In love with the Strikeout Pitcher

[JJsqueeze]

Yea lights out, strikeout, or workhorse pitcher, its all the same. Every coach wants that one miracle player. My dd last year was the workhorse. Pitched a lot of games and won a lot of games. Now shes on a team where they want her to be the best pitcher on a 16U team that scrimmages with 18U teams. Was hearing a lot at Colorado that she needs to step it up. My reaction to that is my dd is the rookie and the newbie to this more elite 16U team shes on now, so basically a scrub. She is facing better batters and better pitching. Does she need to step up, absolutely. However with the more established pitchers on the team, they need to step up too. Lead my dd by example and not just preach or tell someone they need to be better. I know my kid will be on top again. Shes young, she will mature into this division.


My dd throws 100mph ............















in her mind!!

Isn't WarriorAngelina a 2002?

 

[WARRIORMIKE]

Isn't WarriorAngelina a 2002?

yep, that she is.

 

[maksoftball]

Generally, when you try to sell something, you give the buyer what s/he wants.

You are making excuses for your DD. If you want her to be "good", you have to avoid excuses. You are confusing her.

It is not good to get behind in the count. Your DD should have the ump's zone figured out by the bottom of the 1st.

For what it's worth, I don't tell her anything. She figures it out on her own. This is all going on in my head (and here LOL). We don't talk about it (because I know nothing). I just say good job, and ask her what worked and what didn't. And we ponder on the fact that it can change daily. I do agree that she needs to ask for and review her stats...numbers don't lie. And she has been working harder on FPS as well as getting the out before full count. It's a learning/growing experience in which I do think she is improving greatly on.

FYI - I'm glad you edited your post. I had to walk away before responding. LOL.

 

[schwabach]

For what it's worth, I don't tell her anything. She figures it out on her own. This is all going on in my head (and here LOL). We don't talk about it (because I know nothing). I just say good job, and ask her what worked and what didn't. And we ponder on the fact that it can change daily. I do agree that she needs to ask for and review her stats...numbers don't lie. And she has been working harder on FPS as well as getting the out before full count. It's a learning/growing experience in which I do think she is improving greatly on.

Ah, another parent who knows nothing according to their DD. I'm glad to have some company.

 

[GunnerShotgun]

The problem with this argument is that there are very few pitchers with enough velocity to make them outliers (Strikeout pitchers). Most pitchers are within a few MPH of each other at their respective age and class levels.

Given the choice yes I will take the faster pitcher as that will get me wins in bracket play. But again she has to be much faster than the average or it doesn't really matter. Good luck finding those.

 

[Cobb_of_Fury]

My daughter is NOT a strike out pitcher - she can throw mid 50's - She found that when she throws harder (upper 50's) she was getting hit more - because there tended to be less movement

Let me ask this question - I hear so many numbers bandied around I no longer know what's good -

She's second year 14U they play a fairly aggressive regional schedule here in the Mid-Atlantic (PA, WVa, Ohio, NY, VA, Maryland) Playing 14U + 16U and 18U tournaments

She has a 2.40 ERA, WHIP of .855 only 0.44 K per innings but she's only giving 0.07 BB per innings and no HBP's

I know she has room for improvement - but how do those numbers stack up? She's in a big school district our star pitcher for the past 4 years graduated there is no 'heir apparent' and she is hoping to make varsity as a freshman.
I know it actually depends on the competition and who tries out but in a vacuum how do you think she'll do?

 

[riseball]

My daughter is NOT a strike out pitcher - she can throw mid 50's - She found that when she throws harder (upper 50's) she was getting hit more - because there tended to be less movement

Let me ask this question - I hear so many numbers bandied around I no longer know what's good -

She's second year 14U they play a fairly aggressive regional schedule here in the Mid-Atlantic (PA, WVa, Ohio, NY, VA, Maryland) Playing 14U + 16U and 18U tournaments

She has a 2.40 ERA, WHIP of .855 only 0.44 K per innings but she's only giving 0.07 BB per innings and no HBP's

I know she has room for improvement - but how do those numbers stack up? She's in a big school district our star pitcher for the past 4 years graduated there is no 'heir apparent' and she is hoping to make varsity as a freshman.
I know it actually depends on the competition and who tries out but in a vacuum how do you think she'll do?

So virtually no walks, less than 1 runner per inning, and less than 3 runs per game. More often than not she is pitching well enough to win, which is all I ever ask of my pitchers. Just keep us in the game, and if we cannot play defense and plate 3-4 runs per game then we do not deserve to win. But at least the pitchers have done their part.

 

[girliesmom]

Really???????????? As the dad of a contact pitcher I see it the other way. The only thing most seem to be worried about is that number on the radar gun.

Don't get me wrong. Yes, our coaches seem to only want 2 things. Speed and strikeouts. DD is a contact pitcher. Good movement, hits her spots, but let's face it, the batters are getting better as they get older and many make contact. She has no problem getting strikes but not strikeouts. In our last tournament, she pitched against a team that 1.) she hadn't pitched against this season yet; 2.) our team was mercied by them at the last tournament; 3.) our team hadn't won against them this year. Yet, DD (albeit not a strikeout pitcher and whose' ball is 5 miles slower than our fireballer) kept the other team off the scoreboards for 6 innings. They did find a way to score runs in the 7th but we ended up winning nonetheless.

As far as I'm concerned, she was effective, no?

 

[Rocketech1]

If you only have one pitcher to chose from, get the strikeout pitcher every time. Why would you want a ground ball pitcher over a strikeout pitcher? Balls in play tend to find gaps in the defense, bad hops, errors, runners advancing, etc. I think "swing and misses" is an important statistic that is overlooked. I recently looked at my 1st year 14U DD's "swing and miss" stat and its a low 9.5%. Not surprising, her strikeouts per game is down as well. At 43 feet now, it's a lot harder to get the high amount of strikeouts per game as she used to at 12U and younger. Strikeouts are king, anyway you can get them.

 

[cuzmail]

A common metric for pitchers .... K/(BB+HBP). The higher the better.

True, but it misses important information such as when the BB/HBP are occurring or if they are back to back.

I don't care how many you strike out if you are also giving up free bases and runs then it's a problem regardless if you can throw 100mph or 20mph.