Batting lineup philosophy

I try to stay balanced with the usual 1-4 batters and repeat 5-8 in the same manner. #9 is treated like a 1 or 5 batter (speed and ob%)

Mine is not different than what most have said. #1 for me is usually one of the faster girls on the team. My thinking on this is, I have two girls that can hit the ball to 3rd or short and beat out the throw on a regular basis. To me it is a good way to open the game. #2 and #3 is usually the girls with the best BA/OBP. #4 is a power hitter. I usually don't like to make changes to the 1-4 spots, but the 5-9 spots I usually am always trying to find the best combo of hitters.

fastpitch26 said:

I believe there is an ideal lineup philosophy but unless you have an A level team with quality players from top to bottom you probably wont be able to use it. As a coach on a B level team we try to maximize the number of times our better hitters are at bat. I believe this is even more important in tournaments due to the time limits. We want our top hitters to bat as much as possible.

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And you would deviate how for an A level team???

doublenickel said:

I am trying to understand why our MS coach is making the lineup the way they are is the reason I ask.

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Good luck trying to figure that one out! DD had a head coach who said he didn't care about statistics and went with his gut feeling or some other arbitrary reasoning? For example, instead of having your prototypical lead-off batter, worked the count for QAB, high OB% great speed, few strikeouts, the coach instead went with one of our best hitters, could hit with power (extra base hits), smart baserunner, but tended to strikeout more than most. Still scratching my head on that decision. Luckily we had pretty good pitching that meant we didn't have to score many runs to win

Does anyone manipulate their lineup if they are visitors with regards to pitchers and catchers getting pitch runners? In other words do you have non-pitchers entered as pitchers so they could be pinch ran for in the top of the first?

I swore I saw a thread discussing this once but I can't find it now.

CoogansBluff said:

And finally, be aware of pitchers/catchers who need pinch-running and where they fall in the lineup. You don't want slow players ahead of them who'll wind up replacing them in a ''last-batted out'' situation. Having two fast girls bat ahead of a slow-footed catcher will win you a game somewhere down the line.

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Yeppers, LOL! Every single coach of DD's has slotted fast girls in front of her, except for the times they decide to experiment with having her lead off.

Greenmonsters said:

And you would deviate how for an A level team???

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It's all relative but generally speaking, an A level team will be stronger 1-9 than our team. While there will be dropoffs, they may not be as severe. Every player has something to offer and it is part of our job as coaches to place them in positions to succeed. But the A level teams have a better chance to follow the more traditional philosophies, IMO. The section of my post that you isolated could be used for any team including professional. The Oakland A's have been experimenting with having their best hitter bat second instead of third because they estimate that position to get 15 more PAs over the course of the season.

For MS softball, I think shoe size is the way to go.

I've always subscribed to the traditional baseball type of lineups ... speed and good on-base percentages in the top 2, best hitter #3, best power hitter #4, next best power hitters #5 and 6, some speed in #9, etc. But I've been thinking about this a lot more recently and I think especially in games which may be time-shortened, there may be more merit in having the batters bat in order from the highest actual or expected OPS (on base + slugging percentage) on down. Batters at the top of the lineup will get up a lot more over the course of a season, and the way I like to think about my lineup is who do I want up next if I'm down to my last out. We all have seen many games where the top of lineup gets up only 2-3 times and the bottom only once or twice ... that's a 50-100% difference!

Ideally:

#1 Best OB% with Speed
#2 Second Best OB%, Must be able to bunt/slap
#3 Best hitter
#4 Power hitter no one wants to throw to with girls on base
#5 2nd best power hitter
#6 and on - Generally OB%, though is close I want the speed lower in the order (so chance of speed on base when the #1-#3 are due up


But it depends on what you have and what level and age you are playing. Two seasons ago I had 8 girls who you used a sundial to time their speed to first but could pound the &(*&(&@ out of the ball and tended to hack away, so I had my speed @ #1 and then batted them on batting average over the past 4-6 games since there was a good chance one of the next 3-4 batters was going to hit a LONG way. I think my #1 batter ended up with 90%+ of our stolen bases that season. Basically OPS method - although that was not how I was thinking of it when I was doing that teams line up.


One year in 10U rec we batted alphabetically and started our lineup the next game from where we left off the previous game. It actually didn't go badly for a rec season.

Not the OP situation, but if you are playing in a rec league with a '5 run/inning max' rule, then you really need to pay attention because you shouldn't use this batting line up strategy. Instead you use this one: The Winning 8U Batting Order Strategy for Fastpitch Softball I don't agree with some of the things on this site, but this is something that worked well for me when you are playing rec and you have a lot of weak hitters you are trying to mix in - and it has benefits because you can get your weaker hitters in early which makes rec parents happy.