Winning coin flip. Home or Visitor

[uncdrew]

In pool play choose visitor.

If you lose as visitor, you save an inning of pitching.
If you win as visitor, you have to pitch anyway (and you win).

If you win as home team, you may give up an opportunity to score more runs (you potentially lose an inning of hitting.

If you lose as home team, you have pitched an inning you wouldn't have needed to, and potentially give up more runs.

So, if seeding comes down to runs scored, runs allowed, or run differential, and you want to go into bracket with pitchers less gassed, choosing visitor in pool play likely leads to better outcomes.

Summarized well here:

Home or Visitor: The Choice May Not Be That Obvious

Youth tournament coaches — when given the choice — almost always choose to be the home team. But is this the wrong decision? In pool play, I’d say it absolutely is. Here is the argument…

spiderselite.com

Solid read. Thanks for sharing. Never thought about how being visitor helps the bracket setting tie-breaker scenarios. And being able to take out a pitcher in the bottom of an inning when you score a lot in the top.

 

[uncdrew]

Who cares about saving an inning of pitching in pool play? This isn't baseball, there isn't a pitch count.

My pitchers want more innings on the weekend, not less.

"...offensive team should bat first to get that emotional lift.". Good grief.

Uhh...

You've never reached a championship game with gassed pitchers? We certainly try not to, but it happens.

 

[GunnerShotgun]

Win (or lose) efficiently on Saturday so you're less gassed on Sunday.

If one of your pitchers can't handle an extra inning from the day before you have bigger problems.

 

[CoachCeetar]

If one of your pitchers can't handle an extra inning from the day before you have bigger problems.

fatigue exists. I don't know why you insist on trying to deny it.

There is a graph of effectiveness and fatigue, and at one point, for every single living creature on the planet, that effectiveness plot plummets after a certain fatigue point. Managing workload to fit all your innings for all your pitchers into the spot before that plummet is super key, and denying it exists is foolhardy.

 

[NJZoo]

I would always factor in the weather. The last thing I want to do when it's 95 degrees with 100% humidity in the NE is play another half an inning if we don't have to.

Fool proof advice with all things softball - it depends.

 

[_MIA_]

fatigue exists. I don't know why you insist on trying to deny it.

He is one of a few posters on here who take a position and will never,ever admit that they might have been mistaken...they would rather look like idiots.

 

[GunnerShotgun]

fatigue exists. I don't know why you insist on trying to deny it.

There is a graph of effectiveness and fatigue, and at one point, for every single living creature on the planet, that effectiveness plot plummets after a certain fatigue point.

Like when marathon runners run the day before a big race?

There are reasons for choosing to be Visitors in pool play. Saving your pitchers from fatigue is not one of them.

 

[Cougars]

Like when marathon runners run the day before a big race?

There are reasons for choosing to be Visitors in pool play. Saving your pitchers from fatigue is not one of them.

Do they run a marathon the day before running a marathon???

 

[BucketDud]

Solid read. Thanks for sharing. Never thought about how being visitor helps the bracket setting tie-breaker scenarios. And being able to take out a pitcher in the bottom of an inning when you score a lot in the top.

My first year coaching had a really bad team with no pitching. First tournament we won coin toss and picked home. Other team wouldn't walk runners off so we lost like 20-1.

Never chose home again with that group.

 

[Sweet Lou]

In pool play choose visitor.

If you lose as visitor, you save an inning of pitching.
If you win as visitor, you have to pitch anyway (and you win).

If you win as home team, you may give up an opportunity to score more runs (you potentially lose an inning of hitting.

If you lose as home team, you have pitched an inning you wouldn't have needed to, and potentially give up more runs.

So, if seeding comes down to runs scored, runs allowed, or run differential, and you want to go into bracket with pitchers less gassed, choosing visitor in pool play likely leads to better outcomes.

Summarized well here:

Home or Visitor: The Choice May Not Be That Obvious

Youth tournament coaches — when given the choice — almost always choose to be the home team. But is this the wrong decision? In pool play, I’d say it absolutely is. Here is the argument…

spiderselite.com

I would always choose visitor for this very reason, especially if I had a team that didn't have multiple stud pitchers.