Saw something mind-boggling the other night.
I was watching a 16u/18u combined tryout for a local travel team because one of my HS players was trying out. The team is decent, but nobody's heard of them if they're not from around here.
This was their second tryout day, and there were at least two other nearby teams with a tryout that day, so their numbers were down. They had about a dozen 16u and maybe a half dozen 18u there, not counting a few players who were already on their teams and not really trying out. I overheard a parent saying there were many more the previous day. They had six coaches.
In two hours, the player I was there to watch ran home to first once, second to home once, fielded 4-5 ground balls, 2 fly balls (and one that the coach dribbled into the outfield), laid down two bunts, swung the bat five times, and threw five pitches after about a 2-minute pitching warm-up period. Oh, she got one extra fly ball and two or three extra grounders because everybody not hitting was all over the field like the MLB Home Run Derby. These numbers are the same for everyone who was trying out, though the players already on the team got more reps in the field.
Three of the coaches did nothing except, I guess, "evaluate." One coach who could barely catch a ball played first and tried to pitch front toss but couldn't do an arm circle and just lobbed the ball in at about 25-30 mph from about 40 feet away. Two different coaches hit infield/outfield and neither could reliably hit the ball to the outfield.
After the tryout, my player correctly said that it was a waste of time and she should've gone to one of the other tryouts. This team was her first choice based on proximity and what she saw when she played against them this year. Now they're not even on her list.
I'm not sure if they already have their teams selected and that's why they ran such an unorganized, useless tryout, but I've seen probably 10 different teams and their tryouts over the past few years and this one was by far the worst. I walked away from it thinking 2-3 of the girls I saw there were not travel players. One girl was a decent pitcher. And the rest, who the heck knows.
I was watching a 16u/18u combined tryout for a local travel team because one of my HS players was trying out. The team is decent, but nobody's heard of them if they're not from around here.
This was their second tryout day, and there were at least two other nearby teams with a tryout that day, so their numbers were down. They had about a dozen 16u and maybe a half dozen 18u there, not counting a few players who were already on their teams and not really trying out. I overheard a parent saying there were many more the previous day. They had six coaches.
In two hours, the player I was there to watch ran home to first once, second to home once, fielded 4-5 ground balls, 2 fly balls (and one that the coach dribbled into the outfield), laid down two bunts, swung the bat five times, and threw five pitches after about a 2-minute pitching warm-up period. Oh, she got one extra fly ball and two or three extra grounders because everybody not hitting was all over the field like the MLB Home Run Derby. These numbers are the same for everyone who was trying out, though the players already on the team got more reps in the field.
Three of the coaches did nothing except, I guess, "evaluate." One coach who could barely catch a ball played first and tried to pitch front toss but couldn't do an arm circle and just lobbed the ball in at about 25-30 mph from about 40 feet away. Two different coaches hit infield/outfield and neither could reliably hit the ball to the outfield.
After the tryout, my player correctly said that it was a waste of time and she should've gone to one of the other tryouts. This team was her first choice based on proximity and what she saw when she played against them this year. Now they're not even on her list.
I'm not sure if they already have their teams selected and that's why they ran such an unorganized, useless tryout, but I've seen probably 10 different teams and their tryouts over the past few years and this one was by far the worst. I walked away from it thinking 2-3 of the girls I saw there were not travel players. One girl was a decent pitcher. And the rest, who the heck knows.
