@TerribleBPthrower posted:My son also played on bad teams for 13-14u. The team was stacked the year before so we thought he was joining a solid group. Turns out 2/3 of the team left. He was recruited to play on a stacked 15u team which was fun. Then all the kids that left the 13u team regrouped last year for the 16u season. My son had fun but the team wasn’t nearly as good as some of the other parents expected.
From my experience, those parents usually have above average kids that played with a grade below them for most if not all their youth. By the time 14/15/16u rolls around they are forced to start playing more kids from their actual grade and grades above. It evens up the playing field quite a bit, and people start to understand they may not have been as good as they once believed they were. When my oldest (March Bday) played 14u we made it a point to play up even further against 15/16u teams. It helped that we had quite a few talented pitchers, but as a team we were a very young 14u team. If you have been around baseball long enough you’ll know that the speed of the game really changes for kids at this point. I’ll be honest, our team ended up with a 500 record, but they took a couple real beatings that year. However, they came out the other end in a much better place to move forward. We made the point to work on development rather than just winning. The same can’t be said for the kids in his grade that played 13u because of a good Bday. Of course if you ask some of those parents little Johnny raked all year, won every tournament, and now is a lock to make Varsity as a 9th grader! Never mind the fact he swung a drop 10 green cap and only ever played against middle schoolers. Too many parents and kids get caught up in all the hype and don’t take the time to stop and evaluate the big picture.
I guess my real point to all of this is “bad team” versus “good team” is sometimes hard to define if you get caught up in the moment. Jm2c…