The Grass Isn't Alway Greener

[Classof2020]

Sorry for the novel but I think this may be helpful to someone as you are choosing teams - although it is probably mostly applicable to a pitcher's family.

So after much advice along the lines of "put your dd on the best team she can make" last year we did the opposite. It was an intentional decision. After being the #3 pitcher on a "best team she could make" the year before and having very little circle time behind the AC's DD. We decided to do the opposite and go somewhere where she could make up for that and play a lot. And we did that. She played and played and played. Hit in the top 3 all year. Pitched every other game, or more. Played SS and OF when not pitching. But the results of our choice were mixed - and mostly negative.

I want to offer this warning to those of you pitcher parents who are in this boat. Yes she pitched a lot and I think her strength increased and her speed this season due to the increased load (3 mph to be exact) but other then that there were a not of negatives to consider. And we don't know how much she would have gained this season with less play time/pressure on her.

* she was facing less then the best hitters which sometimes translated into over confidence in less then stellar pitching - like a lucky strike out on a pitch too close to the middle that would have been hammered by anyone on a better team

* in our case the weak coaching was very detrimental as she had no one other than me teaching/correcting poor form in fielding, game play and hitting. I would say she was weaker as a fielder by the end of the season for sure.

* bad catchers who couldn't stop a good rise, a low CU or a drop that came in right where she'd been taught discouraged her from throwing her pitches correctly. My view is that she would regularly throw slower due to lack of confidence in their skills and told me more then once "she missed two drops in a row so I was nervous to throw it any more" - leaving a lot more meatballs.

* pitch calling by inexperienced catchers that were allowed to call their own games, couldn't make a throw down, couldn't catch a foul pop up, and got in a tizzy if you shook them off, led to more stress then you would actually think possible (I could actually write an entire thesis on how frustrating this was to a young pitcher). Oh yeah and daddy was the HC of the princess catcher.

* pitching with very weak defense behind her had mixed results. On the one hand dealing with that challenge I think probably encouraged her to work harder to get outs on her own from the circle, but also there is nothing more frustrating on a 90 degree day to be pitching your heart out and have two outs and get an easy pop up from your rise ball to then be dropped out of the glove, or a perfect ground ball to second and have it go right through 2B legs to then bring up the top of the line up. I know I'll get hammered on this comment too - but we aren't talking about every once in a while we are talking about consistently needing to get 5 outs to get out of an inning.

* we dealt with more bad attitude from not wanting to play, lack of respect for coaches, lack of respect for players on team, etc. then in previous seasons combined. I don't think it's a matter of being 13. I believe it was 90% this team situation and 10% hormones. I am sure I'll get hammered from sharing this too - that I'm raising a diva pitcher princess and my parenting is lacking etc. I'm just trying to be honest. When you are giving 110% and you have team mates who should really be playing rec and think it's funny that two girls collided because no one called the ball - it's hard to maintain respect week in and week out. When you have a coach who just keeps saying "good try" to an outfielder who continually runs forward and lets a pop fly drop right behind her throughout the entire season instead of teaching her proper form it's hard to appreciate your situation. Oh and when the third base coach seriously sends the heaviest slowest girl to steal 2nd every time she gets a single, without a pass ball, just on the first pitch, no less then 12 times during the season and has her thrown out every single time it's hard to maintain a cheery disposition. I'm an adult and I was miserable. I spent most of ride on the way to and from tournaments trying to find the good points and trying to encourage her to be a leader, teach her teammates, keep a smile on her face and put a nice spin on anything possible week in and week out - it was exhausting

Just be careful if you are in our situation. Before you go back to rec, etc. for more play time think about what you are really getting in to. Maybe pick up for a weekend first and really observe what things might be like. I'm sure there are much better lower level teams we could have found, that could have used her skills. Just take your time and imagine how some these things wear on a young girl as you make your decisions. I'm not sure if we would have done it again. I know I would have tried much much harder to find a higher quality team that she could have contributed to. She was very close to completely giving up softball at the end of the season due to the frustration and stress.

 

[CMMom1740]

That really stinks. It is a hard dilemma. DD played on the #1 All-Star team at our park in second year of 10U and sat the bench or was stuck in the outfield the whole season (she's a catcher and there was nothing going on in OF in 10U). Then she was on the #2 All-Star team, thinking it would be better because she'd get to play C and get more playing time. All true, but they lost every game that summer but two. It's so hard to know going in how a team and the coaches will gel (or won't gel). As many tips as I can get from this site, the better!

 

[grcsftbll]

Thanks for the post! We have a brand new 10U pitcher and faced that decision for this year. We chose to go with the better team even if it might mean less pitching time. She's not even quite 9 yet, so I feel like there's no way to know if she'll love pitching in games. She may decide she prefers SS or something. We were on a weak team last year and it had way too many negatives, like you said. It was still a hard decision because you always hear, put your pitcher where she'll get the most pitching time. But I feel like we made the right call. Your post kind of backs that up, which is nice.

 

[Little Angels Softball]

Pitchers' parents are the most difficult people on Earth to get to understand that the thing that really makes softball players better is competition. Working hard and fighting for a #2 spot on a good team that plays against other good teams is going to do far more for your young pitcher than dropping down to a "B" team and getting more circle time.

Sure, she'll get to pitch more but she'll also get away with stuff like throwing the ball down the pipe or she'll get some kids to chase bad pitches and get to thinking she's better than she is because she's getting some strikeouts.

Then, one day she gets to pitch against a pretty good team and all of a sudden she has walked a couple of girls because they won't chase that drop ball so she just figures she'll throw it over the plate since she has gotten plenty of girls out doing that. Then she gets to realize that the softball team she is playing against is really an artillery corps in disguise as bombs start getting launched all over the yard. Coach yanks her out in the first inning, and she's down 9-0.

Hey ..... but she got more circle time, right?

Learning to pitch is so much more than throwing four games every weekend.

 

[MNDad]

Great information for those who think pitchers need to be on a team where they get the most innings. Quality is better than quantity.

 

[CMMom1740]

Great information for those who think pitchers need to be on a team where they get the most innings. Quality is better than quantity.

Do you think that adage applies to all positions or specifically to pitchers? Just curious.

 

[Classof2020]

I agree with a lot of what you said LAS in hindsight. I knew that there would be challenges facing lesser competition. But one of our issues in choosing to move down was she had switched to I/R over this past winter and we were really nervous that without a lot of reps with new motion it would be very hard to make it stick. Even with a lot of reps it was still hard but I think largely that part was successful. We also could have went with the thinking that a whole season of working on new form in practice might have been best instead of being forced to use to form to face batters too soon . . .

Going in to this season we thought that actually getting to play a ton would be more fun then being a #9 on an A team and cheering from the bench an awful lot. They both have their pluses and minuses. But there is a price to pay whichever way you go.

 

[corlay]

Great information for those who think pitchers need to be on a team where they get the most innings. Quality is better than quantity.

I've always been pretty satisfied if my DD pitcher gets 1/3 games on Saturday,
and starts (at least) one on Sunday.

She's played on teams her first 2 seasons in Travel 12U with 5 and 4 pitchers, respectively.
I think 5 is too many. 4 can work, but 1/4 will get significantly lesser innings than the other 3.
3 is a good number for 12U/14U I think. With the #3 being a 1st year pitcher, getting spot starts, mostly.

This year, in her first year of 14U, she will be 1 of 2 pitchers.
We only rostered 11, hoping another pitcher might surface sometime over the Fall/Winter.

I think 2 can work, but an injury to either spells disaster, IMO.
3 is the right number...

But I've met Dad's that work hard to seek-out teams where their DD is THE pitcher, or maybe one of two at the most.
They would be happiest if their kid pitched every single inning of every game.
I don't get it, but to each his own...

 

[Little Angels Softball]

But I've met Dad's that work hard to seek-out teams where their DD is THE pitcher, or maybe one of two at the most.
They would be happiest if their kid pitched every single inning of every game. I don't get it, but to each his own.

This is unfortunately not as uncommon as you suggest. For a pretty good pitcher, I'd say it goes down this way at least 50% of the time.

It is extremely hard to get two good pitchers to agree to be on one team. Three is almost getting to be a pipe dream nowadays.

 

[grcsftbll]

If mine gets one game per tournament I'll be happy. She won't be sitting when she's not pitching though, which definitely impacts that feeling. We actually have 2 solid, experienced pitchers, 1 solid but inexperienced pitcher (mine) and two girls who can fill in as pitcher as needed though they're not super solid (and as far as I know not really focused on pitching, so they won't resent not getting to pitch a lot). I kind of feel like we won the lottery.