Do you prefer to rotate subs or sit girls for an entire game

CoogansBluff said:

So the coach has 2 girls who are coming to tournaments in order to get 2-3 at-bats and 5-6 innings in the field?

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Yes - and I think it is ridiculous. The parents seem satisfied because their daughters "are getting better in practice", but I can't imagine how frustrating and boring it would be to come to games, and travel out of state to watch your daughter play only a couple innings and have a couple at bats. If it were my daughter we would have left and found a team where she fell in the middle of the group and got regular playing time in a game. Both girls are sweet girls and have good attitudes, but are just missing that drive. They are still afraid of the ball when fielding and bail out of the batters box when facing a good fast pitcher.

There are 9 girls on this team who definitely WANT to be there, want to work hard, and want to play. There are 2 who enjoy the game, but don't mind sitting either and then the 2 girls who sit a lot.

I do honestly feel bad for the girls who sit - but I also know that over the past 3 years this team has been one of the top in the state. Why HC picked up these girls is a mystery to me...I know I sound heartless, but is frustrating all around.

ETA: During pool play HC will normally bat 11 if permitted to do so.

I'm not a fan of girls sitting for entire games but as a parent of a pitcher I've had to deal with it when there are 11 or more girls on the roster. It's easy to sit the pitcher that is going to start the next game to keep her fresh, especially if there's a chance she will need to pitch multiple games that weekend. Is the coach doing this?

On the other hand I've seen coaches who carry 13 or 14 players on the roster and pick up any quality players they can during the season. They normally only play the best players and only bat 9. Basically trying to run off the "not so great" players that they grabbed early on to fill the roster.

JAD said:

Sitting an entire game can be monotonous, especially at the younger age groups. Unless you are playing in qualifiers I would recommend rotating players on a regular basis and batting everyone. There are way too many TB coaches that taking winning and losing WAY to seriously...

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THIS ^^^ I can only speak from a parenting perspective, but this is the reason we decided to leave our last team. We went to an out of town tournament and DD played 3 innings out of 6 games. It was pretty obvious that this was a "play to win" coach and I knew my DD was on the wrong team. I am certain some parents would have stuck it out just to say their kid plays with "TOP NAME" team. I think sometimes coaches are to blame, but ultimately parents need to use some common sense and not be delusional.

Our coach normally has 12 on the team. Bats all during showcase games and pool play games. This lets him rotate freely. At showcases, college coaches might only watch one game so it's important to give everybody opportunity to get some exposure. During elimination games he normally plays 10 (DFP/flex) and will try to sub the other 2 players if possible. So at the end of the weekend no one player is sitting much. There have been situations where coach was sitting a player but college coach wanted to get another look so he played her for a few innings. Thus far only heard maybe 1-2 complaints to coach about playing time. The other thing he did was during tryouts he explained everything in parents meeting so to make sure everybody heard same thing. One player did quit in the fall but picked up another player.

MightyMO said:

I'm not a fan of girls sitting for entire games but as a parent of a pitcher I've had to deal with it when there are 11 or more girls on the roster. It's easy to sit the pitcher that is going to start the next game to keep her fresh, especially if there's a chance she will need to pitch multiple games that weekend. Is the coach doing this?

On the other hand I've seen coaches who carry 13 or 14 players on the roster and pick up any quality players they can during the season. They normally only play the best players and only bat 9. Basically trying to run off the "not so great" players that they grabbed early on to fill the roster.

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One of the players he routinely sits is a pitcher - but she is probably #4 and rarely pitches. The other player normally plays LF.
He definitely has a tendency to always be on the lookout for "the next best thing" and in the process forgets to continue to develop the players he has. I think this has led to alot of frustration and a loss of chemistry on the team.

KPower said:

One of the players he routinely sits is a pitcher - but she is probably #4 and rarely pitches. The other player normally plays LF.
He definitely has a tendency to always be on the lookout for "the next best thing" and in the process forgets to continue to develop the players he has. I think this has led to alot of frustration and a loss of chemistry on the team.

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Sadly the players (and parents) know exactly what they are doing and everyone is asking why they are staying around. A lot of the time it's because they like the game and this is their only option. The coach DD played for like this was actually a good coach in terms of teaching the game but looked at it as making his team better. He liked DD so she played quite a bit but there were always 2 or 3 girls on the bench who only got in an inning here and there.

This is a great question to ask a coach when you are selecting a team to play on.

Middle DD is the #1 pitcher on her 14U team. They bat the whole team all the way up to the final few tournaments of the year and even then they work all the girls into the game somehow. All the girls rotate into the game during the regular season and each girl has 2-3 positions they are working on during the regular season. No one sits for an entire game, except for late in the summer my DD has sat and only pitched in a few tournaments when the heat is 100+ and i am thankful for that. I'm sure they have a few extra errors and lose a few close games a year because of the rotations but I wouldn't do it any other way. My DD is staying competent at 3rd and OF and i'm pleased with this as who knows some day her pitching career may come to an end but it won't mean she is done with Softball. I realize as she gets older and probably in HS ball this will change some.

WOODY123 said:

This is a great question to ask a coach when you are selecting a team to play on.

Middle DD is the #1 pitcher on her 14U team. They bat the whole team all the way up to the final few tournaments of the year and even then they work all the girls into the game somehow. All the girls rotate into the game during the regular season and each girl has 2-3 positions they are working on during the regular season. No one sits for an entire game, except for late in the summer my DD has sat and only pitched in a few tournaments when the heat is 100+ and i am thankful for that. I'm sure they have a few extra errors and lose a few close games a year because of the rotations but I wouldn't do it any other way. My DD is staying competent at 3rd and OF and i'm pleased with this as who knows some day her pitching career may come to an end but it won't mean she is done with Softball. I realize as she gets older and probably in HS ball this will change some.

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DD has played for this same coach for 4 years now. He has ALWAYS rotated players. Just yesterday he decided he is going to sit girls for one game each. Every girl on this team has a primary and secondary position (and some have more). I actually liked it much better this way...I am a little leery about how well this new policy is going to go over.

catchermama said:

THIS ^^^ I can only speak from a parenting perspective, but this is the reason we decided to leave our last team. We went to an out of town tournament and DD played 3 innings out of 6 games. It was pretty obvious that this was a "play to win" coach and I knew my DD was on the wrong team. I am certain some parents would have stuck it out just to say their kid plays with "TOP NAME" team. I think sometimes coaches are to blame, but ultimately parents need to use some common sense and not be delusional.

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Us too, last year. Picked up players and batted 9 for scrimmages, I'm not even kidding. We played a 3-game friendly and his first year 10U girls, who were still adjusting to fastpitch, got 3 at bats each over all 3 games (the 2 pick ups he got were top 7 every time). In a scrimmage. Nope and nope. That was just the last straw but it was a pretty big one. I think he was doing exactly what MightyMo said, didn't care about keeping those he felt were at the bottom if he could replace them towards the top.

DDs 14U team carries 11, and typically rotates everyone on defense during games. Heck, the coach bats everyone, even in bracket / finals games, and the lineup sometimes looks like he picked names at random. It works because the team is pretty solid from top-to-bottom. Pick-ups appear only when we're short.

However, I could see situations with players who aren't quite ready for whatever level they're at, but are choosing to work on it with that higher level team primarily at practice. I wouldn't do it, but as long as everyone understands, that could work for awhile. Regardless, I certainly wouldn't travel to another state to watch my kid sit most of a tournament.