WWYD - depleted roster for a tournament

Suppose you are 10 days from a major tournament far enough away that you need a hotel with significant
travel costs.
The tournament is significant in that your families have been looking forward to it for almost a year and the prestige
of the organization will be influenced by your performance. It is in the middle of your season.

Your team has 3 pitchers. Your #2 pitcher is away for legitimate reasons. Your #3
pitcher gets injured today and will definitely not be back in time for the tournament.

This particular tournament has frozen rosters and guest players are not allowed though you can
call up players from your next younger team in the organization.

Your team is normally maybe an A or A- team. Your next younger team is maybe a C+ or B- team.

Would you withdraw from the tournament
Risk overusing your #1 and try to use a minimal contribution from a callup
Use the callup liberally, ignoring the damage a poor performance could do (you tell your families in advance to lower their expectation but can't do much for the wider softball world)
Something else the team hasn't thought of?

TorontoCFE said:

Something else the team hasn't thought of?

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Has your coach tried contacting the TD and explaining the situation and ask for an exception to the frozen roster? If this isn't a qualifier (and even if it is for USSSA "inserted sarcasm"), perhaps they would make an exception. If the TD were faced with the option of your team dropping versus a last minute guest player, they may make the exception.

Sounds to me like you've already made your decision. If your priority is the reputation of the organization and the team, you cancel. If your priority is to give the players and their families the opportunity to play in this tournament you bring in the call-ups you need and hope for the best. You will probably pitch your #1 a little more than you usually would but not to the point of doing long-term damage.

If you go the second route, you never know. One of those call-ups could surprise you by stepping up to the level of competition.

I agree with Knight. Call the tournament director immediately and let him know your situation. As Knight says if it is between you dropping out and making an exception the TD might make some provision for you. I would also do the callup as well. I have been in similar positions back when I coached and I always did everything possible to make a tournament. And sometimes that did entail getting help from TDs on scheduling etc.

And as far as prestige the softball community is "small" and if you did not perform well more than likely many would know your situation. It happens. Teams lose a pitcher or two and do not perform as well as they might have with the pitchers. That does not go on your "permanent record" anywhere.

Can you and/or your families get a refund for tournament fees and/or hotel reservations?

If your families have been looking forward to this long term, and you pull out last-minute to save the organization's rep, you might get ticked off families looking to play elsewhere. An exodus of players won't help the team rep, either.

This actually comes from a coaching ethics discussion based on someone else's experience but it struck close to a situation we saw in the past.

In our case, our #3 recovered enough to contribute a little (did not bat or play when not pitching). There was a big dropoff between our 2 and 3 pitcher, but we started the #1 every game and took her out as soon as the game looked safe one way or the other (it ended up maybe 70/30 split). So we were off the hook for the most part. We thought of bringing a callup but the younger team had no pitchers that could be competitive and did not want someone travelling that far and not playing.
The #1 was given lots of time away from pitching afterwards and the team tired to make it more about the offsite bonding.

And the TD was not that helpful. It was beyond their ability to allow guest players because of governing body rules. They offered to rearrange the schedule to move our games to give Friday and Saturday morning off but the injury would have needed weeks not days to be 100% according to the diagnosis the team had at the time.

It is an interesting situation because no matter what you do, someone is disappointed or at risk.
If you withdraw, the families are disappointed and you are unlikely to get invited back. If you go and play poorly, the families are disappointed and out money to travel for a buttkicking, your rankings suffer and you and your org may not get another invite.
If you burn out the #1, not only is that showing lack of respect for her health, but she may not be available for future events.

What is the tournament format? How many games do you realistically expect to play? My first call would be to the tournament director explaining the situation and asking for an exception to the no guest player rule. If you do not have any luck there I would explain the situation to your parents and see if you can get a consensus from the group.

I've got to look out for my individuals players first, and families second.

In the situation you describe, it's hard for me to imagine a mid-season tournament disallowing guest players (how would they know?) because I've never heard of that before, but if it was a major tournament and trip that all our players and families were already committed to, we'd make the trip. If that meant bringing along a younger pitcher to give us a few innings, then that's what we'd do. With your #1 still available and presumably ready to take on more of the weekend workload, I don't think a team drops from 100% to 10% strength just because you're missing a couple of valuable arms.

If you'd said you had NO pitching - meaning all 3 pitchers are out - then I'd agree with withdrawing from the tournament on that basis. But I don't agree with saying "we have no chance to be competitive this weekend" when you've still got your #1 starter healthy and ready to go. With rare exception, I'm a big believer in giving players a chance to surprise you.

Tourney director will give u an exception. Happens all the time

JAD said:

What is the tournament format? How many games do you realistically expect to play? My first call would be to the tournament director explaining the situation and asking for an exception to the no guest player rule. If you do not have any luck there I would explain the situation to your parents and see if you can get a consensus from the group.

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This is basically what the team in question did.

They were looking at either 5 or 6 games. A refund was not possible because it was too late to get a replacement team.

They asked the TD for an exemption. The TD couldn't get an exemption answer in few enough of the 10 days that would allow enough time to cancel travel plans if the answer was no. The TD surveyed the other teams in the tournament and every single team offered to loan a pitcher, even when they were playing head to head. The issue was that the governing body froze rosters and if you play for a team after that date you could not play for another and still be eligible for the yearend championship tournament. they didn't want to put other teams' post season at risk
Even if the exemption was granted, there were problems. All of the teams they knew were already playing either there or another event so there was no one they could easily reach out to in short time and there was little time to make travel arrangements. Callups were also ruled out because of travel concerns and leaving the other team short because they were playing that weekend..

So they surveyed the families. There was a lot of disappointment but they understood that things happen. They were willing to
withdraw over riding a single pitcher. The team would look bad but the TD understood so they might get an invite back. The org wouldn't be as directly impacted by a withdrawal as they would by poor performance, they thought.

The coaches did not want to go, have a poor performance and have families blaming the missing 2 pitcher even though she had told them 8 or 9 months earlier that she was not available that weekend.

In the end, they went. They thought there was some chance a guest player could be borrowed on site and tried to make the weekend
about battling adversity. I think they got it handed to them a couple of games because they had to pitch a girl who hadn't pitched in years. They haven't been invited back to the tourney since. The coach said the pool parties were good at least.

Afterwards, 3-4 families left from the disappointment / results but they picked up other families from a rival team who liked that they were willing to give it a shot even at the risk of looking bad. Probably lost the tradeoff but still around.

Some of the other teams said they would have withdrawn and apparently there were teams that said they would have riden the one pitcher and some that would throw anyone who volunteered to pitch just to play.

It would be tough to be in that spot.