Keep in mind it's not so much what drills are being done, it's the number of repetitions in those drills, and the fine tuning of things that the coaches point out. Anybody can hit fungo but it's not just taking grounders or fly balls, it's coaching the footwork on a grounder, how to work a backhand, how to turn and run to a fly ball, and take an angle. Little things such as positioning your feet before the pitch or how to work through the ball to play a hop. That's where the coaching experience comes in.

Now, I'm not advocating one way or another for paid vs. volunteer vs. dads, just that what looks superficially the same in doing drills really isn't.

My oldest has had good dudes as his coaches and all of them knew baseball. They played juco or college ball and some played minor league ball but the coaches for his current team are the ones he's connected the best with and made the most improvement. He has 3 coaches but one is more of the team administrator- he doesn't do much instruction but he's the guy hitting fungo while the other two are watching and instructing (he's the only one who didn't play in college). His coaches are tough but instructional- if you do it right, you're encouraged. If you do it wrong they tell you exactly what you did wrong and how to fix it while demonstrating it. You do it wrong too many times and they'll jump your butt.

There's good & bad to independent teams just like larger organizations. Just have to do your homework and I'd recommend trying out multiple places. But be up front and let the coaches/organizations know you're trying to find a good fit for your kid.

We had a good weekend. Went 1-1 Saturday getting the #10 seed. Started 9am Sunday winning 4 games and going home with the Gold after 9pm. It was hot and will only get worse. I'm not ready for Summer yet, but the boys didn't seem to mind it.

-Both teams we played Saturday basically blew their whole tourney trying to beat us. They each threw their 2 best pitchers 50+ pitches trying to win a Saturday game. I threw all 10 of my kids 15-20 pitches each. You can't win a tourney on Saturday, but you can damn sure lose it.

This post may help some people interested in Select if people don't mind answering.

What do you pay and what do you get out of your organization?


We pay
-$65 per month to organization for 8 months(Nov-June)
-$55 per month for practice field rental (2 X per week)
=$120 a month per kid for 8 months. We take off Dec & Jan, but still pay dues and use extra money for our WS
-3 jerseys for around $100

We get
-Free entry to all PG tourneys that we host. (13 in the spring, I think it was 6 in the fall)
-Unlimited use of our indoor facility any time we want.

And that's pretty much it. They do offer camps and other training all of the time for extra money. They leave me alone and let me run my team how I want for what I think is a pretty fair price.

PhatMack19 said:

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We had a good weekend. Went 1-1 Saturday getting the #10 seed. Started 9am Sunday winning 4 games and going home with the Gold after 9pm. It was hot and will only get worse. I'm not ready for Summer yet, but the boys didn't seem to mind it.

-Both teams we played Saturday basically blew their whole tourney trying to beat us. They each threw their 2 best pitchers 50+ pitches trying to win a Saturday game. I threw all 10 of my kids 15-20 pitches each. You can't win a tourney on Saturday, but you can damn sure lose it.

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What's your age group?

You are 100% right about blowing the tournament on Saturday. But one thing we learned with our boys is not to pitch the Sunday starters at all on Saturday. We found that even 20 pitches on Saturday would make them less sharp on Sunday. One of them does catch one game on Saturday. The others just play in the field and if the opportunity presents itself they sit.

What we do instead is pitch them two innings in league either Wednesday or Thursday nights depending on the schedule. We are very pleased with how that has played out this year, fall and spring. Our Sunday pitching has been really sharp.

It also allowed us to allow kids on Saturday to pitch a lot more. Both of our starters last Saturday pitched 50 pitches and got thru 3 and 3 1/3.

lil99chris said:

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agsalaska said:

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lil99chris said:

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Alright……my son is currently playing 10U. We have stuck around with rec league/all stars instead of joining an organization over the past few years. In the past he has been asked to join teams, but we have turned down offers due to other commitments, wanting to play with friends, and I honestly enjoy coaching. When looking at organizations, how much of a factor should I really pay toward a paid coach, dad coach, or volunteer coached team?

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I think it depends entirely on what your goals are. Does he have to quit rec ball? Some rec coaches put weekend teams together. Do you want him playing majors or is having fun still a top priority?

There are a lot of good organizations out there.

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We are likely going to consider also playing rec ball in the fall/spring. We also understand rec league is not going to really give my son and his buddy the challenge they require. I grew up playing baseball with my neighborhood friends and loved it. Select baseball was not really an option when I played.

I believe having fun and continuing to improve will always been the priorities.

I feel like the larger organizations around us are similar to puppy mills. You can play for their name organization and their paid coach, but with 4+ teams.......are you really getting much out of it outside of cash going out your wallet? I have seen some of these kids. They aren't improving and are doing the same drills most rec league baseball coaches do as a 'practice' once a week. I know I am missing some stuff here, but I see the 'profit' motivation more than the player development.

One more thing....I have been approached about possibly coaching a team. I know I can coach a baseball team, but I am honestly a bit nervous about getting players developed for high school teams.

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As I have said a lot on here my son and 8 of the 10 boys on his select team play both. But you have to be pretty careful with that, especially if they are pitchers. The reason we get away with it is we are a fairly small town and a close group and the coaches, including me, coach both league and select. So we count pitch counts from both leagues. But you don't have to be a baseball expert to develop these boys. They are boys. They need a lot more than just baseball skills.

One other thing I was thinking about this weekend is many of these organizations will pigeon hole kids into positions very early. Even as early as 8. We had to pick a kid up last year when Covid hit our team and realized after his second error that he had never played in the OF. This is a majors level kid and one of the top players in the area. Had no clue what to do. On our team you have to learn how to play OF before you can even walk into the IF. That's probably why we beat his team constantly.

One day he will not make a team because he only know hot to play SS.

We have played 19 weekend games so far this spring and my son has played P, 3b, 2b, LF, and CF. In 10 league games he has played P, C, SS, CF, RF, and 1B. In other words, he has played every position on the field. Our boys are so well rounded that we can set them up a lot of different ways and be very, very good defensively. They had one error in the first four games this weekend and everyone played at least two positions and three if they pitched.

Long post, but I think that is very important. A lot of baseball people disagree, but they are 10-12 years old. Let them have fun. Our boys generally don't care where they play as long as they play.

We are 9, playing 10u. I'm just getting to the point where I'm comfortable stretching out the Saturday guys more. They've really improved over the last few months. I usually try to pitch all 10 kids every tourney and it's paying off.

We pitch well and play great defense. We don't always hit, but if you walk us we are having a track meet. I think we play more innings than most every team. Pretty much all of our games go the full 6 innings.

Phat how did you attract players to an independent team?

Lonestar_Ag09 said:

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Phat how did you attract players to an independent team?

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We are with an organization of around 25 teams. The organization post big group tryouts for every age each season. Each team does operate independently though. We don't move kids up and down between teams like some do.

And each team is just ran by a dad who signs up to coach?

A lot of them have paid coaches. It cost more. About half of them I coached when they were in high school.

*a lot if the time(not all) a paid coach just means they don't have a kid on the team.

PhatMack19 said:

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This post may help some people interested in Select if people don't mind answering.

What do you pay and what do you get out of your organization?


We pay
-$65 per month to organization for 8 months(Nov-June)
-$55 per month for practice field rental (2 X per week)
=$120 a month per kid for 8 months. We take off Dec & Jan, but still pay dues and use extra money for our WS
-3 jerseys for around $100

We get
-Free entry to all PG tourneys that we host. (13 in the spring, I think it was 6 in the fall)
-Unlimited use of our indoor facility any time we want.

And that's pretty much it. They do offer camps and other training all of the time for extra money. They leave me alone and let me run my team how I want for what I think is a pretty fair price.

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Oldest- his org was just bought so we don't pay anything now. It will be interesting to see where we practice in the fall though because we've been at Pep Mueller Park in Houston where ZT paid a whole lot of money to redo the fields, new turf infields, sidewalks, covered turf cages, concession stand, new bleachers, new lights, etc. and they have a deal where they lease it from Harris County and in turn lease the fields for practices & tournaments. But, the Wildcatters organization we're now part of somehow got the ZT Burgos 12U team to join Wildcatters (Burgos is the coach's name- they're the #2 12U team in the region and #6 in the country) which pissed off ZT so they might not want to rent the fields to us for practice.

But before, when we were still the Gulf Coast Marlins we paid $325/mo which covered field rentals, paid coaches, and tournament fees. We paid probably $300 for uniforms, matching helmets, and Boombah roller bags- that was 2 game jerseys, 2 practice jerseys, 2 hats, 2 pants, and 2 pairs each of different socks, along with the other stuff.

Youngest- $100 per month which covers field/facility rental. They have indoor cages that we have 24/7 access to. Uniforms were like $200 for hat, 2 jerseys & pants with socks (all New Balance baseball stuff). They don't have matching helmets or bags but they're also 7.

Well our regular season came to an end last night...thankful that one is over but there were plenty of positives to be found.

Last Saturday my son was 3-3 1 double, 2 RBI, and made 2 outs in the field, (4-6, 4U tag out)

Last night he was 3-3 2 doubles, 3 runs, 1 RBI and he made 5 outs in the field, nearly had 2 more but the first baseman dropped a throw and he booted one that he lost concentration when the runner ran in front of the ball.

Wow your league is already done? What age group?

We must have started late.

agsalaska said:

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Wow your league is already done? What age group?

We must have started late.

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We still have playoffs but the regular season is over. We had 2 scrimmages the week before spring break, then most weeks were 2 games a week 12 games.

We pay
-$1,100 per season (so $2,200 for fall & spring) to organization

We get
-10- 12 PG tourneys
- Practice field rental (2x per week)
- 3 game jerseys, 2 pants, 2 socks, 2 hats, practice jersey, helmets, bags
- Dad coaches plus occasional roaming paid coach (I assume their paid)

I think its reasonable considering most of the bigger orgs rent the same practice facilities, are dad coached and if not the "paid" coach is a college aged kid. This probably changes at older age groups to some extent but we're at 8U.

All of yall in these big organizations pay a lot more than we do. We pay about $600 a year. That includes practice fields, cages, uniforms, fall ball league, and 12-14 weekend tournaments.

We subsidize with a fundraiser.


We also have dad's that coach. But they are good at it and the team is rock solid.

I had heard ZT Burgos 12U left ZT Elite and went to the Wildcatters. Our 12u Banditos Black team has played them in some of the big tournaments. I also know a lot of the ZT guys. Most guys on here know I'm with the Banditos. Been with them going on 15 years. I'm the Corporate Head Baseball Operations Director for the Southwest Region.

Our cost are pretty simple & pretty much the same for Youth & HS teams. For Spring/Summer the player fee is around $700. For Fall player fee is around $400. Then for tournaments, the teams pay the tournament/coach fee every weekend. This is split up by the total number of kids playing that week on that team. So if you have a player that's not there that weekend say they going on family trip, then those players not out of pocket any money. So say have a tournament & entry is $600 per team, Coach fee is $400 then it would be $1000 total divided up by say 12 confirmed players that weekend. That comes out to be $84 buck per player per weekend. They send that to the Coach via Venmo, Cash app or Zelle. Coach then registers & pays to enter.

Our uniforms cost are about $200 as we are sponsored by The Won Brand. That includes a 3D logo Banditos Batting Helmet, Two Game Jersey & Pants, fitted hat, black & white logo dryfit shirts, and pair of Bandito logo socks/sturrips for those that get Knicker pants. We have alternative uniform combos if the team wants to get those as well then there's a package they can add. Also all the rest of the Banditos gear is online or in our store in Tomball to be purchased. Example of one of our Uniform combos below.

The way we do our teams is all teams are built off skillset from kids from all over the program. Doesn't matter where you live. This way teams are balanced and all teams are competitive. All the coaches are professional coaches that have either played college or higher, that includes if even a Dad is a coach. All the kids that are in the program have free access to the Bandito facility & fields in Tomball plus free access to any other Bandito facilities outside of Tomball like in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Beaumont, Corpus Christi. Lessons are flat rate with any of our instructors/coaches that is typically 3 lessons a week/1 1/2 hours time each lesson for a total of $175. So basically thats about $59 bucks a lesson breakdown. Instructors/Coaches keep 100% of any lessons. We also have live scrimmages in Tomball before we kick off a season. We also do a Banditos Scout day in Summer at UH for all the players that recruiting age. We have all the alot of the D1, D2, D3, Juco & pro scouts there for that event. Then its also live streamed for any scout to see online.

The way we do our practices typically min of 2 practices a week, Since our teams are built from all over the State/Program typically all the Houston area kids will practice in Tomball, Austin area kids practice in Austin area, and so forth based on location. Since I live in Burnet and I oversee the Southwest Region, I run the practices for all the Austin, Waco, Hill Country area kids. We have a indoor facility/fields in Georgetown plus have additional High School fields at various places we can use like at Salado, Round Rock, Burnet, and so forth. A few times we will have coordinated team practices in Tomball as well.

https://www.perfectgame.org/articles/view.aspx?article=18230

Went 1-1 yesterday but rained out today. Oldest only. Youngest was off.

Went 1-3 at the plate. Did a great job fighting off a 2-strike curveball he was fooled on but strong enough to flip over the SS with just his hands. Second AB he struck out looking and I'd normally jump his butt but after going up 3-0 the ump literally called strikes on 2 pitches in the dirt and strike 3 was called at his eyeballs. In the second game he only got one PA for his 3rd AB of the day he was out in front and fouled off a curveball, took another curve for a strike, and then smoked a 2-strike fastball the other way that the RF made a diving catch on. That's baseball, just tip your hat.

Lost to a team from Louise/El Campo called the Hooks that was really good. I'd argue they should be a 12U major team- whole lot of big old, rice-fed boys. Their whole team could mash. I saw their 9-hole kid hit 2 bombs.

He pitched the last inning, hit one kid, gave up one hit, struck out 2 and no ER. I was really proud to see him throw his curveball really well. Struck out one kid on 3 straight curves and the other kid he dropped in 2 curves for strikes and blew a high fastball past him for the K. He's really been working to learn to throw and locate it effectively. Was at 65% strikes.

If he can consistently locate that curveball he'll have 4 legit pitches before he's 12. He'll tell you he typically throws 85-90% effort to better locate his pitches but will ramp it up at times. He's topped out at 67 but usually sits 62-64mph on his 4-seam, throws a legit 2-seam that has nice arm-side run, a change up he can drop in around 50-52mph, and his curve yesterday was 47-49mph.

a big weekend last week for my son, as he was asked to play up from 9 AA to 11AA. he his .750 in 6 plate appearances with 2 walks, 2 singles, and a double. He played shortstop. He likes the pitching in 11U better than 9u for sure

Congrats man. Good luck in your All Stars.

Congrats to your son! We won the league and would have coached the gold team, but my son had surgery and won't be able to play, so we gave it to the Diamondbacks coach. Good luck!

NM

My son's 10 select season ended with a thud today. Boys were worn out and just didn't play very well. But they won one tournament in the spring, two in the fall, and most importantly grew as young boys learning valuable life lessons all along the way.

My son, and this is not Aggie related in any way shape or form, was surprised last night with a trip to the CWS. By very convenient happenstance I must make a delivery in the midwest on June 20. My daughters friend. We could of course put her on a plane but if we did that we would have no reason to be in Nebraska. So we are driving. Going to games 6,7,8. My son, who is right now watching a random regional, is beside himself with excitement. We are going to camp in Oklahoma on the way back.

Rec ball is not over but we have no chance to win State. We may have a shot to get there but we will see.

This is start of a busy, busy 3 weeks to end our baseball season.

This week- LL All Stars (Wed-Sun)
Next week- Gulf Shores, AL World Series (Tues-Sat)
Week 3- Beaumont World Series (Tues-Sun)


I got tired just typing that, but we will have a blast! Mix in some Aggie Baseball, and I won't be sleeping much over the next few weeks.

docb said:

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PhatMack19 said:

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This is start of a busy, busy 3 weeks to end our baseball season.

This week- LL All Stars (Wed-Sun)
Next week- Gulf Shores, AL World Series (Tues-Sat)
Week 3- Beaumont World Series (Tues-Sun)


I got tired just typing that, but we will have a blast! Mix in some Aggie Baseball, and I won't be sleeping much over the next few weeks.

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Only in select baseball can you have multiple world series and state championships!

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Clearly you're not paying attention to other youth sports. Do you know how many "Super Bowls" there are for youth football?

That being said, it is kind of ridiculous that there are so many different youth tournaments called "World Series." The idea is that they're supposed to be bigger, more competitive tournaments with better competition in sort of "destination" locations but surely they can be more creative in naming them. And my 7-year old is playing in a tournament in Beaumont later this month called a "World Series" - who the fck thinks Beaumont is a destination?

My older son in playing in the Omaha Slumpbuster later this month which is in conjunction with the CWS so we'll be going to a couple CWS games. There are 56 teams in his division (12U) and only 5 teams are from Texas, including us. Of the other 4, 2 teams are from DFW and one is from Midland. The schedules are already set for pool play and we're playing a team from Overland Park, Kansas, a team from Arvada, Colorado, and a team from Van Nuys, California.

I think he said it in jest.

Quote:

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My older son in playing in the Omaha Slumpbuster later this month which is in conjunction with the CWS so we'll be going to a couple CWS games.

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We will be there. Going to games 6,7, and 8. If you are there let's get a beer.

We won't tell the boys the true definition of 'slumpbuster'

agsalaska said:

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I think he said it in jest.

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Totally. We just had our Perfect Game Central Texas State Tournament last weekend. And it was the usual list of teams for the most part. World Series and State tournaments don't imply that you earned your way there. It just means that you paid an entry fee.

Beaumont is a destination! That's where we go on our fancy date nights

….how close is the Buc-ee's to the fields? That place has saved us a few times.

~45 minutes

docb said:

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agsalaska said:

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I think he said it in jest.

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Totally. We just had our Perfect Game Central Texas State Tournament last weekend. And it was the usual list of teams for the most part. World Series and State tournaments don't imply that you earned your way there. It just means that you paid an entry fee.

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