have you ever asked someone to guest play

[inumpire]

For a 10U or 12U standard tournament with nothing much on the line, then you play with 8. I think that's a better message to the team and the parents at that age. We've gone to many tournaments with 9 and been just fine.

Are these C level tournaments?

 

[bmakj]

For a 10U or 12U standard tournament with nothing much on the line, then you play with 8. I think that's a better message to the team and the parents at that age. We've gone to many tournaments with 9 and been just fine.

at 12u, 8 is a big handicap, you are losing backups, and leaving way too much OF uncovered, and as a lot of our parents are discovering (team is mostly 2008, DD is 2007), at 12u, OF becomes very important.

 

[FP26]

We only ever played one tournament with 9 players, and it wasn't a comfortable feeling as a coach. My preference is a minimum of 10. And with 10 players there is plenty of playing time to go around. The amount of playing time each player gets is determined somewhat by position. For example, if we needed a pitcher for a certain tournament, she would not play every inning of every game. We always tried to rest our pitchers at least half a game prior to their scheduled start. But in general, our pickup players played a lot. Most seasons we tried our best to avoid using pickup players at all. But there always seems to be one or two tournaments where help is needed.

The absolute best season we had was at 18u. We had three players that decided to hang it up for their senior year of high school. While good players, they didn't have any intention of playing in college, and wanted to do other things that summer between high school and college. However, all three were willing to play for us when needed, so we kept them on the roster. As players were needed, we called them first. Worked out great.

 

[uncdrew]

We're asked to pick up this Saturday (for a team of lesser experience) and I told the coach the wise words that came right from my 10 year old's mouth:

"I don't want the other girls and their parents mad at me and their coach if I bat 4th and pitch the bracket games".

I 100% agree with her.

Things have changed.

They're charging us to play. If we're paying 1/10th of the tourney fees, no way we're batting last.

In fact, they should have told us before-hand. I'm tempted to back out just on principle.

 

[uncdrew]

at 12u, 8 is a big handicap, you are losing backups, and leaving way too much OF uncovered, and as a lot of our parents are discovering (team is mostly 2008, DD is 2007), at 12u, OF becomes very important.

Totally agree. You want 9 on the field. But I'm not sure you have to add a pick-up player if you have 9 going to the game. Odds are your 9 will all play, all be happy, and all stay uninjured.

 

[uncdrew]

Are these C level tournaments?

Yes. My DD is a 10U B player, asked to be play a 12U C tournament. We did it before and DD did well and had no issue adjusting to the changes between 10U and 12U.