@Baseball59 posted:Thats a shame, but honestly it is no different than any college team or pro team. Only the best will play. Unfortunately, todays society has babied kids to the point that they think it is their RIGHT to play on elite teams. Why do you think coaches have tryouts ? They want the best for their respective teams/organizations.
Actually, no things might have changed, in 2010-12, the Arsenal had 3 or 4 team per age level, per money grab.
Age groups were based on April 30th cut off.
There top teams at each age group had what some people might call ringers, those players based on Malcolm Gladwell's book "The Outliers", due to when they were born (early in the age group), they would be bigger/stronger. This was especially prevalent at the 10u - 13u age group.
Here was an example:
14u age group (2010 )
A Team - 75 % 9th graders, 25% 8th graders
B Team - 25% 9th graders, 75% 8th graders
C Team - sacrificial lambs (had about 3 players that played college baseball)
D Team - sacrificial lambs
85 % of their practices were indoors.
Difference between A and B was pitching, B Team had better athletes.
They made sure the groups didn't practice together.
Secondly, A team had a bunch of mercenaries, who only showed up to tournaments.
In 2011, Arsenal changed their program to reflect Graduation class, this caused a lot of friction in the organization because the 2010 13u (8th grade studs), thought they were better than the 2010 14u (B Team 8th graders)
The Arsenal had 3 teams, and instead of them do true evaluation and create 2 very competitive teams, they kept them separate, had a off year based on their standards and wound up changing back to the age cutoff model in order to stroke certain egos.