Aau teams

AAU? I wasn’t aware AAU baseball existed anywhere outside New England. AAU was out of the Mid Atlantic region eighteen years ago. Did they return?

There are a lot of kids playing travel who should be playing rec ball. It gives the parents bragging rights their kid plays travel. But parents can’t purchase talent for their kids. The kids will eventually be exposed.

It’s too bad there are parents who demanded deemphasizing competition for eleven and twelve year olds. It drove the better players out of LL and Ripken. Fortunately it didn’t occur in our LL until my son aged out.

I wholeheartedly disagree.  

Why not give players and their families the opportunity to play if they want to? Just because  they’re not “college material” - ?? What’s the harm?

There is a local team near me that has 14-18U teams which play during spring, for those who didn’t make their HS team, and during summer they travel regionally to play and fall, also travel regionally. They are coached by a former first rounder.

Best thing  ever - guys who play for the love of the game and help grow it.

Why not?

Speed demon, I’m ok with kids who have some talent,  but I have seen teams that still try and hide bad kids in the of at 14u,  my take it there are more teams that need to be disbanded then kept. If they want to keep playing, then play rec/colt/legion,  there is no need for them to pay 2k$ + to play on bad teams.  Unfortunately? There are a lot of teams willing to take peoples money,

I guess I should qualify by adding ; 14u+

In my son's grade, there were an unusually large number of aggressive sports dads. In 6th grade there were 5 travel basketball teams, the point (supposedly) was to prepare them for middle school ball, but there were only 3 middle schools, so...

These same dads also started travel baseball teams. The point was to get more rigor than rec league, to prepare for high school. The first pulled out of rec in 3rd grade. Ours was next, after 5th grade. We agonized over whether or not to join the team; the argument was, if the better kids are leaving rec league, the baseball will be really bad.  Another pulled out after 6th grade, and finally a fourth. They held tryouts but really it was about who you knew. Everyone knew which the better teams were; switching teams led to hard feelings in a smallish community.  Of course, there were only 2 high schools, so...

Then there were the state-level organizations, which were not local. My son joined one of those after 2 years of local dad-ball that got increasingly frustrating for him. We traded one level of dad-ball for another; at least in the organizations, the dad-coaches had college playing experience.  Our organization started with 2 teams at his grade in 14U, by 17U there were six.  SIX!  It was a huge money-grab and I didn't approve at all; some were indeed not very good.  And, two of the local dad-ball teams kept playing through 18U, even though most of their players didn't even make the high school teams.  But, they played in many of the same tournaments as the top state teams, and got pulverized.

Should all these players/parents have recognized the futility and hung up the cleats?  No, why should they???  If the players (and parents) found value in playing baseball, more power to them.  Some of the players on bad teams did play in college, and even if they didn't, they were presumably gaining an appreciation for the game.

Good point

I would rather pay for a team with a losing record where my son will start than a team with a winning record where my son will play very little. Playing time considerations probably drive the existence of the teams that aren't good enough for your son. As long as my son is getting better (and he gets better by playing) and getting coaching that is worth the money, then I don't care about the record. The record is for my son to worry about, not me. If he'd wanted to be in a more competitive environment, possibly at the risk of his development, then we'd have tried out for the better teams.

My son's team 14U majors level is playing the best competition in our regional area and they are not winning alot. However son is hitting well and he's getting valuable playing time behind the dish and in the field. I look at it as development for HS and perhaps beyond.

Since he's not a super big kid with a plus arm I don't think he would get much playing time on a ranked or "A" team but he can hit. The team has gotten alot better since the beginning of the season winning occasionally or in a tie or losing by one run in very competitive games.

To be honest I think in the beginning team morale wasn't good because some of the players were sitting and they were all used to being starters on their old teams.

The team has since evenly rotated players in and out and we are playing  better. Go figure....

Unfortunately fall will be here soon and it is the nature of the travel organization to rearrange the teams every season but I think keeping the team together would help build chemistry and in turn create a winning environment. Also a lot of the boys are still not thru puberty yet.

My opinion is that 90% of those playing travel ball created demand for leagues and levels that are not that much better than what the LL, babe ruth or Ripkin leagues would have been if everyone didn't leave for "Better Competition" in Travel ball.  The reality of travel ball has changed. good coaches who wanted to create better players has changed to national companies that want to charge for that extra knowledge transfer.  Can't give it away for free.

It is kind of funny how instagram and tiktok are blowing up with parents frustrated at traveling far distances to tournaments to play teams from their next door town.

IF you are playing for one of the elite teams, then I certainly get it, especially 16u and up.  So many on here have kids that were or are elite players.  But playing for a D,C or even B level team, the kids could have gotten that same experience if everyone just stayed in traditional baseball programs.  On those teams, you are not going to get recruiting help, or extra instruction, or even good instruction.

My youngest son plays both Legion and Travel.  Next year, definitely just Legion, as it is making a comeback.  His travel team is good, but can't compete in high level tournaments against the A teams, simply a matter of pitching, one game is competitive and the next three are blowouts.  So next year it's Legion, plus who can beat $150 bucks (what I pay for legion) vs. $4K  (I didn't pay that much this year as travel team only goes to local PG tournaments, but $3.5-4k is pretty typical for most of the travel programs here, some get much more expensive for elite travel). I do not see a drop off in Legion vs. Travel as many of the top kids play both.

We will once again take that extra money and pay for private hitting and S&C program.  We did that this year and the results are huge, btw (finding the right instructor was the key thing)... definitely met and probably exceeded what I had hoped for in growth in his performance both at and behind the plate.

@HSDad22 posted:

My opinion is that 90% of those playing travel ball created demand for leagues and levels that are not that much better than what the LL, babe ruth or Ripkin leagues would have been if everyone didn't leave for "Better Competition" in Travel ball.  The reality of travel ball has changed. good coaches who wanted to create better players has changed to national companies that want to charge for that extra knowledge transfer.  Can't give it away for free.

It is kind of funny how instagram and tiktok are blowing up with parents frustrated at traveling far distances to tournaments to play teams from their next door town.

IF you are playing for one of the elite teams, then I certainly get it, especially 16u and up.  So many on here have kids that were or are elite players.  But playing for a D,C or even B level team, the kids could have gotten that same experience if everyone just stayed in traditional baseball programs.  On those teams, you are not going to get recruiting help, or extra instruction, or even good instruction.

My youngest son plays both Legion and Travel.  Next year, definitely just Legion, as it is making a comeback.  His travel team is good, but can't compete in high level tournaments against the A teams, simply a matter of pitching, one game is competitive and the next three are blowouts.  So next year it's Legion, plus who can beat $150 bucks (what I pay for legion) vs. $4K  (I didn't pay that much this year as travel team only goes to local PG tournaments, but $3.5-4k is pretty typical for most of the travel programs here, some get much more expensive for elite travel). I do not see a drop off in Legion vs. Travel as many of the top kids play both.

We will once again take that extra money and pay for private hitting and S&C program.  We did that this year and the results are huge, btw (finding the right instructor was the key thing)... definitely met and probably exceeded what I had hoped for in growth in his performance both at and behind the plate.

My son played Legion after senior year so he could put more focus on getting physically ready for college ball. His experience was the local league was like taking BP. But the team went to sections and states. At that level a lot of travel players played just enough a legion to be eligible for the post season.

The post season competition was very good. My son loved the win or your season is over approach he hadn’t experienced since LL all stars. The college coaches showed for sections and states.

I don't think legion is an option where I live.

@HSDad22 posted:

His travel team is good, but can't compete in high level tournaments against the A teams, simply a matter of pitching, one game is competitive and the next three are blowouts.  So next year it's Legion, plus who can beat $150 bucks (what I pay for legion) vs. $4K  (I didn't pay that much this year as travel team only goes to local PG tournaments, but $3.5-4k is pretty typical for most of the travel programs here, some get much more expensive for elite travel). I do not see a drop off in Legion vs. Travel as many of the top kids play both.

We will once again take that extra money and pay for private hitting and S&C program.  We did that this year and the results are huge, btw (finding the right instructor was the key thing)... definitely met and probably exceeded what I had hoped for in growth in his performance both at and behind the plate.

Same here- if you dont have some good PO's, the odds of making it far in tournament are next to none.

As far as watered down....the big club teams here in KC have anywhere from 4-6 teams per age group with their organization, the highest end org has 10 14u teams.  If you aren't playing against the top team, its just barely above rec ball, maybe not even that.  I guess good on them for making money, it is a business after all. 

Son says he would rather play legion next summer, so curious to see how that goes.  Leaving it up to him at this point, hope it works out for him.

@NotABaseballGuy posted:

I don't think legion is an option where I live.

There are American Legion teams in nearly every state,   you just need to check their website.  It's a good chance his HS coach would know.  He would find the closest team and try out for them, if he doesn't make it he can then try the next closest team, and so on.  Around here, Legion is basically summer ball for the high school team, with close connections to the coaches.  Some of the big states might mean there aren't any posts that are close, but if you are near a city, it's a good bet there are several.

https://www.legion.org/baseball/teams

@HSDad22 posted:

There are American Legion teams in nearly every state,   you just need to check their website.  It's a good chance his HS coach would know.  He would find the closest team and try out for them, if he doesn't make it he can then try the next closest team, and so on.  Around here, Legion is basically summer ball for the high school team, with close connections to the coaches.  Some of the big states might mean there aren't any posts that are close, but if you are near a city, it's a good bet there are several.

https://www.legion.org/baseball/teams

In our area Legion ball was summer ball for JV players. My son’s high school team was loaded with travel players. Twelve from his junior year roster played college ball at some level.

His senior year the team was senior dominant. They all decided to play together one more time on the Legion team.

During senior week at The Shore my son and a car load of teammates showed up for an 11am weekend game. When they fell out of the car I asked two questions … 1) Are you all sober? 2) Have you slept?

I got yes to 1 and laughter to 2. They went 20-1 during the regular season. This game was the 1.

@CMaley posted:

Same here- if you dont have some good PO's, the odds of making it far in tournament are next to none.

As far as watered down....the big club teams here in KC have anywhere from 4-6 teams per age group with their organization, the highest end org has 10 14u teams.  If you aren't playing against the top team, its just barely above rec ball, maybe not even that.  I guess good on them for making money, it is a business after all.

Son says he would rather play legion next summer, so curious to see how that goes.  Leaving it up to him at this point, hope it works out for him.

Agreed, I like the one team orgs.  They others are just money makers.  Not that I want kids to give upon dreams, but we played teams that were rec level, or b,c type teams.  They would be better off playing township or colt league.  Our colt league isn’t that competitive.  It seems like each team has a few good players then it really drops off.

I think it depends upon where you are.  I am not sure what AAU is, as that is not a classification you hear of in my area.  No one in our area plays Legion, either.  Everyone who made the high school teams this year plays travel, some in more competitive organizations than others.  We have several competitive teams nearby and the most recent rumors among the boys are what good teams are taking players from other good teams next year - crazy, really.

Son was very fortunate to make an excellent 15U team this year, they did travel quite a ways (yes, and on occasion, another good local team was at the same tournament, but so were many good out-of-state teams), and we hope to see the team stay intact next year - saw some fantastic competition that really encouraged the boys to continue to improve.

@ILoveBaseball04 posted:

I think it depends upon where you are.  I am not sure what AAU is, as that is not a classification you hear of in my area.  No one in our area plays Legion, either.  Everyone who made the high school teams this year plays travel, some in more competitive organizations than others.  We have several competitive teams nearby and the most recent rumors among the boys are what good teams are taking players from other good teams next year - crazy, really.

Son was very fortunate to make an excellent 15U team this year, they did travel quite a ways (yes, and on occasion, another good local team was at the same tournament, but so were many good out-of-state teams), and we hope to see the team stay intact next year - saw some fantastic competition that really encouraged the boys to continue to improve.

There’s an AAU baseball league from Massachusetts to Maine.I don’t think they do tournaments other than the post season for championship.

Back in 2005 AAU was the affiliation that ran tournaments  in Allentown PA through an organization called ECTB. The next year with the same people ECTB switched to USSSA. For the next three years I had a travel team and my son played I still heard people refer to it as AAU ball. I just checked. They’re now affiliated with PG. I know when my son joined a 17u program Diamond Nation was starting to eat ECTB’s lunch due to proximity and far superior fields.