Little League Player Advocate page

Much has been said of the system of allowing teams to pre assign 6 players in addition to players that automatically return to teams each year. These writings are from an objective standpoint and having been involved in the league 5 years now believe I can make some valid observations and even though also as a coach it might effect my future advantages or disadvantages are solely in the interest of discovery of the best and fair possible advantage for the player participants in the league which should be the most important. I also participated with my son and coached on a 1st place team last year so it is not from the standpoint bring these points to bear as personal complaints against the league. By these conditions listed below (but not entirely) it allowed our team (a second year team) to take %55 of all the wins out of 4 teams in our division. It is in the interest of the maximum experience for all players in the league and priority being placed on all of the players experience all being the key point and adjustments that would benefit all instead of any select few.

This system has been adopted by some leagues in Little League by superceding Little league rules and adopting local rules to allow this practice. It is the practice of allowing more players to be "frozen" than Little League rules intended that has created advantages and disadvantages more to the coaching of these teams and less to the players if all factors are considered. I consider what the players "end up with" more important than the coaches and revisions of this practice should be looked at as the league is essentially theirs.

Contentions for the purpose of this system is that it allows a league to be competitive with select leagues and term it semi-select. This allows coaches to bring in core teams of up to 6 players in an effort to allow coaches who have player followings come to the league and participate. Some years this has bolstered some divisions of the older groups because they will be more prone to have these teams that want to stay together looking for a league to participate in. I question the intent of some of these teams as being select and themselves being motivated by winning more than the experience of the players except if the experience be winning.

This practice applied to some divisions has accomplished what it intended to do in these instances and have bolstered these divisions in the amount of participants.

By allowing this practice to outside teams it became necessary for the league to allow this practice across the board for all divisions and the result has been a gradual slide to an imbalance in the teams leaving new ,inexperienced and less well known coaches coaches to deal with a severe lack of talent pool to populate their teams. It has become a popularity contest with the experienced coaches who have had success having top players gravitate to those teams and the new players and coaches left to the task of competing the best they can with the talent pool that is left after these teams populate. Experience speaking to coaches in other leagues through inter-league this last year is that the same situation exists and the coaches with reputation will command the players of talent first and make it extremely difficult for the other teams to compete. In this system everyone does not have the same chance as it has been contended. It causes the strong to be stronger and the weak to be weaker.

Little league rules in their purity were designed to allow only 3 coaches options or sons to be placed on the team automatically. The rest of the players would go into the draft and be distributed fairly in a draft system. Little league also allows for players to return to a team the following year.

With this system in place now for several years it has gradually undermined the system in it's purity and done two things to the disadvantage of the players and a certain exploitation at the expense of many players experience.

One is the teams that these players gravitate to have not only been able to lock up 6 of the top talent for the year. They have locked up the talent from the previous year by taking all of those players that they had the previous year most of which they selected the same way. After 2 years some of these teams will become nearly all all-Star teams in this way and several other teams will not have access to any of this pool. If only 2 teams in each division do this it locks out 20-36 players of the top of the pool.

Second it has created this same attitude among players that they will only play for these coaches and been taught now that they have that choice to refuse to play for a coach they are less sure of having a winning season. By removing that option it will allow to teach all players they should play where the are needed to create parity and not only where they can be reasonably sure they will win because the other top players will gravitate there also.

In reality I may even go as far to say the argument that we gain players with this method is not completely valid on a long term projection of the results the league reaps from it. Yes one year the tally might have been 5 teams but don't believe this can be substantiated as a consistent number from year to year. We lose as many or more coaches and players each year by them leaving discouraged and unwilling to return for another season of being outside "the loop" as "the loop" is a small circle and the teams that come in are very few compared to the amount of the teams that pull together some guys, go to draft and fill out the team and then learn they are competing against teams that are a majority all-star players. The law of averages is catching up and the teams that come in are fewer. The select teams come in "the loop" having solid lineups and in hopes of success more of the time than just buddies wanting to play together.

This system also leaves some teams completely destitute of talent when every year partially for these reasons we have more players showing up in good faith to try baseball and not enough coaches to go around. A team can be formed with no coach lobbying for it and void of the most important equalizer, pitchers. These teams are doomed to a season of ugly games and many times have a small return rate. A return to Pure Little League rules after a year would return a more even distribution to teams as returning players would be the second year of the talent they acquired in the draft the previous year of which less "freezes" were allowed.

Little League is designed to attempt to create fair and balanced baseball for the season and the main competition to be in the form of tournaments at the end of the season by taking all of the best players and forming tournament teams. Baseball is a very interchangeable sport and allows these teams to form and have highly competitive tournaments in this way. It is true long time experienced, winning and coaches of reputation will always have one up on newer coaches and core talent to play for them but the limit by Little League rules helps to balance and give everyone a chance.

NWGLL has tried to be Select and Little league at the same time and has succeeded in being more Select than Little League by creating this peril for upstart and new teams. It loses many players and coaches each year because they see the odds against being able to compete against these huddles of top players that are allowed to coalesce into subjectively all-star teams during the season. The loss win ratios between the top 2 teams and the bottom 2 teams in each division range from 6 to 1 to 2 to 1 averaging 3.5 to 1 for the 2002 season. 6 teams managed 3 or less wins for the entire season, 2 of which went winless.

Combined with a lack of safety nets or programs to help new coaches and insure there not teams left to train rookie pitchers when they compete with teams with sometimes as many as 7 pitchers of experience. This is leaving a great void in the overall experience for a majority of the players that come to have fun Playing baseball and to learn baseball.

I will stand by my initial comments that personal motivation is a factor when contesting of the rules as they were designed and less overall for the players. I have seen capitalization of any rules that can be to advantage. We did have more success in post season than in quite a while this but we also experienced a lack of success for more of our regular season teams than in a long time and the trade is in the interest of a much smaller percentage of good experience for most of our players.

This is my commentary page and I certainly do not expect that I know all of the facts but have recently gauged reaction to this issue and have found support for both sides of equal reply if not more by head count for purity of Little League rules. What I have found is that the side welcoming a purity of Little league rules have been for the players much more than the arguments against. The coaches side has come from those reputable coaches and so have not heard enough from the other side of the coaching fence except for my observations and witnessing in their defense so I welcome comments and discussion of value to add to this commentary and they will be posted with your permission if they are of reasonable debate and not reaction.

There are other solutions besides a revision of team formation rules such as the coaches that have the experience sacrifice time to cultivate new coaches. Support, Mentors and help to coaches new to the business of Little league. Sharing of the knowledge or the league purchasing training materials to further the knowledge our coaches. Caps on player freezes in a division when a division is lacking a coach to lobby for the formation of the team. A pitchers draft or rules to ensure a team does not go into a season without any experience in the most important balancing element. These must be implemented and then applied vigorously to offset the potential lopsided talent of the teams that can occur. These are much more difficult to accomplish because we rely on volunteers and to ask for more contribution of time can be less facilitative of realistic change.

In summary I feel passionate about the players experience and feel the league has a right to know and have input so I open the issue even with the warning to keep it a private issue. I do not feel it is. It is the players issue and we all work for them and so the parents and coaches of those players have the facts to be able to make responsible decisions for the league. As head of the participation committee I view this as my responsibility. This is my position not the leagues at this time and yes I do have a bias, the players, and yes I do have an agenda, the best possible experience for all so you may keep that in mind as you comment.

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-For exactly the reasons you listed my son did not play and I did not coach this past season. I believe that too many folks are win oriented and need to get an idea about what real teamwork and life situations are really about: take the bad with the good and learn to pull together for the common good. There are many select teams the "win win win" attitude parents can put their kids on and have the level of "success" that they deem necessary. Little League baseball is one of the few bastions of teamwork and diplomacy left.....horray for the return of the good rules!!

-We are new to the NWGLL. My son is a very good baseball player and has been recognized as an All-Star in other leagues, and has played select baseball. We are looking forward to playing NWGLL in the spring. I had no idea about this problem of lack of parity, until recently. The league certainly should do something about it, because one sure way to kill off a league is to create a situation where there are a small group of dominant teams and the others are punching bags. If some coaches want to horde "select" talent let them go to a select league where they can "pick on people your own size".

-The advantages of the current system that make it worth keeping include:

1. In the younger age groups (t-ball, american) where competition is not as important, it provides the ability to let neighborhood kids or schoolmates play together.

2. In the older age groups, it allows coaches to assure players which team they're going to be on, just like GABI, BBI, and Pony teams can do. That's an advantage for the players as well as the coach.

3. Number 2 above increases the number of teams in the league, making it more interesting for all involved. The first year we did this, in Seniors/Majors, we had 8 teams in both Seniors and Majors, where before we would have had 3. A number of these coaches and teams would have played in a different league if they couldn't have been assured of playing together