Do you really only need 1 pitcher in High School?

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marriard

Not lost - just no idea where I am
Oct 2, 2011
4,312
113
Florida
I expect that my DD will pitch every meaningful inning in HS this coming season.

But there is a second pitcher who will pitch the two games against the HS teams with no travel players and will also come in if a meaningful games has already been decided one way or another.

So hopefully this means my DD will pitch only 2 games per week.

It is not by choice - I would prefer that there be 2 capable pitchers who start every other - but there just isn't.

(this would be a problem if we got to the state tournament with lots of games on multiple days - but that is not expected to happen this year as the team is very freshman heavy in a traditionally strong division)
 
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Jan 18, 2010
4,284
0
In your face
Curious how many Varsity pitchers you carry in HS and how much circle time does #1 get? Locally, it seems that once the regular season starts the #1 gets 90% of the pitching time since they only play 1 or 2 games a week?

The reason I ask is freshman DD wants to play Varsity this year but the Junior pitcher (committed to a BIG10 college) is very good and likely DD will have to make the team as an outfielder and/or pinch hitter/runner for a couple of years?

In a normal HS schedule of 25 season games, you're right, they will ride the mule 90% of the time. If the junior is as good as you say, what HS coach wouldn't?

I'm assuming your state allows interchangeable rosters between JV and V, so DD could play another position in V, and pitch JV ( with the occasional bump up to the V rubber for the experience ).

Not knowing your HS coach, but be ready for 2 different mentalities that will take place. 1) He's going to run "his" college athlete EVERY chance he gets, to pad not only her stats.............but the programs. 2) He will run the college athlete when needed ( still a large % of the games ) but will also be looking at the fact that come your DD's junior year, she will be the new and much needed "leader", and she needs some experience ( on and off the field ) to play that role.

Also comes the class age of the Varsity team, are they mostly upperclassmen or a mix of all 4 years? The more upperclassmen, you can almost bet they will get the nod to play more innings. That's basically HS sports 101, even if there are better lowerclassmen to choose from. Very rare to find a HS coach who absolutely plays his best 9, 10 with a DP.
 
Feb 7, 2013
3,188
48
In a normal HS schedule of 25 season games, you're right, they will ride the mule 90% of the time. If the junior is as good as you say, what HS coach wouldn't?

I'm assuming your state allows interchangeable rosters between JV and V, so DD could play another position in V, and pitch JV ( with the occasional bump up to the V rubber for the experience ).

Not knowing your HS coach, but be ready for 2 different mentalities that will take place. 1) He's going to run "his" college athlete EVERY chance he gets, to pad not only her stats.............but the programs. 2) He will run the college athlete when needed ( still a large % of the games ) but will also be looking at the fact that come your DD's junior year, she will be the new and much needed "leader", and she needs some experience ( on and off the field ) to play that role.

Also comes the class age of the Varsity team, are they mostly upperclassmen or a mix of all 4 years? The more upperclassmen, you can almost bet they will get the nod to play more innings. That's basically HS sports 101, even if there are better lowerclassmen to choose from. Very rare to find a HS coach who absolutely plays his best 9, 10 with a DP.

A pretty young Varsity team. I believe 5 seniors graduated in June and maybe only 1 or 2 new seniors this year with the rest sophomores and juniors and maybe a few freshman will make V? There is a lot of talent coming through starting two years ago and currently. Historically, the program has had a losing record but they are improving each year.

So the consensus seems to be that the #1 Varsity pitcher will get 80 to 90% of the innings during the season. I get that, I would probably do the same if I was the head coach and we only played a couple a games a week. I know some here disparage HS sports but the female coach is pretty good and it allows my DD to practice and play with new softball players, friends, etc, that are different from her travel ball teammates. Will see what happens this year. At the end of the day, I just want her to enjoy the experience and kick-rear academically :)
 

Cannonball

Ex "Expert"
Feb 25, 2009
4,854
113
We want 3 pitchers for the varsity. Naturally, #1 will throw the majority of innings. However, we make sure that #2 (freshman) gets in a rotation and does throw every week. Our #3 was a soph that pitched in two tournaments for us and wrapped up a couple of games where we were not doing well. In the end, she showed herself more than capable and so, this year, all three are back and we have a "stud" freshman coming in as well. This will be real interesting. We could have 4 quality pitchers. We have two exceptional young ladies at the middle school. What we are missing down the line are the big sticks. I have to change that.
 
Mar 26, 2013
1,934
0
We had 3 pitchers on varsity every year. My DD got a lot more innings than I expected as a frosh because the senior struggled keeping her drag foot on the ground. There were a few games where the senior got pulled after 2 batters - just depended on whether the umpire called IPs or not.

Sophomore year, a couple pitchers rotated between pitching JV or sitting V. CIF Southern Section rules don't allow playing JV and V the same day.

We had a few teams in our league with an outstanding #1 that pitched every inning. Fairly easy on weeks with just 2 league games, but they looked tired when we faced them after a week in which they pitched 6 full 7-inning games due to a big mid-season tourney with 5 games Thu-Sat.
 

JAD

Feb 20, 2012
8,231
38
Georgia
Curious how many Varsity pitchers you carry in HS and how much circle time does #1 get? Locally, it seems that once the regular season starts the #1 gets 90% of the pitching time since they only play 1 or 2 games a week?

The reason I ask is freshman DD wants to play Varsity this year but the Junior pitcher (committed to a BIG10 college) is very good and likely DD will have to make the team as an outfielder and/or pinch hitter/runner for a couple of years?

Most high school teams could ride one pitcher all season. Where it gets dicey is during the playoffs, where teams can play multiple games in a day.
 
Jul 3, 2013
438
43
How are your playoffs formatted? In Missouri, we start with a single elim district tourney that runs 3 days ( 16 districts per class, 5 or 6 teams per district), sectional round is the next Wednesday, followed by quarterfinals on Saturday. Final four teams play over 2 days the following weekend. There is a 3rd place game. While it may be possible for a team to play more than 1 game per day due to weather delays, we're looking at a max of 7 games over 15 or 16 days.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
 
Sep 29, 2014
2,421
113
Yeah I never heard of games on the same day for playoffs. Ours are demanding though with basically a 8 to 10 day period where games are played either every day or every other. Teams broken into brackets by size regardless of conference (which is based on location) then 32 teams play a single elimination tournament with highest seeds hosting games until finals which are at set location and you ride your ace until you lose.
 
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marriard

Not lost - just no idea where I am
Oct 2, 2011
4,312
113
Florida
We want 3 pitchers for the varsity. Naturally, #1 will throw the majority of innings. However, we make sure that #2 (freshman) gets in a rotation and does throw every week. Our #3 was a soph that pitched in two tournaments for us and wrapped up a couple of games where we were not doing well. In the end, she showed herself more than capable and so, this year, all three are back and we have a "stud" freshman coming in as well. This will be real interesting. We could have 4 quality pitchers. We have two exceptional young ladies at the middle school. What we are missing down the line are the big sticks. I have to change that.

I will swap you a big stick for one of your spare pitchers.
 
Sep 10, 2013
603
0
DD's HS team had 8 players who has pitched in TB, but they used the now-to-be-senior 95% of the time. used 2 other pitchers 5% and never even bothered with the rest.
 
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