The Mahtomedi Youth Baseball association decided to move travel baseball evaluations to the fall instead of the spring. Travel evaluations will be held the weekend of September 10th - 12th for 10U-14U. September 17th - 19th will be our backup weekend if we get a rainout. 9U travel and in-house baseball evaluations will remain in the spring. 15U travel evaluations will be based on high school evaluations in the spring. Registration for 9U, 15U, and in-house baseball will open in January of 2022.
Registration for fall travel evaluations will be opening on July 26, 2021, and will close on September 3, 2021. Registration for fall evaluations will include an initial $200 deposit that includes an evaluation fee and commitment fee. This will be non-refundable if your player makes a team and decides not to play in the spring. This initial deposit will be applied towards your total 2022 registration fees and the second payment will need to be made on February 1, 2022.
FAQ
Why are we doing this?
Reduce Costs and Lack of Community Facility. The cost of dome time or private club facility access is a major evaluation expense for us each year. Fall evaluations will allow us to save money by doing the evaluations on our home fields and to have greater control over the schedule.
Improve Team Leveling. We begin signing up teams for tournaments in December and January. If we didn’t then many of them would be full. Fall evaluations allow us to know who is registering for baseball, get through an evaluation process, and evaluate the prior year's competitiveness at each level. This will help us get each team properly placed at the right competitive level before signing them up for tournaments.
Better Player Evaluation. We believe players will be better prepared for evaluations in September and we can do the evaluations outdoors. Many of them will be within 45 days of their season-ending. In addition, they will be able to continue throwing, fielding, and hitting in better weather ahead of the fall evaluation.
Decrease Logistic Complexity. Currently, after evaluations, we need to identify coaches and they need to complete certifications, attend scheduling meetings, and begin getting ready for their season. This is a tight turn for both board members and our volunteer coaches. This extra time will help all volunteers involved spread out the preparation for the season.
What about fall sports?
We will do our best to coordinate around fall sports and work with the football and soccer associations for age-level schedules on the evaluation weekend. What we can’t work around are any fall ball schedules, so please communicate potential conflicts to your coach that you might have that weekend for our evaluations.
Details on exact times and fields will be sent out in the next few weeks.
