Our Mission
On behalf of the Board of Directors and all of our Coaches we would like to welcome you to SIEGE - Shelton Travel Baseball. The Shelton Travel program competes in the East Shore League and was formed to give all Shelton baseball players access to a local travel program that provides every kid an opportunity to play and grow together from their earliest Little League years through high school. Shelton Travel works in conjunction with the local Little League, Babe Ruth and High School programs to provide each athlete with an opportunity to reach their fullest potential.
SIEGE - Shelton Travel Baseball is a non for profit organization whose mission is to provide the best available baseball training, facilities and competition for our players. Our hope is that this program supplements and enhances the Little League and Babe Ruth organizations. Our Board members are all volunteer and dedicate their time to ensure the success of our program. These efforts can only be succcesful with the help and committment of our Shelton parents and players of whom we are hoping will join us in this effort.
PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT AND ADOPTION
As part of management of Shelton Travel Baseball, we will be developing a formal “Program”.
The intent of this Program is as follows:
Establish a common set of values and principles that all players, coaches and Board members will abide by. Each person may not be in 100% agreement with these values and principles, but we all agree to live by them for order, consistency and the overall benefit of the program.
Establish a common set of terms, or language, that is utilized through all stages in the program. As we further integrate Shelton Travel with Little League, Babe Ruth and local high schools, we would also aim to establish a certain degree of conformity with these organizations as well.
Create a framework that defines the skill sets that will be taught (e.g. warming-up, hitting, situational defense), the assumptions we will use in our teaching (shortstop goes out for cut-off on balls to center field, etc.), and suggested drills for teaching each skill. This framework will also provide a logical progression of goals and expectations as each player moves through the Shelton Travel program. Over time, and as new methodologies present themselves, we will learn what works best with what age groups and lead to what will eventually be a highly effective, “best-in-class”, baseball program.
Develop our coaches. We could have the most gifted kids in the country, but they will not realize their full potential without excellent coaching. The Program will establish the attributes required to be a coach, the “do’s and don’ts” of coaching behavior (which may vary with different age groups) and what best-practices will be employed by the coaches (e.g. rosters will be completed prior to field arrival, starting pitchers will be given x days advance notice that they will be pitching).
Provide a mechanism for evolution. Another goal that we have is to gather more metrics and feedback to provide an objective viewpoint on “how we are doing”. Ideally, this would be done in low-effort (automated) non-invasive manner. Examples of metrics (outside of the obvious and typical baseball card metrics) might be Quality at Bats, % at bats where ball is put into play, etc. These metrics will allow us to see who is successful and who is not (players and coaches), allowing us to dig into why, learn and evolve.
Create a coach’s forum for the discussion of best practices both in games and in practice. We envision having periodic meetings with all Travel coaches to discuss the standards listed in the “Skills Framework”, share ideas on how to enhance training effectiveness and, as a group, decide what trials/experiments we would like to conduct, and decide on what formal changes would be proposed to the BOD.
Establish the role of Coaching Coordinator. This would be someone responsible for maintaining the master program document, making changes when necessary, coordinating coach’s forums, represent coach recommendations to BOD for Program change, serve as an intermediary between coaches and parents, and develop a orchestrate methodologies to measure success.