her great. The parents treated me great too, BTW.

I figured no big deal, one time thing. But now the coach has asked if she can do it again.

Now, please believe me when I say this... There is ZERO chance of her taking away playing time from another girl on this team. My daughter does not want to play travel ball, and even if she did, would be the weakest player on the team.

This is purely filling in for someone, where otherwise the team may not be able to play at all ( I believe this team only has 10 girls on its roster at the moment). My question is really based on thinking that if this occurred 3, 4, or more times, then the parents would start to expect a financial commitment (maybe rightfully so, and that would be fine with me if that's customary )

And I really appreciate your feedback.

 

[mudbug]

Here's a philosophical question. Your team is going to Nationals of one flavor of another. You have enough to play but are worried about having subs, so you invite a couple of guest players to come along.

How much do you play the guest players? Do you use them as fillers/subs, or do you play them all the time since they're doing your team a favor by coming along?

This is what I was referring to. You have enough players. It is certainly different if you dont.

But it is certainly different when you pick up a very good player too JUST FOR NATIONALS. A girl that will bat in the top of the lineup much of the time instead of someone else, and start at a position sometimes, (any position is taking away from someone else when you have enough already)

And we are talking about Nationals too, a weeklong stay , very $$, everyone is spending hundreds to thousands of dollars. In many cases the parents raised funds during theyear to pay for it, and when an outsider waltz's in , takes playing time from their DD, they get upset if they think the funds they raised are paying for her to do that.

Basically, if you dont have enough players, no problem. If you have barely enough players and bring in a couple of weaker ones to be there "just in case", and play them sparingly, probably no problem either.

But if you have enough players , but want a little more complete team for nationals, or a couple of "just in case someone gets hurt, etc" and bring in good players, better than avg on the team already, expect some parental strife.

 

[Coach Al]

Unless you really need the extra players to avoid the possibility of forfeit I would say: " dance with the girl you brought to the dance."

 

[SnocatzDad]

This is a big part of why we increased the roster from 11 to 13 this year. Last year we had a kid ( catcher) get hurt during HS and she was unable to play almost the entire summer season. Late June #1 catcher sprains her catching thumb and now we're down to 9 healthy and 2 so-so. We asked three kids to come to Nationals with us and day before we left another regular starter breaks a finger. So we took fourteen kids to Nationals with 11 healthy, 3 marginal. At Nationals one of the marginals, breaks her ankle sliding into a base in pool play. Got everyone playing time and at bats, but it still was a challenge to our team chemistry and wouldn't want to repeat if avoidable.

 

[alexander58]

Philosophically, I think if you are going to nationals you take the team that got you the berth and use those players. Guest players are for only if you are short handed.

If I'm a parent of one of the players that have been with the team from day one and the coach brings guest players and that cuts into my kids playing time, I'm going to be fuming. As a coach I totally respect that perspective.

+1 This is a slippery slope. Play with the group that got you there. If I had to pick someone up, I'd be very careful how I played them. You'd have to be upfront about how much they'd play. I'd script out substitution patterns.