Do coaches use DP/Flex on positions other than pitcher and catcher?

[Beeg]

I am curious, do coaches use DP/Flex on positions other than pitcher and catcher? I often see it used for pitcher, esp. when the coach doesn't want a pitcher to worry about batting. But on someone who is a MIF? Esp. when there are several other MIFs who can hit and field. Just curious how coaches use DP/Flex as a strategy.

 

[_MIA_]

DD is a MI and I’ve told her coach to flex her a few times..most of the time when I tell him that he should have listened..

 

[Vertigo]

Our college coach would use it for our 3B quite often.

 

[EdLovrich]

Here are a few ways to utilize the DP/Flex.

https://www.nhsua.org/DP_FLEX_Strategies.pdf

 

[prsboogie]

We utilize it a lot on Sundays. Our center fielder has been in her head and struggling at the plate but is a hound dog in the field. She was flexed in three games two weekends ago and was very understanding about it. She woke up this weekend and went 7/11 on Friday and Saturday and found her way back in the lineup for Sunday. We are a team of 12 at 14U and found ourselves down 2 due to illness - 1 migraines and one with covid which let us bat the EH who sat the bench.

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[Dabears17]

We have a pitcher who is a liability defensive wise. I challenged her at the end of season to improve her defense over the summer. Found her a coach I've known for over 12 years to work on her playing 3B.

She has one of the top 4 bats on the team. This year she mostly pitched and DP'd when not pitching. Played a little 3B (made a couple errors) and 1B two games my DD had to catch.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

Our college coach would use it for our 3B quite often.

That's an odd position to flex. Most of the time the corners are always considered a power position. I assume she was a whiz defensively?

 

[Vertigo]

That's an odd position to flex. Most of the time the corners are always considered a power position. I assume she was a whiz defensively?

So 3B was actually shared by 2 players. We lost our starting SS right at the beginning of the season and I believe the frosh who filled the SS role was recruited for 3B. I think with the incoming class they will have another SS so the other girl can move back to 3B. She is more of a power hitter, so your prototypical 3B.

 

[nixxy311]

Our coach used it for some of our OF positions last season. We have a good power hitter but she made a lot of mistakes in the OF. So she'd DP a lot. Sometimes use it for our 1B as one of our players wasn't a great hitter. Never really used it for P even though we do have a pitcher who was not a great hitter and I always wondered why she wasn't just flex but our coach always had her hit. Used it a lot for catcher but it kind of sucked because our C can really hit but didn't get a lot of ABs so she wasn't getting a lot of experience. So when she did bat, she wouldn't produce as much as he wanted.

Edited to add: This is for HS. For TB, we rarely do it as we will bat our roster for pool games and showcases. I have seen other teams use it however (when I get their lineups to score). Sometimes it's for the P but not always. A lot of the time your P/C are your better hitters.

 

[Hawk_]

All of the time. My DD is a great power hitter with a high average, and a average 1st baseman (we have other 1st who are better defensively) our RF is a great defender but a well below average hitter. Now our weakest hitter has our number 4 hitter, hitting for them.