Monday, December 21, 2015

2016 Spring Little League Rule Changes


Drafting
T-Ball (Ages 4-5) and Rookie Coach Pitch (Age 6) will not be drafted.  Players qualifying for each of these divisions will be automatically placed on teams.

Coach Pitch, Minor and Major League Baseball, Minor and Major League Softball

In years past, we have put every kid back into the draft and they are placed on new teams each year.  This year each player will be given the option to stay on the team they were on during the 2015 Spring season, as long as they are staying in that division.
Any player going into their first year for that division will be in the draft. If your child played Minor league baseball last year and will be playing minor league baseball again in 2016, they have the choice to stay on their team, or re-enter the draft to be selected by a new team.
The same applies for Coach Pitch, Minor/Major League Baseball, and both Softball divisions.

Softball Age/Rule changes
Our Softball division has grown by leaps and bounds the last couple of years, and with that, we have modified rules as necessary to accommodate the growing league.

Minor League Softball will include any girl age 7-9 and this division will start the first couple of weeks as coach pitch with the coaches developing pitchers.  After the few couple of weeks, the coaches will decide when to bring in kid pitchers.  The rule to allow a coach to pitch after 3 balls pitched by the player will still apply.  We feel this helps the games at the younger age to progress and not allow the kids to get bored.  All other rules for this division will be the same as 2015 Spring.

Major League Softball will include any girl age 10-12. We want to get this division to a place where we can start competing in all-star tournaments.  Unfortunately, due to our modified rules, it is very difficult to find tournaments for our girls.  For the 2016 Spring season, we will allow this division to play by high school rules.  This will be a kid pitch only division.  Batters will take a walk after 4 balls.  We will allow stealing at all bases, and we will play with the dropped 3rd strike and the batter can run to first as long as first is open.

Online registration will start on January 11th, and we will have 2 live registrations January 23rd and February 6th, prior to draft day on February 27th.