In need of a strategic direction for pitching 16U

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Sep 23, 2014
46
0
I am about to jump into pitching head first but I'm way behind the curve (pun intended). Here's the situation, I'll try not to get too, wordy;

Current info - 16U team moving from 14U last year. My latest focus (and thus this thread) came from asking a very successful HC to share his team stats with me so I could understand "What it takes to win at 16U". What I'm starting to realized is that we didn't even have what it takes to win at 14U and now I'm wondering what I can do to help the situation.

What I learned - In a nut shell, we have a very good offensive team (it's my strength and focus) and defensively we have continued to improved, but we do not have championship pitching, our team is way out of balance. This is my fault as a head coach and thus leader of my team, now it's the main thing left to work on.

Last year at 14U we scored 8.2 runs/game but gave up 6.5 runs/game over 33 games. Looks good on paper but we blew out some teams and struggled against good teams. In Bracket games we scored 3.6 runs/game and gave up 7.25 runs/game. Bottom line, we always give up 6-7 runs/game on average.

This year's team is going to be even stronger offensively, I'm confident of that, given the new girls we have and the ones we lost. I honestly expect numbers to improve although runs may not be as high because lost speed and gained power and our speed put a lot of pressure on the defenses we played.

Here's my current pitching situation:

We have 5 that are capable of pitching.
- (A, B & C) - 3 Pitched with us last year and we finished with a 6.02 ERA & 1.94 WHIP.
- D - 1 new pitcher I have watched pitch in HS and a bit in the Fall games we played.
- E - 1 that pitched for us previous summer (2015) but hasn't pitched in a year coming off ACL

KEY; C=Change speed (ability to effectively change speed), L=Location (ability to locate pitches), S=Speed (above average for age)

A - (C,L) - Younger 16U, smaller stature, gymnast, mentally strong (other position OF)
B - (C) - Younger 16U, smart, tough (other position 3B)
C - (S) - Younger 16U, High potential athlete, never formally trained (other position SS)
D - (S,L) - Older 16U, Very tall, Good athlete, also plays VB, BB, & Tennis (other position 1B, SS)
E - (C,L,S) - Older 16U, Coming off ACL not sure what to expect, took us to State Championship game in 2015

As far a coaches this year, there is some basic knowledge but overall we are green. 2 years ago we had a college pitcher coaching with us, last year we had someone filling in running pitchers through workouts from previous year's coach, and this year the dad of pitchers B & E is a coach that we planned to work with pitchers.

We start indoors in Nov (1x/week) what's usually called Pitcher/Catcher time and then add a large Gym facility in Jan & Feb. We don't have them Mar, Apr, May & early Jun due to HS ball.

Any advice, must reads, further Q&A, general direction, etc is welcome. Like I said I'm just about to jump in head first and I'd like to make this jump as efficient as possible. Thanks.
 
Sep 29, 2014
2,421
113
Well if E has fully recovered sounds like your answer is pretty simply. She has what you are looking for and is a proven performer. Your real issue is what to do if either A) she is not fully recovered B) other girls have improved.

You said you watched D a bit in fall games you played? I'm confused was she on another team? or did you not pitch her that much? Were you not the coach? Fall ball should be your time to feel out exactly where all these girls are at...unless E was still recovering and is not going to pitch until next year. Plus having skills and ability is one thing but as we all know especially when getting to 16U level it becomes increasingly mental.

One thing I think you have to do is communicate!! You know there is no way you can keep 5 pitchers happy, period end of statement; that being said you need to be up front with the #4 and #5 pitchers (you should figure that out in November gym sessions, although I might try and get outside if its a nice day to see them off dirt at least once or twice) that innings will be in very short supply and if they have their heart set on pitching more than mop up or emergency the team can't support that right now. Are either of your "pitching" coaches really going to help C get better? That's the other thing that is a little scary your coaches have no incentive to tell you A and D have really improved a lot lets get them some more innings. Granted E might be head and shoulder above the others but the Daddy ball cries will still start and what do you do if B is #4 or#5 pitcher is that dad going to keep DD on the team or are they walking out.

Nobody said this would be easy....good lick
 
Last edited:

SB45

Dad, Coach, Chauffeur
Sep 2, 2016
150
28
Western NY
You provided a lot of information, but of course there are a ton of variables to sorting out how you handle this. The good news is: you have focused in on something that you must improve upon for your team to have success & you have choices. The bad news is: you have choices and someone will be unhappy & you are at a new age level where the player dynamics change a little. Not going to try to guess at your situation...but here is what I think...
  • consider each girls mindset and their positioning for circle time with their school teams...are they likely to get a ton of time with the school team? no time with school? will they work all winter?
  • your 3 returning pitchers were not exactly stars at 14U it sounds like
  • the weak have been thinned from the heard at 16U...speed is great, but not a big adjustment for most girls to hit a faster pitcher
  • speed without control (location) means you are either throwing balls (bad) or strikes (also bad), when you really want to live on the edges
  • ability to change speeds is not as valuable if you are slow to begin with
  • for those reasons...Location would be the most important attribute to me
  • based on your limited info...E,D,A seems like your pecking order
  • it might be a little late for C to really develop as a pitcher
  • core strength is very important...I would expect the gymnast to develop well

Strategy wise...if you don't have pitchers that can shut down the other team you can use them in pairs. You have enough arms to have some distinction between them in the circle. If you have a girl with good speed out there for 3 innings and she starts to get hit...one of your slower girls with good control will be very difficult to adjust to for a couple innings...then switch back. That being said, starting that same slower girl with good control...probably not going to work out for you. To me, the bottom line is...you can't walk people and win...you can't live in the middle of the strike zone and win...ability to locate is #1...change speeds convincingly#2...movement #3...speed #4. Every added tool is a big bonus.
 
Feb 7, 2013
3,188
48
Do you have tryouts each year and cut returning players who are not up to speed? If you want to be competitive you sometimes have to make hard decisions about not keeping players just because they played for you last year.

Regarding the current mix of pitchers. I would spend a lot of time with the pitching/catching battery and make sure you know the strengths of each pitcher and call the game for them individually (no cookie cutter approach). I think this is one of the most overlooked areas of the game and probably the most important, properly calling pitches tailored to the individual strengths of the pitcher. Lastly, if you don't have flamethrowers, make sure to throw a lot of off-speed/change-up type pitches to every batter to disrupt the timing of the 16u batters who tend to be overly aggressive at the plate.
 
Jan 8, 2013
334
18
South Carolina
Strategy wise...if you don't have pitchers that can shut down the other team you can use them in pairs. You have enough arms to have some distinction between them in the circle. If you have a girl with good speed out there for 3 innings and she starts to get hit...one of your slower girls with good control will be very difficult to adjust to for a couple innings...then switch back. That being said, starting that same slower girl with good control...probably not going to work out for you. To me, the bottom line is...you can't walk people and win...you can't live in the middle of the strike zone and win...ability to locate is #1...change speeds convincingly#2...movement #3...speed #4. Every added tool is a big bonus.

As I read through your post I was thinking the same as SB45....with what you have to work with you need to get your pitchers to manage the game and understand what they need to do. My DD is not the best pitcher out there. Her top speed as a 15 yo is 57 so she cannot blow it by most 16u teams. She is getting interest from small college programs because she can change speeds and keeps it low in the zone. I have see her frustrate some "Gold Elite Select" teams because she has a great change and drop ball. Like SB45 said, if you can get them to keep it out of the middle of the plate and not give up walks you can manage the game. I think you said you had a good offense so if your pitchers can manage the game you can be successful.
 
Sep 23, 2014
46
0
Well if E has fully recovered sounds like your answer is pretty simply. She has what you are looking for and is a proven performer. Your real issue is what to do if either A) she is not fully recovered B) other girls have improved.

You said you watched D a bit in fall games you played? I'm confused was she on another team? or did you not pitch her that much? Were you not the coach? Fall ball should be your time to feel out exactly where all these girls are at...unless E was still recovering and is not going to pitch until next year. Plus having skills and ability is one thing but as we all know especially when getting to 16U level it becomes increasingly mental.

Thanks for responding.

D is new to our team (she is on our team) which we formed at tryouts in August, played with many of our girls in HS. We played one 3 game friendly scrimmage in the Fall and she pitched 75% of 1 game, she had a rough outing. Besides one practice, she probably hadn't pitched at all since July. She's a multi sport athlete so I don't know that we'll be able to get her to Winter practices regularly.

Yes, I am the HC.
 
Sep 23, 2014
46
0
Do you have tryouts each year and cut returning players who are not up to speed? If you want to be competitive you sometimes have to make hard decisions about not keeping players just because they played for you last year.

Regarding the current mix of pitchers. I would spend a lot of time with the pitching/catching battery and make sure you know the strengths of each pitcher and call the game for them individually (no cookie cutter approach). I think this is one of the most overlooked areas of the game and probably the most important, properly calling pitches tailored to the individual strengths of the pitcher. Lastly, if you don't have flamethrowers, make sure to throw a lot of off-speed/change-up type pitches to every batter to disrupt the timing of the 16u batters who tend to be overly aggressive at the plate.

We did have tryouts. As always there's more below the surface. Our organization was going to have 2 16U teams but the other HC stepped back and ours was the only one. We did the best we could at the time and I still feel we did good. Also worth mentioning that some of the girls (A & D) specifically will pitch but don't need to.

Thanks for your response.
 
Sep 23, 2014
46
0
Thanks for the feedback, I don't have a ton of desk time this weekend but will sit with this and comeback with a summary of what I'm hearing here.

Re-reading my earlier post this was a little misleading "As far a coaches this year, there is some basic knowledge but overall we are green." This was specific to pitching, I have been HC of my DD's team for 5 years and also help coach a local college team but my strengths are not in the pitching area. One of our other coaches is a former college catcher and she works with the catchers on calling pitches (one catcher was calling her own pitches for the last half of the season), I really liked the interaction of the catchers, coach and pitchers but it was more of coach and catcher trying to work with what we had, especially when they couldn't locate.

We used 2 pitchers a lot last year and it helped, i.e. 2 x through the lineup then bring in a different pitcher based on what we knew (and saw, we watched pretty close). When we start up practice, what can we do that would be the most effective on helping location and ability to locate? Also it seems to me a few of our pitchers have too much of a change-up, meaning they throw a real slow ball and when it's a strike it's super effective but they miss a lot. Is is better to have a more subtle change in speed? again just a thought I have not looked into this much but preparing my path.

Catcher wise we have 2; C1 from last year who started calling her own games. She is a slapper and has tremendous speed so we started to transition her to OF to save her legs, utilize her speed and prepared her for that role in HS. She will be the backup C. C2 is a new player to our team, great at framing and plays 1B on her HS team, she's a power hitter with a stronger arm, we're pretty excited to have her with us. She's a ski instructor and that along with her HS open gyms means she probably wont be practicing with us much which creates more complication.

Sorry to be all over the place; 2 thing's I'd like to work on are;
1. Pitching strategy or framework of how we pitch games
2. Practice plan for our pitchers that supports the plan and gives us the best time utilization

Thanks again!!
 
Jul 16, 2013
4,659
113
Pennsylvania
I'm curious if any of these pitchers have private coaches? If they do, do their coaches provide any instruction beyond mechanics? DDs pitching coach covers a number of things during lessons, including pitch calling based on situation, mental approach, etc. We drive 75 minutes one way to see her coach, so we will often talk in the car on the way home about those things as well. Then at team practice her focus is only to hone the concepts taught by her PC and to give her and the catcher an opportunity to work together. Since she has a PC that we both trust, I don't get involved in pitching instruction, but rather focus my time on hitting. But I follow the same format. Hitting lessons are not restricted to mechanics. We discuss the mental side of hitting as well. My goal as a coach is to teach the players in such a way that they can handle the decisions on their own. If we are at a travel ball tournament, I am there to provide support and answer questions. But if they are playing for their high schools, they are self sufficient.

While I am typically very analytical, I believe pitching strategy during games can be "feel" oriented. I do not always follow the same framework. None of our pitchers are "shut down" pitchers that throw no-hitters very often. At times we will follow a similar format as you have stated, having two pitchers share a game. Sometimes the pitcher will complete the game herself. Really depends on the situation and the opponent. And to be honest, sometimes I think I make the wrong decision... :)
 
Aug 21, 2008
2,359
113
Karchify, where are you located? Ever thought about getting a PC to give an unbiased assessment of things?

Bill
 

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