Fake bunts and walking your way to a win!

[Hoover's Dad]

I watched the championship game last night for 10u tournament, one team could pound the ball and could bring it with some very good pitchers. They would put it in play with small ball, and then try to bring em in with the big hitters. seemed to never get walked because they were hitting any and all strikes thrown at them. They had bunters, a slappers, contact hitters and two girls that almost hit balls out on a 195' fence

The other team could pitch descent, hardly ever swung the bat, and fake bunted at least 20 plus times in the game. All they did was look for a walk and really never tried to hit the ball except the first three batters. they struck out 16 times, and put the ball in play about 4 or 5 times. The coach made every girl crowd the plate hoping to get hit by a pitch, well the coach was hoping, some of the girls were in tears from being scared of getting hit in the ribs by a 45+ heater. but the coach kept telling them to move up.

Basically they stood still and walked there way to the championship, while the obviously better team came up short, while playing a style of ball that would make any coach proud in rec ball or travel ball.

Do any of you ever see this strategy used?

I like to get some walks and drive them in, but to do it for the whole weekend and win the tournament was sickening!

Seems to me this will back fire on them down the road when they start facing teams or pitchers that dont issue walks.

 

[sluggers]

I've never seen it used as much as this guy was using it. Sounds like another example of an idiot coach with a screwed up set of priorities. If he wanted a trophy so bad, he could buy one on eBay for $10.00.

 

[amanda_cake]

I think this will bite him in the butt later. The girls don't want to walk, they want to hit. They are going to eventually become tired of playing on his team and move on. Also, if they do stick around eventually that strategy won't work when they face better pitchers.

 

[livingontheroad]

Needs to play some better teams. Good pitchers DO NOT walk batters. Maybe 0-2 per game. At the elite level, walks LOSE games.

 

[fastpitch]

At all levels walks lose games. I imagine its frustrating when you have a better all around team and the only way the other team scores is by walks... but what do you expect them to do? Strike out? Swing at bad pitches? When they face a pitcher who doesn't walk so many they won't win those games anymore.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

I have seen this done a few times over our younger years. But there are ways to out coach and play a team like this. First of all if you know the first 3 batters are swinging, you work them with pitches. If the rest are just trying to draw a walk and are crowding the plate, pitch right down the middle or on the outside corner ( strikes ). Sooner or later he will be forced to make the 'lookers' swing.

Second, if they are right on top of the plate and get hit while they are in the strike zone, it's a strike.

Third, this team probably won't last long. If the kids are terrified of getting hit, they will drop out like flies. ( and who can blame them ) This style of coaching does nothing to develop young players.

 

[Coach JV]

They will be vaporized at higher levels. Throwing the integrity of the game out the window
to chase a trophy, and what do you teach these young girls? My DD pitched her first travel ball
no hitter earlier this year, 2 reached on error, she walks less than one per 6 innings. If the pitcher
has good control, she beats down a team like that by herself and builds up the strikeout stats

 

[SnocatzDad]

My only comment is that for that age it is certainly not a great developmental philosophy to watch pitches and pray for a walk. IMO, there is a progression in pitching and hitting where we end up having to reverse the thought process between younger and older ages. From 6-10 I feel we are working on getting pitchers to throw strikes consistantly then there is a gray area and from 14-18 we are asking them to not throw strikes consistantly. At the older ages we expect pitchers to throw balls just out of the zone that make batters swing, or throw sneaky strikes that make batters go down looking or that are at least hard to drive. Hitting is the same way. From 6-10 swing at anything within a ball width of the strike zone and learn how to drive all those pitches, then gray area, then 14-18 we are preaching patience and get a pitch you can drive. The difference being that a hitter who dribbles a dark first pitch towards an infielder because they had that 10U aggressive mentality, missed out on the next pitch that was just outside but driveable for an opposite field hit, or missed getting ahead in the count and forcing the pitcher to play closer and closer to the zone, or maybe staying alive through a wild pitch or passed ball that might have moved runners around. I've seen college hitters who pretty consistantly just foul balls off until they are walked, so I wouldn't dismiss it as a 100% bush league strategy to teach kids patience, just not age appropriate at 10U. What I am seeing this year is that at 43' the pitchers at the 16U/18U who can dominate and throw a no hitter are few and far betweeen. Games are becoming more about out fielding and out hitting your opponent which is good for the sport IMO.

 

[SoCalDad]

Played a game this past weekend where a coach employed a similar strategy. For the first 3 innings the majority of his girls came up and showed fake bunt trying to throw off my pitcher. Didn't work out well for him since we mercy ruled them 17 - 1 at the end of 3. As other posts in this thread point out the strategy may work at younger levels but at 14U it doesn't fly.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

they struck out 16 times

I am not understanding how they won with that many strike outs. What was the score?

Generally, you can't win a game by hoping for walks.

I don't fault the winning coach. Blame the pitcher for that many walks. Do we know how many it was?