Will this end the play with your age vs. grade debate?

As far as I know PG doesn't have "cutoff" dates.  Not sure how much real debate there is on the topic, I think most, myself included, think it's best to play grade.  I did it with mine who's birthday is the second half of July.  It was the right approach for him.

Little league is, IMHO, one of the most stupid, hide-bound baseball organizations around.   There are a lot of things they could and should change that are a higher priority than this.    As to "trickling down"  that would imply that little league is at the top of the baseball heap and has some influence over organizations "lower" down.  But as far as I am concerned, little league is about as low as you can go on the baseball hierarchy. 

 

Not sure this ends the age/grade debate.

Not all school districts use the same cutoff for grades, 
so even ignoring baseball there is a difference by school district of age vs grade.

This was intended only to stop 13 year olds from dominating the LLWS.

 

Grade is ridiculous.   People skip grades and are left behind academically.
Athletics have nothing to do with grade.

No, why would it affect anything,  there is nothing to trickle down from.  

August 31st was the old cutoff if I remember correctly so it sounds like LL has returned to where it was for many years.  The cutoff was changed to April 30th and the Majors Division began to be dominated by 13 year olds on 200 foot fields. 

 

I don't think this means diddly for cutoffs of high school age players which were different from LL any way.   

No, August 31st is the new cutoff date.....You can't turn 13 BEFORE Aug 31st of the current summer....meaning no 13 year olds are eligible to play.  Almost every other organization is April 30th....meaning as long as you don't turn 13 before April 30th....you can play 12U that summer.  My son had an April 26th birthdate.....and played a year up from 9U thru 12U so he was almost 2 years younger than some kids he was playing with once it hit May 1st...

Yeah, I think totally separate issues...  Once you reach HS age, from a HS/College standpoint, you are recognized as being in a certain HS graduating class or grade (class of.. '16, '19, etc.).  For club/travel, you play with the oldest or most competitive age group you can play with that you qualify for, as long as you are playing.  Not much debate.

 

For LL and other pre-HS age youth organizations, things are driven by age with whatever cutoff date the organization uses.  LL made the switch a while back, I think, to coincide with what most other youth organizations used.  I personally like the switch back.  For me, the LLWS event is largely about kids baseball and community.  With the recent age cutoff, too many of the players did not look much like kids to me... more like teens.

USA Baseball was the leading force on the last date change. They wanted a 13/31 deadline. 4/30 was a step one compromise to getting there. LL was smart enough to realize it was a bad idea and moved the date. The LL date change has nothing to do with USA Baseball. It will be interesting to see if other organizations follow.

 

My daughter played ASA softball starting with 12u. The ASA date has been 12/31 for as long as I've known. ASA is all even year teams. At fourteen she played 16u. Starting at fifteen she played 18u. I guess this means I believe an athlete should play talent appropriate starting in the teen years. My son (May birthday) played with his grade starting with 13u. The date change gave him the opportunity to be twelve again. At fourteen he played 16u. At fifteen he started playing 18u.

I don't think that there really is a "debate."  Whenever possible, the kid should play with his grade.  Eventually in HS he'll be forced to.  The only exception, and one I made with my kid, is if you can get superior coaching by playing "down."  My kid had the option of playing with crappy dad coached teams or better coached teams.  We always took the better coaching and it made a world of difference for him. 

Little League matters to PG the same as Pop Warner matters to NCAA Football...

 

They don't... At all... 

Best thing LL could do to prevent 13 year olds from dominating is change the 46/60 rule. It is ridiculous (IMO) for even 11 and 12 year olds to use such short distances. Not to mention the no lead off rule and short fences. The age cut off issue makes little difference compred to those.

 

My thoughts exactly.   Pony league uses 50(or maybe it's 48)/70 for its Bronco Division  (11-12 year olds).  It also allows  leadoffs and steals.  It's  recommended home run distance is 225 feet to the foul lines and 275 feet to dead center.  Having coached both little league (briefly) and Pony league longer, I think Pony does a much better job than little league, as rec leagues go, in preparing kids for real baseball.  (Our Pony league organization even had (and still has)  a series of age appropriate club teams that play in tournaments against competitive travel teams.  I know of several others that do as well.  Gave our top players the best of both worlds.  It's my understanding that little league forbids that.) 

They do have cutoff dates. Taken from the PG website:

13u event "AGE LIMIT: Born after April 30, 2001"

16u event: "AGE LIMIT: 2017 Graduates or born on/after May 1, 1998"

18u event: "AGE LIMIT: 2015 Graduate or Born on/after May 1, 1996"

 

I admit the words trickle down were not appropriate since PG is FAR above LL, but I don't think it is a coincidence that they had the same cut-off date.

 

I have seen a LOT of the major teams in the Atlanta area stacked with bigger kids who's birthdays fell between May 1- August 31, I don't think that is a coincidence either. 

 

 

 

 

 

Any PG tournament that is defined as ##U currently uses the traditional May 1st cut-off date. It's listed as "Age Limit" on the tournament home page.

 

My understanding of the age determination story is that LL lobbied USA Baseball to change their July 31 cut-off date to April 30 starting in 2001, because they thought it would increase their player numbers. They lose a big chunk of kids from 12U to 13U, and the April 30 date would keep more kids in the 12U category.

 

I guess I'm in the minority, but I think this change to August 31 does matter. Almost every tournament in U.S. currently uses the April 30 date. Teams are built around those dates.

 

Historically, LL pushed for that date, and every other organization followed suite. LL may not have as much influence in amateur baseball today as it did in 2001, but it does have influence. No one wants two standards, and the August 31 date makes more sense for high school aged kids anyway, so why wouldn't other organizations follow? I think it would make a lot of sense for PG high school tournament, and they also run pre-HS tournaments. Maybe they'll be the next one to change.

 

My 9yo is playing 10U rec ball on a 46/65 with a 225 foot fence all around.  You would like to think 12 year olds could handle bigger than 46/60.

 

When my oldest played 12U it was on a 50/70 that was 275 down the lines and 300 to center.  The only 12U player I saw hit it out more than once is currently the #1 PG prospect for 2017.

I have to applaud LLUSA's decision.  They are indeed quite "hide bound" as someone noted above, and it is a rare day when they admit a mistake.  And though they didn't say it in so many words, that's what they're doing with this move.

 

RJM is correct that USA Baseball started this push to try to align aging with the calendar year to get everyone in synch with international standards.  Which was a stupid, tail-wagging-dog approach, since the number of kids playing in international events is some microfraction of a percent of all players.  All the youth organizations (who are "members" of USAB or something of that nature) saluted and made the first step.

 

The old aging date was actually JULY 31/Aug. 1 so the new one, once it phases in, will be actually a month later than before.  So instead of continuing to add more post-puberty players to the kiddie field, they're not only going to have fewer, they're going to have even fewer than before.  Now, if this is a step towards using Jan. 1 some time in the future, at least that means that it'll be Jan. 1 of the year that keeps 13's off the 46/60 diamond.

 

I do hope everyone else follows suit.  The reason for the prior aging date was to do the best that could be done to keep players' ages and school years in synch to the extent possible.  I would love to see us head back in that direction.

 

P.S.  PG has some events that allow players to play on age OR on grade, on a player-by-player basis, which lets teams set their rosters on the most liberal standard.  The summer wood bat tourneys in Georgia are handled this way.  Other events insist on using class year limits, e.g., the fall Ft. Myers tourney.

For 50+ years, the LL age cutoff was July 31st -- I think that is the date Branson Baseball is remembering. That date was chosen at the very beginning of LL because the school district in Williamsport, where LL was founded, used that as its grade cutoff. The idea was to have kids play with the kids in their grade.

 

In 2006 LL changed its date to April 30th, based on a request from USA Baseball. Press release at the time stated:

 

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (May 9, 2005) – The Little League International Board of Directors, governing body for the world’s largest organized youth sports program, has accepted a recommendation from USA Baseball to change the league age determination date for its players starting in the 2006 season. 
The league age determination date is the age a player has attained as of a specific date, for the purpose of placing the player in a particular division. For more than 55 years in Little League, that date was July 31.  (see, for example: www.southamptonlittleleague.com/news.ihtml.html)

 

I have heard that USA Baseball was really pushing for a Dec. 31st date, to align with international baseball, and that LL agreed to move to that date in two steps. The second step was later announced, and planned for 2018. Of course, the unintended consequences of moving to April 30th was that 13 year olds started dominating the tiny LL fields. Much easier to change the date back to late summer than to reconfigure thousands of fields. IMO, late summer (whether July 31st or Aug. 31st) has always made the most sense.

 

We have LL in my town, but Pony in a neighboring town. As for Pony vs. LL, I don't think it makes a bit of difference what baseball a 7, 8, or 9 year old plays. By 11 or 12 the kids who are most interested in baseball are playing some amount of travel -- whether or not their town offers Pony or Little League. 

 

(Edit: I didn't see Midlo Dad's post -- he covered the same stuff.)

FYI Age:

saw a tweet just now on a player reclassifying from 2016 to 2017,

this New England player is 2 months older than my 2015.

 

Son started Pony 50/70 at 11, full-time at 12, was a good move, a truer game.

 

We won tickets online so went to LL WS several years ago,

the California team that won had  13 year 6 foot+ kids playing 40-60.

 

Here is my opinion.

 

In the younger age groups, everything should be based fairly on age.  I even wish it were possible to base it on size and ability, but not sure that can ever work.  Reason for this is safety.  At the very young ages, one year can make a huge difference.  Now if you add a physically well developed and skilled 13 year old and he is hitting screaming line drives to a undeveloped 11 or 12 year old pitcher some 40 feet away, you have a potential disaster.

 

In the older age groups, say 14 on up, I believe it should be based on your grad year.  Sure you still have the bigger, stronger, more developed older players competing with younger players.  But it is on the big field and by 14 a player should be able to handle himself well enough to deal with the difference.  However the main reason is that this is their class, they will all be college freshman or draft eligible at the same time.  So this truly is the competition in their case.  It doesn't help them as much playing against those that are in a younger class, even if the same age.  

 

Anyway, in the youngest age divisions is where you see the biggest difference in size, strength, and skill from one year to the next.  If not the biggest difference, the most dangerous difference, in my opinion.

So here's a question to you pgstaff? You say at 14u & up should be by class, why do you allow teams to play with mixed classes? Ie. 15u teams has 2017's & 2018's??? Technically the 2017 is 15yrs old but he's not playing his class. He won't be a freshman or draft eligible w/a true 15u 2018.

Why do we allow it?

 

It is in our rules.  If you are 15 you can play in 15U, no matter what class you are in.  If you are in that class you can also play, no matter how old you are.

 

That said, I have often wondered why kids in an older class choose to play on a younger team, basically a younger class.  Maybe they have a lot of friends their own age.  Guess we allow it because it seems totally fair. Plus we really don't see a lot of it.  For sure we don't see any 20 year olds playing against 15 year olds. We do see a lot of much younger kids playing on older teams.

While PG and other tournaments will allow it based on current age cutoffs, many of the better travel programs will not.  At least in my parts, there is a big push by these programs to go by class.  Truthfully, they are likely doing the kids a disservice by letting them "play down" as they are not on the same recruiting timeline as the rest of their team. 

Exactly right. 2019Son's travel team has a 2019 Team, a 2018 Team, a 2017 Team, and a 2016 Team. Every kid plays with his class, no exceptions, whether or not he is eligible to play on a younger team (or older team, for that matter).

PG you're right it is totally fair bc of their age/rules.  And I don't see a problem with it, I was just wondering by the comment.  In fact it's very common & it was rampart this summer in the major PG events, check the rosters. Lots of 2017's playing 15u/2018 events & vice versa.  I'm not opposed bc my son's team does it too, but like you said it just seems pointless and if they are being recruited/drafted by class then the scouts are not getting a "true" look at a kid playing highest level vs younger class.

Just my 2 cents...I will always play my sons class over age.  Just seems right.

There was a  six foot plus kid from a San Diego team in the LLWS ten or eleven years ago. He threw an 18k no hitter In a game my son and I attended. I can't remember his name now. I looked him up in high school. He wasn't pitching anymore. He was an ordinary high school catcher. He didn't grow after LL.

The path a kid takes as a preteen and the age break doesn't matter (rec, travel, LL, PONY, 46/60, to/70, etc.). What matters is he learns fundamentals, learns how to compete and develops a passion for the game.

 

Sorry Jerry, I have to ask...  Is this a good time to reevaluate your rules? Consider removing your Age Limit and go strictly by graduation year (or younger)? Some college recruiters may welcome the change. Right now, they have to check for kids being one grade above the tournament graduation year.

I'm going to guess it doesn't matter much to recruiters. If they see someone they like and he happens to be a 2017 playing in a tournament of mostly 2018's, they'll see that when they look his name up on the roster. The competition he's facing won't matter as much as how he personally looks. He might get discounted a very little, but no more than if he were playing up a year and happened to be facing a particularly weak pitcher at that particular time. Now, I can tell you that playing up too much hurts you due to the timeline. My 2018 played on an 18u team this past summer made up, other than him, entirely of 2015's and 2016's. He actually became the ace of the staff and got a lot of attention. Problem was that it was the wrong attention, timeline-wise. The only recruiters attending were JC's, DII's, NAIA programs and pro scouts. Once they found out his age, they had no interest. Those programs were looking for immediate help, not projecting three years into the future. While it was impressive that he was doing well with kids three years older, he would have been better off playing 17u  or 16u, or 15u tourneys.

MidAtlanticDad,

 

It's always a good time to reavaluate our rules.  In fact, we do that quite often.  If enough people complain we really take a close look at things. Always room for improvement.

 

Problem is, even if it is only by class, younger class kids are still going to play up.  So at any given time you never have just one class playing.  We have found out that most of the college recruiters like the way we are doing it.  Scouts, not as much, but they don't complain.