Baseball Tryouts: Current Ability vs Potential
February 22, 2011 by Coach McCreary
Filed under Coaching, Tryouts
Probably the worst part about coaching is tryouts. Telling a player that there is not room for him is not a fun conversation. Coaches love the game and sometimes they have to tell a player, who also loves the game, that their abilities will not allow them to be successful at our level. That news can be hard to accept by players and their parents.
Nobody likes to be told they aren’t good enough. However, explaining to a player or parent that the player’s running speed or ability to make a play on a ground ball falls short is easier because you can use actual times using a stopwatch. But what happens when your decision to keep a player is based on subjective information and not numbers? Opinion not fact? Here’s an example of what I mean.
|
Player
|
Ability Rating (out of 10)
|
|
A
|
6
|
|
B
|
5
|
Not so fast. Now let’s add “potential” to the mix.
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Player
|
Ability
|
Potential
|
|
A
|
6
|
7
|
|
B
|
5
|
9
|
Now who do you keep? Not so easy now is it. Everything else being equal (grade, position, throwing arm, etc.) most coaches would keep Player B. But if they do, here’s what’s coming …
“Everyone knows that my son is a little faster, throws a little harder, and had a better batting average last year than Player B, yet Player B made the team and my kid didn’t!”
“There must be some kind of favoritism or nepotism going on here!”
So how does a coach assess potential in the span of a one-week tryout? Especially if you've never met the kid? I would think that it would be near impossible to gauge this in such a short period of time with no background. How do you go about it?
This is a great question that deserves a response larger than I can deliver here. I will write a post by the end of this week that covers how I would answer. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment!
A coach has a difficult job here. This is a little twist on this. My son went to a college camp. Coach told him after camp that he could not play for him because of his performance. On the way home he took it real bad. We spoke and I told him that, that was not his best day today. We spoke about the next camp the school was going to have in 3 weeks. When we got home he e-mailed the coach and told him that he had a bad day and would be coming back for the next camp. The coach responded that it was my sons choice but was welcome to come, naturally this is a fundraiser. We went to the next camp, he did better. Coach said he had potenial. He winds up making the team as a walk-on. What I am trying to get across here is during the week of try outs ask your son to be honest with himself daily. Did he perform to his potenial today? How did he rank against other players today? This is a real growing up thing. Anonymous you said if the coach never met the kid. If he is any kind of hs coach he already knows the kids unless you have just moved to the area. Let your son speak for himself. I hope this gives you a little help.
Thanks Tom. My question was more as a coach than as a dad, (I'm both.) I can make good measure of a kids heart after spending an afternoon with him (or her,) and this is how I usually measure potential. How much heart does the player have, as indicated by their eagerness to contribute and learn, would point to high potential IMO. This seems to have been the case with your son.
Anyway, it was a thought provoking article, and I look forward to the follow up. KM