Batting order

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Mar 29, 2009
4
0
Any suggestions for the best order for batting?
My team is 16U house/rec, and all 13 players bat, not just 9.
 

sluggers

Super Moderator
Staff member
May 26, 2008
7,132
113
Dallas, Texas
If you are batting more than 10, you have to group the kids to avoid innings where you get three strikeouts.

First, identify your top 3 hitters. Figuring out who the number 4 hitter is going to be is not hard. The best combination of speed and hitting bats #1. The best power hitter bats #4. The 3rd best hitter bats perhaps 6 or 7. Preferably, you rotate these three kids as to batting position.

After that, divide your kids into groups:

(A) Players who are always going to hit the ball, even though it may not go out of the infield.
(B) Power hitters who, if they connect, are going to hit the ball a long way. (Usually, these are strong kids with a swing defect.)
(C) Kids who are likely to strike out.

Then, you want to "sprinkle" the (C) group kids throughout the lineup. The (C) group kids place in the lineup is determined by their commitment and enthusiasm. Teach the (C) group kids how to bunt.

So the order would look something like:

1. Best Hitter/speed
2. (A) kid
3. (B)
4. Best power hitter.
5. (B)
6. 3rd best hitter
7. (C)
8. (A)
9. (B)
10. (C)
11. (A)
12. (B)
13. (C)
 
Aug 2, 2008
553
0
#1) I am not going to disagree with sluggers (i am afraid to). We implemented this line up strategy last year and could not string runs together. The one thing we did not do that I agree is very important is teach the non hitters how to bunt, our local rec rules said we couldn't bunt. We would have been better off stacking our good hitters together to get some quick runs. This year our rec team can bunt, so we are going to try it again like sluggers said. What if you made two batting orders in the same lineup, 1 thru 6 and 7 thru 13 if you make it through 6 then essentially you are at the top of the order again, bunting will still be the key.

#2) All nine on our 10-U select team can bunt and hit will, we have 1 lefty and 3 power hitters, the rest are weaker hitters but consistant, what is a good strategy for this type of situation? The lefty is probably our top hitter.

Mike
 
Dec 12, 2008
38
0
Albany NY
here is our 12U strategy:
1) speedy bunter and good contact
2) also speedy and a good bunter, not as good on contact
3) speedy bunter and good contact
4) fastest power hitter
5) 2nd fastest power hitter
6) third fastest power hitter
7) good contact hitter
8/9) weakest hitters - can bunt, not as much speed.

If our leadoff hitter gets on (she does about 60-70%), our #2 takes the first pitch and allows her to steal. Depending on catcher arm and count, we may take the second pitch to get her to 3rd. Then we bunt and force the other team to allow the run or try to get the out at 1st. If 2nd hitter reaches, 3rd hitter does same. Then power hitters come up - we'll still have them lay down a bunt to score a run if runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs.
 
Jan 15, 2009
585
0
here is our 12U strategy:
1) speedy bunter and good contact
2) also speedy and a good bunter, not as good on contact
3) speedy bunter and good contact
4) fastest power hitter
5) 2nd fastest power hitter
6) third fastest power hitter
7) good contact hitter
8/9) weakest hitters - can bunt, not as much speed.

At these levels I've learned the hard way that what you don't want is to hold up fast base runners behind slow ones.

Getting on base doesn't win games. Scoring runs wins games. Speedy kids on the bases score runs. If i have 12 kids and I look at them as all being either a

1- Fast runner
2- medium speed
3- Use a sundial to time run to 1B

I would tend to do the following with my lineup if I had to bat 12

1 Best OBP
1 2nd Best OBP
1 3rd Best OBP
2 or 3 (best power hitter of the bunch without speed)
2 or 3 (2nd best power hitter of the bunch without speed)
2 or 3 Next best hitter
2 or 3 Next best hitter
2 or 3 Next best hitter
2
2
1 Worst OBP that is fast
1 2nd worst OBP that is fast

The other consideration is if you are allowed a CR for pitcher or catcher and have a slow pitcher or catcher. In that case I will often put

1 Worst OBP that is fast

in front of the slow pitcher/catcher hoping to utilize them as a CR if they don't get on base themselves
 
Jun 22, 2008
3,731
113
I will go with sluggers comments on this. Little league team I assisted with the coach put all the best hitters at the top of the lineup and then all the bad hitters at the bottom. We could never get any runs in, good hitters would get on base, then bad hitters couldnt do anything. Many times we would go 2 innings before we could get back to the top of the lineup. I finally talked him into trying to spread out the order a little bit and intersperce the good hitters deeper into the lineup, that way if we did manage to get some of the lesser hitters onto base we had a chance of driving them in. We had more success spreading out the lineup than bunching all the hitters into groups.
 
May 22, 2008
351
0
NW Pennsylvania
I have had just the opposite luck of sluggers & comp. when I had a dozen girls, & only 1/2 of them were realistically decent hitters, I had to bunch them to ever score any runs. not surprisingly my best obp girls were also my fastest, so I had them up front......only made the mistake of putting a draft horse in front of a race horse once LOL. sometimes the bottom of the order will get lucky, or draw a walk, or 2 & then you are in business.
 
Jan 14, 2009
1,591
0
Atlanta, Georgia
I have tried both ways. I've tried to spread the good hitters out and I've stacked the best hitters together. I finally came to the conclusion that it was near impossible to hide a player that couldn't hit. What worked best for me was to stack my best hitters at the top. At least then they would be assured of getting the most plate appearances.
 

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