Coach chooses to bat 9

[gamommax3]

To the OP- don't. You cannot approach a coach after a game, in the middle of the bracket, at nationals, and question coaching decisions. Wait til the end of the tournament and address any concerns after everyone has traveled home. There is a good chance whatever "issues" you saw in the first bracket game right themselves with distributed playing time throughout the tourney. Or looking at numbers and realizing your daughter is in the bottom 3 or 4 in batting average and on base percentage, and that is why she isn't batting in the biggest tournament of the year. But being thankful that had the confidence in her defensive abilities to play her in the biggest game of the season thus far! Kudos kid!

"As much as possible" is an important determination. Getting all the players equal playing time is not realistic for a competitive team. Everyone has a role to play. Not all roles are the same.

I had a NOVEL typed out to whiporee but Eric F said all of the things I was thinking in his multiple replies. We must play the same level ball and see the same type of coaching!

 

[quincy]

DD's school coaches got everyone in the game, I appreciated the work they put into doing it. Lot easier for them to just roll out the top 9 and relax.

Equal time no, play yes.

A few games DD was attached to a C as a pinch runner, C did not get on base 1 game so DD did not get in game. Not coaches fault, they tried and DD had a spot in the game.

She was the catcher biggest cheerleader.

 

[FP26]

I'm curious what the general preference is. Would you prefer your daughter to play 1 or 2 innings every game? Or sit a game and play two entire games?

Personally, I was never much of a fan of the "Little League" model for travel ball. Their requirement of 1 at bat and 2 innings in the field is great for rec ball, but wasn't what we did at tournaments. Generally speaking, if we showed up at a tournament with 12 players, and were scheduled to play 3 games on Saturday, all 12 of those players would get 2 starts. 9 out of the 12 players would sit a game. Yes, we would try to get those players in the game as a pinch hitter or courtesy runner if the opportunity presented itself, but we didn't worry about it if it didn't happen. When we got to Sunday, we did something similar. We would develop solid lineups for each game, but make sure that the best 9 were ready to go in the Championship game.

To be clear, this process started before our first tournament each summer. We first made sure that all of our players belonged on the team. We did not add players just to meet a certain quota. Then we worked hard to make sure we had depth at every position so that many of our players were interchangeable. Just as an example, we typically carried 3 pitchers. They would rotate pitcher, first base, and bench. That way each of them played 2 out of 3 games and rested 1 game. Typically we tried to rest them the game before they pitched. This strategy worked pretty well for us over the years, but I realize it isn't the only way to do it.

 

[_MIA_]

You as a parent approach the coach after first bracket game (won) and question the coaching decision to bat 9 with DP/FLEX. Your daughter was the FLEX. How would you like/appreciate/expect the coach to respond?


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Since I had just I won I would probably just quietly go over to the dugout to retrieve my clipboard and then hand it him and tell him to knock himself out..

 

[ang2bmd]

Highly competitive? We are still talking about children who are on the team to develop skills that will be valuable down the road. You have to prepare all of your players for success and then give them the opportunity to achieve it. Every player counts the same. The girl sitting on the bench might be the one who takes over for the star who gets injured or sick. She is going to have a much tougher time of it if she wasn't given experience before she was needed.

Yes....highly competitive like top 5 in the nation pgf national contender team. There are a few. We had a small roster of 12....much smaller than many other pgf teams so everyone is involved. Often the kid sitting was the pitcher resting for the next game.

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[YOCOACH]

Their job is developing players.

Agreed, but that's not their only job. Any player that plays sports learns life lessons along the way and it is the coach's job to put it in context so the players understand it. In this case, it's something along the lines of 'If you don't like something, do something about it.'

If they value winning over development, then they are worthless.

Disagree. The problem with this statement is, in a general sense, if a team doesn't win, the coach doesn't have a team to compete with the following year. Even with the coach telling every single parent on the team, 'Hey, we're a developing team and honestly, we hope to go .500 on the season. That's our goal. When the season ends, we hope to retain a core group of girls to build a successful future team around.' it won't matter. The strongest player's parents will move on to a team that's had several years together and went 45-7 as an example. Therefore, the coach absolutely needs to be concerned with winning in order to retain a core group of the strongest players. Otherwise, they are left with the weaker players, the only other players that are interested in next year's team are weaker players and the following year they go 0-68. Now nobody wants to be there and the team disbands.

The problem with this statement in a more specific sense as it pertains to the OP is that they are playing in Nationals. At this level of competition, winning is everything for several reasons. One of them is that the coach can replace the few players that choose to leave (there's always a couple that think the grass is greener somewhere else) with better players. Part of attracting higher level, quality players for next year's team is by doing well at a huge tournament such as this.

Of course, these are viewpoints for an "A" or "Elite" level team so there's another reason I disagree with this statement. I'm not advocating playing only 9, all day-every day, I'm just saying that at these levels of play, the best 9 start and get more playing time than the others. The others should also play in games, just that they shouldn't get as many innings as the better players.

Your entire viewpoint of everyone should get equal playing time is more aligned with a low level "B" or "C" travel team. If we were talking about that type of team, I would absolutely, 100% agree with your viewpoint.

 

[CMMom1740]

DD is a catcher. She is going to sit sometimes, as she should since the position is so demanding, especially in the heat. We are happy if she plays anywhere between 40-60% of the innings. But what I like is when coaches keep the girls sitting involved in other ways. DD learned how to run Gamechanger while she was out injured for a few weeks and she's good at it! Sometimes, coaches will let her call the pitches too, which is also great for her development. Especially at the older levels, if coaches let the sitting players take part in the game in other ways or help with how the game is run, it helps their development and keeps them invested. It also makes them feel appreciated and that they are an important/valued part of the team.

 

[Strike2]

Some here seem to be under the impression that batting nine always produces the strongest and "most competitive" lineup...it doesn't. Assuming all your batters are capable against the pitching you'll face, it's impossible to know which "nine" will produce the best results. DD's team typically bats everyone in pool and 10-11 in bracket when allowed. While I like shorter lineups because DD gets more ABs, being a numbers guy who has looked at outcomes over several years, I don't believe that shorter lineups make much difference...at least for her team.

If you use pool play as a guide for bracket lineups, and had my kid on your team, you'd ensure that one of your strongest bracket hitters was on the bench. DD often needs a couple of ABs to find herself on Saturday. While it's sometimes ugly early, her offensive numbers are at the top during bracket. Most of her extra-base hits, and all of her HRs, came during bracket or finals play this season.

 

[softball dad 6]

We are currently playing in a tournament using USA national rules. It started out as the USA National 18u tournament when COVID changed everything (the original Nationals were not supposed to be held in our backyard). It then changed names to USA Eastern Nationals and finally when they didn't get many teams signed up it dropped back to just being called the 18u Eastern Championship. They kept all the national rules in place though for some reason. Bat check, girl check ins, roster rules etc. Part of those rules are you can only bat 9 in bracket play.

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[whiporee]

Just to be clear, I've never said equal time. I've said that a coach ought to play everyone s/he can play. If a coach makes the decision to bat nine when they have the option of batting more, I think that sends the wrong message to the rest of the team.

And to piggyback what I've said in about three other threads this week, if a coach is going to prioritize winning over giving girls a chance to play, they ought to be upfront about that when signing the team and taking the money.