I get the sense that JV teams are becoming a maybe a little more common at the D3 level. Not sure how they all work. But I thought I'd start a thread on it so that those in the know could compare notes. There are some remarks about this scattered over many threads. But I thought one centralized thread on this topic might be useful to future generations of parents and players weighing their options. It will help them to ask better questions, certainly. And what is this board for, after all?
My son's school (which is a highly competitive D3 program) has what I suspect (but don't know) may be an unusual approach to the JV "team." First, it really isn't a complete team. It consist of just 12 position players (originally 13, but one was dropped because of academic ineligibility) This year, all 12 players are frosh, but there were some sophomores on it last year.
The were originally scheduled to play 15 games over a short season, but one series got canceled by the opponent.
They practice and hit and lift as a unit, separate from the varsity. But they also show up at varsity practice on a fairly regular basis. When they do, they are assigned task like running bases as the varsity works on defense or fielding when the varsity is working on base running.
How does a unit with no pitchers play games, you might ask?
Every pitcher on the roster is actually on the varsity roster. But they get work in from time to time in JV games.
And it's not just the back benchers that get work in in JV games. The number 2 and number 3 starters has each started a JV game -- though they did so in a week when the varsity was off. The number 2 starter also pitched a couple of innings in a different JV game the following week.
From what I can tell the coaching staff uses the JV games both to straighten out struggling varsity guys and to allow some lesser used guys to get some work in against live competition.
Last JV series three varsity bench position players were sent down to get a few AB's. But that seems rarer.
There is, by the way, only one frosh position player on the varsity.
The combined varsity and JV roster is something like 43 players total, so not super huge for a D3 team. Many schools without JV teams have rosters near that size, some seem to have more. And it seems that some schools with JV teams carry many more players on their JV squad than my son's school. But that's just a guess.
Big question is whether JV players have much of a future in the program.
If you look at current varsity roster, there are a number who played JV, but not a huge number. Only 2 players from last year's JV roster are in the program. Apparently 7 or 8 tried out, though, most were cut.
A salient fact about this school, perhaps in comparison with other D3, is that it brings in a fair number of transfers -- both JC transfers and also D1 and D2 drop downs. There are currently 8 of those in the program. I suspect that this one reason why it is hard for JV players to move up to varsity. It's not so much the incoming frosh they have to worry about -- though there is that too -- it's the fairly regular flood of transfers.
I have very little experience with this, so can't compare this to other D3 programs.
Again, I thought a thread like this might be helpful to players and parents considering D3 programs. Don't know how common JV programs are, how many on this board have had experiences with them, or if they all work like this one.