positional qualities...

[absdad]

absdad,

I guess I am getting caught up on the word complicated. To me it means confusing. 2B is a lot more confusing than 1B. I would agree that 1B could be considered difficult in catcing some of the balls but I think 2B is more complicated. 1B it's pretty much catch the ball and put your foot on the base or come in for the bunt.

I think RF is more important if you have fast pitching and work the outside corner a lot. If you have average or slow pitching I would put my better outfielder in left.

Thanks,
Sean

Ok, I'll cede that. I misunderstood you. 2nd is complicated, I think they really need to know the game, much like a SS, but maybe without quite the arm as the SS.

I played baseball my whole life, and this short game in softball is a new learning experience for me. But I appreciate learning from all of you guys and gals that have been coaching for years. Or at least introducing me to a new perspective.

 

[mudbug]

Ok, I'll cede that. I misunderstood you. 2nd is complicated, I think they really need to know the game, much like a SS, but maybe without quite the arm as the SS.

I think it is common to overestimate the importance of the arm of SS. A good arm is needed, but the best arm doesnt matter if the girl isnt able to move quickly to the ball to field it and get rid of ball extremely fast. No arm will compensate for a SS that stays too deep and is slow to get throw off. Our SS's seldom have the best arm on the team, we have a girl or two girls that can probably throw the ball over the backstop from the CF fence if they tried, but they dont play SS. Too slow to get throw off, and dont charge IF ground balls aggressively enough. Quite literally, sometimes a good SS will be halfway to 1B when making a throw on a ball hit up the middle.

 

[absdad]

I think it is common to overestimate the importance of the arm of SS. A good arm is needed, but the best arm doesnt matter if the girl isnt able to move quickly to the ball to field it and get rid of ball extremely fast. No arm will compensate for a SS that stays too deep and is slow to get throw off. Our SS's seldom have the best arm on the team, we have a girl or two girls that can probably throw the ball over the backstop from the CF fence if they tried, but they dont play SS. Too slow to get throw off, and dont charge IF ground balls aggressively enough. Quite literally, sometimes a good SS will be halfway to 1B when making a throw on a ball hit up the middle.

I certainly agree with the quickness quality with SS. Who would have your best arm in the IF, 3b?

 

[Mark H]

IME, quickness, anticipation and the ability to get rid of the ball quickly is more important at third. The throws aren't that far in fp.

 

[mudbug]

I certainly agree with the quickness quality with SS. Who would have your best arm in the IF, 3b?

Sometimes It all depends, they are not placed just by arm strength , one of the stronger arms is usually in CF. They all have good arms, its other attributes that usually end up determining where they can contribute the most.

Now if there is a large disparity in arm strengths among girls it would likely be a deciding factor, but when the girls are mostly pretty similar and play on same level, not so much.

3B is characterized by some as where you may put the slowest arm in the IF. Typically they have the most time to make throws to 1B since they are closest to the hitter. I dont really agree with that, it is a very exciting position with certain girls there.

Some girls will develop better speed/distance than others with IF throws and some with OF type throws. A girl might be able to throw hard, but if she drops her hand and brings it around in an arc like an OF instead of drawing it straight back. That will make her throws " slow" even with a strong arm.

 

[Mark H]

Sometimes

3B is characterized by some as where you may put the slowest arm in the IF. Typically they have the most time to make throws to 1B since they are closest to the hitter. I dont really agree with that, it is a very exciting position with certain girls there.
.

Aw hale no! I don't really agree either. I REALLY don't agree. As soon as they start playing the short game you better pounce quick, glove quick and get rid of it quickly and accurately.

 

[mkral]

Mark hits that square!!! IME 3B has to be one of the if not the most athletic kid with the best arm in the IF followed by the SS. I agree with Sluggers total list other then RF and LF. However after looking at it and thinking about it I agree with it and I have been doing it wrong. We have had our weaker OF in RF. We will be changing that. We get a lot of shots to RF because they are behind our pitchers. However we are moving up to U14 this year with a very young team, mostly 12 yo kids. Only 2 - 13 yo kids but they all wanted to stay together and move up together. We may get rattled to LF this year. Time will tell.
Great Post!!
We make all of our girls know or learn the game best we can. We actually test them with written tests 2 to 4 times a year. I know that sound stupid but it gets their attention and they are now to the point where they like doing it. They actually learn from it because most are scared to ask questions in front of their friends. We don't announce names when we give results but we discuss all of them. We test positional movement in all kinds of hitting situations so if a girl needs to fill in a position they normally don't play they will still have a good idea of what to do. We move the girls to at least 3 positions on defense all the time we do not lock them into one. It is just what we do. We have preached "Everyone moves on every play" but they were still not doing it. That was why we started the testing. It has helped. I simply believe they did not understand what they were suppose to do in certain situations.
Sorry I got off track there.

 

[One2win]

I think one of the biggest mistakes my head coach (that I was assitant under) from last year was the way he communicated with the girls. He would constantly tell my daughter in left field to "BACK UP!!!". I could tell by the look on my daughters face that she was wondering if he meant a) move back, b)back up the ss/3b, or c)she couldn't understand what the coach was yelling from the dugout. The one thing that drove this home was how the girls would react when he talked about errors and how many were made. I asked the girls at practice one week to raise their hand if they understood what an error was. A few raised their hand. I asked them to tell me what it was. They all basically said "when I mess up". I proceeded to tell them what the little E meant on the scoreboard at most parks and what the H R E meant after box scores. I let them know that it is not about them 'messing up', but about an error in execution that allowed a runner to advance when they should not have. My point is, they took the word error and equated it to their failure... it seemed to demoralize them. I tried to explain that they need to shake them off and learn from the 'error'.

 

[druer]

One important factor that has been left out for Left Fielders is that they must have great reactions and ability to judge the ball quickly. Right field and Center field both get to see the bat approaching the ball and can anticipate the hit before it happens, whereas LF is usually shielded more and suddenly the ball is coming off of the bat. Certainly the SS can give an indication of inside pitch, but they still don't the same opportunity to visualize the contact point like CF and RF do.