CADad:
Totally agree on Almonte. I doubt he will ever be a professional pitcher. As for the SoCal team, they are good every year. The key will be not them, but how the competition stacks up against them.
As for the LL strike zone, it is amazing anyone can hit with that zone. But the problem is not the zone, but the volunteer umpires who by and large simply are not very good compared to well-trained and paid umpires, along with the amazingly **** rules that LL has imposed over the years not for better baseball but for lower insurance rates to cover up for incredibly poor coaching.