U14 Elite 24

It's all up to the sponsoring organization to set the rules. In this case it's USSSA. Rosters can be added to up until, I think, the first pitch of the first game. It allows for injury replacements, etc. But as you note, it also allows some teams to add ringers to try to win it. Then everyone ends up doing it to keep up with the Joneses.

Send your comments to USSSA.

USSSA allows a team to pick up to 3 players for the Elite 24's. I think the rule is good if there are injuries, conflicts or financial issues that force a player out of the tournament. That being said, I don't think you should be allowed to add unless a player drops out. Furthermore, I think that if a player cannot go, the parents of the player should have to sign a waiver stating that they cannot attend thereby making it more difficult to kick a player off the roster for a better one from another team. I also believe that the USSSA should require a release for any player from the team that they came from. My son played with the Baltimore Buzz. We lost 2 players because of football and we added exactly 2 to replace them. We had a top 8 finish and were very proud of it. We did not make our team 1 single bit better with the adds. The players that couldn't go were equal to those who we picked up. For those of you who read the Buzz thread, the 2 players we picked up pitched a total of 8 2/3 innings in the 7 games we played in the tournament.

In USSSA your roster is "frozen" when you win a Birth into the Elite 24. You also have the option up adding or dropping up to 3 players.
Almost all of the teams are looking for players (mostly pitchers) to pick up from teams that were not going.

USSSA roster rules are the same as Super Series and stricter than AAU.
Of course, tournaments like Battle in the South, World Wood bat, BCS, etc. have no requirement for rosters to be frozen months in advance of the tournament. Should they require frozen rosters?

Mike Neary,
You said "I don't think you should be allowed to add unless a player drops out."

We may see this differently out here on the Left Coast. The three opportunities to qualify for the Elite 24 without traveling a looong ways are in November, January and February. It's nice to have the weather to allow that, but the team that qualifies in November has 9 months to wait. Should a team really have to determine the exact number of players they'll take that far in advance of the tournament?

There were no roster rules for the Panteras / Mizuno team. They pulled players off another frozen roster just days before Elite 24 (changed spellings, initials, etc). Then the state USSSA office put out a plea to any 13/14U teams to fill the tourney and keep a deserving CF Tigers team out (Wellington, Red Raiders, Ocala...**** teams) that had 6-7 Panteras players on their current roster!

3finger - you said

quote:

Should a team really have to determine the exact number of players they'll take that far in advance of the tournament?

Answer - YES!

The team that qualified should be the team that participates. Adding extra players from other rosters and other states to expand your roster puts winning first and the development of players and playing time of the players who got you there second. If a player on the team that you qualified with moves away or has an injury or what ever happens so that they cannot participate, then it's OK to replace them on the roster. To add players just because you want to win and take playing time from your fulltime players is wrong. It doesn't matter if you qualified in the fall, winter, spring or a week before the tournament. The concept is to put the best teams in the country against each other to see who the best team is, not to qualify with 1 team dynamic and show up with another.
It's a travesty what happens at the Elite 24 at every age group every year.

This year, these are some of the things I saw.
1. A team from another country shows up with a team from the states uniforms. The roster they showed up with was in part, the team that qualified and part the American team with added players from other teams in the states.
2. A team from Alabama picked up 3 top players from Texas who took a whole bunch of playing time from the Alabama Players.
3. A team from the left coast had 28 kids on their USSSA roster online. Which kids did they take to the Elite's?
4. A team who made the final 4 in 1 age group added 3 players to their roster. The team didn't finish in the top 20 at their battle in the south but finished in the top 4 at the Elite's because of the 3 top level pitchers that they added. Nice finish but it wasn't the team that qualified that finished 4th.
5. One dad told me that his son doesn't play for a travel team but his son plays tournaments for who ever needs players. What's that all about?

I could go on and on in every age group.

There are ways around the long distance borrowing of players. I spoke with 1 parent, who's son plays for a team, who borders kids from other states during the summer so that the kids can play together on the same team. They finished in a tie for 5th in their age group.

I was happy to have my son take part in the tournament and proud of how his team played. Don't get me wrong, it is a great tournament and it was truly awesome to see such great talent at all of the age groups. I would like to see either a more actual team tournament or more of a showcase event where 24 teams are hand selected to make their best "superteam".

Oh bye the way, my tournament highlight was a 9U kid who hit a walk off grand slam.

Mike-
We are a team from the left coast that has a large roster. The problem with that is that when you qualify in winter, many kids aren't there come spring or summer. On our large roster, a lot of those players were from the fall. If you look at the "current" roster, they are gone. Yes, a handful did play during the spring but we didn't play many USSSA tournaments therefore, they did play with us. Several kids got hurt or changed teams. Of our 3 adds, one played with us all spring. We didn't add him until the Elite due to the fact that last year some of our players didn't come for whatever reason and we were left short. Our other adds were players that played with us all last year but because of their age, played "Freshman" and not 2012. The out of town players, qualified with us and have been playing larger tournaments all year and we (players included) feel they are part of the "team."

Now, if we qualified in June, this wouldn't be an issue because we would have had all spring with an unfrozen roster. There would be little need for change. But since we don't have the option of qualifying then(without spending great deals of money to travel east), we have to make due with the rules in place.

And, when you go to these tournaments, you'd better have plenty of pitching. So if your team only has enough to get through a weekend tourney, you will be in trouble. Better to pick up some pitching to see you through the week.

We don't have the resources to play on the east coast, but we have played in a few large tournaments on the west coast and we are familiar with all of the teams in our area. We absolutely love when a "fly in" pitcher shows up. Finally, somebody new to bat against. It happens quite a lot and we (coaches, parents, players) love to go against a hired gun. Our team, like many others, have a goal of getting ready for HS. The tougher kids we face the better our kids will get.

You should see the focus and eagerness in our kids when a 6 foot plus kid takes the mound throwing smoke and we have no idea where he came from. It fires up the whole team and we get proud that somebody thought they had to fly in a pitcher to face us.

Bring'em on!!

In regards to #2, the three Texas kids did not take a whole lot of playing time from Alabama players. They were in the rotation. The parents and the players voted 100% to add these players. Everyone knew their roles ahead of time and we had no issues at all. We had lost two of our top players to injury and after four years of losing to teams with 20 man rosters, we knew we had to add a few arms to make a good showing. When USSSA changes the rules, we will be glad to follow them. We actually faced a pitcher that was frozen on another roster.

Excellent discussion! Thanks for the the different thoughts from the different teams. Its nice to hear the other side of the issue. I sure wish we had the weather.

The boys love the big hard throwers as well. Its the 5'2" lefties that can't throw a straight pitch that give us heart burn. LOL

Through it all, it was a great tournament and I hope all of the kids made the most of every opportunity.

Have a question for you Mike. We are having a big debate about this right now. Everyone is ruling out the potential future of kids that pitch on the high school team due to height. My son is 15 years old, average in height, and has good speed on the ball. He is also left handed and his ball has movement on it. The guys around here just keep saying I hope he gains height...Is that really that important? I read your message about the big guys in Orlando and know you saw some of the best pitching for that age group, I am curious about what you think about height (or lack of) and potential success.

All that I can say is congratulations to the Alabama team, for winning the 14U Elite WS. They beat out a very good East Cobb Astros team that is currently ranked #1 in the country in the 15U age group.

As for adding players to win, is that not the point of going to such an event? Sounds like a bunch of sore losers to me.

Players get the majority of development at practice and game situations, not at an Elite 24 WS. IMHO

quote:

Originally posted by Old School79:
All that I can say is congratulations to the Alabama team, for winning the 14U Elite WS. They beat a very good East Cobb Astros team ...

Team Alabama did not play East Cobb in the Elite WS. East Cobb was eliminated by the Houston Banditos in the Quarter Finals. Team Alabama then beat the Banditos in the Semi-Finals.

The Elite WS is definately about compition and challening yourself against the best players in the country. Our boys wished more of the teams would add better players. They could careless about the roster rules. Run ruling a team in the Elite WS is exiting at first but it doesn't seam to mean much to the boys. With the expansion to 32 teams next year, the compitition is just going to get more diluted. There are only a handful of top national teams in a given year. Definately not enough to make a 32 team tournament as exciting.