Top 5 signs you're on a bad LL or travel team/league

[songtitle]

The travel vs. LL debate will never end.

As others have said, there are good and bad LL, AS, and travel teams.

We really should have a discussion about the Top 5 warning signs that you're on a bad LL or travel team, or you are having a bad experience. It's easy for rookie parents to get sucked into a bad situation and not realize what's happening right away.

Let's kick this off with a list.
1. Both parents are 5' tall, and you are paying $500 per month for a showcase team. (Or, your HS son has been paying for pitching lessons for years and he throws 75 mph - I know many like this)
2. Your kid is pitching > 8 innings per week. It's flattering. Son is the hero. But, he will never make it to HS.
3. Your kid isn't playing much.
4. The coach yells at kids in a demeaning way (ex. during a game "I will get someone else to play shortstop"). I know good coaches that yell. Know the difference.
5. You are playing bad teams all the time.

[AdamInNY]

game to practice ratio is out of whack (2 to 1?)

[TexAg]

team brings in "ringers" for tournaments.

[HeinekenMan]

Your child shows no improvement and has attended every practice and game. That last part is important. I have had a few kids who never showed improvement, but it was because mom and dad didn't bring those kids to practice more than once in awhile.

[DThompson]

1. You have twice as may coaches in the stands than you do on the field
2. Your 3B coach has a minimum of 10 touches prior to his indicator
3. Your 1B coach is also keeping score or taking pictures
4. One of your dads is recruiting kids to play on a start up team :hyper:

[brandtb1]

What about the lady in the article that got her kids off the team they started as soon as there was an opening on the better team. That would be a sing of a bad team to me.

[TexAg]

4. One of your dads is recruiting kids to play on a start up team

icon2.gif

blue star for you Sir!

[CircleChange11]

The coach focuses more on what tournaments you play in and what cool teams you play against rather than how well your team plays.

This has been the big one to me. Don;t tell me you played at such-n-such stadium and against that great AAA team and expect me to be excited that you lost 16-0 in 2 INN. You simply helped fund the other team's program and success ... don;t brag about it, just send them a donation next year and save everyone else the time and trouble.

Anytime your coach puts more effort into the bags/uniforms than they do in practices.

The team never practices, but the coach always has his kid at the diamonds, and perhaps both coaches have their kids together practices, but not the entire team.

[azmatsfan]

The practices consist of the coach tossing bp to one hitter while the rest of the team just shags balls.

[The Uncoach]

The practices consist of the coach tossing bp to one hitter while the rest of the team just shags balls.

That's funny. I was just going to post that one up.

[ralanprod]

Anytime your coach puts more effort into the bags/uniforms than they do in practices.

My son played for a bad team a couple of seasons ago that had really nice uniforms... They added really nice embroidered bags this season, and had an even worse record. This year I'm predicting customized cleats and a winless record.

Here's a few more signs:

1: Your team gets victimized more than once in a game by the hidden ball trick. (happened)
2: Coach tells pitcher good job for striking out the side in an inning where he walked four consecutive batters without throwing a strike, gave up 3 hits, and threw 50 pitches. (happened)
3: Coach has to replace pitcher throwing a no hitter because he couldn't remember that he already made a mound visit to "re-align" his defense. (happened)
4: Despite the fact that you are going to be moving up a field size in the fall season, coach practices the entire summer on the smaller field.(yep - happened)

and a huge one to watch out for (at least in TB)

5: More than half of the roster leaves every season. A couple of kids leaving is typical - more than that requires careful investigation. (lesson learned)

[mudvnine]

1. Coaches' kids are in the bottom 10% of talent on the team, yet play 90% of the innings.

2. A player is deemed a "pitcher", and only "has to show up for his starts", yet he pays the same as the "position players" who play every game.

3. They roster 18 or more players on the team, and collect $70 per player for a 4-game, "tournament", but are simply playing a double-header against the same team on Saturday and another team on Sunday.....at a local park, where both teams just split umpire fees.

4. Where the "B", "C", and "D" teams basically pays/subsidies the expenses of the academy's "A" team that travels all over the country.

5. All players must pay a hefty "tryout fee", but all players are placed on some level of team regardless (unless they are incredibly hopeless), so #3 can be accomplished.....while the "A" team is made up of players that were recruited without a tryout or fee paid.

[shake-n-bake]

Red Flags---

1. Defense is lowest priority.

2. Too few pitchers / overuse for sake of winning or promoting a few kids rather than investing time and maybe taking some lumps even developing more pitchers.

3. Habitually "Hiding" kids with no more than minimum play requirement at corner OF positions.

4. Coaches over prioritizing the importance of certain positions to the point they clearly concede or accept poor play at others.

5. Coaches happier with (or intentionally employ a strategy where) a 10-0 win mostly by way of risky base running than a 3-2 loss where the team showed signs of executing all phases of the game at a level seen by more mature kids.

6. Excessive premature talk about comparisons between players, projecting, evaluating, etc. in lieu of talk about raising everyone's game.

7. Coaches more focused on how a handful of players will get the win than creating a climate where everyone feel like everyone contributes.

8. Coaches not stressing that as the game becomes more and more competitive the ability or failure to execute fundamental plays is a very big deal - there's many a game won or lost by "small" plays that sometimes don't even show up in a score book. The game's not about no hitters and grand slam HRs and web gems most of the time. Basically, failing to adequately teach the game.

9. Keeping an ace pitcher in the game favoring mercy ruling an opponent in a shortened game rather than giving additional playing time to lesser players or moving kids around and experimenting / allowing other kids to get time at the coveted positions of P / C / SS / CF etc.

10. Gross lack of knowledge of fundamentals of hitting, fielding, and base running. The coach should be appreciated for his volunteerism and willingness to take on the headache parts of coaching. It should be understood that the guy's probably a good plumber or IT manager and not Whitey Herzog. Still it doesn't take a lot to poke around on the web, or pay attention to what better ball players do, or pick up a book, or even find a site like this one and get a clue. I think it's fair to expect the coach to have "some" level of knowledge that helps the kids become better players. No one should be coaching with the sole intent of looking after and promoting the career of numero-uno Jr.

An entire league can look something like the above. There's familiarity most of the time between not only the kids, but the parents. In fact I'd venture to speculate that most leagues look something like this because the coaches are uber-competing on behalf of themselves and their kids.

[CircleChange11]

My son played for a bad team a couple of seasons ago that had really nice uniforms... They added really nice embroidered bags this season, and had an even worse record. This year I'm predicting customized cleats and a winless record.

One of the big decisions ot be made is whether to go with a 2 color hat or tri-color hat.

6. The only time the players hear the coach say anything is AFTER a mistake has been made. No praise, no reminders, no strategy calls, etc. The players just need to know what to do and "be perfect".

Coaches happier with (or intentionally employ a strategy where) a 10-0 win mostly by way of risky base running than a 3-2 loss where the team showed signs of executing all phases of the game at a level seen by more mature kids.

No one on the team can hit with authority, but they can all play "monkey in the middle" and take home on the throw back to the pitcher, y'know 'great coaching' stuff.

My personal favorite ... 9-10U kid throws 105 pitches in game 1 and then catches the entire game in game 2 (same day, of course).

Keeping an ace pitcher in the game favoring mercy ruling an opponent in a shortened game rather than giving additional playing time to lesser players or moving kids around and experimenting / allowing other kids to get time at the coveted positions of P / C / SS / CF etc.

Happens all the time.

Along with "the more games you play, the better the kids will develop."

[jbolt_2000]

Red Flags---

9. Keeping an ace pitcher in the game favoring mercy ruling an opponent in a shortened game rather than giving additional playing time to lesser players or moving kids around and experimenting / allowing other kids to get time at the coveted positions of P / C / SS / CF etc.

While I agree, I think this has more to do with how the tournament is ran, than with the coaches. I have learned that tournaments are little different depending on regions, but here in Northern California, a team plays two games on Saturday and they are seeded for Sunday play based on how many runs they scored vs gave up.

So if you go 2-0 on Saturday, winning 3-2 and 6-4, but the another team went 2-0 with scores of 7-0 and 13-2, then they will be seeded higher and get a pass on the first game Sunday, virtually putting them in the championship game (depending on number of teams).

I am not sure if there is a better way to seed the teams, but this is why you see teams trying to shorten games and run rule the teams that they can.