Composing a team

quote:

Originally posted by TCB1:
Upcoming Spring varsity season:

SENIORS- 5 Seniors who should all make the team and be regular starters/players...

JUNIORS - 13 Juniors trying out... Of these 13 Juniors, I believe only the transfer I mentioned, and 2 or 3 others could do well against varsity competition (i.e., really contribute)

SOPHOMORES - 10 Sophomores trying out: 4 who I think are as good as the Top 3 or 4 Juniors mentioned above

OK, so you've already identified your nucleus of 12 to 13 V players who you know can contribute. From there, you pick the best from the rest that may fill a role or positional depth need or best bench attitude. Unless it wreaks complete havoc on your program numbers, you put the best team out there for V, regardless of class.

This is another topic where there are endless variables and every situation is different. What is your best team? Chemistry, leadership, positional depth, pitching depth, filling roles, speed/power balance, offense/defense balance, etc., etc. To steal JH's tag line, "play your best 9, not the 9 best" (or something like that). And, really, it's the best 15, give or take. Also, IMO, you should keep roster #'s reasonable so that everyone can play some part even if a small role. You may even have some exceptions where a player has a clear understanding that his role is important but may never include game PT. In many situations (and this one seems to be a good example), there is nothing wrong with juniors playing JV.

quote:

Interesting dynamics: The Seniors are fairly talented and hardworking. The Juniors (as a group) are not that talented (with the noted exceptions)but they show up to everything, work like crazy... The top 6 or 8 sophomores have as much or more ability... BUT, those sophomres tend to have an attitude of "I'm good and I know it" And of all three groups, have the lowest work ethic and least amount of discipline.

While I agree that some characteristics tend to show prominently across a given class, I would caution that you don't group them that way - be sure to give each individual a fair shake without labeling him with the typical traits of his class. Give each young man an opportunity prove he can break free and stand for himself.

Pick the best players

I’ve done this twice. For whatever reason, the schools I’ve scored for, have had pretty good statistics for all of the teams in their programs, so I grabbed up all of those numbers and put them in a common database. Since I don’t identify players by uniform numbers, but rather by a player ID they get as soon as they make one of the teams, it was a pretty simple thing to run all of the stats, only identifying players by that ID number, rather than their name. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it did remove a heck of a lot of “built in” bias, and allowed people to concentrate just on the numbers, rather than getting all caught up in the minutia.

The players and coaches ranked each player in several different metrics, then gave each an overall “grade”. Also, each player and coach had been asked to evaluate and rank every player in the program by name. Once everyone was finished, the names for the player IDs were given, and everyone got to look at the two different lists.

There were a few no brainers that appeared in virtually the same place on both lists, but it wasn’t surprising to me that most of the results were very different from one list to the other. The exercise wasn’t intended to pick player according to their statistics, but rather to replace PERCEPTION with FACTS, in an effort to make the entire process just a bit better.

Good and interesting topic to see how others handle. I think cabbagedad pretty well nailed it, but I would add one other factor to consider, given the dynamic you described. That is how to handle the 2014s, given that you describe the 2013s as a group as "not that talented...but they show up to everything, [and] work like crazy" and the 2014s as potentially the most talented class but accompanied by a bit of (collective) attitude.

IMO you have to construct the 2012 Varsity with somewhat of an eye to the 2013 season, given the relative lack of talent in that 2013 class. You are going to need those 2014s to play a bigger role in 2013 than you might normally expect/need of a Junior class, and need to get them the seasoning and experience they'll need to excel in that role in this 2012 season. To me, that means you'll have to err on the side of a 2014 or two over a 2013 or two.

Because of this dynamic, I also think your bench has to have some of the leadership / run through a wall guys, even if they are less talented, and your Senior class has to really step up and lead those sometimes cocky 2014s and keep them in line.

I don't want to sidetrack or hijack this thread, but I am interested to see if others share this philosophy for grooming future teams when you have a relatively less talented class somewhere in the middle.

A somewhat related topic is also how you handle the really young (freshman usually, maybe sophomore depending on the make-up and talent of the program) but really talented player who can contribute at the V level but will not get as much PT and many reps at that level as he may need to develop. Is the answer (at least where the rules permit) ALWAYS to slide that kid up and down between JV and V, or are there situations where coaches here believe that kind of player is better suited playing all V or all JV? Does it depend on how he responds to each level of competition?

Meant to get back to this sooner, but just got way too busy....

A couple of notes: cabbagedad, understood about the "grouping" I did that only to simply the situation for the readers. They will not all be kept or cut as a group, or because they were part of a certain group. It is a bit easier, though, to show the groups and their relative abilities: Senior group has proven themselves as varsity players last season, Juniors were not on varsity and it appears only 3 of them would be ready to compete on Varsity but the remaining 10 or so seem to be very hard workers with not so much physical ability; and then the Sophomores who seem to be as good or better than most Juniors, but with a sense of entitlement and a bit of a lack of work ethic.

There are in fact one or two Sophomores who seem to be very hard workers and quite dedicated, and I think they will likely be able to play on Varsity because of both those things.

My main thought is: if I have 8 or so Seniors/Juniors who will most likely start, do you really want to bring up 6 more SOPHOMORES to Varsity and have them sitting? Heck, maybe they only sit for a week or two and then step in when a Senior fails; but they are still sitting. I don't like bringing a Sophomore up to Varsity if he isn't going play ALL the time, or the vast MAJORITY of the time.

I lean towards, and probably will use two approaches:
(1) There will probably be some moving up and down by players so that I can see what a Sophomore does on Varsity, but then he doesn't just ride the pine on Varsity. He may go back down to get many at bats on JV, while I move several of the less talented Juniors up to be on the bench for a few games and get them in when/if I can. The other idea is (2) put more of the Juniors up on varsity in a mostly "non-playing" capacity and EXPLAIN to them where they stand so they know what their job is and how they will be used.

Stats - Don't disagree with your metrics,either. But again, if the better players were all Seniors and Sophomores, do you put 16 of them on varsity and then have the Sophomores sit? If they were all the same grade, or even all Seniors and Juniors I think the stat approach would work. But the inclusion of Sophomores muddies things; not only because we don't want them to be on varsity and then not get to play, but also we are comparing stats from 3 groups of kids who played at 3 different levels last year: Seniors on Varsity, JUniors on JV, and the Sophomores on the Freshman team last year.

WHICH BRINGS UP ANOTHER POINT: In my past years as coach I didn't like keeping many, if any, Juniors on JV. But this year, if I didn't keep any Juniors on JV, we wouldn't be able to even HAVE a JV team....

I have to decide whether to cut loose some of those Juniors who are dedicated, have good grades, and work very hard, but aren't that physically gifted. My plan is, if all things remain as they are now, to talk to all of my "weak" Juniors individually and explain to them where they stand. I'll tell them that I never hold a kid back and tell him he can't get better, but I see him as being a backup or VERY part-time player THIS year AND next, and that if they can deal with that, they are welcome to stay. Some might leave, but I think those types of kids will accept it and continue to push those ahead of them to get better.

And, Edgarfan, I think that is where you also hit the nail on the head. I have to (and always do) look BEYOND this season, but with our make-up this year, I have to scrutinize things even closer seeing where we're at in 2013.

If I DON'T cut any Juniors this year, next year I could very well have 12 or 13 SENIORS and about 8 JUNIORS wanting to be on varsity. Don't know if I want to keep 20 guys on varsity.....always felt like I could give a "less talented" Sophomore a little more rope becasue he could stay on JV and maybe even develop. But if you are a Junior on JV, are you likely to be much better next year as a Senior? And I don't see the point of cutting a kid his Senior year (except due to disciplinary reasons); if he isn't that good as a Senior, I should have probably seen it as a Junior and let him go then....

These are the tough decisions when you have the mix that I have.

Also, wondered what everyone's take was on the Senior who hadn't played last year, and this year wants to play but will miss time to go on the New York trip. I have my thoughts on what I'm going to do in that situation, but curious about your take.....