Rotating players?

sluggers said:

This is *REC* ball. All girls should get equal playing time.

Also...it is better to give all the girls equal playing time and lose than to play "stars" for the whole game and win.

*BUT*...you can win by giving equal playing time.

Click to expand...

Amen. Our softball rec league required everyone sit once before anyone sat a second time, so rules kept playing time similar. Before that in LL, we voluntarily had everyone sit 1-2 innings per game and it was very satisfying winning against teams that had half their team sit half the game. That said, we didn't equalize total innings played across games.

Having everyone sit means you have to use multiple players at each position. We rotated players between IF and OF except for a couple where IF wouldn't be safe. Innings for pitchers were also limited so you had to develop/use at least 2. We had our strongest defense possible behind the #2 pitcher.

IME the most successful coaches in rec were the ones that developed their weaker players the most. The better players don't have as much room for improvement. Developing weaker hitters is especially true when everyone is in the batting order.

The worst coaches in rec were the ones that marginalized their weaker players and hoped they wouldn't show up for games.

Dang it, DD is 2nd baseperson.

All Rec players should play defense every game, and always be in the batting lineup, but I've never bought the "all players play equal". If I had a Rec team where everyone was pretty much the same, equal play would have happened, but that was never the case.

When I coached Rec, if you showed up regularly, put in good effort, and showed at least some ability to play the position in practice, you got to play it in the game. However, I never thought it was fair to the ones obviously working the hardest to play the same amount as those mailing it in at practice and more interested in the concession stand menu during games.

BTW...your goal at practice should be to make it as interesting and as "gamelike" as possible.

my $0.02

coached tball two years (coed), coach pitch softball two years, and two years of 10u rec ball (LL).

never put someone at 1B who cannot catch thrown balls. had to demonstrate they could do this in practice to get game time there.

never put someone at 1B, 3B or P who cannot adequately defend themselves on a line drive, and must take attention span in consideration here

to play P in kid pitch, had to demonstrate they could throw strikes (at least say 40% of the time, leeway if was desperate for pitching) in practice. Also, lots of girls do not want to pitch, but even with this rule, pretty much every girl who wanted to pitch got a chance. Last year in coach pitch two pitchers probably got 60% of innings combined, #3 got about 20%, #s 3 and 4 got about 10% each. some of that was younger girls who you could tell arms would get tired after one inning (can be loooonggg innings). noone (parents, opposing team, your defense) wants to sit there and watch a pitcher walk the bases loaded, then coach pitches on 4 ball count to next batter (local rule, we did not walk in runs), and batter crushes it for multiple bases, then repeat to our inning run limit.

had some kids who rarely played OF, and some who got only 1-2 inning a game in IF, but all players got some in IF every game for the most part. had one player over all seasons I would not lay in IF, safety issue, player did not react to ball at all for the most part.

also, important to teach them after trying to make first play, to get it to P, rather than throw ball around IF (and inevitably overthrows/missed catches).

the tricky thing is to balance feelings of all the girls, can very very frustrating to players to continually make plays (ie field ball and make a good throw) only to continually have the second half of the play fall apart.

This is about *rec* ball...

For informational purposes, my record in rec ball was something like 150-10. In my last seasons of rec, I was making lineups based on who got to the park first. With a few exceptions, I would let the kids play where they wanted. It really wasn't hard...we would usually be up by 10-15 runs after three innings. (My worst kid one game asked to catch...we were up by 20 runs or so. She could barely walk to the plate with the equipment on...she never caught a ball, although she was able to keep most of them in front of her. She was the happiest kid on the field.)

The more the weaker players play, the better they get. Let your worst player lead off and play 2B, and that kid will walk through walls for you.

The reason I could do this was because I knew (1) how to make practices fun so the kids wanted to be there and (2) how to teach fundamental softball.

I'm not some miracle worker. There are a bunch of really good coaches here... Cannonball, nanotech, riseball, Coach James, Ken Krause, Amy, and bmakj.

All you new coaches have to do is post a question, and we can give you suggestions, drills and games.

If a REC coach teaches fundamentals and the players have FUN, they have done their job. No one should care about winning games in REC ball. Come to think of it, there are a lot of people in TB who should also care a lot less about winning...

I know this is a rec discussion, but too rotate kids in travel ball. I wouldn't say I get crazy, but when I pick up quality players at try-outs, I play them. Learning from games comes at all levels, not just rec. Everyone bats every game when possible. I like USSSA because I can utilize the two AP spots in the line-up. High School is different as its really about winning & you can't attract players from other schools. TB is about being competitive, absolutely. However, I have a hard time sitting a kid excessively when they pay for a spot on the TB team. Coach 'em up in practice, get them game time and they will learn... I created a form to rotate kids throughout a game so I know exactly who has played, where, and how many innings. Helps in parent discussions too when you have all of the facts.

Matrices like that are very useful. Since we had to use 2 pitchers, I only numbered the 1st inning beforehand and chose the other columns as we went along to keep our #2 pitcher from facing the top of their lineup (trick I learned from a very experienced coach). The columns were in the sequence I expected with #2 pitching in the 3rd column, however sometimes the 3rd column was used for 2nd inning and the 2nd column was used 3rd inning. Same thing for #2's other inning later in game. Much easier and cleaner than changing positions on the fly.

I also kept stats with a game log for each player. Early in the season we were having some problems dialing in the 6-9 slots in the lineup because it seemed whomever we put 6-7 did worse there. Finally realized a couple girls struggled against better pitchers and pounded the weaker ones. A couple others were kinda the opposite, so we varied those spots depending on whom we were facing.

Some of the best LL/rec memories are of kids that never played before developing into competent players. Key is getting them to spend a little time around their house playing catch, fielding fly balls and grounders, and swinging a bat in between practices and games - regularly doing just 10 reps of each makes a big difference and only takes them 15-20 minutes.

You can recognize the development pattern after a few seasons. Batters go from being totally lost to recognizing strikes/balls to putting good swings on strikes to swinging on time and making contact. Getting that first hit is a major breakthough which leads to more success. I remember having 2 newbies on a 12U team that went the first half the season without putting the ball in play. One newbie got her first 2 hits in 1 game and never looked back. The other one, Jessica, was making good decisions and on time, so I told her parents after a game that she was very close and she'd take off once she got her first hit. Sure enough, she got a hit in the next game and averaged at least a hit/game after that.

also, remember, much easier to get girls lots of reps in practice than in a game. in one of my typical 10u practices, every girl would typically get

10-15 swings at wiffle balls on tee
20-25 live pitches (ie one bucket of balls)
and at least (with level of difficulty tailored to the girl):
40 ground balls to field
50 fly balls to field (many of them tennis balls of a racket underhand, but still good reps)
50 thrown balls to catch (including warmups)
75+ throws

IMO, game experience is not for developing skills, it is for developing decision making and game awareness. If the skills are not there, they are not going to develop them through games, simply not enough repetitions. development of skills/fundamentals really takes place in practice. I always tried to explain to them it was like school, practices were the lessons, games were the tests. you want to test each girl, but not so rigorously they are set up for failure. If you know they have not grasped the lesson, no point in testing them, they need more development.

That being said, everyone generally got at least 2 innings (out of 6, time and light permitting) in the IF, might not be the position they wanted. I would also try to put a weaker pitcher and/or defensive lineup up against weaker part of the other teams order. since we did not walk in runs, guaranteed to get at least some action in the field.

In regular season, I never cared about wins and losses, just getting girls to improve individually and as a team. Almost without exception, all my girls made remarkable improvement from start of practice to end of season, especially the weaker ones. How much you improve the worst players on the team will really determine how good the team is. always much easier to go from below average to average or a little better, than from good to great.

Even in travel ball our coach rotates girls around a good bit (10U). In bracket games or pool games that really matter, he goes with the proven rotation. But if we get way up (or way down) or if the game is a meaningless pool game they get moved around. This works in our benefit, IMO. This weekend our main 3B was sick. We had 2 other girls who were very familiar with 3B and could play that position well. And several others we could've put there for a passable job. We've got 3 girls who can play SS very well, and 2 more who can do a good job there when needed. Most of our team can play 2B or 1B, ditto outfield. It's nice to know that one girl not being able to play doesn't destroy our whole defense.