See to me, calling 6 fastballs in a row is not developing a pitcher. Regardless of the count, what the score is, or how behind the batter was on the one strike in the count. I guess that's the major difference of opinion we have here. By your scenario if a girl has walked 8 batters in 4 innings throwing all fastballs, you should keep calling fastballs to develop her. My theory is different. Work on locating your fastball in the backyard. Come game day, we're going to mix things up a bit and not care if a girl gets a single to right field in a meaningless game in November. Make things more like they will be she matures and moves up in age bracket.
Example of 12U coach pitch calling--please, don't be this guy.
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- Jun 8, 2016
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So from you are saying, at 12U you might as well just use a (pseudo) random number generator to decide which pitch is to be thrown, right?
Yeah that's what I'm saying. Exactly.
You're impossible to have a conversation with. You can't help but throw in a smartass dig on every response. We've had 3 or 4 exchanges in this thread and you have deemed it necessary to throw in a barb on all of them except one. Please just leave me out of your responses from here on out.
- Jun 8, 2016
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That wasn't a smartass response...ok maybe a little but I read what you said and it looked to me you were not using any situational stuff to determine what pitch is to be thrown hence my response. If you are not using count, score or how the batter looks against certain pitches to determine what you throw then what are you are using?
You cannot play both sides of the fence. You come in here with an initial post which is intended to start trouble. Then you pretend to ask a question when in reality it wasn't a question. Then you bitch when I give it right back to you..I am from MA we do smartass for a living up there..
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Woah!!! There for a second I thought I clicked on BBD instead of DFP... 
- Jun 8, 2016
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I don't deal well with passive aggressive...plus it is Friday!!Woah!!! There for a second I thought I clicked on BBD instead of DFP...
- Jul 14, 2018
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Just for giggles, let's take a closer look at what's actually happening in the video.
Pitch 1: No count, looks like the coach calls for a straight fastball, no location. Batter takes ball 1 high and away.
Pitch 2: 1-0, hard to tell, but looks like he calls for a fastball away. I would have gone low or inside after pitch #1, but okay. Batter swings late on a good-looking strike.
Pitch 3: 1-1, he again gives a little brush to the right motion, indicating that he's looking for another fastball away. To me, 1-1 is a challenge count, but the pitcher threw a solid strike on the same call on the last pitch, so maybe he's hoping for the same result in an effort to get ahead. The pitch comes in low and inside, batter has to take a little skip out of the way.
Pitch 4: 2-1, the call is again for an outside fastball. Not a bad call for a few reasons: the last pitch was so inside that you might catch the batter leaning back a bit, and you're giving the pitcher another chance to hit a spot that they missed, to make a small adjustment. Ball comes in high and inside. So the pitcher made an adjustment to the height, but not the inside/outside location. Hopefully, she's learning.
Pitch 5: 3-1, the coach calls for a changeup. Not what I would call for a pitcher who is having some location trouble. To be fair, the batter is short and two of the balls have been high. Still, throwing a change after a high and inside fastball is a good sequence, and in this case, pitchers are generally taught at the younger ages to throw changeups away. She's having trouble locating pitches away? Try throwing the change. Batter is still late, fouls one off to the right side. For heaven's sake, catcher, keep your throwing hand down!!
Pitch 6: 3-2, coach calls for the change again. This is where it gets dicey, and we already know that the batter gets a hit out of it. You can fault the coach for throwing two changeups in a row, as the batter was able to time the ball better and put one in play (albeit still late -- opposite field again). Against a more sophisticated batter, it's probably not a bad call. Pitcher has thrown the change for a strike, and an advanced hitter is looking heat in this spot. Unpredictable patterns, right? Faced with the same situation in HS ball, that might work.
Pitch 1: No count, looks like the coach calls for a straight fastball, no location. Batter takes ball 1 high and away.
Pitch 2: 1-0, hard to tell, but looks like he calls for a fastball away. I would have gone low or inside after pitch #1, but okay. Batter swings late on a good-looking strike.
Pitch 3: 1-1, he again gives a little brush to the right motion, indicating that he's looking for another fastball away. To me, 1-1 is a challenge count, but the pitcher threw a solid strike on the same call on the last pitch, so maybe he's hoping for the same result in an effort to get ahead. The pitch comes in low and inside, batter has to take a little skip out of the way.
Pitch 4: 2-1, the call is again for an outside fastball. Not a bad call for a few reasons: the last pitch was so inside that you might catch the batter leaning back a bit, and you're giving the pitcher another chance to hit a spot that they missed, to make a small adjustment. Ball comes in high and inside. So the pitcher made an adjustment to the height, but not the inside/outside location. Hopefully, she's learning.
Pitch 5: 3-1, the coach calls for a changeup. Not what I would call for a pitcher who is having some location trouble. To be fair, the batter is short and two of the balls have been high. Still, throwing a change after a high and inside fastball is a good sequence, and in this case, pitchers are generally taught at the younger ages to throw changeups away. She's having trouble locating pitches away? Try throwing the change. Batter is still late, fouls one off to the right side. For heaven's sake, catcher, keep your throwing hand down!!
Pitch 6: 3-2, coach calls for the change again. This is where it gets dicey, and we already know that the batter gets a hit out of it. You can fault the coach for throwing two changeups in a row, as the batter was able to time the ball better and put one in play (albeit still late -- opposite field again). Against a more sophisticated batter, it's probably not a bad call. Pitcher has thrown the change for a strike, and an advanced hitter is looking heat in this spot. Unpredictable patterns, right? Faced with the same situation in HS ball, that might work.
Loosely following this and for me it begs the question...when do you typically allow the pitcher (or pitcher/catcher combo) to call the game, if ever? Seems like a lot of talk about developing this skill and knowledge base in them but so many coaches still want to control every pitch at older ages. Should it be a group effort with lots of input from coach, catcher, pitcher, etc.. If a coach controls each and every pitch and interferes with the pitchers sense of rhythm or groove is that development or ? Certainly a kid needs to know how to work effectively with a wide range of variables and receiving pitch calls in a variety of ways is only one of those variables. Lots of coaches would probably say get used to it because that's just the way it is in college softball...but is it? Is there a trend to allow the players to use the experience and skill that we've supposedly tried to develop in them as it relates to setting up a batter, knowing your pitcher, the situation and the defensive alignment? Besides (what some may call a unicorn or an exception) UCLA which is probably the highest profile example, what other programs are allowing the battery to run the game in the world of women's fastpitch?
The catcher/pitcher calling pitches is getting more and more rare. The game is not uploaded to Youtube yet but this years' (2019) 16u PGF National Championship game you can see the pitcher from the Beverly Bandits calling her own pitches throughout the entire championship game. I thought that was kind of cool to see since you don't see it much anymore.
The college game is a whole different breed from travel softball. You can actually get a scouting report in the college game that is meaningful.
I don't think there is a right or wrong way of calling pitches in terms of who is calling the pitch. Way to many variables.
