How good is the competition at WWBA World/ National Championships at the 15/16u level? I know there’s a lot of top teams but there’s also around 400 teams in the tournament.
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Each pool usually has a really good team mixed with some average teams. I haven’t seen any terrible teams when I’ve been there. It gets ugly when a top national team plays an average team.
8 teams in each pool. One is great, two are really good, three are pretty good, one average, one below average.
Probably done 8 of them. Went 1-6 one year and we still had most of our team committed so it really depends. WWBA catches a lot of hate on this board, I still think it's really the best competition you can find for an open tournament. Playoffs are wild.
I still hold it is the best tournament out there. I would agree with PABaseball assessment. It used to be you had to win to get in but now just pay to get in. You will find some of the best baseball you will see when you get into the bracket play starting today. First round is usually brutal because teams play to win it all at this. The deeper teams win usually. Son's team finished tied for third in 15's a few years ago and it was because we just ran out of arms. Last pitcher was a thrower who got destroyed by East Coast Prime. They still had arms left and we had burnt the barn to get there.
@PitchingFan is right on. Nowadays I think teams need to burn their arms early to make sure they make it to the bracket. Or at least burn them in the first rounds of the bracket. Over the past couple years I've watched great teams get knocked out because a lesser team had 1 great pitcher. Couple years ago in the 16u WWBA my son's team took down the #1 team in the country at the time. They threw their 5 or 6 arm (lefty 89-90) and we threw our ace. We won 5-4. They brought in their lefty ace for the last couple innings but it was too late. They were hands down a better team. We just had 1 really good pitcher and got a couple of lucky bounces.
The last time we were there it was a very good regional team, we got hot, managed to upset a top 5 team in our pool to win. We got every single break that day and won 3-2.
Got a good win in round 1...lost in round 2 in a 7th inning walk off 5-4 and was kind relieved. We were down to nothing for pitchers. 7 games in 5 days had left us spent...the kid who was going to go if we won hadn't pitched since 14u and was junk ball curve guy with an effius!! It would have been very bad LOL but we had a great week.
@TerribleBPthrower posted:@PitchingFan is right on. Nowadays I think teams need to burn their arms early to make sure they make it to the bracket. Or at least burn them in the first rounds of the bracket. Over the past couple years I've watched great teams get knocked out because a lesser team had 1 great pitcher. Couple years ago in the 16u WWBA my son's team took down the #1 team in the country at the time. They threw their 5 or 6 arm (lefty 89-90) and we threw our ace. We won 5-4. They brought in their lefty ace for the last couple innings but it was too late. They were hands down a better team. We just had 1 really good pitcher and got a couple of lucky bounces.
The smart coaches and programs don't burn any arms. They either have enough guys for a rotation or they have their guys pitch multiple times on pitch counts. First time we went with a national program we went rotation with two full starts. Second time around you threw 60, 30, and then the burn out game which was the playoffs. It's better for staff management and more important it's more opportunities to get eyes on you.
Son pitched in the quarterfinals one year. Pitched 4 innings on Day 2, closed a game at the end of pool play under 25 pitches or whatever the rule was and then had his full start in the playoffs.
You need 20+ guys just to have enough pitching. You need around 30 to make any sort of run. I believe we had 28. 13 position players 13 POs and a few 2 way guys. It still wasn't enough. If we made the finals it would have been ugly.
That was the crazy part the year we finished third. We walked in with only 12 guys which was our regular travel team. We had two guys that were supposed to join us for bracket and neither one showed up. If we had had those two guys I still believe we would’ve won the whole thing with 14 guys. Like we say about college, we got hot at the right time but nine of our 12 guys could throw, with five being two ways that were pitchers. All lived within 45 miles of each other in rural East Tennessee. Son had two incredible upset games that year pitching for first game in tournament and first game of bracket.
Pool just came out for next week. Son’s pool is very weak as far as I can tell