Baseball Pre-Season Tournaments

One of the smartest coaching strategies you can employ when beginning a new baseball season, especially for a new coach, is to involve the team in a pre-season tournament.
Should you not have contacts or already know of pre-season tournament availability, you should immediately begin searching for available pre-season tournaments, despite the possible headache from New Year's Eve celebrations,

January 1.

Pre-season tournaments are often not League Association endorsed, which means the coach(es) of the particular age level(s) of the tournaments are responsible for setting the brackets, preparing fields for play, umpire scheduling and etc. not the home association.
That's the reason these tournaments are scarcer than regular season tournaments, which enjoy the Association's assistance and involvement, therefore, available positions fill up quickly.

Let's exam the Pro's and Con's of pre-season play.
Your first question may be "Why would you want to enter your team in a tournament which may begin in February or March, depending on your location and weather, when the season doesn't begin until April?"

1. If you're a brand new coach or it's a brand new team, you need game situation exposure to establish a bench mark of the possible talent level of the team.

2. The tournament play will rekindle camaraderie between the players of an established team and introduce new players to the team atmosphere.

3. It gives you and your coaching staff, an opportunity to evaluate the team's potential and create a blue print of how you want to structure your practices. This holds true even for established teams, as youngsters at this age can quickly and drastically change physically over the winter. Last year's fat kid has grown

6 inches, becoming one of the taller kids on the team and may be better suited to move to play first base this year.
In reality pre-season tournaments are more important for developing coaching skills than for the players' skill enhancement. Why in the world would I say that?

1. A coach must develop the skill to be able to see into the future and evaluate player potential. He can't base his judgment on whether a player is capable of playing center field because he misjudged 2 or 3 fly balls in a pre-season game. He must see that the player glides to the ball when he runs, which allows his head to remain steady and keeps his eyes from bouncing up and down as he tracks the ball. A born outfielder.

2. Instead of penciling a hitter into the bottom of the line up because of the four strike outs, the coach must see the fluid swing, the proper lock and load mechanics, the starting mechanism. In other words, the coach must be skilled enough to immediately recognize poor mechanics vs. a timing issue which will correct itself with more times at bat, moving the 9th place hitter into the clean up spot.

3. An honest and accurate Coaching maturity self-assessment is extremely important. Just because you win a 16 team pre-season tournament doesn't necessarily mean your team is championship caliber. The 19-12 or 23-2 wins enjoyed in this tournament may very well become 1-0 or 3-1 games in the regular season.

(a.) On the same token, being blown out in your initial games does not doom the team to the cellar of the division.
(b.) Should you play in a league which ranks their teams from excellent to novice, in an attempt to play equally talented teams against one another, this tournament experience could be Heavenly sent. Again, if you're a capable coach you'll be able to know if your team was truly and severely over matched in talent, which should alter your idea of where your team should be ranked, which changes a boring 12-0 season to a 6-6 record, but averts a disastrous 0-12 shellacking.

There are inherent dangers associated with pre-season tournaments and injuries, which coaches must be constantly vigilant of.
1. Pitchers should Never be allowed to throw breaking pitches.
2. Pitcher's innings and/or number of pitches must be closely monitored.
3. Stretching drills, whether emphasized later in the season or not, must be strongly enforced.
4. Weather dependent, players should be required to wear layered clothing, such as shirts under the uniform jersey and jackets.

If it seems like I bounced around like a rubber ball in this article, you're right, and that was by design. I wanted to demonstrate just how much can be addressed in a simple pre-season baseball tournament which can be beneficial to the coaching staff and the team.

Jim Bain, former Minor league baseball player and member of "Baseball Coaches of America" shares his advice on baseball coaching baseball drills on his exciting info packed website: http://www.learn-youth-baseball-coaching.com

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