I am curious to hear feedback from other parents regarding the "honesty" by which school try-outs are being conducted and cuts are being made. There are no sour grapes on my end, but I've seen enough at the middle school and high school levels to raise questions in my own head. From my observations, a large majority of kids that make the cuts deserve to, but it seems that the coaches have predispositions regarding who they want even before the tryouts begin. For example, someone who is highly favored, but had a bad tryout day, gets a "free pass" while others who are less regarded, but who represented themselves well, are disregarded. The tryout periods are typically 5 to 6 days and the group activities and the limited individual exposure times make it difficult to weed out one player from the other, so my guess is that coaches at the middle school level get input from the little league level, and high school coaches from the middle school coaches, with additional consideration for prominence of travel baseball affiliations of each respective player. I could be wrong but politics, human nature, and ambition are oftentimes hard to separate. The solution is to strive to be so good that you avoid traveling through the muck.

I do see circumstances where some kids commit multiple errors in the fielding evaluations part yet don't suffer consequences while others do. I wonder how much of this is intentional or even subconscious, to arrive at a predetermined roster outcome. Tryouts are about a week long. With a lot of kids trying out and evaluations conducted in multiple facets of the game, if a player commits more mistakes than others, is there room for debate?

coaches have predispositions regarding who they want even before the tryouts begin
I have noticed this to be true at a JHS level. One of the primary issues is a coach who handles multiple sports at a JHS. When a coach, for example, runs football in the Fall and then basketball in the Winter you will definitely see kids on the basketball team that should not have made it.

It is even worse than many people realize. In our school district, the high school varsity coach also coaches a 15-16u team in the summer with many of his players. The kids who play for him definitely get preferential treatment. Best freshman player by far plays for another organization and did not get moved up from 9th grade to JV while another kid who played for him was moved up. I am sure he gets paid to coach as well in summer. Conflict of interest all the way in my book.

HS tryouts are political just like all baseball. Politics start in little league, continue in travel and middle school and than peeks in HS. Anyone who doesn't think so is kidding themselves!!! The worst part is seeing the kids who don't get a fair shot and could have actually been in the running for college.

what if a kid doesnt make his HS team but still plays travel ball...can colleges still recuit him?

Yes, but colleges follow HS teams especially if they have a good rep. Most travel teams have to go to be seen in showcases. As long as a "great player" has somewhere to be seen they have a shot at college ball. There is a lot of competition for these kids as we know...

Common sense...what are some good organizations that are out there?

i heard there was some real good travel ball kids cut from school ball tryouts. anybody hear any names?

Michael Jordan