Building a little league juggernaut
A draft day diary (not really)
I’ve helped coach my boys’ little league teams for the past few seasons. This year, I decided to step it up a notch and join the Board of San Mateo Little League America (SMLLA). I self nominated, and wrote a nice description about my qualifications and how much I love coaching baseball and other sports. All that was left to do was sit back and watch the votes roll in.
Well, the votes rolled, but not enough in my direction. For the first time in years, there were more qualified candidates than Board spots, and my total was not enough to secure one of the coveted 17 golden tickets that entitle the winners to work long thankless hours for no pay. As a consolation prize, I was invited to join the Auxiliary Board. I’d attend board meetings, take ownership of a core responsibility (in my case, planning for Fall Ball 2020), but would not have a vote.
All the responsibility, without the authority — who could pass that up? I’m in!
As planning began for the 2020 spring season, one of the most critical tasks was ensuring a full slate of managers for each level. In most cases, demand outstrips supply and we actually had to turn away qualified candidates. But every year (from what I’ve been told), there’s one league that struggles to find enough Managers. This year, that league was Minors (9–10 year olds) where my oldest son would be playing.
I had not planned to manage a team. All the standard excuses applied — I’m too busy, with too many family commitments, and too many work commitments. And I wanted to make sure I could help with my younger son’s Single-A team (7–8 year olds).
But as the draft got closer and closer, Minors remained two managers short. We filled one spot by recruiting someone with older kids who had always wanted to manage but never had the chance. When someone without a kid in the league was willing to step up, my personal excuses started to feel a bit flimsy. The final tipping point was when the Board (and the other Minors managers) agreed to let me pair up with another dad to help share the load. Jason is an amazing coach (and person), and I figured I could get enough leverage from his giant baseball brain to make it work. I’m all in now.
January 11, 2019: Minors Tryouts
For five hours, I sat watching over 100 kids throw, field, catch, run, pitch, and hit. And regardless of how well planned the event was, we inevitably fell behind, which meant individual tryouts got shorter — e.g. throwing only two pitches. Pitching is critical at this level. If your kids throw strikes, the game moves along and everyone has fun and stays engaged. If they can’t throw strikes, it’s a walk-a-thon, which is brutal for everyone, and doesn’t help hitters or fielders develop their skills.
With that in mind, the drafting strategy (so I was told) is to get lock-down pitchers with your first 2–3 picks. Kids who can throw strikes consistently. But how are you supposed to judge a kid based on two pitches — one of which might be perfect, while the other is over the catcher’s head? Which is the norm and which is the outlier?
For hitting we got a little more info as each kid got five swings. The pitches came either from a machine (straight and consistent) or a coach (still pretty damn consistent). But as mentioned, in Minors it’s the kids who pitch, and most are anything but consistent. How will this kid hit off a 9 year-old who is as likely to plunk the batter as he is to throw a strike?
I built elaborate spreadsheets with complex formulas incorporating size, strength, fielding prowess, speed, standardized test scores, arm strength, hair color, pitching speed, pitching accuracy, ability to pitch a tent, swing speed, power, shoe size, favorite vegetable, and probably other stuff I can’t remember. If you can’t tell yet, this is serious business.
All this work spit out a single solitary defining value to act as my guiding light. This kid is a 20.3, higher than that other kid who is a 19.8, but obviously not as talented as this other kid who scored a 20.6. Can’t argue with that — it’s Math!
And then I basically threw that number out the window, realizing that I knew things about many kids that couldn’t be captured in the number. Their attitude, their parents, their hustle, that little thing that makes him special that just can’t quite be quantified. I talked to former coaches, friends’ parents, parents’ friends, tarot card readers, teachers — basically anyone who could tell me anything about the kids’ (and parents’) personalities. I started moving kids up, moving them down, moving them sideways, turning them upside down. Suddenly my system was a mess. No real guiding light.
Come draft day, when my turn came up, when the pressure was on, how would I decide who to take? What if I got it wrong? Would my assistant coaches kill me? Would my own kid kill me? Would the baseball gods kill me?
All this is just to say — I spent god knows how many hours building this crazy elaborate evaluation model, and then decided to mostly just kinda wing it. But that of course didn’t stop me from staying up until midnight the night before tweaking scores, formulas, colors, notes, etc. I mean, it’s a fun model.
January 15, 2019: Draft day!
We gather in the comfy confines of the board room at Trinta park. When I say “board room”, you’re probably thinking something like this:
Sorry to disappoint, but we’re a non-profit, 100% volunteer run organization. Our board room is more like this:
And by “more like this” I mean “actually this”. That’s our board room.
In the room are the six managers (including me), plus the President, two other board members, take-out from Jack’s Restaurant, and thousands of seeds/nuts in various stages of shelling and consumption. The draft is a snake format, where the team who selects first overall selects last in the 2nd round (12th overall), first in the 3rd round (13th), and so on.
I’ll be leaving out my exact pick position, along with tons of other specific information. Clearly, adults take this way too seriously — I mean, I wrote this and you’re reading it — but there’s no reason to give hints to which kids got taken when. It’s only the parents who care anyway — the kids just want to play ball.
When it’s my turn to make my first pick, I’m contemplating the tradeoffs. Should I go for the kid who is the most skilled right now? Or the one with the most upside? Or the one you know puts in the work? Or should I take the kid with the parent who will be incredibly helpful? Or the one that my son really, really, really wants on the team? Occasionally the sun shines on you and one kid ticks all the boxes. Easy first pick.
My subsequent picks were tougher, but not for the reasons you might think. For the rest of the draft, the biggest surprise was how many kids were available to me who I think should have been taken 1–3 rounds earlier. Every time my turn came around, I struggled because there were too many kids left who I wanted. Multiple kids who should’ve already been picked (based, again, on my flawless model)
I totally understand now how NFL GMs are genuinely excited with every pick, thinking they just got the steal of the draft. Literally every pick I was thinking “I can’t believe this kid is still available!” Wait, is there something I don’t know? Did I not evaluate him properly? Are his parents going to be supportive and contribute? Crap, why did I sign up to do this again??
Turns out, I knew exactly what I was doing. Or, more likely, I just got really lucky. Every single kid on my team — top to bottom— has the basic skills required to play baseball. They can all catch, throw, and hit. None of them are terrified of the ball. They all listen (most of the time). All the parents were supportive — many volunteering their time and considerable knowledge. Two of the moms played college softball and another played in high school. I got a team sponsor and team parent without any hounding. And we had multiple moms and dads who just love baseball and wanted to help. And as mentioned earlier, my co-manager is also a true little league savant, which is no bad thing.
And most of all, they’re all GREAT kids. They all want to get better, to contribute to the team, to learn, and to have fun. Do you have any idea how much easier it is to manager a team of 8–10 year-olds when they actually want to be there? And when the parents want to be there? And when everyone agrees that learning and having fun are the primary goals?
We lost our first game and won our second. Every kid played some infield in each game. The bats were coming along, and every kid stood strong in the box and took swings. Five kids pitched and we were on track for everyone to pitch at least once. We were building a strong, well-balanced team where every kid was going to contribute and play a meaningful role. Then COVID-19 came along and shut it all down. I’m not sure exactly where we’d have ended up come playoff time, but I liked our chances.
When the season got delayed, all the managers were bummed. We all desperately wanted to get back to playing and to be with our team again. But…I imagine for some managers there might have been a silver lining of “No more yelling at Tommy to stop swinging his bat at everyone and disrupting practice” or “I won’t miss Jimmy’s dad telling me that I’m blowing his kid’s chances to go pro by not playing him at shortstop” or “At least I won’t be embarrassed when Jake’s mom yells at the 12-year-old umpire to pull his head out of his ass.”
I had none of that. I miss all the kids. I miss all the parents. I *think* we had pretty good players, but I *know* we had a great team. As California starts to ease restrictions and Little Leagues are reopening on other states, my fingers are crossed that we can get in some type of season with this group.
And if not?
Based on the joy and dedication I witnessed, I don’t see any of these kids giving up baseball anytime soon. So my silver lining is knowing I’ll get to share the field with all of them again. Of course, now that my secrets are out, it’ll be tougher for me to draft them all. But whether they’re on my team or not, I’ll be rooting for them. I see great things ahead — for Little League, for baseball, and for these families. And I can’t wait to get there.
P.S. For those of you who were feeling sorry for me being on the Auxiliary Board, you’ll be thrilled to know that a regular Board spot opened up. To claim it, all I had to do was agree to take on the highly sought after position of “Whiffle Czar” (aka commissioner). It’s sort of like being a real Czar (or Tsar if you prefer), but with more power and responsibility (I assume).
