Too many pitchers?

[Northball]

Unfortunately, you'll lose a few of them. No matter what you do with a rotation or however you decide to handle circle time, one or two of the parents will feel their daughter is being slighted for innings. They will leave for another team. It's the nature of the beast.

At 10U, I agree the kids will be happy since they're playing other positions, too. If you have parents want to hissy quit because Suzy only pitched 14% of the innings, better off without them now than putting up with their crap for years.

 

[Ace_88]

If you have 5-6 pitchers that are all very good 10u pitchers 45-50 mph hitting there spots 70% of the time and have decent control of their change-up. It wont be difficult to get them all some reps. You should win a lot of games which means playing a lot of games in each tournament. The problem will be keeping all of them, there will be 1-2 that will be better than the rest that is just a fact, the parents of these kids will expect there child to pitch more, or if they are good enough they will get poached by a better team with a bigger name. Even then you would have 3-4 which is 2-3 more than most 10u teams.

This is exactly the case, all 6 of them throw 45-50+ mph, some hit spots better than others, and all have a changeup that they can command. 3-4 of them have drops, curves, and screwballs, but we don't call much of the extra junk. I know its only 10u, but we are the "big name" in the area which is how we ended up in this situation i believe. Our goal has always been to continue to develop these kids while also being competitive. I'm just worried about the amount of reps they will be able to get. I like the idea of the set rotation with a certain limit of whatever, innings, batters, times through the lineup, etc. I think this plan will have to be something we tell the parents of the new kids as we offer them a spot on the team. That way if its not for them, it makes our lives as coaches a little easier, and if they accept their position, there's no questions about their role

 

[lostcreek1]

This is exactly the case, all 6 of them throw 45-50+ mph, some hit spots better than others, and all have a changeup that they can command. 3-4 of them have drops, curves, and screwballs, but we don't call much of the extra junk. I know its only 10u, but we are the "big name" in the area which is how we ended up in this situation i believe. Our goal has always been to continue to develop these kids while also being competitive. I'm just worried about the amount of reps they will be able to get. I like the idea of the set rotation with a certain limit of whatever, innings, batters, times through the lineup, etc. I think this plan will have to be something we tell the parents of the new kids as we offer them a spot on the team. That way if its not for them, it makes our lives as coaches a little easier, and if they accept their position, there's no questions about their role

So your org is part of the reason we have multiple threads of not enough pitchers in 10u. Just joking a little. I am sure you will find a rotation that works at least for the kids that really want to be there, almost impossible to make everyone happy.

I know one organization could be the same one you are talking about. That on there 10u teams have multiple kids that that live more than 300 miles away from where they are based. I knew this was common in high school aged kids but was kind of shocked by it in 10u. I don't understand it at that age. If you are 9-10 and just show up on game day to pitch you are not part of that team you are just pitching for someone else's team. Like someone else said nice problem to have I'm sure it will work out. I do have a question I asked on here before and never got an answer, when you got these new kids did they cut kids from current roster or were there already slots available due to other kids quitting.

 

[_MIA_]

I know it’s only 10u, but we are the "big name" in the area which is how we ended up in this situation i believe.

You keep acting like it was a condition you developed. You chose these kids (even if you picked them to play other positions) ..

That said it isn’t rocket science if you aren’t worried about:

a) winning every tournament in order to keep your “big 10U name”
b) losing a kid or two because Dad didn’t make his HS baseball team and needs his kid to be the alpha dig

 

[Orange Socks]

You will have to be very intentional with pitcher management. The by product of winning is going deeper in tourneys and playing more games. Be willing to lose those pools game and a bracket game so you claw back in the loser's bracket. There have been some games where I wished we had 8 pitchers because we were getting smashed no matter who we put in the circle.

 

[Rolling Hard]

Looks like our 10u team will have 5-6 pitchers on the roster for the fall. All of them will be second year 10u and are all athletes. They are all very good at other positions so we need them there, they just also happen to be very good pitchers also. My question is what is the best way to handle that many kids getting circle time? Is a set rotation the best way? 3-4 innings each and swap, and just keep on going until it starts back up at the top? I feel like its a blessing and a curse all at the same time to have that many on the staff. Thanks in advance

Start a 2nd team!

 

[chinamigarden]

10u where 1 pitcher isn’t enough and 2 is too many

 

[JOHNN]

This is exactly the case, all 6 of them throw 45-50+ mph, some hit spots better than others, and all have a changeup that they can command. 3-4 of them have drops, curves, and screwballs, but we don't call much of the extra junk. I know its only 10u, but we are the "big name" in the area which is how we ended up in this situation i believe. Our goal has always been to continue to develop these kids while also being competitive. I'm just worried about the amount of reps they will be able to get. I like the idea of the set rotation with a certain limit of whatever, innings, batters, times through the lineup, etc. I think this plan will have to be something we tell the parents of the new kids as we offer them a spot on the team. That way if its not for them, it makes our lives as coaches a little easier, and if they accept their position, there's no questions about their role

So I get that you have this many pitchers, but I can tell you it will end up being a problem bc pitchers need circle time with real game reps.

The real question though is do you have two really solid bracket level catchers for all those pitchers? Bc we all know that you can have great pitching but if you dont have solid catching it can create some really long innings.

 

[uncdrew]

This is exactly the case, all 6 of them throw 45-50+ mph, some hit spots better than others, and all have a changeup that they can command. 3-4 of them have drops, curves, and screwballs, but we don't call much of the extra junk. I know its only 10u, but we are the "big name" in the area which is how we ended up in this situation i believe. Our goal has always been to continue to develop these kids while also being competitive. I'm just worried about the amount of reps they will be able to get. I like the idea of the set rotation with a certain limit of whatever, innings, batters, times through the lineup, etc. I think this plan will have to be something we tell the parents of the new kids as we offer them a spot on the team. That way if its not for them, it makes our lives as coaches a little easier, and if they accept their position, there's no questions about their role

Do they really? Screwballs in 10U? Wow.

I know a lot of top-ranked pitchers in 14U and none had anything other than fastball and change in 10U.

I'm in agreement that you'll lose a few of them. Either they'll think or recognize that they're P5 or P6 and either quit pitching or go to a team where they are P1 or P2. Might be the girls' decision, might be the parents. A lot of girls quit pitching around age 10/11.