Hitting vs Pitching: which is more important to win?

[corlay]

Scenario: Two 12U 'A' travel teams face-off in a tournament.
Team 'A' has above average pitching, average fielding, and below average hitting.
Team 'B' has below average pitching, average fielding, and above average hitting.

Who do you feel has the best chance to win?

So lets have some fun, and play along? I know that this is such a simplified and generalized scenario, but try and ignore the multitude of other variables that factor into winning, and cast your vote.

Bonus question: does your answer change for 14U? 18U?

 

[SoAZDad]

It's a coin toss.

"It takes pitching, hitting and defense. Any two can win. All three make you unbeatable." Joe Garagiola

 

[Doug Romrell]

Coin toss.

BOTH!!!! But if you were to twist my arm, I'd say super pitching. Then, if you can't hit well, it doesn't matter much, because they won't hit your pitcher either.

 

[CoogansBluff]

Hard to say, but I would argue for great hitting.

Hitting accounts for almost all of a team's ability to score runs (everything except base-running), whereas the ability to stop runs (the other half of the game) requires competent fielding. For example, I might say hitting is 45%, base-running 5%, pitching 40% and fielding 10%. That's assuming that scoring runs is equally as valuable as preventing them, which I believe is true.

The argument for pitching would be that great pitching teams are farther from the mean, that is, they are more outstanding, than the best hitting teams. Don't know if that's true at the highest levels, ie college softball, the SEC/Pac 12, etc, but I do think it applies at lower levels. At 10U, there's a wider range between the best pitcher and the worst at most tournaments, so great pitching wins. That gap gets smaller and smaller as you get older and go up in level, IMO.

 

[robertc3]

I say team A. I don't know that it changes at any level. Even at the D1 level good pitching wins ball games.

 

[SoAZDad]

I say team A. I don't know that it changes at any level. Even at the D1 level good pitching wins ball games.

But.............good hitting wins DI ball games too!

Coin toss. OP never said HOW MUCH or BELOW average either team was. I'm looking for disparity here.

 

[colin]

good pitching makes your defense better so you are ahead with 2 out of 3

 

[SoAZDad]

The coin toss (= winner) comes down to intangibles, who wants it most, who never quits, who ate their Wheaties, etc.?

 

[corlay]

good pitching makes your defense better so you are ahead with 2 out of 3

One could argue: good pitching makes your defense worse.

Say your ace keeps the ball out of play MOST games. Your defense gets very few opportunity to make plays. Then you play that great hitting team, and the errors pile up...

 

[colin]

not looking for 15 k's, just weak contact