How do Coaches handle the Bench?

[AnotherSoftballDad]

My kid plays on a team with 11 that are all top notch players.

14U A team.

The coach plays them around at different position a lot. In Bracket in a close game everyone plays their primary and the players on the field are the ones with the hot bats.

It is so nice and cuts down on drama. I've only heard parents complain about coaching decisions like "Why would you not bunt in that situation." Haven't heard any parents get upset about playing time at all.

If you add 13+ players some of them are going to walk after the season. Which I guess is one way to do it. You have more money for the team but will always have upset parents.

 

[uncdrew]

My kid plays on a team with 11 that are all top notch players.

14U A team.

The coach plays them around at different position a lot. In Bracket in a close game everyone plays their primary and the players on the field are the ones with the hot bats.

It is so nice and cuts down on drama. I've only heard parents complain about coaching decisions like "Why would you not bunt in that situation." Haven't heard any parents get upset about playing time at all.

If you add 13+ players some of them are going to walk after the season. Which I guess is one way to do it. You have more money for the team but will always have upset parents.

Makes sense to me.

In 12U you can bat them all (or at least in our tournaments). So who to sit isn't quite as easy. If we could only bat 9 that would make the decisions pretty straight-forward. Because yes, there are hot bats and cold bats.

 

[Rolling Hard]

11 players?????
You cannot be serious!
Come out to So Cal where the average Corona Angel 12u team has 19 plus players.

 

[uncdrew]

11 players?????
You cannot be serious!
Come out to So Cal where the average Corona Angel 12u team has 19 plus players.

Around my parts parents just aren't cool with their DD on the bench.

 

[quincy]

Different thing but we had a good all star Team.

Benched 1 player for an inning to get another player into the game. Not the parents but the player was whiny, I have never been on the bench before, blah, blah, blah. Told them they were going to stay on the bench until they stopped being a brat.

 

[Cagman]

It depends on age and level of team. Obviously the national teams that you pay a fortune to be on and get exposure are different than regional local teams. You only get one chance to play youth sports, I wouldn’t want my daughter spending her early teenage years not playing - Provided she is talented enough to be playing. But I suppose if she really loved being on our team, I wouldn’t take that away from her either. It’s about my daughter, not me.

I know it’s difficult to keep 13 families who are paying several hundred dollars a season happy when her daughter spends half the day on the bench. and they’ve spent their entire Saturday or Sunday at a ballfield An easy way to solve that problem is to eliminate that headache of finding three girls every inning to sit the bench.

and the parents will inevitably ask why are you not playing your best players every game.

 

[Gambler Bob]

I usually sit my best players during pool play. If all of your players are that good you should blow a lot teams out and you can do the same. I bat them all during pool play but since we blow a lot of teams out, that is a great opportunity to sit players that don't normally sit during bracket play.

I do the same thing during bracket play if we blowing a team out. There have been a few times were I have had to send the top players back into to a game during bracket play but it has not cost us a game yet. This could really backfire on you, be careful during bracket play. You can be amazed how quickly a 7-8 run lead can disappear when a couple girls are not at their primary positions.

They girls do not get even playing time but sitting some of the good players during a blow out can make the number of innings played a little better for the bottom 1/3rd

 

[Strike2]

11 players is a good size. If all are good players, softball is easy and fun.

Play them all and often. Bat everyone whenever possible, including bracket. Rotate frequently and everyone spends some time on the bench. If you have a couple of players that you really don't want sitting during bracket, make sure they do it during pool. 11 isn't hard at all to manage and, over the course of a tournament, everyone will probably be playing over 80% of the time.

 

[nikkilugi]

Around my parts parents just aren't cool with their DD on the bench.

I think that still depends on age and skill level of the team. I’m “ASSuming” lol, your area is NC? I’m SE VA and DD’s 18u team has 17. The 16u team in our org also has 17. We are not titled “national” but we traveled to 4 tournaments up and down the east coast to showcases. Pretty much team we have played has had a roster of 15+ I would say. Very few teams had maybe 13 and none only had 11. Games are usually longer so coaches move and switch girls a lot. AB’s can be a sticking point at times but every player usually gets at least one per game. It’s up to them to make their AB count.

When DD was younger her teams would usually be around 11/12/13 (as she moved up in age levels). We got into some trouble in hot summers with only 11 girls. Someone may get overheated and another girl may get hurt and all of a sudden you only have 9 healthy girls to finish out a day of play. Parents should understand there is a need to carry a decent number because”stuff” happens. Especially in 2020

 

[4 girl's dad]

Our team has 14 rostered with one injured for the fall. (my DD). We play at the highest level we can for our region/state. Most of our tourneys are seeded pool or at the very least they count towards TFL standings.

I am normally not a fan of 16-18 players but this year has changed my mind. Due to other commitments (HS sports), injury, illness (COVID, etc) 14 is just not enough (16U). This weekend we went to the Gold Cup in Houston with 9. This was one of our most important weekends for us as we needed to do well to advance to the TFL championship to potentially move up to tier 1 for summer, and had 2 not come till Sunday and 1 not come at all.

Not all situations are the same so its hard to put a blanket on it.