Midwest Fastpitch - keeptheboardcorrect@gmail.com

Midwest Fastpitch - keeptheboardcorrect@gmail.com
[ Midwest Fastpitch - keeptheboardcorrect@gmail.com ]

Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by Parent on January 15, 2025, 1:06 pm

I understand there will be a TON of opinions on this topic. So...lets get it started.

Should kids play down or play up?

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by Play on January 16, 2025, 10:56 pm, in reply to "Where to play next season? What age group? "

The most important factor is what organization you play on. The next factor is if she is seeing a good bit of playing time. I find that whether they play 16u or 18u is of minimal importance.

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by JJ on January 16, 2025, 12:41 pm, in reply to "Where to play next season? What age group? "

Play 16u for as many years as possible until your DD is committed. If your 14u, play your team in 16u showcases, dont worry about wins and loses, worry about constant exposure.

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by This right here on January 16, 2025, 12:59 pm, in reply to "Re: Where to play next season? What age group? "

Is the best advice

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by @Parent on January 16, 2025, 8:12 am, in reply to "Where to play next season? What age group? "

Be realistic and play at the highest level, where your daughter will realistically compete for meaningful playing time. You also need to take into account your kid's maturity. There's a big jump in social activity at a certain age, and you don't want her feeling left out.

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by Up in Level not Age on January 16, 2025, 7:03 am, in reply to "Where to play next season? What age group? "

Always play at the highest level at your DD's age, not just with older.

At say the UTrip and local level, the level of competition, fundamentals, and play goes down with age after 14s - as the kids that are playing at a high level no longer play there.

If you want to move a kid that is the best in the ballpark at 10U to play on a 12U team, that's fine, but I would say better to put them on a better 10U team. Plus, let kid s be kids with kids their own age

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by Dave Betcher on January 15, 2025, 5:16 pm, in reply to "Where to play next season? What age group? "

When I coached I kept my teams at 16 as long as we were still being recruited. Then we moved to 18 once I had the team committed. Worked pretty well for many seasons.

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by Coach on January 16, 2025, 9:20 am, in reply to "Re: Where to play next season? What age group? "

Dave, I had this opinion for many years. Have started to see my coaches at the Premier events attending 18u divisions looking for the kids playing up. They want to see the good 16u kids playing against the committed players and how they respond.

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by Play up on January 15, 2025, 2:20 pm, in reply to "Where to play next season? What age group? "

I would say, if at some point your daughter is ready and able to play up, play up as long as you can. Playing up should only build her skills and set her apart from girls her own age. This will also help with high school ball as she will be ready for varsity level at a younger age. All depends on the team, org. and person. Eveyone will have their own opinion. My 3 always played up and at some points it kept them together on the same team.

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by Peter Parker on January 15, 2025, 2:44 pm, in reply to "Where to play next season? What age group? "

Stay at 16u as long as possible. No brainer.

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by Pauly T on January 15, 2025, 2:17 pm, in reply to "Where to play next season? What age group? "

Explain the impact it will have for teams being born after sept1 vs after jan 1st?

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by Impact on January 16, 2025, 1:06 pm, in reply to "Re: Where to play next season? What age group? "

It will catch the ones that had to move up despite being the same year in school as some kids.

For example this year an October 2008 under the old model would have been considered 17 for next year's age chart but in the new model, would be eligible for 16U next year. It's the kids with birthdates between 9/1 and 12/31 that this will impact.

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by gtq on January 16, 2025, 2:41 pm, in reply to "Re: Where to play next season? What age group? "

When all the associations decided to go to 9/1 it didn't shock me. It more or less used to be the rule when I first started with my own children in the late 90s. What surprised me is that they added three months of players (9/1 to 12/31) to every age group except 18u who lost three months of players. For some reason, I thought if we went back to the 9/1 rule, that it would put the Junior class at 18u rather than 16u. Then you would have two classes at each age group i.e., Juniors and Seniors play 18u.

The ruling may have some interesting impacts:

1. At least from a mandatory having to play a certain age level, they principally turned 18u into a Seniors only age group. Some organizations may have 16u eligible kids play 18u for various reasons including roster balancing, but for the most part it may make it harder to fill some 18 rosters if the talent base you draw from is strictly Seniors.

2. One of the long running complaints about the Jan 1 rule was it divided teams at 14u between 9th graders and junior high kids. Which created scheduling challenges in the spring. This change does not solve this issue and actually increases the number of 9th graders likely to be playing 14u.

3. It does match the age groups by school class better because it follows the school birthdate calendar, but because of the two year increments in softball, you will still have 2 and 3 graduating classes well represented at 16u competing against each other. For example you will see 2027s, 2028s and some 2029s playing 16u next year.

4. If you buy the argument that 16u is where the coaches are, this rule likely will magnify it even more by adding the Sep 1 to Dec 31 Junior class to the 16u mix each year. As I said, it shrinks the talent pool at 18u dramatically. By the time summer rolls around, with the 9/1 to 12/31 portion of the Junior class now playing 16u, you will find the national level teams that take advantage of holding kids back at 16 will have all or a large portion of their rosters already recruited by June.

5. Have to keep in mind, rostering around these rules will be at the discretion of each team. Some kids will play "up" for any number of reasons, but you would think that very large programs may build their rosters around keeping players "down" from a national competition standpoint.

6. Most people would agree your sophomore year and summer before your Junior year are the most critical 12 months from an evaluation standpoint. That group will now find itself competing against more older kids than before while being first year 16u. For college coaches that may be a plus, but for the athletes who elect to play 14u as 9th graders (which will be most) they better be ready to compete against a more experienced group of players at 16u than in years past. It may just be a coincidence, and there are some exceptions, but my first Juniors recruited each year are the 9/1 to 12/31 kids who had the benefit of being in year 2 of 16u during their sophomore year in HS.

7. I do believe each age level is more challenging than the age level below it. You have to do things better to have success every time you move up a level. It has been my opinion that the 9/1 to 12/31 babies historically have benefited from being forced up the chain a year earlier than their HS classmates.

8. If your organization is not large, and you don't have the luxury of "loading up" with old kids at 16u, I think you look at your rising Junior class members that are most likely to be recruited between 9/1 of their Junior year and the start of the six week recruiting window in fall and plan for them to play 18u to help play fill your 18u roster. However in smaller programs you may not have that luxury as roster spots may need to be position driven also.

Until we experience the new age parameters you can't predict all the outcomes. I am sure it will present challenges. In the end, good knows good and therefore "good" likely has nothing to worry about. You probably shouldn't overthink things - though I just wrote an essay doing just that. In the end, revenue sharing and NIL will likely have a greater impact on the future of player recruiting than the age rule change.

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by Just wait on January 19, 2025, 3:20 am, in reply to "Re: Where to play next season? What age group? "

If the NCAA gives SA's a 5th year option like they are talking, and does not count JUCO years against eligibility, high schoolers will be looking at a completely different recruiting landscape.

Re: Where to play next season? What age group?

Posted by @gtq on January 16, 2025, 4:51 pm, in reply to "Re: Where to play next season? What age group? "

In the end, revenue sharing and NIL will likely have a greater impact on the future of player recruiting than the age rule change.

Amen ..

« Back to index

[ Midwest Fastpitch - keeptheboardcorrect@gmail.com ]