In need of a strategic direction for pitching 16U

JAD · Oct 17, 2016

It does not take in-depth statistical analysis to know that an ACE pitcher is going to make a team better...
What level is your team playing?
I don't care who you have coaching the pitchers during your team practices and during games, if they are not practicing (A LOT) on their own, they will never be an ACE
As [MENTION=674]Hillhouse[/MENTION] mentioned - are any of them taking private pitching lessons?
Do not be too hard on yourself...90% of TB teams have the same problem

Karchify · Oct 17, 2016

Hillhouse said:
Karchify, where are you located? Ever thought about getting a PC to give an unbiased assessment of things?

Bill

This is an excellent idea, I'm going to see what I can do here. We are located in Upper midwest so stuck indoors for most of the winter and even when they do get outdoors for HS, they play in some pretty bad weather come April.

Softball scholar · Oct 17, 2016

I see one problem. 5 pitchers is a lot for 16u. My DD has 4, and IMO that's to many. I might start with narrowing down to 3 or 4. Its hard to make decisions when you have too many options. Maybe you do it through competition, and lay off the one whose not getting the job done. Also through competition you need to establish a pecking order. Based on your post, you're very good with stats. Get some stats build up, and then start allocating pitching time based on your best performers. Best ERA and WHIP gets the bracket game start. Also I would base the decision on whose going the pitching coach and whose practicing. Ask the question whose taking lessons, practicing, doing drills and doing strength training?

I also saw on your post, another girl is playing tennis, volleyball, track etc. You can play multiple sports as a non-pitcher. But that's a lot tougher to do as a pitcher. Being a pitcher is like playing two sports. Just generalizing, and not saying its a bad thing that she's playing other sports, but she's most likely not doing much in offseason or even season to make progress.

Karchify · Oct 18, 2016

Met last night with my coaches to discuss our situation plus some additional comparisons from 16U teams from last summer. We agreed pitching is our main emphasis this year and especially this winter and started in on a 3 part plan:

1) Start in on a plan to improve pitching specifically in locating balls and changing speeds. We went away from the meeting to do some research about how to best do it. Just looking at some information that says 16U should be able to hit corners 50%-80% of the time, good starting point, maybe we can setup a regular measurement to track how individuals are progressing.

2) Continue to work on explosive strength with an emphasis on pitching strength for the pitchers. We can only pitch 3 at a time in our facility so we can work on this in parallel and keep a pitcher focus.

3) Educate & communicate to our players and parents about our strategy and what we are looking for in practice to determine our starting pitchers.

We'll meet again next week.

In need of a strategic direction for pitching 16U

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JAD

Karchify

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