In love with the Strikeout Pitcher

[riseball]

For my DD her strikes went down significantly as the hitting got better. Averaged 14 per game in HS and TB. Dropped to 9 in JUCO. Dropped to an insignificant number in the SEC.

 

[cuzmail]

I've personally not noticed a tendency for coaches to prefer a strikeout pitcher over an effective pitcher.

If speed is the factor that leads to more strikeouts, however, pretty much all coaches prefer pitchers with speed.

Really???????????? As the dad of a contact pitcher I see it the other way. The only thing most seem to be worried about is that number on the radar gun.

 

[riseball]

I've personally not noticed a tendency for coaches to prefer a strikeout pitcher over an effective pitcher.

If speed is the factor that leads to more strikeouts, however, pretty much all coaches prefer pitchers with speed.

Really???????????? As the dad of a contact pitcher I see it the other way. The only thing most seem to be worried about is that number on the radar gun.

As the dad of a kid who can chuck it at 70+ I will be the first to say that speed is the least important of the 3 attributes of a pitch.

 

[DNeeld]

As the dad of a kid who can chuck it at 70+ I will be the first to say that speed is the least important of the 3 attributes of a pitch.

True. But you have a girl who can hit her spots and tops out at 55 and a girl who can hit her spots and tops out at 65. Which would you prefer? All I was saying is that all other things being pretty equal coaches prefer pitchers with higher speed.

A bit of a derail from the OP, but a pitcher who can throw with 6" of break on a pitch at 55 would take a backseat to a pitcher who can throw with 3" of break on a pitch at 65.

As for strikeout pitcher or not....a pitchers job is to generate outs. How they do that, I personally really don't care.

 

[canyonjoe]

I don't have all of our fielding percentages to look at, but we had 1 girl in 2 years reach first on a D3K. I would guess that that's a higher rate than our fielders
are able to handle balls in play. Even the one that reached first would have been out if we didn't have our 4th 1B in the game and drop a throw that was low but
catchable.

 

[DNeeld]

Really???????????? As the dad of a contact pitcher I see it the other way. The only thing most seem to be worried about is that number on the radar gun.

Yeah, my experience in my area at least. Coaches do love speed, but the ones I've associated with want accuracy first, speed second.

I've heard the stories about coaches insisting on playing the fireball pitcher than walks 10 batters a game over a slower pitcher that can work the corners, but I've personally not seen any of the coaches around here do so.

Just my anecdotal observations.

 

[grcsftbll]

So far, the coaches we've interacted with absolutely favor speed. If there are 2 pitchers, one is 3-4 MPH faster, it doesn't matter how much more effective the slower one is, she's going to be the #2. It doesn't make much sense to me. I figure it will get better as they get older, since in 10U speed alone is often enough to get strike outs against a lot of teams, but much less so as they get older.

On a team like the one we're on I can see why strike outs are favored though. In 5 games last weekend we had 32 errors according to my scoring. I'm not perfect so I may have misjudged a couple but that's the ballpark. An easy hit to 2nd or a pop up to left field will often not be an out even if it should be. Balls go between legs and bounce out of gloves, throws are bad. Right now that's more the rule than the exception it seems like, so I couldn't blame a coach for wanting the strike outs.

 

[Crystal Brown]

I think speed, movement and accuracy are all equal. Speed will give the batter less decision time and movement will make the batter regret their decision. Then you cannot ping all the batters like I saw one pitcher do in rec ball. To her credit,she did get better at not hitting so many girls. LOL

 

[cuzmail]

Yeah, my experience in my area at least. Coaches do love speed, but the ones I've associated with want accuracy first, speed second.

I've heard the stories about coaches insisting on playing the fireball pitcher than walks 10 batters a game over a slower pitcher that can work the corners, but I've personally not seen any of the coaches around here do so.

Just my anecdotal observations.

We need to move to your area of the country!
I always hear about location being most important. Then movement. Last speed. It is mostly just talk.

I can't tell you how many times I sat and watched the walk fest happen.

 

[nanotech14]

True. But you have a girl who can hit her spots and tops out at 55 and a girl who can hit her spots and tops out at 65. Which would you prefer? All I was saying is that all other things being pretty equal coaches prefer pitchers with higher speed.

A bit of a derail from the OP, but a pitcher who can throw with 6" of break on a pitch at 55 would take a backseat to a pitcher who can throw with 3" of break on a pitch at 65.

As for strikeout pitcher or not....a pitchers job is to generate outs. How they do that, I personally really don't care.

I would have to disagree with you on that, 55 with a 6" break will be harder to hit then 3" @ 65. Plus until the batter get use to the slower speed. They are swinging at air. Dd just yesterday went down in speed so much, I don't think she was throwing 45 mph. Their coaches was screaming at his girls. It worked yesterday, the more the coach yelled at his batters the slower she threw. She did give up a double, but she threw it down the middle with no movement. She told me after the game, that 1 just got away from her. This was 18u. We won that game, lost the one with our other pitcher that throws fireballs. But results my vary. So an the end, we both could be wrong.