There's always somebody on the bench, and it's always the coach's fault.
It surprises me how many people seem to think the fees parents pay to a travel program buy them a deed to the shortstop position and the third spot in the batting order for the entire season.
If the money you paid is guaranteeing your kid a spot in the lineup, then by definition you are playing daddy ball.
If, on the other hand, you have affiliated with a competitive team, the fees bought an opportunity to compete.
If the player finds himself sitting on the bench the last three weeks of the season, it's an indication of what he did with that opportunity to compete.
It doesn't mean the coach is a jerk or a crook or a trophy-crazed hyper-competitive maniac.
As for those who say they'd go to another program the next year: yeah, that's pretty much the message the coach is sending.
This is not the way ringers work in the sense the OP is posting about.
The prototypical case analogous to the OP is an otherwise successful team that's advanced, or advancing, deep in some big tournament, Cooperstown, USSSA, PG, whatever. They then fly in some guy(s) who's not part of the normal roster to win the big game, benching perfectly capable regulars in the pursuit of a trophy/championship that has essentially no bearing on anyone's future. See the Bryce Harper example given above.
If everyone on the team is fine with it and informed ahead of time, I guess whatever floats your boat, but if an otherwise successful kid ends up riding the pine in the big game so some coach/organization can hang another plaque/banner on the wall, that's, frankly, horseshit at the levels of baseball we're talking about here and the parents paying for it (and the players who end up on the bench) have a valid beef.
JacJac,
The OP said nothing about advancing to higher level tournaments or deeper within the tournaments they were already signed up for, nothing about pursuit of trophies or championships and nothing about the performance levels of the players. When asked about promises the coach made about roster size or playing time, the OP only referred to the "general understanding" on teams in his area, which suggests there were no promises made.
So your imaginary prototypical scenario doesn't have much to do with this situation.
And one more thing: keep your language clean on these boards.
The OP made it pretty clear between the first post and his follow ups what the actual situation was, and what the standard was for player commitments at the level he was referring to, and there's a clear trophy-hunting implication given that the players involved are 13/14u.
Like OPs area, teams at that age in the Atlanta area are primarily developmental, and mostly built with the understanding that the players who sign up at the beginning are the team. Generally, those sorts of teams only add players in case of injury or, more rarely, players leaving. Occasionally they'll add POs for a longer tournament to cap off a season. Bringing in replacements to finish a season and bench guys who've been there from the beginning isn't done, at least on well run teams. FWIW, this is also the case at 15u Major for the organizations I've been involved with.
I do understand that there are teams essentially built out of these fly-in level players (more often at older age groups), and if everyone involved is on board with that, that's obviously fine. That's clearly not the case described in the OP. People don't generally sign their kids up to play mercenary-ball before HS, and often not in HS. That the proliferation of baseball as a business is drifting down to these ages ought to be more disturbing to people than it appears is the case here, and I say that as the father of a son who's competing at the level where the "business" side does start to become at least somewhat appropriate.