Guide: Baseball and Softball
How to Use TeamSnap for
Baseball & Softball
Essential hacks to lead your baseball and softball team with TeamSnap
If you’re a diamond sports coach or team manager, chances are you spend a lot of time dealing with organizational tasks like tracking player attendance; scheduling games and practices; wrangling volunteers; and planning carpools.
We created this guide to help you maximize TeamSnap for your baseball and softball teams. Here, we list several tips to reduce time and help you be a more organized coach, including:
- Knowing who can make the game
- Setting the roster and lineup
- Volunteer assignments
- Team communication
- Attendance tracking
Player RSVPs and Setting the Lineup
One of the most important factors leading up to a game is knowing who can play. With Availability, players mark their availability for each game and practice. If they can’t make it, they can add notes as to why not (Ex: I’m on vacation; My wrist is broken; I’m sick). Instantly, the coach knows who can make the game, which makes setting the lineup easier.
Say for example you need to set the starting lineup for Saturday’s doubleheader:
- Make sure all players enter their availability. Players who mark themselves as available automatically appear in the lineup.
- Set your lineups based on position, batting order, and any custom fields you created to segment players.
- Once the lineup is set, TeamSnap automatically alerts the team once the lineup is ready.
Learn how to use Availability and how to create a lineup.
Communication
Communication is important, whether you’re a coach, parent or player. You might find yourself constantly emailing or texting groups of people to notify them of last-minute changes. One feature of TeamSnap Messaging is group chat, a feature that allows you to create custom groups of players to chat with, which is a great way to immediately contact just those athletes who are playing that day.
Use Messaging to:
- Alert the team where the field is with directions.
- Send a direct message to alert a teammate they left their gear behind.
- Communicate with the captains.
- Plan the team BBQ.
- Coordinate carpools.
Volunteers
At some games, the home team is responsible not only for playing but also for volunteering. That means it’s your responsibility to find volunteers to stock the water table, set the bases, and clean up. TeamSnap can simplify this process.
Use TeamSnap’s Assignment feature to:
- Organize carpools.
- Assign who’s bringing what.
- Assign who’s cleaning up.
- Assign who’s setting the bases.
For step-by-step instructions on how to set up assignments, visit our Help Center.
Stay In The Game
Not everyone can go to the big championship game. If a player can’t make the game, they can still track the team’s progress with TeamSnap Live!
TeamSnap Live! is a fun way to keep teammates updated and help them feel like part of the game even when they can’t be there. Players, parents, and coaches can post real-time updates, scores, play-by-plays, photos and video highlights for teammates and family members to follow along with.
Learn how to use TeamSnap Live!
Track Attendance
Say goodbye to spreadsheets, pencils, and clipboards. Use the availability feature to gather and track player attendance to practices and games.
Coaches can mark a player’s availability for scheduled games and practices and view historical data in a tap. For those who like holding a clipboard with paper, you can export availability as a CSV. Learn how to track attendance.
With these hacks, you’ll lead your baseball and softball teams like a hero. Play ball!
Note: Features vary by plan. Check out TeamSnap plans and available features.
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Lisa Hope is a product marketing manager with TeamSnap and a marketing professor at the University of Florida.
