All you need are power hitters in your lineup

murphdog said:

My DD is the second smallest on her HS team and is the only one to put one over so far this season.
She’s a medium height small built lefty, they always assume she’ll slap or bunt but she rarely does anymore

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Last year the first player to put one over (and one of only 2 who did all year) was the smallest kid on our team. She was teeny tiny and super fast. It was a short fence, but that ball was WAY over, deep into the parking lot. The other girl who hit one over last year, which was 2nd year 10U, was also not a big girl. Not teeny tiny like the first one but also fast and on the thin side.

Well FWIW there are very few 'steal' guys in the MLB any longer....I grew up a Pirate fan, Omar Moreno leading off for speed and Tim Foli batting second to move him over. Neither would likely be in the majors these days....arguable if their 'types' should be in the fastpitch lineup either....

RichK said:

Well FWIW there are very few 'steal' guys in the MLB any longer....I grew up a Pirate fan, Omar Moreno leading off for speed and Tim Foli batting second to move him over. Neither would likely be in the majors these days....arguable if their 'types' should be in the fastpitch lineup either....

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If you want to throw up a little bit, look up Tim Foli's hitting stats. I can't believe (OK, I can believe it) batted him second.

I think if you can find true "elite" small ballers/slappers that's great but the really good ones that perform against the best pitching are a very rare breed.

It really depends, for example how often do these "power hitters" get on base? Do they have .225 batting average and strike out a lot? or are they batting .450 with an OBP of .600? Can they get a bunt down or hit opposite field when needed? Are they slow or can they run the bases well? Lastly, for what level are we talking, for example the type of hitter required to be successful in the say the SEC might be different then the hitters needed to be a successful on a 12U travel ball team?

For example, we had a girl who was a left slapper who always got on base. She was around 2.7sec home to 1st and was always beating out infield hits and bunts. She normally stole second on the 1st or second pitch on the next batter (essentially hitting the equivalent of a double almost every at bat). However, once she moved up the 14U, her success was not as great as the pitching and fielding was better and the catchers had a better arm to throw her out at second.

RT1, Right on and I think that’s why it is so hard to become an elite slapper. The skill is pretty amazing no doubt.

I think one of the best definitions of a power hitter is a hitter that can take an outside pitch hard opposite field with enough velocity to hit or go over the fence.

Take this example from the SEC: Shortstop who is not a physically large but is extremely athletic. As a rh hitter, she is hitting lots of extra base hits- 6 2b’s, 3 3b’s and 5 hr’s. She has 83 bases compared to 84 by a very strong “power hitter” that has twice the hr’s and can hit the ball really, really far.. (This power hitter is also pretty fast too btw!) This ss MUST be hitting some balls oppo to get to 3rd. She must also be using her speed. Those are two very different hitters but aren't they both power hitters?

RichK said:

Well FWIW there are very few 'steal' guys in the MLB any longer....I grew up a Pirate fan, Omar Moreno leading off for speed and Tim Foli batting second to move him over. Neither would likely be in the majors these days....arguable if their 'types' should be in the fastpitch lineup either....

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CoachJD said:

If you want to throw up a little bit, look up Tim Foli's hitting stats. I can't believe (OK, I can believe it) batted him second.

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Pretty sure he batted 2nd in the WS...and actually did pretty well in the 79 series.

I can't believe Foli hung around for 16 years in MLB. If Moreno was playing today he'd be Jarrod Dyson, how oddly is a better base stealer than Omar but plays and runs less.

Back on to the OPs question, I'll take a team of power hitters over a team of scrapy speedy singles hitters.

Rocketech1 said:

It really depends, for example how often do these "power hitters" get on base? Do they have .225 batting average and strike out a lot? or are they batting .450 with an OBP of .600? Can they get a bunt down or hit opposite field when needed? Are they slow or can they run the bases well? Lastly, for what level are we talking, for example the type of hitter required to be successful in the say the SEC might be different then the hitters needed to be a successful on a 12U travel ball team?

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Something true in baseball that I'm sure is true in softball, too (I can't think of why it wouldn't be), is that the profile of the typical power hitter is one who sees a lot of pitches and walks a lot. Sometimes they strike out a lot, too, but we know that the strikeout is only marginally worse than any other out (I suspect the disparity might be a little bit greater in softball, but not much at higher levels).

I'm curious to know when you would "need" to have your big power hitter get a bunt down though.