@ReluctantO'sFan posted:Another spin to A and B teams is that most organizations don't objectively shuffle their teams once kids finish playing on the small field. This is the reason I believe A level talent is left on B level teams.
@CollegebaseballInsights you are spot-on when it comes to the age versus grade. I just wish more people understood this concept.
Spot on.
Before we went to the organization, the 12u team was something like 54-1, beat everybody along the East Coast, until they went down to Florida and got their clocks cleaned.
We went to tryout the fall (13u), the owners reeling from what happened in the summer, created 4 (13u) teams.
Red, Blue, White and Gray. Now you know where this is going.
Red team was the $$$ team, studs all up and down NJ and a couple of players from (DE, NY, CT), Heavy pitching (including Gallen, Gatto, Pimental), slugger in Thaiss( who was a backup) lol.
They moved 4 of the players to the Blue Team, the White and Gray were sacrificial lambs, who normally played the minimum number of games in a tournament (a lot of mercy rules).
The 12u team could beat the 13u (White and Gray), and give the 13u Blue a good game, whereas in a 7 game series, 13u Blue might have won 4 games to 2.
Note, based on the tournaments the Red team attended, I doubt they paid full cost, but that would require an financial audit. (lol)
At 15u, the organization changed the teams based on High School Graduation Class.
Now you can imagine what happen, the players that we playing down ("A") due to age were now competing with the "B" Team. They became the new "B' team based on graduation year, could not compete.
This experiment lasted one year because it exposed their weaknesses and the organization change back to the old structure.
Note, many of the "B" team players left because of the fish rot.
Main point, travel baseball can be very political.
The family must ask some very pointed questions and have a report card with respects to progress.
"Trust but verify"