New 8u softball coach advice

Mocoso said:

Your board needs to set up the 8U rules appropriately instead of relying on new coaches to "know" when to run them... at 8U things that work is to limit one base steal per batter.. one base on an overthrow to 1st etc... as someone said you hold up runners so you get more at bats - at 8U a lot of managers are new and to expect them to know by "gut feel" when to be agresive and when not to be isnt going to work...

As for playing the same position the whole game it goes back to league setting expectations... while you may think thats the right way Im sure there are others that feel the opposite.. the league should define at the rec level what is the minimum infield and playing time per game and have new coaches stick to the rules...

Our league for example requires every kid to play infield at least once per game and can not sit back to back innings

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I agree the league should set the rules at the beginning of the season. a coaches meeting where these are discussed, AND WRITTEN DOWN, has real benefit, because then a lot of times the idea behind the rule is known.

what I think is a good starting point for 8u would be:
1 base per overthrow (but if team makes another throw anywhere but to the circle, play is live again)
no stealing 2nd or home. and a limit on steals per inning (like 3 or 4)
no walked in runs (coach pitch on bases loaded 4 ball count, strikes carry over, must pitch from the rubber)
no D3K
no continuation
no IFR (no such thing as routine fly ball at that level)
run limit (4 or 5) per inning

we have a lot of this in our rec 10u as well, except the one base and no stealing 2nd or home (we do limit to 3 steals an inning, one home, again, we want girls to swing, without this, most walks would score within one or two batters.

this makes the girls put ball in play to score runs, and puts focus on fundamentals (pitching, hitting, fielding, throwing, game awareness) rather than tactics to try and win game/season/divison/etc. base running should be aggressive, but base coaches, especially 3B, should be cognizant of score.

regarding one position vs switching positions, I can see both points, but if the league is going to mandate a certain amount of IF time (which I think is probably a good idea), it is probably going to have to be per game. many rec level coaches are too lazy to record positions and tally each game into a season running tally. I started doing this because my first 8u coach pitch team had 16 girls. I knew if I simply tried to do it mentally, I was going to short someone. so i tallied exactly home many innings each girl had in IF, P, 1B, C, and OF, to make certain I kept it balance. carried that on to 10u, definition of balance changed slightly, but concept was the same. tracked P, C, and 1B in addition to IF since they saw most of the action. all girls saw time here unless I had a safety concern (and then I normally put them at C at least some of the time, CP, with multiple balls in glove, so if they missed the ball, we simply pitched again).