Los Altos-Mountain View Pony Baseball

Please bring your player according to the first initial in their last name at the times shown in the evaluations page and arrive about 15-mins early to check-in. At that time your player will be assigned to a group and escorted through the evaluation program. The program consists of a timed run, batting, ground balls, fly balls and pitching. Be sure our team will do their best to keep the process on time - delays might occur though in some time slots.

Welcome to the LA-MV player evaluation process

1. When you first arrive at evaluation field, please check-in at the welcome tent.
2. From there your player will be put into a group. Once the groups are formed (typically about 10-players each) one of the LA-MV representatives will get the players warmed-up with stretching.
3. From there a representative will escort the group to the running station. The running station is where the players speed will be timed. In Mustang 1 and 2 the base-line distance is 60', Bronco it extends to 70' and for Pony the distance is 80'. Once the entire group has run they are escorted to the batting station.
4. At the batting station a coach will be using a pitching machine to pitch to each player. The players are evaluated on stance, swing mechanics and of course contact. Being so early in the season, contact is not a critical determining factor, so relax. Once the group has completed batting they are escorted to the fielding area.
5. For fielding they will be placed first at short stop — here they will field 3-ground balls, one at a time, and throw them to first-base. Next they will go to right field and field 3 fly balls and throw them to second base. As with the batting the evaluators all know this is early in the season with many players that have not touched a glove or a baseball since June. As with batting we are looking for basic fielding and throwing skills, form and tracking. Missing a ball or two or three for that matter is OK.
6. All players will receive an average score of all the evaluators. This score will be used to rank each player against their peers in the division. This information will be used in several areas.
   • The scores will initially be used to assure that no team has two #1-ranked players on the same team due to coaching pairs
   • Next it will be used during the drafting of teams. If you are new to the drafting system, the only players "placed" on a team are the player of the Manager and ONE assistant coach. All other players are drafted. No player is guaranteed to be selected by any specific manager.
   • Finally this information is used as a single data-point of many during the all star selection process.
7. A word about the evaluators - the coaches from their respective divisions are involved in scoring all the players on evaluation day. Coaches do not score their own player and any such scores will be dismissed when the scores are processed. We do this for a couple of reasons, first is to gather a much larger sampling of player data, and two, to engage managers in the League to make the process more transparent.
8. Finally — this is an EVALUATION not a try-out. All players make a team, no one is turned away. The evaluations are used for team balance and to assure your player will have the best possible baseball experience.

Thank you for being part of the LA-MV Baseball family. We look forward to seeing you at the games.