ELCO Youth Baseball

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Every year we have parents ask us when they should plan their vacations, to ensure not missing any baseball. This year we anticipate our season and playoffs to be concluded by June 30th. 

Q: Can my child play "up" with older children in the next division?

A:  A different way to consider this opportunity is asking, should my child play "up" with older children in the next division?

Obviously, the decision to play up depends heavily on the child’s abilities but please consider that whereas playing up has helped some kids, others have also been hurt by the experience. Therefore, the decision to play up should not be taken lightly and some additional factors should be taken into consideration.  For example:

1. Playing up can create extra stress and demands on a young player. The player will need strong self-motivation to make it work.

2. Can my child have fun and friendship with the older kids while playing up? These will not be their classmates.  Most children point to fun and friendship as the main reasons for playing. If they lose these, they generally lose their interest in the sport.

3. Has my child demonstrated mastery of the fundamental skills of the sport compared to age-level peers? Moving kids up before they master the fundamentals can hurt them in the long run if the older team does not spend as much time on basic fundamentals. Also, if they do not have the fundamentals reasonably in hand, they are likely to struggle against older kids who are equal or greater in size or athleticism.

4. Is my child more mentally mature than most age-level peers? Mental readiness is too often overlooked in decision to play up, especially if the child is big for their age. A child who is not mentally ready to manage the stress of playing up might actually lose his natural enthusiasm and leadership ability if they are struggling with self-confidence and more frequent failure against older peers.

5. Is my child physically advanced to the point where he/she physically dominates most age-level peers? If your child is not physically beyond their age-level peers, think carefully about how they are likely to perform against players who are bigger/faster/stronger.

6. Would my child have ample opportunity to practice leadership by playing up? An excellent athlete who sticks with her age group might have many opportunities to practice leadership. A child who plays up might not get that chance until much later, if ever. That early leadership experience can be very important when the child reaches his senior year in high school and is expected to lead the team.

Good sports programs and coaches think carefully about decisions to let kids play up. Beyond the decision of whether it might be good for your child, they have to think about the impact on others in the program as well as risk of injury. There is a massive difference in skill sets and abilities between a 1st grader vs. a 3rd grader, and a 3rd grader vs. a 6th grader.

In summary, there are no hard and fast rules on playing up. We hope these questions will help you think through the options and make the best decision for your child. It might be a good idea to discuss these questions with the coach and/or an ELCO Youth Baseball (EYB) representative.

Should you decide to request having your player move up, please just make a note in the Special Requests section of the registration page.  EYB will consult with your child’s previous year’s coach and you will be notified of their decision to approve or deny the request.

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How are team rosters selected?

Every season there are questions as to how team rosters are determined.  We usually start getting these questions about how rosters were divided in the first half of the season, especially if some lopsided games start occurring and people get the impression some teams were ‘stacked’.  We can assure you that whereas there is no ‘stacking’ I can also tell you that there is no perfect system and we do the best we can to give every team an equal roster prior to the start of the season.  There are multiple factors that go into each and every division, community and team.  Here are some basics about the rostering process. 

The very first thing that happens is all players return to the team they were on last year, assuming that they are still in the same division.  

Next, when registering their children, parents can chose what community they prefer to have their player’s team based in.  Most of the time, parents do end up choosing and playing in the communities they live in, but not always.  There can be other factors such as where a baby-sitter lives, where a divorced parent lives, etc.  Also, players may be asked from time to time by ELCO Youth Baseball to move from one community to another to balance some team sizes. This happens more frequently in the communities that may have a limited number of teams in each age division; namely Newmanstown, Schaefferstown and Richland.  It would not make sense to have one 10U team in one community have eighteen players and another 10U team in the neighboring community have only ten players; we would prefer to have both teams have fourteen. 

Within each team/division/community, we try as best as possible to balance the ‘age’ of each team, by keeping the same number of players in each applicable age division.  For example, we would want the same number of eleven and twelve year olds on each of the 12U teams in Myerstown.  This is the same for 10U teams with nine and ten year olds, etc. For Tee Ball we try to make sure the girls are evenly divided so hopefully there is never a situation where a player is upset that they are the ‘only’ girl on the team. 

Then you have to try to balance the teams by talent and skillset.  At the end of each spring season, we ask coaches who their ‘A’ (advanced skills) players are, who their ‘B’ (average skills) players are and lastly who their ‘C’ (developing skills) players are.  We realize this isn’t a perfect science, but it is the best we have come up with at this point.  Obviously, the flaw with this system is the definition of an ‘A’ player can differ from coach to coach.  The old “one man’s floor is another man’s ceiling” saying is very applicable.  Then we also ask the coaches for who their pitchers and catchers were, and we try to give each team in each division the same number of pitchers and catchers. 

Then we take into consideration special requests.  These requests can be related to:

Transportation:  This player must be on the same team as that player as their mutual baby-sitter gives them a ride to practice.Siblings:  Parents who don’t want brothers on two different teams.  This is only applicable within an appropriate age division, kids are not moved ‘up’ for this reason.Personality conflicts:  I don’t want to play for that coach.  I would like to play for this coach.

Then you also have teams that don’t have any coach or a limited coaching staff.  We then find ourselves shifting kids around to make sure you have an equal number of coaches, assistant coaches, base coaches, bench coaches, team parents and helpers on each team. 

As you can hopefully see, there is a lot involved in this process.  Also please keep in mind, there are other factors that can come into play once we finalize the rosters.  We have kids that never show up, quit after three practices, or get injured.  Some teams just get terribly unlucky during the month of April and get a vast majority of their practices cancelled due to weather. 

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What does ELCO Youth Baseball offer for players older than twelve years old?The transition for players from twelve year old to teenage baseball can sometimes be very intimidating.  Some players can make this transition smoothly and others could use more time.  ELCO Youth Baseball (EYB) recognizes this and is proud to offer a transitional brand of baseball for thirteen and fourteen year olds.  We call this team EYB 14U, which stands for players that are 14 years old and under only.  This team will play in the Lancaster County Youth Baseball League (lancoyouthbaseball.org) – 14U Section 3 division.  This league / division is structured for ball players that are 13 or 14 years old that want to continue to learn good fundamental baseball while at the same time play in a competitive league. 

History has shown that there is a large drop-off of the number of players that “hang up the cleats” at this age level.  EYB’s hopes are that by offering this program in addition to the other teenage programs in the area; we can keep more players on the field.