Since baseball season is upon us and tryouts have come and gone, I had a question that I have mixed feelings about. Would you keep a senior who has paid his dues for four years but is not of the skill level of the team or would you cut him? At our school, we always keep seniors. What happens at your schools?
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Keep him. It's good for the program and lets underclassmen know that loyalty is worth something.
Seniors make the team. That said, our high school is very, very small.
I know a some HS do that and will keep a bigger roster. The senior is realistic about his playing time
Keep him, if he is not a distraction. In my experience (3 boys), the seniors who are role players or platoon players show the younger players the right way to do things in a coaches program. They are often the cheerleaders from the bench in games and keep practices in check. There is a lot of value with senior leadership whether they are a senior starter or not.
JMO.
Our program kept seniors for sticking it out. The varsity coach had a talk with them so they understood where they stood and their role. They were cheerleaders and foul ball chasers.
When my son was a soph there was a senior who was so well liked and respected he was a leader from the bench. In his first varsity at bat (about five games in) he tripled off the fence. The whole team went nuts. They were really happy for him.
Same as others... we keep but make sure they know their likely role and that anything short of buying in and being a positive influence will not be accepted. Many choose to use their senior year time elsewhere when they are presented with those guidelines.
Depends,
Keep him if he has characteristics that will help the team and has a good attitude. We had one coach that kept seniors no matter what. It turned out to be his demise. Many of the seniors he kept had a bad attitude and caused much dissent. Took the program a while to recover. There were lots a bad feelings. Next coach kept seniors if they had something to offer and had shown the work effort and understood their role. Some of those actually turned into starters later in their senior year. However, some seniors have been cut, because they had already proved by there actions that they could be detrimental to the program and the lower class-men coming up.
We don't cut anyone. We have had seniors walk out in the middle of a game when they finally realized that no playing time really meant no playing time. Flip side, I think I've mentioned before the senior who last year figured out he wasn't going to play and expanded his cheerleading role — every time the team won, he did a back flip down the center of a cheering group of teammates. One of our best memories from HS ball.
We have around 65 kids in our baseball program between Soph, JV, and varsity teams. We are a 5A school in the Houston area, therefor we have pretty decent talent. If you're able to make the cuts the first couple of years, our coach usually will take a senior if he's been in the program for 4 years. They may not get to play, but if you're good with the cheerleading role then he will put you on the team. We usually go 3 to 4 rounds deep come playoff time, so I guess it's worked. We also carry about 26 kids on varsity.
IMO
If you project a player to be Sr bench player who isn't happy just being a part of the team you cut him loose JR year. if they are leaders or great teammates they won't be a problem. if you follow that logic there is few times you have to contemplate cutting a SR.
Seniors not playing can be tricky. This is where looking ahead a year or 2 before is helpful. with what you have do you project them playing senior year. It is better to cut him a year earlier. It is difficult but it will be more difficult as a senior.
