Q: What are the important preseason events and dates?
Q: How do player protections work?
Q: How do friend requests work?
Q: How do player assessments work?
Q: How are teams formed?
Q: How many practices and games are there during the season?
Q: Where are the practices held, and how are days, times, and fields assigned?
Q: How does league-provided equipment work?
Q: How do snack bar/field maintenance duty and exemptions work?
Q: Any suggestions on running practices?
Q: Any suggestions on running games?
Q: What are the important preseason events and dates?
See the home page for the season calendar.
The important events in order of occurrence are:
Player Assessments. These occur on one, or possibly two consecutive Saturdays for around 4 hours per day.
Player Draft. There is a draft for all leagues except Foal (4/5U) and Shetland (6U). It will occur the week following the final player assessment.
Equipment Pickup Day. Managers receive a bag with catchers gear.
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Q: How do player protections work?
The team may "protect" up to 3 players to form its initial core. The manager's child and the child of one assistant coach are always protected. If the team finds a sponsor for itself, it may protect a third player. A manager and a coach often agree to coach together in order to have their children play together, and will try to find a sponsor to add a third player to form the core of a strong team, or a team of good friends. The league prohibits teams from protecting multiple highly evaluated players to prevent managers from stacking teams. See CYB Regulations, Appendix 3.
If you are new to CYB and don't know another manager/coach you'd like to pair with, the league will provide a list of players with parents that volunteered to coach that the manager may contact and decide to form a team with. If you as a manager do not have a coach you'd like on your team, you won't be able protect a second player ahead of time. Likewise, if you don't have a pre-identified sponsor the league may assign your team one, but you won't get the ability to protect a third player.
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Q: How do friend requests work?
During registration, CYB allows a player to request to play on the same team with a friend. This can be done in the SPECIAL REQUESTS text box at the bottom of your registration page. The Foal (4/5U) and Shetland (6U) league divisions will attempt to honor these requests when possible, but cannot guarantee they will all be honored as requested. In all other league divisions (Pinto and above), the draft makes it much more difficult to honor friend requests, so they are taken by the league as suggestions only. Managers are not required to draft the friend requests of players they choose.
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Q: How do player assessments work?
Assessments are held on either one Saturday or two consecutive Saturdays prior to the season, for about 4 hours each day or 8 hours on one Saturday.
Players field fly balls in the outfield and throw to 2nd base, receive throws at 2nd base, field ground balls at shortstop and throw to 1st base, receive throws at 1st base, hit from the tee/pitching machine/live pitcher, and run to 2nd base. Each manager scores the player on a 1 to 5 scale for fly ball fielding, ground ball fielding, throwing, hitting, and speed/running. Each team must supply a manager or coach to evaluate players. We strongly want to encourage our managers and coaches to get to know the players in their league, and while they aren't perfect, player assessments are one of the best ways to do this.
Experienced managers with a knowledge of many of the league's players have an advantage in the draft, so the league will often provide an impartial evaluator to score the players for reference (often the league commissioner). To assist managers with drafting, all managers will be provided the impartial evaluator's score for every player.
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Q: How are teams formed?
For Foal (4/5U) and Shetland (6U) teams the remainder of the non-protected players on the team are assigned by the Shetland commissioner based on the results of player assessments, with the goal of balancing ability levels across all teams.
For all older teams, including Pinto (7/8U) teams beginning in spring season, the remainder of the team is drafted by the team's manager and coaches on draft day. A team's draft slots are adjusted based on the number and ability of its protected players in attempt to balance the teams (See CYB Regulations, Appendix 3). Managers are encouraged to use a combination of their own player assessments, the average assessments, the league-provided impartial assessment, their past experience, and a desire to play with their child's friends in their draft selection.
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Q: How many practices and games are there during the season?
For the spring season for divisions Shetland (6U) and above:
Feb : Two practices per week
Mar - end of Apr: One practice and two games per week. Depending on the number of teams in the league, there may be weeks with one game and a bye. There are around 14 games total in the regular season.
End of Apr - mid May: League tournaments usually use a double-elimination bracket with up to 3 games per week depending on how the team progresses through the tournament bracket. The team will still have one practice day per week scheduled, but may not be able to use it because of a game, or may choose not to use it.
Foal (4/5U) does not have a league tournament, and will practice and play games on the same schedule until mid May.
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Q: Where are the practices held, and how are days, times, and fields assigned?
Due to the large number of teams in the spring season it's not possible to have every younger division team (Mustang and below) practice at Chase Field. Therefore, no teams are scheduled to practice at Chase and are instead given fields at local elementary schools such as Magnolia, Jefferson, Hope, and Kelly, or at Pine Park.
Older divisions (Bronco and above) practice at local city parks such as Calavera, Poinsettia, and Alga Norte.
The league commissioners will email the managers once practice field availability has been determined. The managers will reply with a list of their preferred days, times, and fields, and the commissioner will do his best to schedule to everyone's satisfaction.
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Q: How does league-provided equipment work?
Managers provide a check for $250 made out to Carlsbad Youth Baseball as a deposit when they receive their league equipment. The check is torn up when the manager returns the equipment at the end of the sesason.
The manager receives a bag containing catcher's gear, a catcher's mitt, and 12 Diamond baseballs appropriate for their league. Foal (4/5U) and Shetland (6U) managers additionally receive a batting tee.
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Q: How does snack bar/field maintenance duty and exemptions work?
Each player family is asked to volunteer for 2 2-hour slots at either the snack bar or doing field maintenance at Chase, Calaveras, or Poinsettia as appropriate.
Parents must submit a $75 deposit fee during the registration process. This deposit is refunded once volunteer duty has been fulfilled.
Managers have 2 volunteer exemptions they may distribute as they see fit, typically to the manager himself and one of the coaches or team parent. Exempted families do not have to volunteer to get their $75 fee refunded.
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Q: Any suggestions on running practices?
It helps very much, especially with younger teams, to have a practice plan that breaks the kids into smaller, more manageable groups that each run a drill with a coach. It therefore helps to have at least 3 coaches and possibly another parent or two to help run practices. Suggestions for drills and practice plans can be found here. Make practices fun -- try to include one skill competition in every practice. Most kids will enjoy that, instead of just an endless series of drills.
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Q: Any suggestions on running games?
The manager generally makes the lineup and schedules who will play what positions in the field during every inning, according to the playing time rules for the league.
On offense, you'll need a 1st and 3rd base coach, and Shetland and Pinto teams will need a coach to man the batting tee, throwing arm, or pitching machine. It is also a very good idea to have a bench coach to keep the players in line and get them to bat in the correct order. Finally, you should have a parent or coach keep official score.
On defense, Shetland and Pinto allow one coach on the field to help align players. A Shetland defensive coach may go on the field of play, but a Pinto coach may not.
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