batting line up- having the best chance

[GNice68]

we are getting ready for playoffs..... I have 11 girls- of the 11..... 3 are "great" hitters, 4 are "good", 2 are "average" and 2 are not real good at plate- How would you suggest I do lineup?? I read something about mixing the weaker hitters with the really good ones which gives me depth (I guess) but also I've had that happen and then my better hitters are up with 2 outs......
Should I bat the "good" one lead off and then the 3 "great" hitters to insure runs early??- Then I risk having some innings with lesser talented hitters..... but at least i can get runs in earlier and maybe the outs come later in lineup?? thoughts?

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Mixing up your "good hitters" with your "weak hitters" is not what I would recommend.

You probably don't have time at the moment to read a book like "Baseball Between the Numbers" ... but one of the factors that was shown to influence a team's scoring potential was the team's ability to collect back-to-back hits. In other words, when you mix up 'strong' & 'weak' hitters, you generally weaken your team's chances of scoring runs.

Think of it this way ... the magic number in softball/baseball is "3". While in basketball you are constrained by a 'clock' to accomplish what you can within a period of time, in softball you instead need to accomplish as much as you can before "3" outs are collected. By stringing productive hitters back-to-back you increase the odds of having productive innings.

Bottom-line ... wrt to your comment on mixing 'weak' and 'strong' hitters ... consider stringing your most consistent hitters back-to-back.

 

[EP Dad]

Thanks for pointing out the math and the reference. I was wondering about this myself.

 

[SBFAMILY]

What are you judging as your measurement of a good hitter? BA? Softball is not baseball. It is a small ball game with base running holding more importance. ( SPEED). So if you had someone with a BA of 400. Catcher and someone with a BA 200, but an OB% of 550 with speed. Who would you bat first? Almost all college softball profile sheets list OB% for a reason. In softball we have won many games with few hits, if you have speed and can bunt and have a good pitcher . You will probably win.. I see the best BA going first on many high school teams, because that is all they track. They have no clue about OB%.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

What are you judging as your measurement of a good hitter? BA?

OBP ... the same book noted that a lineup ordered by descending OBP would generally result in more runs scored than a lineup ordered by descending BA.

 

[Chris O'Leary]

we are getting ready for playoffs..... I have 11 girls- of the 11..... 3 are "great" hitters, 4 are "good", 2 are "average" and 2 are not real good at plate- How would you suggest I do lineup?? I read something about mixing the weaker hitters with the really good ones which gives me depth (I guess) but also I've had that happen and then my better hitters are up with 2 outs......
Should I bat the "good" one lead off and then the 3 "great" hitters to insure runs early??- Then I risk having some innings with lesser talented hitters..... but at least i can get runs in earlier and maybe the outs come later in lineup?? thoughts?

Do you have any sense of their on base percentage?

In other words, can any of the good to bad hitters draw a walk or get on base otherwise?

If so, I would try to put one or two of them first and put your greats 3+.

 

[GNice68]

no real good sense on OBP... These 2-3 girls that are weaker hitters- It's been hard to get them on base.... maybe one of them- but I'm trying to figure out if I bad one weak hitter- than 3 'great" ones- at least I have a good chance to generate some runs with maybe one out..... I know there will be a point where an inning will begin with 3-4 weaker hitters....... I'm also banking on the fact that if my top 4 in the lineup hit and score- maybe the momentum will carry into the bottom half of lineup vs. putting the weaker hitters up first.....

 

[SBFAMILY]

FFS, it is intersting that many do not rack OB%. Most high schools do not and very few travel teams. I have a friend that is a college coach out west and when he asks what was your OB%, many cannot answer that question. So how do coaches put a line up together. Here is a good example. . Kid is a slapper with speed. Comes up four times , gets on base each time due to an error, because the defense trys to hurry up the play. Now this kid has a zero BA but a 1000 OB%. Many of these type of players , have a 200 point swing between the BA and the OB%. Some kids will get walked because they will not swing at a bad pitch and foul off pitches till they wear down the pitcher. Need to look at the entire package when you write down a line up. Our local high school was guilty of this. He had the catcher batting first. Slow runner. Would have 2 k's and 2 extra base hits about every game.. He has two kids with speed, that get on base about 50% of the time. He had them batting 6'th and 7'th, because he did the entire line up by BA. I had him figure ob%. Then move the two highest OB% first and second last night. We scored 24 runs last night. I think he got the message.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

SBF ... the high schools in our local area are required to collect few stats, but OBP is one of them. No other 'single' factor correlates to run production better than OBP ... hence I agree with you when you stress OBP ... which is basically a metric of a hitters ability to get on base without causing an out. Look at it this way, OBP rewards a batter willing to take a 'walk' ... and 'walks' are huge ... walks allow you to put a runner on base with zero chance of an out occurring ... and in general, runners on base increase one's ability to score runs. Many teams not only want to 'out hit' their opponent, but they also want to 'out walk' their opponent. You want batters that are 'selective'. IMO, OBP is by far a better gauge than BA ... and multiple studies back that claim up.

Read the book "Money Ball". It not only is an enjoyable read, but the value of OBP is well highlighted.

 

[jinjet95]

My DD had a coach when she was 10U that wouldn't look at stats at all. She made her lineup based on perceived hitting. The scorekeeper was keeping stats. My DD had some vision problems we weren't aware of and was not hitting well, but had the highest OBP on the team (she's also fast and an aggressive baserunner). The scorekeeper pointed this out to the coach and her response was "I'm not rewarding players for walking". I'm happy to report her vision problems are corrected and she now bats lead-off (14U) on her new team.