Thanks Glen,

This helps!

From: Wadas <wadas-bounces@lists.rodeonetworks.com> On Behalf Of Glen Dickason
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2024 8:13 PM
To: Jarel (JP) WA 05 Pittman <jarel@jpiworldwide.com>; Washington DAs Discussion Forum <wadas@lists.rodeonetworks.com>
Subject: Re: [Wadas] Draft -- A couple of questions

I am sorry for the delay. I waited until after my district meeting to see what most are doing. I only have two leagues that are still doing property players for majors. None are using property players for minors.

Almost all of my teams draft minors, and I think the ones that don’t are small leagues with one or two minor teams. They have tryouts, but if a player doesn’t get to tryouts he/she is still assigned a minor league team. I know that the “party line” for Little League is that only majors draft, but if the leagues are trying to have minors to be a junior division of majors, they will keep score. If they care about winning and losing, a competitive draft is the only way to ensure parity.

At coach-pitch and t-ball, players are assigned to leagues in a variety of ways. I used to divide up t-ball by neighborhood. One of my leagues said it is alphabetical. Andrew is a rules guy – he will always quote the rule book. I also think there is a difference between “needs to draft” and may draft. Kit has been in the field and gone through all the positions in Little League. She knows that leagues need flexibility and will almost always draft to ensure parity.

Travel ball has made this all complicated. I have a hard and fast rule about not bringing in whole teams, not using a Little League team as a travel team and not having a travel team be the only players chosen for a tournament team. I know tht not everyone does that. At state tournaments, especially in softball, I see teams that have played as a travel team all year – they even retain their travel team name – playing as a tournament team. I feel sorry for the other players in their league that know that no matter how they improve and how they play, if they weren’t put on the travel team at the beginning of the year, they don’t get to play on a tournament team. But I digress.

The short answer is that a league has flexibility to choose their minor division in whatever manner works for them – draft or assignment – as long as it isn’t keeping an outside team together and not being distributed among the regular season teams of that league. I hope my answer doesn’t muddy the waters more. If so, other DAs will help.

From: Wadas <wadas-bounces@lists.rodeonetworks.com> on behalf of "Jarel (JP) WA 05 Pittman" <jarel@jpiworldwide.com>
Organization: JPI Worldwide Inc.
Reply-To: "Jarel (JP) WA 05 Pittman" <jarel@jpiworldwide.com>, Washington DAs Discussion Forum <wadas@lists.rodeonetworks.com>
Date: Saturday, February 3, 2024 at 12:54 PM
To: 'Washington DAs Discussion Forum' <wadas@lists.rodeonetworks.com>
Subject: [Wadas] Draft -- A couple of questions

All,

I have been in Little League since 1991… I have seen the gamut of draft “policies”, tryouts, and team picking. The two leagues that I was involved with at higher levels always drafted Minors and Majors. (8-10, and Majors). One even drafted Farm (7-8) … They held tryouts…for majors… all the managers got to see all the kids at tryouts .

As I have been focusing on making District 13 better in all respects, I have discovered a lot of discrepancies in performing the draft. Some leagues didn’t draft at all. Some had a convoluted process of drafting to the point where it appeared as if they had a draft but really just assigned kids from various travel ball teams to the teams they wanted… and even another just let the managers bring travel teams into the league as a unit.

So my first question is this.. I know what Little League says in the rule book and the website. I have been a player agent and ran drafts. I have talked with Kit about it… and one of my ADAs contacted Andrew and got something yet a little different. Do you all see a consistent approach being upheld in all cases? I am looking for fairness to all kids and honesty from boards… (pipe dream I know)….

What I read in the book is that majors (ages 9-12) draft. They have now ONE tryout that is mandatory. They may do a “legacy draft”, or a pool draft. (holding some over from the previous year to a team, OR everyone gets drafted every year). I know the distribution of 12 year olds needs to be … on “parity” and numbers count.

So --- Kit says that if the division is competitive, then they draft. (I asked what is the definition of competitive) – she said “If they keep score”) . I asked, “What about if they go to Districts as division, is that not competitive?”. The answer came back affirmative that could be considered a competitive division that a league sends to Districts.

Then, one of my ADAs called Andrew and he called Williamsport (or that was the report that came back from the ADA ) and the headshed said that only Majors needs to be drafted…

The whole reason I am getting into this during this year specifically is that I have had more parent calls than ever before, (Not board calls) asking why this league or that league is not drafting like they should… so the parents are concerned kids are being overlooked because they are not on someone’s “travel team”… or in the past they sense some unfairness in how teams are assigned.

So my questions to you all:

How do your leagues draft, and what do you uphold as far as procedure?
Do you have any draft irregularities in your leagues and how do you handle that?
What method do you all see prevailing in your leagues?

I have a meeting scheduled this week with Player Agents from each league, and if possible any board members and their presidents… I’d like to get all my ducks in a row before the meeting later this week. Your help and input is appreciated… thanks much…

Regards

DA WA13 and Kinda5 still

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