What do coaches look for at baseball and softball tryouts?

Three things get measured most: throwing accuracy ahead of raw arm strength, first-step quickness ahead of the 60 time, and reliable hands on routine plays ahead of highlight plays. Hitting draws the most attention from families and decides the least at a tryout, because two rounds of batting practice tells a coach very little. Coaches are also forming an impression in the first ten minutes, before a real rep is taken, based on whether a player knows where to be and starts warming up on their own.

What separates two players who look about the same at tryouts?

Coachability, measured on a single rep. A coach tells a player to change something, then watches the very next repetition. The player who changes it immediately goes in one column and the player who nods and repeats the same thing goes in the other. Coachability is not politeness. It is the ability to take one piece of information and apply it right away, and it is trainable.

What should a parent do during tryout week?

Handle the logistics so your player only has to play: gear that fits, water, arriving early, knowing the schedule. Have one short conversation the night before about knowing where to be and changing something on the next rep when a coach corrects them. Afterward, say one sentence in the car. Do not approach the coach during tryouts, do not comment on other players, and do not ask whether they made it in the parking lot, because they do not know yet.

What should we do if my player does not make the team?

Ask the coach for the specific reason, calmly and in private, a few days later. Most coaches will answer honestly if you make it easy to. Then help your player turn that single answer into one thing to work on before the next opportunity. Players who come back from a cut almost always worked on one specific thing for a year rather than everything at once. Getting cut does not ruin players. Getting cut without ever being told why does.

Is fall ball a tryout?

No. Fall ball is a new season and a fresh start. New players get seen and returning players build for the spring. Nobody is getting cut in the fall, and treating it as a tryout adds pressure that does not belong there.

What Coaches Look For at Tryouts: A Head Coach's Honest Answer

Most tryout advice is written for the player. This one is written for you, from the person holding the clipboard.

The short answer: coaches measure throwing accuracy over arm strength, first-step quickness over the 60 time, and reliable hands over highlight plays. Close calls get decided by one thing: whether a player changes something on the very next rep after being told. Your job that week is logistics, one short conversation the night before, and one sentence in the car afterward.

What actually decides it	What matters less than families think
Throws on the chest from anywhere	A big arm that sails
First step out of the box and to the ball	The 60 time on the stopwatch
Eleven clean routine ground balls	One diving highlight play
Changing it on the next rep	Two rounds of batting practice

Hustle. Be coachable. Run everything out. None of that is wrong, and your player has heard all of it.

I have been coaching for over 35 years, including 25 of them working under Reggie Smith, and I am a high school head coach now. I have made a lot of cuts. Some of them I still think about. Here is what actually happens on that field, and what your job is while it happens.

The first ten minutes matter more than they should

A coach forms an impression before your player takes a real rep.

We are watching how they get off the bus. Whether they know where to put their bag. Whether they are standing in the right place when the whistle goes, or looking around to see what everyone else is doing. Whether they are warming up or waiting to be told to warm up.

None of that is on the evaluation sheet. All of it is in the coach's head by the time the first ball is thrown.

That is not fair, and I will not pretend it is. It is just true, and it is fixable in about four minutes of conversation the night before.

What actually gets measured

Three things, and they are probably not the three your player has been working on all summer.

Throwing accuracy, ahead of arm strength. Every coach notices a big arm. Every coach also knows that a strong arm that sails throws costs them games. If your player can put the ball on the chest from anywhere on the field, that shows up in the first round of infield and it stays in my notes.

First-step quickness, ahead of the 60 time. We time the 60 because it is easy to measure. What we actually use is that first step out of the box, off the base, toward the ball in the gap. Plenty of players with an average 60 time are the fastest players on our field when it counts.

Hands, ahead of highlight plays. Anybody can lay out once and get a cheer. What decides innings is the routine ground ball fielded cleanly eleven times out of eleven. Give me the player who never turns a routine play into an adventure.

Hitting gets the most attention and the most anxiety, and it is the least decided at a tryout. Two rounds of batting practice against a coach lobbing it in tells me almost nothing about who can hit. I am watching the swing, not the results.

What separates two players who look the same

This is the one that actually decides most rosters.

We tell a player to change something. Move the hands. Get the glove out front. Then we watch the very next rep.

The player who changes it goes in one column. The player who nods and does the same thing again goes in the other. That is it. That is the whole test, and most families have no idea it is being run.

Coachability is not being polite to adults. It is the physical ability to take one piece of information and use it immediately. That skill is trainable, and almost nobody trains it.

The part a coach cannot see

Here is the honest limit of a tryout.

I get two hours with your player. In those two hours I cannot see the tee work in the garage in July. I cannot see the long-toss progression they did on their own three days a week when nobody made them. I cannot see that they came back from a rough spring and rebuilt their swing.

I am making a decision about a season based on a very small window, and I know it.

The players who help me are the ones who can show me the work. Not a highlight video. A record. When a kid can tell me what they have been working on, and be specific about it, that changes the conversation completely. It moves them from a name on a list to a player with a direction.

Give them something to show

MyGrind is one line a day: what they worked on, what they are taking into the next practice, and an honest grade. By tryout week it is a record of the months a coach never got to watch. Baseball and softball both.

Start the journal before the season →

Your job that week, which is smaller than you think

Do these:

Handle the logistics so they only have to play. Cleats that fit. Water. Get there early enough that they are not walking on at the last second. Know the schedule. Take that load off them entirely.
Have one short conversation the night before. Not a speech. Something like: know where you are supposed to be, be first in line for one drill, and if a coach tells you to change something, change it on the very next rep.
Say one sentence in the car afterward. "I liked watching you play." Then let them talk if they want to, and let them be quiet if they do not.

Do not do these:

Do not talk to the coach during tryouts. Nothing good happens there, and it lands on your player, not on you.
Do not narrate the other kids. They can hear you. So can the coach.
Do not ask "did you make it" in the parking lot. They do not know yet, and asking makes the not-knowing worse.

If they do not make it

Some of them will not, and the ones who take it hardest are usually the ones who cared most.

The kids I have watched come back from a cut share one thing. They got a real answer about why, and then they went and worked on that one specific thing for a year. Not on everything. On the one thing.

So ask the coach for the reason, calmly, a few days later, in private. Most of us will tell you honestly if you make it easy to. Then help your player turn that answer into something they can actually work on between now and the next time.

The cut is information. Painful information, but information. What ruins players is not getting cut. What ruins them is getting cut and never being told why.

One more thing, because families mix these up every year. Fall ball is not a tryout. It is a new season and a fresh start, where new players get seen and returning players build. Nobody is getting cut in the fall. Let it be what it is.

The thing worth carrying into next season

The tryout is one bad or good morning. The season is nine months of what your player does when no one is watching.

A player who keeps a record of that work walks into the next tryout with something to say. They know what they fixed. They know what they are still working on. They can answer a coach's question with a real answer instead of a shrug, and I promise you that lands.

That is the whole reason MyGrind exists. One line a day takes about forty seconds. By spring it is the proof that a two-hour tryout can never show on its own.

Coach