Picking an all-area team, pt. 134,596

We're a chain of weeklies that cover nine schools and we've put together an all-area section that's been pretty well-received the past two years.
Some of my co-workers and I have been having a lively discussion about who to put on our baseball team. Finding kids to put in the proper positions isn't the issue, it's moreso the level of play.
For whatever reason, R.I. high school sports are broken up by divisions, which are based on ability, not school size.
The argument that arises is, do you put a player from a D-II team with better stats on over a kid from a D-I team. The best 14 players from our area, talent-wise, would probably be from three of our D-I schools, but we've had some kids play for D-II teams that had just as good, if not better seasons against lesser competition.
So do you punish the kids for something they cannot control? Or do you reward a kid for playing well against lesser talent?

 

Back when I did preps, I never punished an athlete for playing a lower level of competition. Didn't mean I rewarded them though either.

I only considered level of play as a tiebreaker when numbers were equal.

 

Rhody, we have this issue at my place too ... we've got a larger coverage area than yours with two leagues, one for big schools, one for smaller ones, and the level of play in the large-school league is better. We always try to make it a mix when we pick the all-area team. We make sure the best players in each league are selected, and then at a certain point it comes down to who we felt were the better players when we saw them.

 

It depends on your defintion of an all-area team.

If it's the top 10-12 players, then you would go with players from the top divisions.

But. . .if you're picking the 10-12 players who had the best 2009 season, well that changes things.

Johnny Smalltown from Division III has no chance of going to college. But he hit .400 and helped his team to the playoffs. As such, Johnny had one of the top 10-12 baseball seasons for a player in your area.

I'm not sure if that's clear. Anyway, we'd always go with Option 2. It's not about talent or pro prospects. That's what the draft is for. Which players had the best seasons?

 

I agree with the purple one, but I do believe you have to weight it to some degree. You say you don't want to punish the small-school kids for something that's beyond their control, but if you don't give consideration to the higher level of competition in the large-school league, you are punishing the large-school kids for playing against tougher competition, which by your logic is beyond their control.

We always find room for small-school kids on our all-area teams, and they've even landed as our players of the year in various sports, but we do consider level of competition when comparing stats.

 

Just have co-Players of the Year. That will solve everything ...

 

Back when I played we had a similar setup with conferences that were seeded by strength of program rather than school size. The paper in our area did separate all-star teams for each division. Maybe that would be an idea.

 

Others factors also need to come into play in some situations.

Player A hit .400 with 10 homers and 40 RBIs and went 10-1 on the mound with a sub-2.00 ERA for a 5A school. But his team went 15-20 and missed the playoffs.

Now Player B posted similar numbers at a 2A school - which made a deep run in the playoffs or even won state.

Under those scenarios in a 50-plus school coverage area, Player B always got the edge for me based on the team's success.

Different story if all numbers and team success were equal. I'd also look at how many players from both schools were already on the team, too. Just to make sure a 10-man team had some balance.

I always weighed what they actually did, not overly concerned about the level of play.

I wanted a diverse group of the players with the best seasons, not college prospects or what they could have done. That made a couple of parents of future Big-Time U quarterback/shooting guard/pitcher mad a couple of times.

 

We have one school that is about twice as big as the others and currently is in a league with teams larger than it. Needless to say, the competition is better for this school. However, in non-league games, this school also plays some of the smaller schools. This gives a fairer consideration. If the star from the little school still goes off for 30 points against the big school, you probably deserves a lot of credit.

The other thing we do is let the coaches vote on most of the teams. However, we occassionaly do get complaints from the big school coaches that the other coaches fail to consider the competition level. At that point, though, it's out of our hands. They can complain to the other coaches.

 

Level of competition has to be considered, especially in baseball and softball.

 

Nice. I like it.

 

close your eyes. imagine small-school kid on the big-school team. how's he do? you've seen him or at least heard reports of him often enough. you can make an educated guess. now do the reverse. big-school kid on small-school team. how's he do?

look, in the end, this is partially based on stats, but also a bit subjective. leadership, importance to a team ... a ton of non-stat-driven qualities are and should be considered. point that out as part of your selection process, and you're fine. but just pick who you think are the best players. it really is that simple.