As I write this it is early January, and all over North America travel ball coaches are starting to look at tournament listings to decide where they’ll be playing in the spring and summer. There are lots of considerations to take into account, not the least of which is budget in this economy.

Of course, one of the major decisions that has to be made is what level to play. If you’re a top-level team that’s easy. You go into the best tournaments and try for a bid to whatever National tournament floats your boat. For others, though, it’s not so simple. Those are the folks who need to carefully consider more than a “desire to be and play the best,” and really think about what will best suit their players.

Let’s face it. Every coach wants to think he/she is coaching an A level team, or at least a team that’s on the verge of being A level. But there’s a reason most sanctioning organizations offer a B level, too. There is no shame in playing a B level schedule if that’s the team you have, and you may find it’s better for your team’s long-term satisfaction.

There’s an old saw that says “to be the best you have to play the best.” That’s true to some extent. Yes, there are definitely things you can learn by playing teams that are better than yours. But there’s also a law of diminishing returns to that. If you are consistently playing tournaments where you team is getting run ruled in the minimum amount of time, and being driven out in the minimum number of games, about all you’re players will learn is they’re not very good. It’s tough to learn much about playing the game when you’re only playing three innings at a time. You would be better served to maybe stretch in one tournament, then go into the rest where the level of competition will allow you to get more innings and games in.

Some coaches worry about getting their kids college exposure. They want to play in the big tournaments so their kids have an opportunity to play in college. I don’t claim to be an expert in this area, but from everyone I’ve spoken to it doesn’t work that way.

Your chances of being “discovered” out of the blue at a college exposure are about the same as actresses being discovered hanging around the corner drugstore in Hollywood. Yes, it has happened. Yes, it still happens every now and then. But if you want to increase your chances of being a successful actress you need to take classes, get an agent, and audition like crazy.
 
The same goes for softball players. Their best best for playing college ball is to contact coaches directly, send a DVD, participate in their camps, and otherwise be proactive. (I know some recruiting experts read this blog, so please feel free to add more advice and your contact info in the comments section.) If your players aren’t doing that, you don’t need to worry about appearing in exposure tournaments.

Then there’s the player/parent perspective. Some coaches will feel they need to play in A level tournaments to please the parents, or show them their kids are in a top-flight program. But the parents are there and watching the games, and they can see what’s going on. Truth is, if you ask them whether they’d rather go to high-level tournaments and see their kids get the stuffing kicked out of them or lower-level tournaments where the team stands a chance of winning some hardware, most would opt for the latter. The ones who don’t probably won’t be coming back next year anyway, as they will seek a team that can be more competitive when it plays. And the rest will get discouraged and leave too since it isn’t much fun to get a butt kicking weekend after weekend.

So far, I’ve mostly talked about playing B instead of A. But there’s the other side of the coin too. If your team is consistently in the top two in every tournament it plays, you’re probably not seeking out good enough competition. Winning a tournament should be an accomplishment, not business as usual. If you’re always clearly the best team in every tournament, it’s time to seek out a level of competition that will stretch your players’ ability and help them grow. Just as no one learns much by getting run ruled all the time, no one learns much by run ruling the competition all the time either. 

When it comes to choosing tournaments, use the diamond theory — you can’t make a diamond out of lump of coal without pressure, but if you add too much pressure too soon your lump of coal will turn to dust. Seek out the competitive level that will challenge your team without overwhelming it and your players will gain all the benefits you’re hoping to give them.

About a week ago, I was hanging out at North Shore Baseball Academy with some time on my hands. My 6:30 lesson had cancelled  at the last minute due to illness, so I was just sort of strolling around trying to keep myself occupied for the next half hour.

In one cage was a high school age boy hitting off a pitching machine. I started chatting with his father, just some general stuff. But as we were talking I was also watching the boy. He was popping up a lot, although every now and then he’d hit a good one. I could see why — he was dropping his back shoulder before rotating — and that created a dilemma for me. I so much wanted to offer to help him out, but I wasn’t sure that my recommendations would be all that welcome. After all, who was I to tell them anything?

Ultimately I decided not to say anything. It was probably the toughest thing I had to do all night.

Once you really get into coaching it’s hard to turn it back off. I can’t even watch a movie where they’re playing softball without analyzing the technique. (I can tell you with utmost certainty that softball is not Hillary Duff’s game.)

So how about you? Have you ever been walking around a field or indoor facility, seen some bad technique or bad instruction, and wanted to say something? Did you, or did you keep your mouth shut too?

I have to admit I’m not real big on the whole comedy club improv thing. I tend to like my comedy a little more fully baked. Guess that’s the writer in me. Still, there is a parallel between improv and coaching.

One of the highlights of improv comedy shows is when the performers ask the audience to shout out a bunch of random stuff, or at least semi-random stuff, and then the performers act out the scene the audience has “put together.” It’s really living on the edge, because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But it does require quick thinking and an open mind either way.

What made me think of this was working with a student last night on pitching. Although she is 15 and has pitched for a few years, this is the first time she’s ever had lessons. She had a few habits that we had to break her of, one of which was a balance issue. I’ve tried a few different things that have worked in the past and there has been some improvement, but the issue was still there. So like the comics doing improv, I had to come up with something else, which turned out to be the magic formula.

The cue I gave her — drive your back hip toward your front hip as you come forward — wasn’t substantially different than others I’d given her in the past. But this one worked, where the others didn’t, or only did to a limited extent.

With the balance issue addressed, this girl started throwing harder than she ever has before. She was able to put more of herself into her pitches with the confidence that they would go where they were supposed to (more or less). She walked out of there feeling pretty good last night.

That’s the beauty and the challenge of coaching. You always have to be prepared to come up with a new explanation, or a new drill, or a new approach right there on the spot. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. What’s worked 100 times before is useless if it doesn’t work this time, for this player. You have to be able to figure out what the problem is, then find an explanation that makes sense to the player. It can be a bit nerve-wracking at time. But the reward is definitely worth it.