The Decision




This much is clearly obvious when coaching, you will make tough decisions. What needs to be most obvious is that those decisions needs to be focused on what is best for the TEAM. When any decision is being made the coach must always be concerned with what is best for his team in the short term and try to balance it with what is best for the long term.

I have faced this recently with the Legion program that I am coaching. As a coaching staff we need to narrow the squad down to 16 or 17 players for this summer. The difficulty comes from the process or narrowing this number down. First off tryouts were clearly more difficult than I had thought. Getting a good look at players in the field as well as at the plate is a difficult thing to do with only a couple of hours to spare. 

Decisions need to be made and I find myself dreading the idea of telling a player that he is not good enough to play on my team after only seeing him for 4 hours and potentially 40 swings against bad batting practice pitching. What is true about this situation is that this is the nature of tryouts weighing a short sample size and projecting a player for the future. 



When constructing a team for this summer I am looking for players who are going to dedicated to playing this summer. Also I am interested in building a team that is relentless with their passion, fire, and enjoy pulling for one another. Also we are looking for a diverse number of pitchers so that we are able to make it through the grind of the legion season. (20 games in 25 days) 

Lastly I am hoping to get a good mix of players who are willing and able to do exactly what we are asking of them throughout the summer. Legion baseball is a commitment which players must be committed to the team and the process. The drive, the games, the grind of the summer is what it comes down to. I know that I will be making calls today that will upset some players, disappoint parents, and shake their confidence. Being told you are not good enough is never a happy thing, and I find that telling the news is not nearly as difficult as receiving the news. 

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