OTTAWA-Baseball Canada’s annual Fall Convention, held earlier this month, brought leaders from all across Canada to Québec City to discuss how to maintain and improve growth in our sport. A Competitive Structure workshop, facilitated by Baseball Canada’s Manager of Baseball Operations André Lachance, provided great insight into the state of amateur baseball in Canada and led to some recommendations aimed at improving Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) becoming part of Baseball Canada’s structure.
“The workshop was a great exercise where we received input from delegates from all of Baseball Canada’s member provinces,” said Lachance. “Our goal is to improve our sport and create a better experience for players, coaches, officials and parents.”
Sports conflicting with baseball
Recommendation - Coaches across Canada should recognize the importance for athletes, to try as many sports as possible before they reach the Train to Train Stage of Development. Baseball Canada recognizes the importance for athletes to complete their season in another sport, before committing to baseball for the season, without being penalized for acceptance in a baseball program or a selection on an elite program.
“One of the key elements of LTAD is to invite kids to participate in more than one sport until they reach the age of 15 (average) or the ‘Train to Train Stage’ of development,” explained Lachance. “Playing more than one sport helps to develop an athlete’s ‘Physical Literacy’.”
Every season, we hear stories about coaches or programs cutting athletes from their program because of conflicts with another sport. With this recommendation in place, Baseball Canada has the opportunity to become a leader in athlete development by addressing this concern and by putting pressure on other sports to do the same.
Standings
Recommendation - It is recommended that baseball does not promote the communication of standings to parents, media and other partners until after the 11U (Mosquito) division.
“The goal of this recommendation is to decrease the emphasis on ‘winning at all costs’ and increase the emphasis on skill development and learning the game,” said Lachance. “We’re not suggesting to eliminate standings completely, but to lessen their presence so that players, coaches and parents can focus their energy on development rather than where their team sits in the standings.”
Access to Playoffs
Recommendation - It is recommended that baseball promotes the access to the playoffs to all the teams in all divisions.
“A season should be based on development throughout the season that leads to a goal - the goal should not be to win the first game of the season, it should be to win the last,” said Lachance.
Too often we see coaches that coach towards what the system is rather than improving on individual and team play as the season progresses. Not having access to playoffs could lead to a child sitting on the bench for most of the season or being stuck playing only one position as opposed to rounding out their abilities all over the field.
Scoring
Recommendation - It is recommended to explore and pilot a different way to score games at the younger level where individual accomplishments during games could be rewarded (stolen bases, defensive plays, sacrifice fly’s etc).
“Success at the younger age groups should not only be measured by the number of runs scored at the end of a baseball game,” added Lachance. “If we reward other accomplishments on a baseball field in a quantifiable way it will hopefully lead to greater skill development, enjoyment and understanding of the game for both players and coaches.”
Baseball Canada is simply looking into piloting this initiative to see if it provides value to coaches, players and parents going forward. For example, wouldn’t it be great if we could reward going first-to-third on a single or perfectly executing a hit-and-run? Let’s find out!
