Best Youth Draft Process

[HeinekenMan]

Kids,

I'm curious about which draft process you feel is best for youth baseball leagues and why.

The league I'm in now (Dixie) has a protect system. In the 9-10 division, each manager can protect four kids. Coaches make calls to the parents before the start of the season and conspire to build super teams. Parents have to sign sheets saying that their kids will play for Coach X. Naturally, one coach protected the four (perceived) best plus got a talented sibling via a rule that allows a brother to be unavailable to other coaches until a certain draft round. The parents like this arrangement because they know their kids will win a lot of games. I assume it also joins the best players with the best coaches.

It seems like their approach will lead to some lopsided games. My team lost 13-3 to that superteam. Frankly, it should have been much closer. I could see my team winning the next game. But that's only because 10 kids followed me from Little League, and I was able to protect four of them. One poor manager didn't know any kids and didn't protect a single player.

[DerekD]

I've coached in both types of leagues and think teams should start from scratch every year. What we did was sit down as head coaches and determine what the top 20 players were (because we had 4 teams). This made sure that the talent was spread out by getting 5 of those on each team. There wasn't a big difference in the rest of the players in our league. The games were pretty good most of the time. It worked out well for us because we knew all the players for the most part.

[HeinekenMan]

Starting from scratch seems like the best approach. Parity ensures that teams play full games instead of games shortened by the mercy rule. It also keeps the most people happy. And that can determine turnover rate for a league and whether kids have a good experience and continue to play the game we all love. Plus, your top players will be able to play a bigger role on a team if they aren't blocked by a teammate. If you take my team as an example, there is a kid on my team who could be a really good shortstop. But he's at first base on my team. I already have three kids who can play shortstop.

[d-mac]

Our Fall ball league has the best system. Two coaches kids max per team. The league rates the coaches kids at tryouts and the coach loses a draft pick for each kid. So a team with two good players won't draft until the 3rd round. Makes for a very balanced league.

[HeinekenMan]

D-mac, are you saying that the league only takes a draft pick when a coach's kid rates highly? That seems extremely fair. I know of instances where a coach has a kid who wouldn't be a top pick, and it would hamper balancing teams for the coach to pick his son in the first round. As a rule, though, the coach usually has a talented son/daughter.

[rodnok1]

I've coached in both types of leagues and think teams should start from scratch every year. What we did was sit down as head coaches and determine what the top 20 players were (because we had 4 teams). This made sure that the talent was spread out by getting 5 of those on each team. There wasn't a big difference in the rest of the players in our league. The games were pretty good most of the time. It worked out well for us because we knew all the players for the most part.

I like this idea, too bad the coaches around here conspire to stack the teams from year to year(you get the good team this and other guy gets the good team next year). If the coaches around here were interested in actually having a balanced league or cared if the kids have a good time and learn it would work. We roll any eligible players from last years team into next, so an unlucky coach(or kids actually) get bad teams 2 years guaranteed.

My take besides DerekD's is to eliminate the coaches from the process completely. A second idea is when they are done with the draft they are assigned a random team(only the HC's also) so if they stack a team they might just get the worst team anyways. I think the teams should be from ground up every year also.
Of course this can bite you since you'd prob get stuck with the parents you cannot stand every year.... and no way to get away either.

[clayadams]

I don't know all the details of the process here as I'm not a coach. I know this much, you're not allowed to have the same coach again. I don't know how long that lasts though, if it's just one season or multiple. If you don't want your kid to be on a specific coaches team, you just call the office and tell them. I don't think there are any "rules" to that. At the beginning of each season they have an "evaluation", so they can rate the kids. All coaches are present and the rating is done as a group. I figure the newer coaches get the biggest shaft because the coaches that have been around longer know the players. Typically the best teams are made up of a whole group of 2nd round picks vs the guy that uses a lot of his points on a few first round picks. I know last season my kid was on the #1 team and had a major impact on it because no one knew her and her abilities. It wasn't that fair of a balanced team. This season, she's on, IMO, one of the far lesser teams. I honestly don't care as it's rec and the kids are there to have fun. She's never complained about kids that have more and less ability. I'm actually really enjoying seeing kids that are all new to this and seeing the ones developing a passion for it. Personally, I like this method a lot.

[HeinekenMan]

In both leagues I've been a part of, you can't request a coach. One league allows parents to name one coach their kid will not play for. And that coach can't pick the player. At our draft, I didn't hear a board member mention any kid that had made such a request.

In our tryout, the league president stood behind a screen and tossed the ball underhand to the batters. That made it very difficult to determine which kids were the best hitters. It gave a huge advantage to the coaches who know the players. I don't think it was intentional on the part of the league president, but I'm going to insist that he throw BP pitches next season. My little girl can nail an underhand toss, and she's three years too young for this division.

[clayadams]

Well, I think in any situation where the coaches get to "draft" their players, you're going to have that happen. The ones who have been around with the kids since they were 5 will know all of them. I like the idea of all the coaches rating the players, then a third party assigns the players to teams attempting to evenly distribute skill levels based on the "skill number" given each player. There's no incentive for any coach to cheat or lie about any given kid, since they know they can't pick that kid. Purely thinking out loud here. Of course, this doesn't take into affect small town politics where "favors" can be pulled. We have a rather large league by small town standards with a max of 10 teams for minors. We actually have a waiting list. It's still a small town though and I'm quite sure favors can be pulled.

[d-mac]

D-mac, are you saying that the league only takes a draft pick when a coach's kid rates highly? That seems extremely fair. I know of instances where a coach has a kid who wouldn't be a top pick, and it would hamper balancing teams for the coach to pick his son in the first round. As a rule, though, the coach usually has a talented son/daughter.

No, every coach will lose two draft picks. The league rates the coaches kids, so a team with two good coaches kids will lose around their 1st and 2nd pick, a team with two bad players will lose around their 8th and 9th round picks. It is very fair. The guys that run the league also coach travel ball teams and they bring in league and travel ball coaches to judge tryouts for each age group. That way if a kid has a bad tryout, they still may make him a 1st round pick if they know he was a good player from league or tournament ball. This is the 13th year of the league, and so far in machine pitch there has never been an undefeated team in the league counting the postseason. In some of the kid pitch leagues it has happened, but even that is pretty rare. Just to give you some examples, there was an undefeated team in the regular season of machine pitch last year, (around 10 games) they got run ruled in the 1st round by the 8 seed. I had a team win the league one year in kid pitch, we were around 10-4, and I think we had 9 or 10 one run games.

[HeinekenMan]

No, every coach will lose two draft picks. The league rates the coaches kids, so a team with two good coaches kids will lose around their 1st and 2nd pick, a team with two bad players will lose around their 8th and 9th round picks. It is very fair. The guys that run the league also coach travel ball teams and they bring in league and travel ball coaches to judge tryouts for each age group. That way if a kid has a bad tryout, they still may make him a 1st round pick if they know he was a good player from league or tournament ball. This is the 13th year of the league, and so far in machine pitch there has never been an undefeated team in the league counting the postseason. In some of the kid pitch leagues it has happened, but even that is pretty rare. Just to give you some examples, there was an undefeated team in the regular season of machine pitch last year, (around 10 games) they got run ruled in the 1st round by the 8 seed. I had a team win the league one year in kid pitch, we were around 10-4, and I think we had 9 or 10 one run games.

That's really neat. It sounds like a fun league.

[marklaker]

Blind draft will produce the greatest parity, with post draft adjustments made for the coaches kids if necessary.

[The Flush]

No, every coach will lose two draft picks. The league rates the coaches kids, so a team with two good coaches kids will lose around their 1st and 2nd pick, a team with two bad players will lose around their 8th and 9th round picks. It is very fair. The guys that run the league also coach travel ball teams and they bring in league and travel ball coaches to judge tryouts for each age group. That way if a kid has a bad tryout, they still may make him a 1st round pick if they know he was a good player from league or tournament ball. This is the 13th year of the league, and so far in machine pitch there has never been an undefeated team in the league counting the postseason. In some of the kid pitch leagues it has happened, but even that is pretty rare. Just to give you some examples, there was an undefeated team in the regular season of machine pitch last year, (around 10 games) they got run ruled in the 1st round by the 8 seed. I had a team win the league one year in kid pitch, we were around 10-4, and I think we had 9 or 10 one run games.

This sounds similar to what our team did for the first time this year and it yielded relatively equal teams. I think we will continue with the method for now on. We don't have outside coaches evaluate the coaches kids but instead all the coaches ranked each others kids by secret ballot and then the results are discussed to make sure there is relative agreement. We also have teams without a returning pitcher have higher picks than those with returning pitchers. Our team lost our 2nd and 4th round picks while some others lost their 1st and 2nd. One team lost their 5th and 6th and becuase neither of their kids were returning pitchers, they got the first overall pick to ensure they could draft at least one returning pitcher. We don't rate the entire draft, only coaches kids, which means you still have to either know the kids or evaluate them well in the very brief tryout. Our best draft pick ended up being a new kid in town that was skipped because nobody knew him that we got in the 5th or 6th round. You still have to draft smart though. The one team that had the first pick did not pick well after the first 2 rounds because they just took their kids friends instead of the best available.

My son is playing soccer this fall and his rec league lets kids request a coach, so a lot of teams stay together year after year. My son had been playing football the last few years and did not have a team to return to, but was still able to request a coach he knew from futsal. This system results in a few stacked teams and a few bad ones. I don't know how the season will end up, but in the first game he played goalkeeper in the first half and never touched the ball the entire half becuase the ball rarely entered his half of the field. In the second half another kid was in goal and only touched the ball once. The game ended 7-0. That's not very fair and probably stunts the development of all the kids, including the more talented ones.

[mudvnine]

No, every coach will lose two draft picks. The league rates the coaches kids, so a team with two good coaches kids will lose around their 1st and 2nd pick, a team with two bad players will lose around their 8th and 9th round picks. It is very fair. The guys that run the league also coach travel ball teams and they bring in league and travel ball coaches to judge tryouts for each age group. That way if a kid has a bad tryout, they still may make him a 1st round pick if they know he was a good player from league or tournament ball. This is the 13th year of the league, and so far in machine pitch there has never been an undefeated team in the league counting the postseason. In some of the kid pitch leagues it has happened, but even that is pretty rare. Just to give you some examples, there was an undefeated team in the regular season of machine pitch last year, (around 10 games) they got run ruled in the 1st round by the 8 seed. I had a team win the league one year in kid pitch, we were around 10-4, and I think we had 9 or 10 one run games.

The youth league that I coached in (and my sons played in) used a very similar system of the coaches' kids being the only ones that could be "protected", with a max of two.

They also did the ranking thing, with one additional thing that seemed to make sense.

If a coach's kid was on the "A" all-star team the previous season, he was automatically a "1st rounder" and a coach's kid on the "B" all-star team was an automatic "2nd rounder"......if the coach's kid didn't make an all-star team the previous season, he couldn't be rated any higher than a "3rd round" draft spot.

They enacted this rule, after several of the coaches would rank a kid as a "1st rounder", but then not think him good enough to vote him to an all-star team.....then suddenly, when the next season rolled around, they thought the kid was once again a "1st rounder". Nuh-uhh, not gonna do that.....:dismay:

Outside "raters" were never brought in, and while I can think of some typical, potential problems with it.....I like it, and think it's a pretty good idea.

[mudvnine]

Blind draft will produce the greatest parity, with post draft adjustments made for the coaches kids if necessary.

We tried that once, and it was more trouble than it was worth, trying to even go as far as drafting for positions and pitcher equality, then having the coaches receive their team by picking it out of a hat.

In theory it worked well, and the teams were pretty equal defensively, until we started moving/swapping coaches' kids. They simply moved the across the board to from one defensive "spot" to the other.

They forgot about the great differences that one defensive play can have over another at the plate. Worked out GREAT for me that year, but I immediately saw the problem with the system they tried to implement, even with the greatest of intentions.