Assessor Training and Expectations
1) Leave bias at the door. By design, you won't know age, preferred level.
Assess what you see
Don't assess their age, size, or what you saw last basketball, hockey, or even baseball season.
2) Assess to the standard. Study the standards, assess to the standards. Absolute, not relative.
3) Calibrate with a tenured Team Manager or Coach. Preferably discuss Majors readiness with a tenured Majors team manager/coach.
4) Ask station lead for another look if you need.
Ask them to throw a harder front toss
Ask for a harder hit grounder, or to make the player move laterally more.
5) Level expectations
Majors: Highly competitive baseball. Top pitchers will throw 55-65MPH (72-85MPH equivalent), and batters should be competitive at that speed. Fielders should confidently attack difficult plays or hard hit balls. Accurate, well-thrown balls regardless of position. Little coaching focus on fundamentals, mostly on game play and strategy.
Minors AAA: Solid competitive all around baseball. Pitchers will throw relatively hard 45-50 MPH (59-66MPH equivalent), and batters should be competitive at that speed. Fielders should comfortably attack balls and exhibit minimal fear on routine plays. Accurate throws to cut-off or from ~SS distance to 1B. Less coaching focus on fundamentals, more on game play. First truly competitive level.
Minors AA: Significant development level, a "pivot point" within FCKLL progression. Learning to hit a kid-pitched ball comfortably and consistently. Focus on basic fundamentals. Starting point for competitive play, but still a lot of focus on fun. Building confidence.
Minors A: The basics, for players in need of a lot of development. Coach pitch. Player introduction to "real baseball" with focus on the most basics. Almost exclusively fun, very little on competition.
6) Integrity.
One assessment per player. We can see VPN.
Anything outside hours is thrown out.
We run means and median (outlier data is handled appropriately).
No cheat sheets with player ages when assessing (remember, leave bias at the door).
This is youth recreational baseball.