Pitching rotation strategy for 10U team

[Greenmonsters]

It's 10U and none of the 5 players have pitched for longer than 6 months. IMO, its still very early in the development stage and anything but equal opportunity seems foolish as today's #5 could well be next month's #1. That said, I'd provide slightly greater opportunity to the ones practicing outside of team practice/games.

 

[Indiana]

^^^^This. I know it's hard, but it would be great to see as many 10U pitchers developed as possible.

 

[FrozenRope]

I really appreciate all the feedback. Let me give a little more information about my pitchers based on the replies I have gotten. Even though I have 5 girls that pitch, none of them have been pitching longer than 6 months, and none of them have built up the endurance to play back to back games. I would guess that 3 of them will probably only be able to pitch an inning at a time without wearing down. I don't think any of my parents are expecting their DD to pitch in 2 or 3 full games at each tournament as a lot of older pitchers do. All 5 of them can be very inconsistent at times because they are all on the younger end of the 10U age group right now. Many times I am sure they will only pitch to a few batters and an inning at most. So with all this in mind. My plan is to start out giving them all equal time and then build off that based on how well they are pitching each day. Let's say I have pitchers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. I'll basically give them all up to an inning (if they can make it that long) in the pool games and then play them the rest of the tournament based on how well they look early on. Then I can play each tournament according to how they develop over the next few months. Does this sound like a decent rotation strategy?

In my experience, it's difficult to keep that many pitchers happy.... regardless of 10U, 12U or older. I don't believe in throwing a kid til her arm falls off either...I've seen that as well. But there is a happy medium. 5 is too many, and 2 isn't enough. I like the idea of coming clean to the parents of #4 and #5 and letting them know that opportunities will be thin. Let them make the decision. At least you were up front with them. If you spread things too thin across the board, you're not going to be doing anyone any favors. You may end up next season with no pitchers.

 

[Rmc1981]

I had an almost identical situation in my first year of 10U. I don't envy you and wouldn't do it again.

I do think we need more girls working on pitching at this level. In our area, there are way too few to go around. Someone mentioned that one pitcher per game is the right number. That would be fantastic, but in our area right now, it's not remotely possible. Oh to dream though...

I think you may be underestimating the girls' stamina. Consider, they are probably going to lessons every week and throwing for about an hour. It would stand to reason that they could at least throw 2 innings before running out of gas.

 

[nicelag]

Not a big fan of splitting inning in 10U because that usually means only 2 innings per pitcher. Too much warm up and down time for too little time in the circle. If I did split innings my personal preference would be to go from fast to slow and or vice versa. Going from a fast pitcher to a fast pitcher doesn't really give you any benefit, and allows the other team to time them. UCLA was very successful using this method last year. One pitcher would go through the lineup then the other would come in, and they would do this throughout the game. Both pitchers played first base so they were able to swap out as many times as they wanted.

 

[MNDad]

It depends quite a bit on the level of play. If it’s truly a 10U A Travel team that competes nationally you owe it to all the girls to throw your best pitchers. If it’s your typical “travel” team that plays neighboring communities it should be about developing girls for the future.

Riding a few select girls (usually coaches kids) is one of the biggest problems I see at the 10U level. When the girls get older and decide to play lacrosse or soccer all of a sudden community organizations can’t field 14U or 16U teams because they don’t have any pitching.

Girls need innings to gain the confidence. It doesn’t matter if it’s a full game or 1-2 innings. You just need to instill the passion. DD didn’t see a single inning in the circle her first year because the coaches were hung up on a three pitcher rotation. DD was extremely lucky that her pitching coach encouraged her and she stuck with it. I've gotta think there's quite a few girls with high school or college potential that never got a chance and weren't as lucky.

 

[CoachHarley]

My youngest (10u) , who is now the #1 pitcher on the team, was #4 and pitched 2 innings last season. She too has stuck with it, thankfully, and is the obvious #1 on the team. The previous 1,2,3 all moved on to 12u.

We have 5 pitchers total now. Only 2 of them are really game ready. The others just started this fall and are coming along, but need a little more work.

I plan on putting the lesser experienced pitchers in on Saturdays, games that are not must wins. Give them all some innings when the games are as important. Sunday its win or go home, so I will work the top 2 or 3 depending on how we are doing. If #1 is hot and going strong, she stays.

 

[dbronstein]

I agree teams need to give more pitchers a chance at the younger ages and lower levels. My DD's old team is a great example. At 10U rec, they had a stud pitcher they rode for two seasons. They had a number two who had most of the rest of the innings and gave an occasional inning to a couple others. My DD gave up on pitching because she was nwver going to get a chance. They moved up to comp last fall, cut my DD along with some others, and their stud pitcher left to play up at 12U. They got through the season, but they've been advertising that they are looking for a pitcher for the spring.

In the meantime, my DD got a chance to pitch on her new team and developed into one of their top two pitchers. The old coaches invited her to try out and she turned them down for obvious reasons.

 

[CoogansBluff]

I agree teams need to give more pitchers a chance at the younger ages and lower levels. My DD's old team is a great example. At 10U rec, they had a stud pitcher they rode for two seasons. They had a number two who had most of the rest of the innings and gave an occasional inning to a couple others. My DD gave up on pitching because she was nwver going to get a chance. They moved up to comp last fall, cut my DD along with some others, and their stud pitcher left to play up at 12U. They got through the season, but they've been advertising that they are looking for a pitcher for the spring.

In the meantime, my DD got a chance to pitch on her new team and developed into one of their top two pitchers. The old coaches invited her to try out and she turned them down for obvious reasons.

I agree. It's probably human nature for first-time 10U coaches to overvalue winning and underrate the long-term potential of their players. If I had 10U to do again, I would provide more opportunities than I did. Not just pitchers, but for fielders to play the infield. Not that I was overly keen on winning, but I'd lean even more toward the philosophy of player development than I did.

That said, I do think it's appropriate that coaches require a minimum level of competency in order to get innings. It's not healthy for the rest of the team if a pitcher is walking or hitting 3 out of every 4 batters. They might need to spend more time in rec league. But I do believe that 10U pitchers who work hard and can limit excessive walks such be given opportunities to reach their potential. You really never know who might be the best in 4-5 years.

 

[dbronstein]

I agree. It's probably human nature for first-time 10U coaches to overvalue winning and underrate the long-term potential of their players. If I had 10U to do again, I would provide more opportunities than I did. Not just pitchers, but for fielders to play the infield. Not that I was overly keen on winning, but I'd lean even more toward the philosophy of player development than I did.

That said, I do think it's appropriate that coaches require a minimum level of competency in order to get innings. It's not healthy for the rest of the team if a pitcher is walking or hitting 3 out of every 4 batters. They might need to spend more time in rec league. But I do believe that 10U pitchers who work hard and can limit excessive walks such be given opportunities to reach their potential. You really never know who might be the best in 4-5 years.

I completely agree with you about player development at that age. And I agree about needing a level of competency before pitching in games, although when my DD was on that team, the leagues we played in had the modified coach pitch so there were no walks, the coach came in for three pitches after ball four, so there was some leeway with the skill level of the pitchers.

A friend of my DD's is still on that team. At the start of the fall season, when they realized they were in trouble without their stud pitcher, the coaches asked the team who wanted to pitch. DD's friend said she did, and the coaches told her "no, you're not a pitcher." The girl had pitched a little in the past and is a great athlete, and given a chance could probably develop into a good pitcher, and they wouldn't even give her a chance for some reason. Her dad asked the coaches about it and they just said they wanted her at first. It made no sense.