How to Draft a Kids Baseball Team
The draft for kids' baseball can be a little stressful. Everyone knows it’s all about the kids and having fun. If you have a child however, you know they also like to win. So putting together a competitive team (even at eight years old) is important.
A lot of leagues have “assessments” to figure out how the kids catch, throw, hit and run. You will see other coaches with lots of notes tracking everything. It is just a crap shoot because no one knows on a particularly day how someone under 10 is going to perform. In addition, who knows about the conditions (rain, wind, cold), which will not match game time.
To me the key is behavior. If a child listens, but is not the greatest ball player, I would take them over a great athlete that does not listen any day. So my "assessment" is tied to behavior. Those kids running around and not listening will not make my team. Now when you get to practice you can teach fundamentals because you have a set of kids that listen. You are not working on behavior issues.
We might not win every game, but I guaranty the kids (and I) will have more fun!
