DRAFTING OF TEAMS

SCAA uses Little League Baseball International rules and policies to select the baseball teams. The collective goal of the team managers and of SC-LL is to draft balanced teams throughout the Division, not to try to draft a stronger team than the other managers for competitive advantage. In theory, if this goal is achieved, all teams would have a 6-6 record for the season.

All age divisions except T-Ball are drafted using Little League rules.  The draft is coordinated and run by the Player Agent.  The team manager or their representative may attend the draft; thus, only one representative per team shall attend.  No manager is permitted to discuss the draft or reveal the draft position of any player.  If the manager chooses to do so, eligibility to manage a team could be forfeited.

All players, league age 7 through 16 must attend evaluations to be drafted onto a team.  Any player of these ages who does not attend evaluations may lose eligibility to be drafted and be placed on a team in a random drawing in their appropriate age group.  All teams should ensure they have all key positions (pitcher, catcher) covered during their draft. If necessary, immediately after completing the final round of the draft, managers may trade for players with the approval of the Player Agent, but trades must be for same-round players (team A's 4th round pick for team B's 4th round pick). Once the draft session ends, the rosters are final and no further trades may take place.

Besides the selected team manager, no player or assistant coach, score keeper, etc., may be "saved" for a team except the child(ren) of the manager, as provided for in the Little League drafting rules. Prior to beginning the draft, managers will discuss and agree upon which draft round they shall each draft their own child, based on their evaluated skill level.

Draft order of the teams is determined by random drawing, and will continue using the "snake method" (first round: 1,2,3,4; second round 4,3,2,1, etc.).

Siblings in the same age division will placed on the same team, unless the Player Agent is notified differently. This notification shall be in writing and submitted to Player Agent prior to the draft. No special consideration will be given for a player to "play up" in order to be on the same team as their sibling; normal guidelines to "play-up" will still apply.

Playing up- At times, total registration numbers may be such that a Division will be better balanced by bringing up several players from the younger Division to round out the roster sizes, or to add an additional team. Players may only play-up one "age year" (a league-age 8 yr old may play up to Minors (ages 9-10), but a league-age 7 yr old cannot). Some divisions do not allow for players outside of a set age range (Intermediate is strictly ages 11-13, so 10 yr old's cannot play up). The number of players that will be considered to play-up is solely determined by the baseball board, division commissioners, and Player Agent. Some seasons the registration totals for a particular Division may not allow for any players to play up.

If it is determined that a certain number of players will be needed to play up into a Division, the coaches of that Division (with feedback from coaches in the younger Division) will have a discussion prior to the start of the draft to determine which players shall be selected to play up. Those players will then be added to the available player pool to be freely drafted in that older Division. Managers may not "cherry pick" a player to play up on their team. The child of a volunteer manager wishing to play up must first be selected to play up by the other managers in that division prior to that player's parent being named as a coach in that older Division. A parent who volunteers to coach in an older division than their child would ordinarily play, is NOT able to automatically have their child play up to that Division.

Players wishing to "play-up" MUST attend at least one evaluation session for their correct league-age division, and ALSO one evaluation session for the older division they wish to play-up to. The parent must also email the Baseball Commissioner so they can be added to the evaluation list of that division. Meeting these requirements does NOT guarantee the player will play up, however failing to meet these requirements shall make a player ineligible to play-up. Contact info for commissioners is on the baseball homepage.