Lineup strategy

[Momo'sDad]

Scenario: A 10u rec team has 8 solid batters and 5 players who are relatively new to hitting.

Assuming you're looking to maximize runs in a given game, do you keep the 5 together at the bottom of the lineup or do you sprinkle them throughout?

 

[quincy]

As a general rule:

Rate the batters 1 – 4, and then there should never be a drop of 2 points between consecutive batters.

Assuming 1 is the best, and your leadoff hitter is a 1, the last hitter should be at least a 2.

Yes, the batters that are working on their game are lower in the order but not all together.

 

[KevinC]

Last spring in 10U rec I tried sprinkling the weaker hitters throughout the lineup for the first few games and it did not work. The problem is that even the best hitter does not get a hit every time so you end up stranding too many baserunners. You want to get a lead in the first inning. If you get some hits from the middle and bottom of your order that's a bonus. Often you get a one or two inning drought.

I kept batting stats that I used to help me set the lineup but did not share the info with the girls or parents.

My top 3 or 4 hitters were easy to identify and pretty much stayed the same all year. The middle 3 or 4 were pretty equal so I moved them around in that group. I also moved the bottom 2 or 3 around in their group so that no one is the last batter every time.

My cleanup batter once asked me why she never got to bat leadoff. I told her I would be happy to have her bat leadoff if she really wanted but that she currently had far more RBIs than anyone on the team because of where she was batting. She said OK I'll stay where I am.

The challenge is to get all the girls to improve in hitting so you have a tough time setting the order.

Note this was a league with no walks (coach comes in to pitch after 4 balls) so the only way they can get on base is with a hit. I may rethink this strategy this year in 12U - I'd consider putting a weak hitter who is a good baserunner and can draw walks (e.g. a squirt) higher in the order and let my sluggers knock her in.

 

[chinamigarden]

When I coached my first boys hardball team, it was an 8u Little League machine pitch league with no walks. After 2 games I sat down with the score book and wrote down each kids name and then counted up the number of hits, outs from balls in play, and the strike outs. I then figured out which kids hit their way on base the most they were a 1, the kids who made contact but were not necessarily getting on base were 2, and the kids who struck out the most were 3.

I made up my line up by going 1,2,3,1,2,3... The kids batted in the same order the rest of the year. Except, each game I took the three who batted last in the previous game and they were my lead off 3, everyone else moved back 3 spots. By the end of the year, everyone had batted in the front, middle and back end of the lineup. The at bats evened out for all the kids. I just about always had 1 kid on, another moving him up, and an out, then another kid who could hit him home. As time went on the kids who put the ball in play were getting on base and the kids who started out striking out every time, most of them started putting the ball in play.

You could say we only were looking at developing the batters without regard for the wins, which was my goal at that age. But by never sticking a kid in the bottom of the order and banishing him to the spot that even 8 year olds know is where the bad hitters are. I kept their confidence up and we finished the season in 2nd place and we won the end of year tournament for our league.

 

[Mrek]

Scenario: A 10u rec team has 8 solid batters and 5 players who are relatively new to hitting.

Assuming you're looking to maximize runs in a given game, do you keep the 5 together at the bottom of the lineup or do you sprinkle them throughout?

If you have weak hitters and power, you can intermingle and still score (as the power will over time generate multiple bases per hit, (high slugging %)). If you don't have power, you will always need to bunch your high average, low slugging hitters together to score. You may not score or have the opportunity to score in every inning, but you will have less of a chance to get shutout. If you intermingle "high average, low slugging" with weak hitters, I can assure that you will get shutout more often. The weak hitters will be rally killers on that type of team.

 

[starsnuffer]

Luckily hitting is just one of many ways to get on base in softball. Teach the ones that can't hit to bunt, or slug hit, or whatever, and then intermingle them with the kids that hit. Have fun and experiment. Let them decide the batting order for a game or two.

-W

 

[MsDinosaur]

There's someone at mysoftballcoach.com who has put together webpages on his/her 8U batting order, 10U league batting order, 10U tournament batting order and 12U batting order strategies. I'm not a coach so I obviously haven't put any of these into practice, but he/she explains her assumptions, like 6 strong and 6 weak hitters, with varying amounts of speed and bunting ability, and how and why he/she mixes them into the batting order.

For a 10U rec team, it would basically boil down to: 1) speedy good hitter, 2) speedy good hitter, 3) slow/average weak hitter who can bunt, 4) good hitter-best power, 5) good hitter-second best power, 6) weak hitter who can bunt, 7) slow running good hitter, 8) slow running good hitter, 9) best bunter of the weak hitters, followed by the rest of the weak hitters... I'm guessing if you were adopting that strategy, since you have 8 solid batters instead of 6, you could have a fourth pair of good hitters after #9, the third weak hitting bunter. --That's assuming that you can teach some of the 5 brand new batters to have some success at bunting.

If nothing else, I found it very interesting to read through.

 

[Mrek]

There's someone at mysoftballcoach.com who has put together webpages on his/her 8U batting order, 10U league batting order, 10U tournament batting order and 12U batting order strategies. I'm not a coach so I obviously haven't put any of these into practice, but he/she explains her assumptions, like 6 strong and 6 weak hitters, with varying amounts of speed and bunting ability, and how and why he/she mixes them into the batting order.

For a 10U rec team, it would basically boil down to: 1) speedy good hitter, 2) speedy good hitter, 3) slow/average weak hitter who can bunt, 4) good hitter-best power, 5) good hitter-second best power, 6) weak hitter who can bunt, 7) slow running good hitter, 8) slow running good hitter, 9) best bunter of the weak hitters, followed by the rest of the weak hitters... I'm guessing if you were adopting that strategy, since you have 8 solid batters instead of 6, you could have a fourth pair of good hitters after #9, the third weak hitting bunter. --That's assuming that you can teach some of the 5 brand new batters to have some success at bunting.

If nothing else, I found it very interesting to read through.

Yea, the strategy is to have a runner in scoring postition (via bunt) and rely on a two out hit. It would seem to me that, on average, you would have a runner in scoring position 6-7 times in a 7 inning game. And that would require "all" the "good" hitters to hit .400. Once in scoring position, if the next "good" hitter after the bunt hits .400 that team will, on average (discounting walks and errors, this is hitting analysis alone), score 2.4 - 2.8 runs a game. This team will not have a significant number of multi-run innings and will get shutout on below and sometimes even slightly below average hitting days.

I would rather stack the 6 "good" hitters. You would be in a "good 3-hitter stack" a least 4 times in a game. I would take my chances those minimum 4 opportunites would score me more than 2.4 runs a game on a consistent basis as I would have more multi-run innings.

Bunts are vital when used appropriately however, like the strikeout, they are rally killers.

 

[SoCalSoftballdad]

For 10U rec with dropped third strikes, walks, and steals to all bases, you can probably throw away most "text book" philosophies on how to set your line-up and just rank your best hitters from top to bottom and be done with it. This way the best hitters will potentially get an extra at-bat than the weakest hitters at the bottom of the order. 10U rec is all about whether or not you have a dominate pitcher or not. That is what is going to win you the most games. I would focus more on developing your pitchers and catchers if you want to be competitive.

 

[MsDinosaur]

Actually the person says their hope is both #1 and #2 will make it on base and that when #3 bunts, the 3rd baseman will make the wrong decision and hold the ball rather than taking the force at first, giving them bases loaded and no outs with #4 coming up. I believe they're assuming that the league pitching and fielding will be weak and their good batters will hit better than .400 against the other teams.

On the other hand, this guy/gal says he/she stacks the good hitters for tournament play, because the pitching will overpower the batters and you have to maximize your chance to score runs.