AA little league assessments

[Anonymous]

I've coached little league before, and here is how our draft worked (AAA and above - we didn't draft for anything lower):

1. We never had any kids play up - kept all kids at proper age level. If someone wanted to play higher level ball they played travel.

2. Our main goal was to balance out pitchers and catchers between teams. If in a given year we had 5 teams, we wanted 3 or 4 kids who could reliably pitch 3 innings on each team.

3. After that my teams always chose players based on getting good kids and good parents onto our team. There were a few moms who always helped out with practices and games, and their kids magically got drafted pretty high.

4. Kids with good attitudes get drafted high, regardless of skill.

5. Older kids almost always get drafted before younger ones.

[Anonymous]

14:45 - thank you so much for the comments! That was very thoughtful of you and it helped me understand more about it. I hope I meet you around and we can become friends IRL My husband told DC1 about it last night, and he took it ok. This was our first time having a kid in a level that does the draft, and while I don't really mind at all if he plays AA, I suppose I feel bad about how uneducated I was about it - in order to prepare him better in advance.

He played t-ball in K, and I didn't think he should stop after that - I thought he should keep playing - but I didn't force him. And this is what happens when you don't listen to your mom (ha) and don't play in grades 1-3 and you're not naturally the world's greatest athlete. :-/ The way I read the rules was that league age 10 should do AAA unless you get special permission to play down at AA. It didn't seem like I should have requested special permission for AA, so this is what happened. It is what it is and it's a learning experience. I am ok with adversity - I think it helps you develop grit. LOL or something like that.

[Anonymous]

LL Mom, don’t beat yourself up about short-circuiting your child’s playing career before he hits his teens. It sounds like playing AA instead of AAA will give him the chance to be one of the stronger players on the team, which can be really great and a terrific confidence-booster.

Not sure about your league, but ours will sometimes need to call up players if a higher-level team is short-handed due to injury, vacation, illness, etc. Sometimes it’s temporary, for a game or two, sometimes it’s a longer-term thing.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Another question slightly related: Our son did Single A last year (league age 7). Most of his teammates were also league age 7 (1st grade). The coach decided to keep their son back one more year in Single A as an 8 year old, and convinced most of the team to do so as well. Isn't that some type of anomaly? The league guidelines state that Single A is primarily for 6-7 year olds, and that any 8 year olds or advanced 5 year olds need to contact the player agent. Many of them are ready for AA; I think they're just trying to build a "super-team" of 8 year olds by red-shirting them.

I have kids that play with WSLL. I assume each league has their own age guidelines. I have a first grader who is playing single A. As I understand it, in second grade half play A and half play AA. It can go either way.

My oldest just had his first eval (AAA) which I understand is really to even out the teams. I have no idea how he did (and I don’t really care assuming they take him for AAA!). We couldn’t watch. I understand evals start at AA.

My 8 year old just had his first AAA tryout too with WSLL! Good luck to your kids this season!

Thanks for the nice note. I hope your kid was drafted! Mine wasn’t drafted for AAA ugh (even though he’s that age group). I feel kind of bad for him but he played t-ball in K and then didn’t play baseball again until 4th grade so that what happens... oh well.

That happens, but it can often end being a good thing as they get more time to develop their baseline skills and get to play the role of leader on the lower level team.

I assume you are one of the WSLL people who posted earlier.

In WSLL, they draft majors first. Once kids make majors, they stay on that team until they age out. Last year, they had a lot of majors kids aging out (I think my kid's team had 7/12 aging out) along with several military kids who moved away.

So the returning majors kids already have their spots out of the 12 kid rosters. I am just guessing, but based off the 6th and 7th graders who aged out, there were probably around 40 to 50 available spots between National and American league this season. I think there were around 90 kids total on the try out roster for those spots, so around half +/- of the 10 to 12 year olds trying out for majors did not make it. My kid did not, so he and those other kids drop into the AAA draft. There were some very strong players in the 10 to 11 year old range who did not get drafted (happens every year). Every year, there are a handful of 12 year olds who do not get drafted into majors. They automatically get a spot on a AAA team. I believe the 11 year olds who do not get drafted for majors automatically get a spot on a AAA team too.

So of the 120 spots for AAA, probably around 1/4 or more were already allocated to 11 and 12 year olds not drafted to majors, and another chunk will go to the 9 and 10 year olds not drafted to majors who played AAA last season

So that leaves half or a little more than half of the remaining spots for those kids who are either returning from AAA (were not strong enough to try out for majors) or moving up from AA.

The AAA tryout group is always huge, far bigger than their are spots for. A big portion of those kids will end up on AA teams.

Your kid might have been great or had a decent try out, but especially if he was on the younger end or coming out of A or AA, then the odds were against him getting drafter his first go around.

Also, I am not a coach and have never been part of the draft. These are just my observations after having gone through this process as a parent for 6 years.

Thank you and thanks, 14:11. That was very insightful. So it seems there could be age-appropriate kids who never make Majors?

My kid was drafted into AAA- he is 8 and tall but when we’ve seen AAA kids, they all seem so big and strong. Intimidating!

Yes, there are 12 year olds who do not get drafted for majors. I know of at least 2.

I believe they are the only kids not drafted who get a phone call vs just an email.

I think they (12s only) are given an option of playing majors, knowing in advance they may not get more than the minimum playing time required, or playing AAA, knowing in advance they will not be allowed to pitch.

One kid that I know played down in AAA. The other played up in majors, was able to fully participate in practices, but only got the minimum at bats and slightly over the minimum innings. I don't know how the one playing down felt about the experience, but the one playing up felt positive about it, even with little playing time. The coaching was strong on the team he was placed on, and he improved through practice.

They want the kids to be able to have a great time playing ball while learning and improving. Sometimes that means not playing where you hoped to play.

[Anonymous]

I signed my 11 year old to try out for AAA. If he does well, could he be moved up to Majors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I signed my 11 year old to try out for AAA. If he does well, could he be moved up to Majors?

No.

[Anonymous]

Hi - I am the mom of the kid of the League age 10 kid (younger side - with a birthday two weeks before the league age cut off date) - that tried out and didn't make AAA this spring. (In kindergarten he played spring T-ball, then did not want to play at all in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade - then wanted to play again and in 4th grade played AA fall ball - and we thought for the spring since he was league age 10, that he was "supposed" to try out for AAA). Anyway - I just wanted to report back in case anyone else is in the same situation. In fall ball they don't keep stats on the kids - so, I am sure it would have been "helpful" if he had some stats from the prior spring when going into the draft (but he didn't). Anyway - he has a great coach in AA and a lot of the kids on the team live in our neighborhood (albeit in grades 2 and 3, not 4) - but he's having a fun season and getting to play pitcher, catcher, and really every position and I know he wouldn't have had that chance to get the experience playing all the positions in AAA. He was also placed on the call up list and did get to play an AAA game, too, with a bunch of his 4th grade friends and it went fine and he really enjoyed it. Overall it's been a totally fine, a good season, and we are all happy. I just wanted to let people know if they're ever in the same situation! It will probably all still be for the best!