12U roster size

Il softball fan said:

Agreed, however if you switch to a team where the ones sitting are now in the top 9, it is obviously a weaker team, and someone will still be the worst players on the team and someone will still be sitting and watching. 4-5 girls sitting is still too many.

Click to expand...

It's either a weaker team, or a team that has a need at a particular position. Especially at the younger ages, playing time and quality of coaching is more important than how many games the team wins.

For tournaments, I like 13. With DP/Flex, that's 10. CRs for P and C makes 12. Plus 1 in reserve for injury.

Eric F said:

It's either a weaker team, or a team that has a need at a particular position. Especially at the younger ages, playing time and quality of coaching is more important than how many games the team wins.

For tournaments, I like 13. With DP/Flex, that's 10. CRs for P and C makes 12. Plus 1 in reserve for injury.

Click to expand...

In those situations, 13 makes perfect sense. Something I am not too familiar with is the DP/Flex thing. DD was never part of a team that used it, and I don't remember seeing any teams that we played using it. And the tournaments we played around here (St Louis metro area) we didn't have to use a roster spot for CR. Last batted out was the CR for pitcher or catcher.

Personally, I think 14 is too many and 13 is probably going to cause some issues. But the best advice I can give you is stop adding to the roster when you get to the point where you can't honestly say that this player is one that I would start in any Saturday game. Having kids sit all the time, or never hit/field during pool play leads to a lot of resentment if your team isn't winning. I know your team is good and your description of your husband's coaching sounds pretty close to ideal to me. But, there are a lot of coaches out there who don't play kids on the roster that much, even on Saturdays, and I haven't seen any of those teams have long-term stability.

Elk Grove Hurricane said:

Personally, I think 14 is too many and 13 is probably going to cause some issues. But the best advice I can give you is stop adding to the roster when you get to the point where you can't honestly say that this player is one that I would start in any Saturday game. Having kids sit all the time, or never hit/field during pool play leads to a lot of resentment if your team isn't winning. I know your team is good and your description of your husband's coaching sounds pretty close to ideal to me. But, there are a lot of coaches out there who don't play kids on the roster that much, even on Saturdays, and I haven't seen any of those teams have long-term stability.

Click to expand...

I don't know if our team is *good* yet. Our record sure isn't but I suppose first year 12U and playing where we are that's to be expected. They do have a ton of potential though and I think if we were playing B tourneys we'd probably be doing pretty well. I can't imagine he'd ever sit any individual player for even one full game, must less a full day. His thing is, he picked them so he plays them and if he can't get them where they need to be it's at least partly his own fault. But of course, when there are more girls there's more sitting so can we balance that? I don't know. We have 12 now, though, so we'll find out about that much at least. We have needed another pitcher all fall and finally found one. Can't wait til Saturday to see how it changes our dynamic. I even have some hope she might out-pitch my DD and giver her something to work for.

We played with 15 1 season, which was no fun for anyone when everyone showed up. Surprisingly there was not much complaining except to say this will never happen again.

1a and 1b can be fun.