The following policy has been established for those who request to "Play Up" a division.

Who's Eligible?

If a player has played at least 1 spring season in their age appropriate division they are eligible to participate in the assessment for the next division.

Qualifying

T-Ball Participants wanting to play Rookie
T-ball participates wishing to play-up will need to have a written recommendation from their previous year coach that will be evaluated by the Board based on player safety and equality of game facilitation for the division.

Rookie/Minors Participants wanting to play Minors/Majors
To qualify to "play-up" in the next division, the player must score in the top 25% of all players participating in the division assessment. Players not qualifying to "play-up" will be placed in their age appropriate division. To ensure enough players in a division, players may be chosen from beyond the top 25% at the Boards discretion.

Division placement is based on player age as of April 30th (see our League Age Chart)

Assessment Process

Players are assessed by the coaches for the division in which they participate in four area's:

• Running
• Fielding ground balls and fly balls
• Throwing
• Hitting

The rating scale is 1-10 with 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest. All Coaches in the division being assessed participate in the assessment of all players. The scores are then entered into the computer and averaged by each of the disciplines mentioned above providing the overall average for the player. The players are then ranked from highest to lowest average score to facilitate the draft.

Play Down Policy

A parent may request that their child stay in a division when they would normally move to the next division if there is a safety concern. This request will be reviewed by the Competition Committee of the Board.

Rain Outs

1. Up until 4pm (weeknights) and 8am (weekends) the Town of Wilton has the authority to close the fields, thus cancelling all games. SWYB cannot cancel a game before this time.
2. Between 4pm-5:30pm (weeknights) and 8am-10:00am (weekends) the decision to cancel games falls to either the SWYB President, Vice President, or Board Member responsible for Opening the Concession Stand.In the event games before are cancelled before 5:30pm (weeknights) and 10:00am (weekends) a notice will be posted on the SWYB website and a league-wide email will be sent out.
3. Once the patch umpire has taken the Majors field, he/she has the authority to call the game. If the Majors game is called, the Majors coaches should notify all other games and they should be stopped.

Coaches cannot cancel games. SWYB has reserved the fields and must pay for these reservations unless steps 1 & 2 are followed.

Make-Up Games

1. If a game is Rained Out or stopped before becoming an official game, it must be made-up on the next night/day the field is available.
2. The Home Team coach must submit the Make-Up request form and await confirmation from the league before notifying players/parents of the makeup game.

Travel Team Fundraising Policy

The following policy has been adopted by the SWYB Board of Directors to guide the Fundraising activities for teams.

1. There has to be a specific reason for the funds being raised. The SWYB Board of Directors will need to know this prior to the fund raising.
2. Each Team will be required to have a Treasurer who will be in-charge and responsible for the accounting of all funds raised. The Team Treasurer cannot be one of the team's coaches or a family member of a team coach.
3. After each event and all funds have been recorded the funds will be turned over to the SWYB Treasurer. The funds will be recorded and distributed to the cause/event by the SWYB Treasurer.
4. Any extra funds at the conclusion of the event will be entered into the SWYB general fund.
5. A disclaimer needs to be issued to each member of the Team explaining that because of the team selection process they might not be able to take part in the planned event for which funds are being raised. For example, if you are raising funds for an event taking place after the next All Star selections some players might not make the new team. All parents need to understand this.
6. Current and/or previous SWYB Sponsors cannot be solicited for Team fundraising efforts and fundraising activiteis should not directly compete with SWYB's ability to generate league sponsorship.

Background Check Policy

Each season Saratoga Wilton Youth Baseball's (SWYB) Safety Coordinator will conduct background checks, consisting of a nationwide search that contains the applicable government sex offender registry data. If any screened person shows up in this nationwide search the person will be asked to consent to a more in-depth background check. SWYB will utilize a professional screening service to conduct this more extensive search.

SWYB has identified the following volunteers as persons who regularly provide service to the league and/or have repetitive access to, or conact with, players or teams, and therefore must be screened:

• Team Head Coach*
• Team Assistant Coach*
• SWYB Board Members

*For each team that is formed SWYB requires a Head Coach and two Assistant Coaches to be named. 

Team Formation/Assessment

T-Ball & Rookie
Formation of teams in the T-ball and Rookie divisions will be done by the respective Division Coordinator. It will be done randomly.

Minors & Majors
Minors and Majors team formation will be done with a coach's draft based on the results of the player assessments. During the draft, coaches should respect the following guidelines:

1. Travel players should be divided evenly amongst the teams (evaluated by the travel coaches.)
2. Coaches should ensure that each team has at least one pitcher and catcher.
3. The draft should be based on rank as a result of the assessment scores.

SWYB cannot guarantee placement on any team regardless of circumstances.

Saratoga Wilton Youth Baseball, Inc
PO Box 2269
Wilton, NY 12831

About SWYB
Saratoga Wilton Youth Baseball is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) based in Saratoga Springs / Town of Wilton, NY operating exclusively as a non-profit educational organization providing a supervised program of recreational and competitive baseball.