AA Machine Pitch - FAQ's
Can I request coach and/or player in AA Division
In regards to player and/or coach requests in the AA division I would like to address how this division forms teams as decided by the board. All our divisions in Little League that hold end of year tournaments (AA, AAA, Select, Majors and 50/70) use a draft system to build teams. For the upper divisions which include AAA through 50/70 do a draft where the manager and coaches meet to draft their teams in a live environment with all the other coaching staffs. This draft is performed each year and players are drafted to the teams where the coach has selected the player. There are no coach or player’s requests as all players must play on the teams they are drafted too.
The end of year tournament in AA started a few years ago and with the positive response we got from the little league community the board decided to keep this in place. This will be the 4th year of the tournament in AA. The board did learn after the first year that when we allowed player/coach requests the team were considerably unbalanced. There were a handful of teams that ended up being much better than the rest of the field. In seeing this develop and considering that all the other divisions that had tournaments used a draft system the board implemented a draft in the AA division.
The AA Draft consists of randomly selecting the draft order of the teams. We then use the draft feature in our website to select players in alphabetical order and assign them to a team using a standard snake draft. A Snake Draft is a draft where the positions flip flop every round. For example, if someone drafts first during the very first round, they'll draft last the following round, then they'll draft first again in the next round, and so on. This type of draft is the most fair.
How does the AA Draft work
The AA Draft consists of randomly selecting the draft order of the teams. We then use the draft feature in our website to select players in alphabetical order and assign them to a team using a standard snake draft. A Snake Draft is a draft where the positions flip flop every round. For example, if someone drafts first during the very first round, they'll draft last the following round, then they'll draft first again in the next round, and so on. This type of draft is the most fair.
