One of my freshman pitchers made a HUGE mistake.

We could use a good thread on leadership skills.

I have a freshman pitcher who pitches for her high school varsity team. The team had a senior pitcher that decided she didn't want to pitch anymore, wants to get her scholarship playing SS. There are (2) freshman pitchers, both pretty equal in their abilities so they were put in an every other game rotation.

One game after warming up she told her coach, "I don't think I should go in, my pitches are working for me today".
She's DONE!
She's been left out of the rotation and a jv pitcher has been brought up in case she's needed to go in.

When I found out about this I had a talk with her. She's devastated, she said she didn't think there was anything wrong in what she did, in fact she said the other pitcher had done it before and she went in her place. Okay, I don't know the instances of that, does the coach favor the other pitcher a little more, was it that she thought my freshman was trying to get out of tougher competition, I don't know.

I talked to her that she cannot base her actions off other pitchers, what's good for them isn't necessarily good for you. Never base your game performance off your warm-ups! And most importantly "fake it till you make it."
And now she has to warm up before every game and be ready to go in at any time in case she gets that opportunity to pitch again this season.

She learned a lesson this season, unfortunately the hard way, and hopefully it hasn't cost her the rest of her high school career.

I teeter in this situation a little bit. First, she is a freshman so she is young and felt like she was putting the teams best interest forward. Not pitching her anymore is a bit overkill. As her coach, I would have put her in to see what happens. If she struggled, switch her out, if not, leave her in.

Whole-heartedly agree about warm ups. People place way to much emphasis on them. I hear it all the time from parents. Oh little suzy was missing her spots, or jenny couldn't even hit the wiffles, she is going to strike out a lot today. One tournament, a coach pulled his starting SS because she missed a ground ball. I have yet to see any girl, at any level, hit a ground ball as hard as that was hit.

I'm going to see her tomorrow and have another talk with her and see if she's willing to talk to her coach and explain that she thought she was doing the right thing, and that it won't happen again.

I know as a father, I could tell if DD was "off" just in the warmups. She was able to recognize it about 13-14. EVERY pitcher has days their stuff is not on.

If there was another pitching option equal to her, there is no problem with her advising the coach she doesn't "feel" 100%. If there is no option............then she has no option either but to ride it out.

Hopefully she gets this worked out, a lesson learned.

In my opinion the only lesson to be learned is her coach is a complete idiot. She did the right thing by expressing how she felt and any coach would be appreciative of the honest feedback before she went in the circle. The coach had a prime teachable moment drop in his lap and all he did was set a young athlete back.

Always teach the pitchers to say, "I'm ready to go coach, put me in!"

The coach will pull her if she struggles. No reason for the kid to pull herself. Besides, good pitchers do better under pressure and fix a lot of the issues they have in warmups as soon as they are in the circle. Successful pitching is a mental thing, not a physical thing.

-W

I think it really depends on the pitcher. You really have to know your pitchers inside and out. I have had some that said they were not feeling it before a game, I put them in anyway and they worked through it. Others I found that I needed to listen to them and give them more time or whatever else they need.

Likewise when it gets late in the game and a pitcher tells me they are fading. Some can go another inning or two. Others you need to get out of the circle ASAP. It seems the wheels come off power pitchers much faster than spinners. Some history with respect to pitch counts can be very useful.

starsnuffer said:

Always teach the pitchers to say, "I'm ready to go coach, put me in!"

The coach will pull her if she struggles. No reason for the kid to pull herself. Besides, good pitchers do better under pressure and fix a lot of the issues they have in warmups as soon as they are in the circle. Successful pitching is a mental thing, not a physical thing.

-W

Click to expand...

This was the main context of the talk I gave her. Fake it till you make it.

My DD#1 and I were talking about one specific game a couple of weeks ago.

She said nothing was working during warmups. She couldn't get her drop to move, and so she was terrified that she was going to get rocked. She painted the corners and changed speeds, doing whatever she could do to get outs. Between innings, she would grab a catcher and work on her drop. She finally got the drop moving about the middle of the game. Go figure...she pitched a perfect game.

my kid always gets nervous when she has a great warm-up.
always seems to do better on the mound, when her warm-up was "shakey"...