10u lineup thoughts

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Oct 11, 2018
42
18
Atlanta
10U rec. goal is to develop players. Players develop as batters by seeing live pitching in game situations. If your worst players get half the plate appearances your better players get (quite possible if you set your lineup traditionally) then they will develop at half the pace...
If you have an end of season tournament your goal should be to win the last game of the season, not the first.
Set a balanced lineup. Order stays the same all regular season but “roll” it. At the end of each game whoever was on deck leads off next game. Plate appearances will be equal for all players.
A great thing about this sport is that it creates unlikely heroes. When the game is on the line, especially in rec with roster batting, you don’t get to pick who is at bat. If it’s a game where losing means the end of the season and Suzy who couldn’t hit the side of a barn at the beginning of the season is up to bat, the coach looks pretty smart if Suzy has been getting lots of at bats and isn’t an automatic out. And maybe Suzy has one of those magical sports moments that make rec softball occasionally amazing.


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Mar 4, 2015
526
93
New England
When batters are sprinkled through the lineup regardless of their abilities, the chances for a few girls getting hits and being stranded on the bases goes way up.

You could test your theory by creating a dice game. Use a single die (1-6) and then rate every batter's chances in your own estimation. For example:

Jenny:
1-single
2-double
3-HR
4-out
5-out
6-stikeout

Nicole:
1-out
2-out
3-out
4-strikeout
5-strikeout
6-single

Then play a few games. See which lineup on average produces the most runs and which strands the most runners, etc.

If you wanted to be more precise, you could roll two dice and have more chances (2-12).
 
Apr 11, 2016
133
28
The dreaded 10U...esp. first time doing and seeing live pitching...
When DD was in 10U, the league allows up to 7 runs before inning was over. Most pitcher walked the batters. So you will see on average 5 pitches per batter. This means a pitcher will face 10 batters to give up 7 runs. We were lucky to get through 2 innings in 1.5 hours.

I'd put the better batters on top of lineup. You want these players to have more AB just to get more experience. But at the end, it really doesn't matter, the most they'd be AB would be 2x maybe 3x per game.
 
Apr 17, 2019
331
63
I have totally overthought this myself. Here are my over-thoughts:
If you set that lineup at the start of the season, make sure you don't put a slow runner in a position to cause a traffic jam with fast runners behind. Suzy Speed stuck behind Janny Jogger the whole season will make Suzy one frustrated player.
I focused on baserunning to keep it interesting. Teach them to be aggressive and challenge the defense to work. And stacked the lineup to maximize steals.

The no-walks in your league kinda blows this strategy up, as 10u rec is a typically a walk-fest. So maybe for someone else's benefit, here's what I found worked best (for my sanity). If stealing home is allowed, and there is a run limit per inning (5 runs for example), put your fastest baserunners at the 4 and 5 spots in the lineup, then again at the bottom of the lineup. Because there is typically a limit on steals at home at that level as well - like 2 attempts, you don't want to blow them early in the inning. Plan on the first 3 baserunners getting walked in, then the next two baserunners steal home for those last 2 runs. Ends the inning faster (after batter 6, as opposed to 8 on straight walks or allowing the first 2 kids to steal and having to fill up the bases behind those first two runs for the last 3 runs of the inning). This worked surprisingly often and keeps the game more interesting. Less kicking dirt standing on bases.
 
Feb 24, 2022
211
43
Good luck - 10U rec is certainly a game that will test your patience with all of the walks. Even with your modified pitching rules, that's going to extend the game a long time. At the end of the day it's rec, I'd assume that your better girls are playing travel or club and getting more at bats there? If so I wouldn't be too worried about bunching them together to get more AB's and win games. I like the idea of sprinkling in the other girls. Maybe group your better hitters into groups of 2 or 3 and then have another player separating those groups.
 

Strike2

Allergic to BS
Nov 14, 2014
2,044
113
10U Rec? I REALLY overthought it.

If I did that again...for the first couple of weeks, I'd do "order of arrival" for the first game and then pick up where we left off for the next. By mid-season, order of arrival for the first game, and then glance at OPS/OBP for the second. Towards the end of the season and for any EOS tournament, batting order based on OPS/OBP.

You'll probably find that the players with the strongest parent support get there first, and those will usually be your best performers. The motivated players with lazy parents may nag them to get going sooner, which is also a plus. The kids & parents just going through the motions will sort themselves out.
 
Jun 11, 2013
2,619
113
Unless there was a limit to number of walks which you don't have it really doesn't matter. At 10U though everyone should at least be able to hit off the coach if it comes to it.
 

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