OTTAWA-Earlier this month, at the Baseball Canada Fall Convention in Québec City, Baseball Canada’s Board of Directors passed recommendations for the 2013 baseball season.
The most significant recommendation passed was the renaming of divisions. Each division, with the exception of Rally Cap (players aged 4 thru 8) and Senior (open division), will now be referred by the age at which the division pertains to. For instance, Mosquito will now be known as 11U (for players 11 years of age and under as of December 31st), Peewee will become 13U, Bantam will be known as 15U and Midget will change to 18U.
“This approach to naming divisions is something that more and more sports across Canada are implementing or strongly considering every year,” said Baseball Canada’s Manager of Baseball Operations André Lachance. “This change will help identify what level of baseball a player should play and avoid any confusion caused by the old division names.”
The 2013 season will serve as a transition year for division names with the new name of the division to be immediately followed by the old name. For example, 13U will be known as ‘13U/Peewee’. In 2014, the new division names will be in full effect.
There will also be changes to the format of both the 15U Boys/Bantam Boys and 18U/Midget National Championships beginning in 2013. Both events will move to a ‘tier system’ similar to what the Baseball Canada Cup already has in place.
For 2013, teams will be placed in Pool A and Pool B divisions based on a point system calculated from the last 3 years. As with the Baseball Canada Cup, a team may be moved up to Pool A, or conversely relegated to Pool B, based on performance over a period of time.
“The reason for this change is we found that a disproportionate amount of meaningful games (games decided by 5 runs or more) were played at both of these National Championships,” said Lachance. “With the change, the goal is to level the playing field and increase the competition level amongst the teams in each Pool.
“This format has been extremely successful and well received since being instituted at the Baseball Canada Cup in 2006.”
Speaking of the Baseball Canada Cup, the tier format will be used when the event is played as part of the Canada Summer Games in Sherbrooke, QC next summer. The Canada Games has never used a tier format for baseball.
And further changes to the Baseball Canada Cup will come in 2014 as Pitch Count rules will be implemented at the event. Pitch Count will be used based on a player’s age even if they are participating in the Canada Cup as an underage player.
Another change will see a minus 5 (-5) bat regulation instituted at Peewee Regional events beginning in the 2013 season.
