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Outfield By The Numbers
by Dave
Friday, March 26, 2010
Math can be a beautiful thing when it is applied properly and/or not overly relied upon. That is true in determining offensive and defensive strategies. That is true when approaching pitch call decisions. And that is true when it comes to positioning outfielders.
I recently witnessed something of a misapplication of math to outfield positioning. I won't criticize the person who committed the sin because I have done it myself many, many times. I only bring it up because I want to spur your thinking and because, through thinking things out thoroughly, I believe we can improve play.
The misapplication of math I saw recently had corner outfielders determining their positions by dividing the distance from the foul lines to the placement of the CF in half and then standing there. This is wrong, most obviously, because when a ball is hit to the gap, both the CF and corner OF are running towards the ball. By contrast, when a ball is hit to the line, only the corner OF is in pursuit. In other words, two OFs should be able to cover more ground than one. So the LF, for example, can divide the distance in half but she should position herself closer to the line than the midpoint. That is the easiest part of the overall analysis and there are certainly more considerations.
Another reason this is wrong is because it does not take into account the speed and ability of each OF involved. Generally your CF should be one of the fastest kids on your team. She should also have some of the best ball instincts. When a ball is hit anywhere on the field, your CF, hopefully, is one of the people who can first judge where it is headed because she has that innate ability to quickly vector the orb coming off the stick. So, she not only gets the best jump on a ball hit to the OF, she is also the fastest one in pursuit. And this should alter the relative positioning of your OFs.
The second consideration has to do with the batter. If a batter is right handed, she will generally hit the ball more sharply (at a higher rate of speed) to left than she will to right. She will do the opposite if she is left handed. There is no question that sometimes a righty will hit a ball sharply to right and a lefty will hit the ball sharply to left. But, by the numbers, this is a less frequent occurrence. So, if you are playing the percentages, in general, all other things being equal, the LF should be shaded more closely to the line than the RF with a righty batter and vice versa with a lefty. It is important to note, however, that all other things are seldom equal!
Our next consideration has to do with the style of batter. There are probably more pure rotational hitters in softball than there are any other style. This reality serves to further magnify the second consideration - the pull side shades the line more. With notable individual exceptions, pure rotational hitters tend to hit the ball the opposite way much less frequently and with much less force than other hitters. There are not many pure linear softball hitters on the planet, excluding some styles of slapping, but we'll get to slappers in a moment.
Probably what is next most often seen, after pure rotational, is the so-called hybrid swing. These hitters can hit to all fields but also tend to pull the ball more than go the opposite way. They do tend to hit more frequent sharp balls down the opposite field line but the percentages say they will tend to pull, again, all other things being equal.
Slappers, especially good slappers, are a much more complicated issue. For beginners, most teams alter the positioning of their infielders on slappers which requires adjustments to the positioning of the outfielders as well. For example, many teams will pull the infield in totally or in part. We can't go over all the possible positionings I have seen for slappers here because I want to move on to other things but, let's assume that at least two infielders are pulled in and the other two are at either normal depth or adjusted to cover for the pulled in ones. Most commonly, the entire OF is pulled in several body lengths, generally positioned about halfway between their normal position and the infield dirt. Sometimes I have seen OFs pulled right up to the dirt. This is inadvisable unless you know the skill level and tendencies of the slap hitter at the plate.
The problem with slap hitters is many are quite good at their craft. They are not only able to slap a grounder where they want to, of course depending on the pitch location, but many are able to get the ball up and over the infield, sometimes much further than that, at will. I have seen a fairly large number of slappers who are quite capable of hitting a ball well into the outfield gaps and bouncing it all the way to the fence on just a couple hops. This opens up one of the most important issues with respect to outfield positioning. Are we so concerned about the slapper getting on base that we are willing to leave much of the field uncovered and which might allow her to get a triple or possibly round all the bases and score on an inside the park homerun?
I understand that many coaches would like to cover the lines and prevent the speedy slapper from drilling one into the corners and thereby accomplishing perhaps the same thing. But that says almost nothing about where the CF is positioned. What exactly is the point of moving the CF in? If the slapper goes up the middle, she uis probably going to get on anyway. There is a very low likelihood that the CF will be able to throw the slapper out at first with anything she can field. It is extremely unlikely that the slapper will be able to leg out a double on anything hit up the middle since the bag will be right in front of the CF. Of course, if she hits the ball over the head of the CF or in the gap, a double becomes a high percentage bet. What I am saying is that if you pull in your outfielders to protect against the slap, at least keep the CF back to cover more ground on the balls hit into the air, especially those in the gaps.
Like I said, you must either know the ability of the slapper in order to set up the defense or you must set up as if she is the best one on the planet until you obtain better information. I suppose that there are a large number of relatively unskilled slappers. These kids can merely hit the ball to ground in front of the plate. I prefer to call this kind of "slapper" by the name "tapper" since I have high respect for the skilled slapper and not particularly much regard for the tapper. If there is a genuine tapper at the plate, you must just as well pull everyone onto the infield dirt and set your team up for an easy ground ball that must be fielded quickly. Genuine slappers are much harder to defend. And if you're not sure, you should assume the worst. To me, that means keeping your CF back at almost normal depth.
Probably the most important consideration in setting up outfielders is going to be something you'd rather not consider or divulge to your opponent, pitch location. What I mean is, if you know that this next pitch is going to be outside, just beyond the corner, you would probably swing your fielders around expecting either a grounder top the pull side way or any kind of hit to the opposite field. Your pull side OF could move in and perhaps cut off bloopers hit beyond the reach of the middle infielder. Your CF could move several body lengths toward the pull side.
I said if you knew where the pitch would be, you could. But you wouldn't, would you? Can you imagine planning to pitch a highly skilled hitter one pitch inside, the next outside, the next inside, and so on. She gets up to the plate and the CF swings 20 feet towards left. The pitch is thrown inside and then the CF moves 40 feet towards right. This continues for just how long before she knows the expected location of the pitch before the pitcher begins her windup? if you positioning fielders on every pitch like that, you are giving way too much information to the hitter.
Of course, I also said if you knew where the pitch would be. That assumes not only knowing where it is going to be called but also where the pitcher will throw it! There are certainly many pitchers who can be relied upon to at least generally hit their locations. I say "generally hit their locations" because there has to be some leeway. Some, few pitchers, can hit their precise location. But many pitchers cannot. They hit their locations within a margin of error of about 6 inches to 1 foot or so. That makes an inside pitch into an outside one. So beyond doing a little math, knowing the style of hitter, understanding her skill level, particularly if she is a slapper, observing her tendencies - assuming you see her often or have scouted her thoroughly - you must also know your own pitcher, including the kind of day she is having today.
OFs can benefit from knowing where the pitch is going to be thrown but, as I said, you don't want to give away pitch location to the hitter and, for most pitchers, you have to make allowance for pitches that miss their marks. Still, if you have a very good pitcher who hits her spots, the OFs can be moved slightly. I would stick to just a couple feet, perhaps one full stride, possibly two. This movement should come fairly late and not occur on absolutely every pitch. It is still best to keep the hitter guessing about where the next pitch is going to be thrown.
This brings me to the manner in which OFs can be told pitch location. I would guess that I still do not see many teams utilizing the most simple strategy for informing their OF of the pitch selection. I went over this a few years back and I can't develop the topic completely but some teams will have one or both of their middle infielders look into the catcher for the sign. They then show the OF behind them that signal by means of a hand in their back. I like this but I need to limit my assessment of its utility a bit. An OF can benefit from knowing what kind of pitch is to be thrown, IF the pitcher can be relied upon to throw it well AND knowing the pitch selection provides information to the OF about its location.
If an OF knows that the pitch is going to be a rise, she might expect a fly ball if the batter makes contact. But she knows nothing about where it might be hit. So she gains little real information. If an OF knows that the pitch is going to be a rise inside, now she has something she can use to be ready should the batter hit the pitch. Actually, knowing the location is probably more important to the OF than knowing the pitch selection. Yet most teams that signal the OF about the pitch call do not signal the location. I really don't understand why that is. Perhaps the best explanation is they do not believe their pitcher hits her mark more often than not and since expecting an outside pitch when an inside one is thrown can backfire, they choose not to sign locations.
You might be left wondering what this is all about if it is a bad idea to move your OF as much as you would want to because you are afraid of giving too much information to the batter. Your repositioning of the OF should be subtle rather than obvious and this doesn't provide all that much benefit. I think you are quite wrong about that. Think of it this way, how many balls are hit just beyond the reach of an OF? If you were able to position her just two feet closer to the landing spot of the ball, she would have caught it. That is what we are after here. There is almost nothing you can do to position an OF to catch a hard liner right in the center of the gap. It is not the absolutely clean and clear hits we are trying to stop. It is the ones which just barely bleed by which we want to turn into outs since those are often the ones which change the outcome of games.
To summarize where we are, before you position OFs based on pure mathematics and distance, you need to add into the equation the fact that in the gaps, there are two OFs chasing the ball but down the lines, there is only one. You also need to factor in the ball skill and speed of each OF. Next the nature of the hitter should be factored in. If you also know her tendencies, you have even more information. Slappers need special attention in this regard. The next item up for consideration is the pitch. The pitch selection may be important but the location is more so. Your pitcher's tendencies to hit or miss location is as important as the called location. Better safe than sorry. Outfield positioning should be subtle not obvious to the hitter. Even with little significant repositioning, benefits can be realized. Now let's move on to some concluding points.
We spend a lot of time, particularly with young girls, teaching them the infielder's ready position. Outfielder's ready position gets scant attention. There are two primary reasons for this. The first is at the early stages, not many balls are hit to the outfield. The second reason is nobody wants to give up and admit that their athletic skills are better suited to the outfield because, in the early years, nothing gets hit out there.
I understand this but I don't accept it. In travel ball, at better 12U games, many balls are hit to the outfield. As a former one time outfielder, the positions in the grass are as honorable as any others. Further, in high school and college the items which most differentiate these levels from age group play, the element that makes the largest difference in the college game, is the play of outfielders. College games can be somewhat difficult to watch because just about every well hit ball that doesn't go over the fence gets caught. The OFs are just that good, particularly on better college teams.
The infield ready position is low to the ground with glove on front of the player, etc. An outfield ready position need not be so low to the ground and the glove need not be up in front of the face because balls are not going to reach the OF as quickly. Still, an OF needs to stand in an athletic position, ready for action. She should be more erect than an infielder but not totally so. Knees should be bent in order to get a good push-off when running after a ball. And whereas infielders generally move towards the plate on the pitch, an OF does not need to be coming forward. More importantly she should begin moving her feet on the pitch. That is because a completely stationery human being is more slow to move in the right direction that another that is already in some sort of motion. A couple short quick stutter steps is enough to put the legs, feet and torso into motion enough to get a better jump on the ball.
Additionally, whereas infielders are square to the face with both eyes equidistant to the point of ball-bat impact, an OF has completely different spacial orientation. The vectoring of a ball from the OF is a much more complicated job. It is much more difficult to pick up direction, trajectory and speed from the OF than it is from the infield. OFs need whatever edges they can generate on their own to vector balls hit towards them.
Because of the realities of seeing the ball off the bat from the OF, many OFs stand sideways to the plate. The reason this provides benefit is because you have two eyes for a reason - that reason is because they provide two points from which to vector moving objects and the further away you are from the flying object, the more you need both eyes to vector it. Standing sideways provides better recognition of all three elements of direction, trajectory and speed. This is probably more true when the OF, like most human beings, has one eye that is stronger than the other.
I think a fundamental mistake some folks make is believing that an OF is standing sideways because she has one primary direction in which to run and the other way is a secondary concern. That being the case, I suppose it would always be advisable for a LF, for example, to face toward the foul line since this is probably her danger zone. Conversely, the RF would face her foul line. I don't know where this is supposed to leave the CF but I suppose she could face RF with a righty at the plate and LF with a lefty. But that is not the point of standing sideways, better visual perception is!
So when a coach talks to his LF who is standing with her shoulders square to center, most often he or she will tell them to face the line instead. That would be right if the coach knew which eye was the stronger of the girl's two but that's generally not the case. The girl knows subtly which eye is stronger. She should know instinctively which way to stand. I always stood facing center when I played left, right when I played CF and the foul line when I played RF. I had absolutely no trouble moving to my right despite facing the "wrong" way. I positioned myself so as to see the ball better. So, coaches, please don't "correct" the way your outfielders set up naturally. make them aware of why they might want to stand sideways and then let them figure out the best way.
My final point for the day has nothing to do with outfield positioning. Rather it has to do with something I believe will yield higher outfield performance. If I watch a major league baseball game, between innings, very often I see OFs walking or slowly jogging with short steps to their positions before throwing a ball for a few tosses. In softball, I generally see one of two types of taking of the field. Either the OFs walk out to their positions while futzing with their hair and/or equipment, or they sprint full out to their spots and then futz with their hair and/or equipment. All of these types of taking the field get under my skin. What, in my humble opinion should happen is, the OFs get their gear and hair in good order before taking the field and then run out easily with very long strides or perform dynamic stretching exercises all the way out to their final destinations.
If you give this some thought, anyone can agree that walking out is bad. Jogging with short steps does nothing for you when you have to sprint into the gaps. An OF needs to both warm and loosen up their legs. Jogging with short steps might warm you up but it does not stretch anything. Sprinting is probably almost as bad as jogging since, although it does make you warm and temporarily a little loose, it tends to tighten up the muscles after a minute or so, by about the time your pitcher is done warming up. Jogging out slowly with long strides should have the opposite effect on tightness and it should warm you up plenty. Performing dynamic stretches would definitely be best but most girls are unwilling to do anything to call attention to their strange behavior as they make their way onto the field!
Related to this aspect is what happens during long innings. The typical half inning is anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes long. I won't belabor the point but 2 minutes is probably a short, one or no baserunner inning. 5 minutes is probably an inning in which the opponent loads the bases or scores a run or two. Seldom does a half inning extend to 10 minutes. Longer innings (5 to at most 10 minutes) usually result from a baserunners and/or runs scoring plus a defensive conference in the circle.
When this happens, usually the entire infield comes to the pitching circle to discuss things with the coach. Also, on most teams, the outfielders saunter together to discuss God only knows what. If they are discussing defensive strategy, that's all well and good. But if they are merely socializing, I would much prefer to see them jogging around with long strides or performing dynamic stretches of some kind. If you've taken my advice and done this at the beginning of the inning but the inning has stretched to 5 minutes or more, your legs have gone cold and tight again. You need to warm them up and stretch them out. Do something smart. Do something that will yield a half step to you as you chase down that line drive in the gap. That way you may catch it and win the game!
Well, that's it for today. I hope I have given you some tips or at least some things to think about. I hope you gained something which will make your or your team's play just a hair better.Labels: outfield
Permanent Link: Outfield By The Numbers
 
43 Changes
by Dave
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The 43 feet vs. 40 feet pitching distance seems to change just about everything!
I don't know which states have switched their high school pitching distance to 43 feet and which will wait until next year but our state has switched for this year. I have been to perhaps a half dozen or so scrimmages thus far and I have to say it makes quite a bit of difference. Lots more balls are hit into play and this changes everything!
It finally occurred to me that I had harbored a misconception when comparing Gold/showcase ball to high school ball. I always assumed that the hitters were far more skilled at the showcase level. They probably are more skilled but not nearly as much as I previously thought. The hitters are better but they are made to seem much better by the further pitching distance.
I have always enjoyed viewing showcases because the quality of play seems so high. The fielding at this level far exceeds what one sees in high school because more players are more gifted and much more experienced and well trained. Whereas in high school games, the average team might have one to five very experienced and gifted kids, the average showcase team at the events I have viewed is filled with that level of player.
A high school team is generally put together with whatever level of ability is available from the, somewhat limited in size, student body. A showcase team might have kids from several states or at least some of the best players within its home state. In any given year, a high school might or might not have a stud pitcher, catcher and shortstop who will play at the next level, and, only in limited circumstances, a lineup of quality hitters from 1 through 9. Very often, there are girls on a high school team who have played little more than a few rec games each year. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that as folks are free to choose what their own priorities are. And many schools have as few as 100 girls from which to fill slots on the softball, tennis, lacrosse, etc. teams, not to mention other time consuming pursuits.
The result is many high school teams have been able to do well despite perhaps having as many as 4 or 5 fairly weak players in their field and batting lineup. One super stud pitcher with perhaps a couple other studs at key positions could propel a team to a relatively high finish within their conference, county and maybe even the state playoffs. That is probably no longer true except in very limited circumstances.
As I said, top showcase teams generally have more depth in the field and seldom "hide" weak fielders. But to be honest, the level of hitting is not quite as gifted as I once thought. That has become evident because now that our high schools pitch from 43 feet, there are a lot more balls hit into play which makes the batters seem more skilled. What has become more apparent is the disparity between the two types of play when it comes to defense.
Generally girls who play showcase ball care deeply about their games. They not only play between 50 and 100 games each year, but also they spend more time working on their skills. They attend clinics, see private coaches, and work hard on their own to be strong defensively as well as with the bat. There are often a lot of girls lined up to make successful showcase teams. The coaches have to pick their roster by deciding between several very skilled girls. They don't generally have to grab some kid to fill a slot even though her defensive skills are weak. There are not many times that a good showcase team will be unable to put together an infield or outfield filled with kids who are at or close to being all conference high school players, at the very least.
Long ago, somebody told me, "the typical high school team is put together with 3 or 4 travel ball players while the typical travel team has 12 travel players." That's obvious enough but the point is, high schools often have a fairly large number of kids who did not have the time to play travel softball. Perhaps they chose to play travel soccer or some other sport. Perhaps they are academic demons who would prefer spending their free time reading scientific journals. But when they thought about what they wanted to do in high school, they decided to go out for softball. And because the total number of kids in their class who went out for softball numbered just 10 or 12, they not only made the team but became a starter.
I can't speak for every high school, and in truth, I'm not really speaking for ours. But I understand from talking to several coaches that many schools do not have freshman teams because, in any given year, they are unlikely to have 9 kids in one class. Some schools I know of struggle to field a JV team. It is quite enough for them to gather 9 live bodies with which to populate the varsity roster. I recall one year in which a particular team had 10 on varsity and 9 on JV. I don't know what they would have done if somebody was injured or quit the team.
The top softball schools in our area have more than enough travel ball players to fill a team, including subs. But that frequently spans more than one class. And some of the younger players, while very skilled, lack the level of experience one might see in a high level showcase or Gold team.
Before I get a bunch of e-mails, please understand that I do know there are some run of the mill "showcase" teams which are very weak. I also can appreciate that there are nominal travel teams and some very weak genuine travel teams. I suppose I'm not really referring to them. I can appreciate that some kids who play some level of travel may not be as good as some other kids who are outstanding athletes but just do not have the time for travel softball. But the general rule is that a girl who plays almost 100 games per year, plays spring, summer and fall, does 2 practices a weak in the "off" season, and receives generally better coaching from the age of 10, 11 or 12, is going to be a better player than one who merely plays a dozen or so rec games for 3 months of the year.
In any event, I'm beginning to blather and dance around the points I want to make. The change to 43 feet has resulted in several important changes to the high school game which I was able to ascertain by watching just a few scrimmages - our regular season begins next week.
The first item on my list is pitchers who once were able to get through games without being touched very much are getting hit much harder. We've been over the speed vs. movement vs. location argument before on this blog. I stick to what I said several years ago. Of speed, location and movement, which is the most important? Yes!
All three elements of pitching are very important. And I'll add to the three biggies with change of speed, deception, and breaking down hitters. A pitcher who has speed but no movement and a mediocre change is going to find trouble unless that speed is somewhere around 65+. There are not many, perhaps any, girls hitting 65 and up on radar guns during their high school years. Actually, there aren't many in college doing that. But a girl who is hitting high speeds may still be able to overpower hitters. Still, more kids will hit balls into play against her than ever before.
If she changes speeds very well, our power pitcher will probably have much greater success. It is easier to overpower even a good hitter with a 62 mph fastball if you just made her swing and miss or stand with a blank stare at a 42 mph change. Throw that same hitter 6 pitches at 65+ during three at bats and I like her chances to catch up with one and drill it a long ways.
If our pitcher can throw a mediocre speed, sharp moving drop, she may not strike out as many batters but she is going to generate a lot of weak grounders. There is certainly room for speed pitchers, especially against weak hitters but movement has been raised up a notch in importance at the high school level with the move to 43. As I said, I hold to my ideal pitcher with speed, movement, location, etc. but at the high school level, I think the girls who got by on speed alone will find it much more difficult to do so this year.
Along with more balls being hit into play comes, obviously, lots fewer K's. Some pitchers are going to have a difficult time soothing their bruised egos when they graduate from games routinely 14 strike-outs to those with just 4. Also, innings which started out with an error and ended with the runner stranded and the score stuck at 0-0 will be fewer. Gone are the days when our once overpowering pitcher will be able to work her team out of trouble by blowing a few past the next three hitters. A much more likely scenario is maybe one K and two grounders or outs made someway else. Runs are going to score against many teams and pitchers unaccustomed to the experience.
So what happens to those balls hit into play? Well, they either drop as hits or are fielded by defensive players and played into, hopefully, outs. Because pitchers will continue to use the full extent of the strike zone and areas around it, those balls are going to be sprayed all over the place. All 7 defensive positions, excluding the Ps and Cs, are going to have to field their positions much more than in the past. In the course of many games I have watched, there have been a high percentage of those in which one particular fielder or several of them have not made a single play, excluding backups or base running ones, during a full game or several games consecutively. I do not believe that will be the case with the new pitching distance.
The other day, I watched a weak team play a scrimmage against a pretty average one and over just two rather difficult innings, I saw balls hit to every fielder. The innings contained several strike-outs as weaker hitters eventually made their ways through the order. But there were more balls hit into play than I have ever seen at any one game in just those two innings. And the weak fielders became very evident.
I recall a similar game a couple years ago in which the score ended at 2-0. despite the teams each containing weak fielders, few balls were hit into play and very few were hit well. One kid was responsible for both runs as she had a 2 for 3 day at the plate. The runners who scored on each of those hits were the only other base runners the team had. The opponent had perhaps 3 or 4 who were stranded after successive strike-outs. Of the total of maybe 8 baserunners for the whole game, for both teams, there were perhaps 3 hits, 2 walks and 3 errors. the game was played in well under two hours. based on what I saw in this scrimmage, that same game probably would have been 12-10 with 20-25 hits, 10 errors, etc. Of course games between two good teams with two good pitchers, etc. will still be won by one run. But I suspect rather than being 9 inning, 1-0 quick flings, they will be 9 inning, 3-2 exciting affairs. Games between good teams will be longer, involve more baserunners and runs, and see saw back and forth more than in the past. Games between bad teams will be high scoring and involve a lot of misplays.
At another scrimmage I watched a team comprised of two teams with mostly travel ball players, I had to remind an acquaintance of mine who was the father of one pitcher that the distance had increased. He had watched his daughter play top level showcase ball for a couple years but was unaccustomed to seeing her get hit in high school games. He was besides himself. When I mentioned the distance change, his face lit up and he calmed down. He had forgotten about that little item.
Despite all the balls being hit into play, his daughter's team did well. They were mostly very skilled fielders and played most balls into outs. They scored some runs and easily defeated their scrimmage partner. I think they'll do quite well this year because their defense is very sound. Solid defense is going to win a lot of games this year. Defenders are going to get lots more experience actually fielding balls!
In years past I have watched a team that had good fielders but which also sported a very dominant strike-out pitcher. She threw lots of no hitters. Many of the games she pitched involved very few balls hit into play. She was so dominant that the fielders could have sat down at a table in center field and had tea for most of the innings. Occasionally, they would have to get up when she walked someone. But the rest of the time was pretty leisurely. And this was problematic for the team when they got into championship play.
During the later part of the season, when better teams play against better teams, the team which makes the biggest mistakes usually loses. This team with the dominant pitcher never really got its defense into sync. The players were talented but having played very few games in which the defense was tested at all, their combined defensive skill was not what it might have been. They faltered at a bad time and were eliminated despite probably having the best team in the competition. This year, with many more balls being hit into play, I imagine they will gel to a much higher degree.
When fielders stand in their positions for a long time without balls being hit to them and with the expectation that there is a low likelihood that they will see any action, they atrophy. They get back on their heals, think about their next at bat, and otherwise drop out of the game for half an inning. On the other hand, when a fielder expects that, on any given pitch, she is likely to have to make a play, she is going to play defense. She will be ready. She will be on her toes. She will be sharp. So good defensive players are likely to really enjoy the change in the pitching distance.
On the other hand, poor fielders are going to tense up and make errors with more balls being hit into play. When an unskilled fielder has a high expectation of a ball being hit to her which she doubts she will be able to field cleanly, she gets so tense that, in general, she will make worse errors than she would if she were relaxed and confident. The best cure for this is going to be good coaching and loads of repetition. Coaches who want to be successful with less talented players than they would like are going to have to make the difference by working hard with their weakest players. Fundamental skill teachers will see their teams compete better than coaches who just round up their kids and work plays.
Certainly plays will continue to be important but in prior years, with fewer overall balls being hit into play, coaches could round up their best players, populate the higher profiled positions with them and work plays that didn't involve those with lesser skills. In general, that means infield because with very few balls hit into play, the focus was much more on dealing with baserunners, short game considerations, and that sort of thing. Fewer balls were hit to the outfield and teams could hide kids in the corners.
Every member of the defensive team is going to have an important role to play in determining who wins and who loses games. Skills of the weakest players are going to be tested. , i Kids who cannot field well are going to make bad plays. Outfield cut-offs, for example, are going to be much more critical. It is one thing when a 1-0 game is determined by a runner from third scoring on a short fly. It is quite an another when, in a 5-3 game, there is a fly ball with runners on second and third and the outfielder throws late and offline to home, allowing the runner from second to move up and score on the next fly ball. Girls are going to not only need to know the cut-off plays but, perhaps more importantly, be able to throw very well so as to hold runners from advancing.
I think of the various scrimmages I have watched, the majority of additional baserunners over prior years has been due to balls being played badly and the additional runs came from mental mistakes made by players with apparently less experience. Soft liners that would be caught at a higher level find the ground. Over throws start the merry-go-round to spinning. And throws to wrong bases have provided the opportunity for more runners than ever before to move up. The game most certainly has changed.
In games between good, sound defensive teams, in the past a runner might get aboard somehow, move up on a bunt and then languish as the next two hitters struck out. Now, it is more likely that such runners move around the bases on balls hit into play, if not necessarily for base hits. If a team gets a runner on third with less than two outs, the likelihood that a run will get pushed across will be much higher than in years gone by. The value of a grounder hit up the middle is going to go up. That means the defenses which are able to play such balls and nail the runner at the plate are going to have an advantage.
Aside from this, defenses are going to have to short-circuit potentially big innings. They may have to get hitters out at first instead of always playing to stop the run. That takes some discipline, planning and coaching. Too often, in the past, I have seen fielders always seeking and failing to get the lead runner. That is not such a huge deal when the next couple of hitters go down swinging. But when runners are moved via productive outs, bigger innings will follow such mental mistakes.
In short, the reduction in the number of strike-outs is going to change more than the face of the game. Pitchers are going to have to become more crafty and rely less on overpowering hitters. They will have to change speeds, move the ball and hit spots. Defenses are going to have to be better in order to win games. Fundamental skills will be far more important. Coaches are going to have to train their weakest players better than ever before. Scores will go up, games will get longer, and weak teams are going to have a heck of a time. Better tams will still play exciting games against better teams but more of the thrill is likely to be out there in the field.
I have always considered myself a baseball and softball purest - I like 1-0 pitchers duels. But having seen some of these games with more balls hit into play, I have to say that I agree with the powers who decided to put this in motion. The game is vastly improved by having more balls hit into play and involving defensive teams more. It is no less exciting to watch two very good teams play to a 3-2 final score than it was to sweat it out through a 1-0 one.
The only issue I have with this change is I happen to have one kid in middle school. Their conference always follows the high school rules. They are pitching at 43 feet! In the past their games have been relatively high scoring, rather long and involved fairly large numbers of errors. I am somewhat afraid of what this year will bring.Labels: batting, defense, high school, rules
Permanent Link: 43 Changes
The Collector
by Dave
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
A visitor to the site wrote in with a story about her daughter's travel ball team. She wrote:My daughter plus some friends formed a core of a new 14U team. The coach who arranged this team had a superstar head coach who would run things. We met him with his aging up team.
In order to form this team we needed many players to fill out the roster. We pulled it together and started winning. The original premise in forming this young team was to keep them together for 2 years and develop them into a force to be reckoned with!
The team's success is now attracting new players and it seems like when a new better thing comes along (especially a pitcher) a current player that has handled a position more than adequately is being benched. This leaves the player who thought they had a position locked up blindsided after welcoming the new teammate.
Question: Is this a common practice in travel ball? Is it ethical?
My immediate response to this question was, "no, this is not common in travel ball but it does happen. When you experience something like this, run like heck to get away from the coach and then make sure everyone with whom you come into contact learns your lesson." I think further analysis is justified because, while, as I said, this is not common, it is more common than it should be and the fallout can be so devastating that we should all educate ourselves and know the signs so we can avoid becoming a victim.
I have often heard folks in softball claim there is no longer any loyalty in travel softball. That means players are not loyal to teammates, teams or coaches and coaches and teams are not loyal to players. If this is true, on one hand, it could be the result of our society's "free agent" thinking and win at all costs ethos. On the other hand, the existence of coaches who "collect talent" combined with the supposed lack of loyalty within the game may just be manifestations of each other, an ever widening circle.
I say folks "claim" there is no longer any loyalty; "if this is true"; etc. because I am not entirely convinced that there is more disloyalty than there is real loyalty. I thin k I need to get down to common denominators before analyzing further.
The best definition of loyalty I can pull together quickly is - a strong sense of allegiance to a person or a cause combined with a willingness to sacrifice for them or it including a level of commitment of time and effort in order to accomplish some common goal. I suppose the most important words/concepts within the concept of loyalty are allegiance, sacrifice, commitment, common.
In this crowded world of billions of people, often working at odds with each other, it can be difficult to know the correct course of action to take in order to live one's life to the fullest. When one finds himself living in a crowded place, there is often a great deal of competition for too few resources. There are 6 loaves of bread and 20 families to feed. Our religious upbringing suggests that we can all share the bread and thereby feed everyone but the fact is 6 loaves will probably only feed, at most 10 families. We arrive early to get on line. We refuse to accept late comers' attempts to cut the line. We show little compassion to anyone seeking food. We look out for ourselves because nobody else is likely to.
In a more rural setting in which there may be just as little resources, we find ourselves a little more compassionate and willing to sacrifice because, given the rural circumstances, we intuitively understand that one day it will undoubtedly be ourselves seeking help. We form allegiances with our neighbors out of necessity. We form allegiances because we are better off with them. Such is the principle under which many societies have formed and remained strong. We help each other because we have a common goal, to survive, and we know that we will need each other in order to accomplish that goal. In urban settings, we don't even know the others who are on the line with us and we know that 1) we will probably never see them again and 2) they will never be able to help us achieve our goal of survival and most likely would be unwilling to help, if they could. We form allegiances with few, if any, others.
Somewhere between my hypothetical urban and rural settings lies the world of travel fastpitch softball. At first we may not see the society we enter as small or one in which we need our rural neighbors. It seems more like a city. But before long, we recognize the need for allegiances. Our kid's team is falling apart because half the kids are aging out and we need to find a new one. We see that guy we have been talking to for the past year and he knows a team that needs our kid and her friend. We need one kid to join our team because that ace pitcher has given up softball for travel soccer. That guy knows a good pitcher who is looking for a team.
Within the small confines of a particular team, allegiances build up because the coaches need to teach the girls and their effort would be largely thankless were it not for the affection which forms bonds that lead to allegiances. Parents understand that one kid who lives not so very far from them needs a ride to practices because they have just one parent and that parent must work late on practice days. Coaches, parents, and kids all work together to make the team possible. They form bonds and those bonds make the whole thing possible.
The term sacrifice is a strange animal. Sacrifice means giving up something and that has come to be somewhat foreign to the language of our country and society. The only way for our president to sell his healthcare plan (no you cannot have my opinion on that), was to claim that nobody would have to sacrifice in any way, shape or form. When our school systems have to cut out some expenditure to balance the books, we stand, biting fingers, hoping that whatever is cut will not affect our kids' experience. We feel strongly that the school budget should be cut but we are not so much willing to give anything up. In a very real sense, we are like employee unions who understand there is a potentially devastating shortfall but are still unwilling to give up anything to keep the ship floating.
That's society and athletics are another matter. &nbvsp; Often, at least initially, the "sacrifice" required in sports is seen as a positive. Kids like practice almost as much as the games. And because they want to do well in games, they are willing to practice harder to accomplish their personal goals. Practice is sacrifice but it doesn't always seem like it. I don't know what your experience is like but my kids would be just fine missing all sorts of family get-togethers in order to find more time to practice softball.
Of course, when it doesn't hurt, that's not really sacrifice! Sacrifice happens when a kid has to give up a day at the beach in order to practice or play a scrimmage. If you are serious about softball, you cannot go out to the movies late on Friday night if you happen to have a first tournament game on Saturday at 8:00 am. You ought not have "sleepovers" on Saturday nights when the elimination round is Sunday beginning at 9:00. I have happily "sacrificed" a lot for my kids softball but I suppose that is not really sacrifice if I do it happily. It is the days when I miss the big game on TV, have to skip a BBQ with people I like to spend time with, or otherwise cannot do something I would rather do in order to play a second rate tournament or conduct a needed practice, which involve a measure of sacrifice. Catching my pitcher daughters when my wrist, shoulder or neck are killing me is sacrifice. My daughters doing a pitching session in February instead of going sledding with their friends is sacrifice.
Sacrifice is a complicated issue. For the most part everybody in softball is willing to give up something but that giving up must be repaid with something else that is arguably more important than that given up. The trick is to give up something you know you have (like a day at the beach) for something that may or may not pan out, like winning this tournament or beating that team. Sacrifice isn't really sacrifice unless and until you are uncertain about the rewards.
Commitment is an easier subject to touch upon quickly once you get past the term "sacrifice." Commitment is really a solemn pact one makes either with oneself or others to endure sacrifice in order to achieve something which is highly uncertain. Commitment comes in all shapes and sizes. There is the commitment one makes when signing up for a team to stay with that team for one year. That is the typical commitment made in travel softball because it is really a one year cycle. The implication of the visitor who posed the question was that their team involved a two year cycle and I understand how folks can interpret things that way. But because most organizations conduct tryouts at the same time each year and because most teams form under a one year commitment, that is the standard. It is somewhat unusual in travel softball circles for anyone to make a more than one year commitment because things change over time. Likewise, a "commitment" for less than one year is not seen as any kind of commitment at all.
When one commits to a team, generally one is committing to more than merely remaining a member of the roster for one year. Generally, one is agreeing to make all or most of the practices, to put out effort at those practices in order to help become better as an individual player and also to help the entire team get better, to work privately on one's own to improve skills in order to live up to a certain level of play, and to do whatever one sees one needs to do in order to help the team.
Very often pitchers see their level of commitment as a bit higher than other players. And it is because pitchers need to work on their pitching when others are doing almost nothing for their individual games. Pitchers practice more than other players, particularly in the off season. My own pitching daughters will come home from strenuous practices with their teams, but practices in which they did not pitch, and note that they need to spend time right afterwords cleaning up a pitch or two. While others are licking their wounds, taking showers or laying down for a nap, the pitchers are often still working.
It is certainly true that many non-pitchers do lots more work than mere team practices. Obviously, some girls take hitting instruction. Some attend defensive clinics. Some engage in training regimens that far exceed the normal practice work. And this displays a higher level of commitment, one that, if not rewarded immediately, will undoubtedly pay dividends not only to the individual but also her team(s), for years to come.
Commitment includes not merely making practices or working on one's craft or athleticism but also being healthy, awake, alert, etc. for all or most of the team's tournaments. That often means giving up things one would rather not give up, i.e. sacrifice, in order for the team to get someplace together. And this brings us to the term "common."
The commonality one shares in being a member of a team is really what all athletics is about. Why do we practice? &n bsp; To get better! Why do we want to get better? To win or play much more competitively! Ah, the common goal, that is what this team stuff is really all about.
So loyalty consists of, among perhaps other things, allegiance to the team including coaches, sacrifice in the name of that allegiance, commitment to make such sacrifices in order to live up to the allegiance, and a commonality of purpose. Loyalty must be a two way street because when one swears an allegiance, sacrifices for the group's good, and lives up to the commitment, one expects the entire team to do likewise.
On more than one occasion, I have watched games in which one kid has risen above the others or made much more substantial improvement because she worked and sacrificed to achieve more than her teammates. Sometimes, this can be reciprocated by the other team members who, witnessing the higher level of commitment, feel obligated to step up their own efforts. When everyone on a team catches this commitment virus, what we have is that magical thing called team chemistry. If we have that magical team chemistry, eventually it is going to pay off with accomplishment of common goals.
Also, on more than a few occasions, I have witnessed circumstances on which a few players on a team have not lived up to their commitment. They miss practices somewhat regularly, make excuses for various shortcomings. They have those late night sleepovers before an early Saturday game or even before the elimination games. A ball is hit to a kid who is just two tenths of a second late to react and this results in an error which costs a game, sending everyone home.
A key player failed to express that she would not be at some key tournament because she has a very important engagement to attend a family party or go on some vacation. The team gets smoked, losing all its games, because they were not able to replace that player in the lineup. Everyone is mad about it and just a little less willing to sacrifice something because they know this other person was able to pull it off. I can't count the number of times I have been in the coaches area or along the sidelines when some kid was not going to be there for an entire tournament. First, someone counts the number of player and wonders aloud, "who is missing?" Then someone else identifies the missing kid. They wonder where she is until a fourth person says, "0h, she is at her grandparents for a BBQ." Someone interjects, "Oh that's too bad but what's worse is we could have been at one too! Maybe next time we will go to the BBQ instead of the tournament."
This loyalty thing doesn't merely go from player to player within a team. It extends to the relationship between the coaches and all players and between all involved parties including parents. often when a kid misses practice, it is because the parent had something they would rather be doing. -; Maybe the kid missed a practice or tournament because the father's boss is having a picnic and he wants to go schmooze with his cronies. Maybe best friend Bob always has something big for March Madness and dad is not willing to take the kids to their "stupid practice" because he really, really likes hoops. Parents have to be responsible for making the commitment to hauling their kids to practices and doing so on time.
One of the more comical scenarios I have ob served is the one in which some kid repeatedly makes it to practice but is always late. Coaches get upset with this. You get your butt their at least 15 minutes before the scheduled time. You give it another 5 minutes so you have at least 10 kids. You get them all stretching and throwing but now you're 10 minutes behind schedule. You start the first drill and are almost done when all of a sudden, here comes another car and it is carrying Sally.
Sally is always this late to practice. And when she falls out of the car, she's usually only half dressed. She usually forgot something and has to borrow it from someone else. Sally is very popular with the other girls. They'd like to say hello to her. This is extremely disruptive to your practice which is now perhaps 20 minutes behind schedule. Sally's parent stays in their car or pulls away abruptly to run some other kid to some other practice. The coach is mad and he'll probably take it out on Sally. he may even be one of those emotionally well balanced individuals who will rationally explain to Sally that she simply must get to practice on time, or else ....
The truth is, Sally is just 11 or 12 or 13. She can't drive yet. And while you might expect her to at least be ready when her mom or dad drives her to practice rather than falling out of the car missing one shoe, etc., the fact is she wasn't home before coming. Her mother or father was out at the store with her and ran into a friend. She or he was gossiping with a friend when they realized practice had already begun. They pulled enough clothing out of the trunk and instructed Sally to make do. In short, it wasn't Sally's fault that she was late to this practice and it is never Sally's fault that she is always late to practice. What has happened is the parents have failed to understand their commitment.
There is much more to commitment once we bring in the coach-player relationship. Coaches, players, and parents all need to understand the pact they are making by entering into this joint venture. If, as the visitor to the site expressed, there is a certain plan under which a team has been pulled together, that play ought to be lived up to by all parties. This is the critical element to the loyalty between the parties on a travel ball team. And this is what is lacking in the circumstances enumerated above.
If a coach pulls together a certain group with the idea that this girl will be the primary shortstop, this one a catcher, that one a pitcher, etc. It should be understood that this is the way things are. I question the two year plan but fully understand the notion of trying to up the level of play over the long haul to make a team that is assumed to be less than competitive into a "force to be reckoned with." Still, reality is always more complicated than the best laid plans of mice and men.
There are times when a coach suspects that a player is not living up to their assumed level of commitment. For example, one kid seems to be a rapidly developing hitter at tryouts. She is added under the assumption that she will continue her hitting lessons and continue to take 100 swings a day year round. So when she starts out the year with a gigantic O-fer and the coach must move her down in the order to make room for the new "rapidly developing hitter," obviously noses are going to get out of joint and persons are going to believe others are not living up to their commitments. When the final pitcher added to the roster shows up at batting practice, is asked to throw, and can last no longer than 5 minutes, the coach is likely to ask her when the last time she threw was. If she says, "about two months ago," chances are very good the coach will be inwardly angry. If she gets pummeled in that hitting practice, he may suspect that he will not be able to count on this girl to eat innings during the early tournaments at the very least.
There can be times when an entire team is either not living up to the commitment a coach expected of everyone or is actually not seeming to live up to any level of commitment at all. From time to time, an entire team can take an attitude that once they are rostered, they get to relax and enjoy the ride. That is somewhat uncommon but it does happen almost as frquently as that magical chemiostry thing we spoke about before.
Loyalty involves a two way (at least) street. I know of a few folks who have from time to time joined travel teams, sometimes expensive ones, under the assumption that the team would, for example, practice 3 times per week from the end of school onwards. Then they get to the end of the season and recognize that the total number opf outdoor practices for the whole season was something they could count on just one or two hands. Or, alternately, a bunch of parents come together under the assumption that this or that coach who really knows their stuff is running the team. Unfortunately, that coach is not forceful enough and the other coaches refuse to listen to him or her. The idiot who actually knows absolutely nothing is calling all the shots. One parent was hopeful that this gal who played in college as recently as 5 years ago would teach his daughter how to really play third base. Instead, the guy wearing a baseball cap is requiring her to set up behind the bag and cover the base on all steals. He doesn't know squat and is freely teaching it to this parent's kid!
The situations I have described are somewhat normal. Nothing in this world is actually perfect. That is what makes it a perfect world! Teams form. Team fall apart. Some kids improve, some kids stay where they are, and some kids fall off. interest abbs and flows. Sacrifice is sometimes met with sacrifice and other times with lack of sacrifice. Commitments are lived up to and failed to be lived up to. Loyalty can sometimes be fleeting and is almost never absolute. Kids move on. Coaches move on. parents are unwilling to live with certain levels of commitment when they suspect their kid might decide to change priorities in the near-term future. That's just the way it is.
But in shorter terms, I do believe there is no real lack of loyalty. When I pull kids together and discuss a skill and ensuing drill, there is a decided majority who pay attention and give it their best. I have interacted with more players who are willing to do almost anything any coach asks of them than I have encountered kids on the ball field who really do not care. I have found myself driving to pick up the other kid from her practice and seen a kid from my team out working drills exactly as I suggested she should with her father. There is plenty of loyalty out there. If you have a team of 12 and only 10 show up for practices regularly, well, then you've got ten twelfths living up to the commitment.
Still, I understand folks frustration when they encounter that lack of commitment and sacrifice. Sometimes the exception seems like the rule. Sometimes the anecdotal is considered the general. Sometimes when one encounters one very bad thing and then perhaps finds it someplace else, one wonders if this is not the rule for the mini-society of travel softball. But I'm an optimist on this. I do not believe there is a real lack of loyalty in girls fastpitch travel softball. l; yet I have seen the particular circumstances described and I want to address it.
I once upon a time knew a coach who I would refer to as a "collector." He had a team with a full roster. They were pretty good but nothing special. They lacked a stud pitcher. Their SS was adequate but not a true "A" SS. Their hitting was somewhat weak. Obviously, although they were competitive, they did not play a lot of Sunday games.
One day a true stud pitcher, who was rostered on another team at a higher age group approached this coach - her father did, that is. The coach was informed of this kid's eligibility to play at the coach's team's age level and that she was free on several weekends they were playing tournaments. The kid was in vited to guest for 3 tourneys. She came in, knocked down batters easily and took the team to a championship at one or more of these guest tournaments.
The coach liked the taste of playing several games on Sunday. He was hooked. Later and in later years, he brought this girl in to pitch for his team. Then another similarly situated stud pitcher volunteered her services. Then another player came along, and another and eventually another. This went on for yars and I don;t really recall the precise events. But sfuccie it to say that players came and went and so did guests. At one point, I believe the guy had an official roster of 15 or more names.
Needless to say that when the first stud pitcher came in, the team's existing pitchers saw less time in the circle. Some no longer saw any pitching time. When two studs were available, most of the original pitchers either sat the bench or played other positions, at least until other position players started showing up. In the end, I suppose, it was possible for an original member of the team to see zero action or perhaps two to three innings just on Saturdays at each tournament the team played.
Does anyone need to be told this is a bad situation? I guess this coach does. To my knowledge, he is still out there doing this. And you know what? His team, in the overall sense, is not any better than when he started it.
I remember takling my daughter to a multi-team tryout one year in which there was one team we we were interested in. My daughter had already decided to accept an offer from another team but we had not communicated this yet. And if the one team asked her to join, she was probably going to say yes and forget about the other team. The other team at the tryout had a guy there who was known as a "collector." He too had once had 15 or more kids on his roster. During the course of the tryout, not a particularly good one for my kid, the collector came up to me and asked, if the other coach does not want your daughter, do you want to come with us? I looked the guy straight in the eye and thought of everything I wanted to tell him. Then I felt my mouth open up and say just one word, "NO!"
The collector coach was a bit surprised by my response. He seemed as surprised by its brevity and terseness as he was by the message. He stood there somewhat dumbfounded, looking at me. Then it struck him that I was not going to say anything more. He said, "OK" and walked away. I don't think he got it. I don't think he understands that he has a reputation which he can never overcome. I don;t think he understands that folks along the sidelines talk about him and his collection all the time.
The fallout for a kid who is a member of the team run by a collector is likely to suffer serious consequences. if she happens to be the number one at some position and a new kid comes to replace her, the rest of her season is going to be less than what she had hoped for. Worse, the team is going to build up some animosity as more and more better kids are collected rostered and placed into the lineup. The whole experience may damage her but this can be rectified, hopefully, when she gets to join another team without a "collector."
The coach on the other hand is going to become known as a collector. His tryouts are going to eventually be filled up with misfits, malcontents and generally people who are unwilling to make any sort of commitment to others. Heck, the kids and parents who populate the collector's roster know his reputation. They won't feel any particular compulsion to live up to any commitment. They know the guy's reputation as well as anyone else does. This stuff circulates far and wide.
When one first enters the fray, the world of travel ball seems very large. But before long, it is easy to recognize that it is a relatively small, somewhat closed, in some sense close-knit, group. We go to our first tournament and know almost nobody. We go to our second and recognize one of the teams, perhaps a coach or parent. As our experience broadens, it occurs to us that we see the same people over and over again. One day we find ourselves talking to someone we don't know along the sidelines of some game. Then we see them again two weeks later and talk some more. Within a few, brief years, we seem to know everybody and, of course, everybody's business!
Human beings like to talk. We also love scandal. In other words, we love to talk about anything but the best stuff to talk about is scandal. Discussions that are completely positive get a little boring!
"How are you?"
"Great and you?"
"Great! How's your daughter's team?"
"Great! Yours?"
"Great. Everything is going so well I have nothing bad to say."
"You know, that's exactly how I would characterize our experience. This year is going so great, I just don't know where to begin."
"OK, so I'll see you later. My kid's team is starting up now. Gotta run." (you absolute freakin nut)
Travel softball parents often spend their entire weekend at some complex mixing with other travel parents. We swap stories, gossip, and hopefully a little juicy scandal. Over time, reputations are established and ruined. There is competitive jostling over who is having the best experience and developing both as a player and person. There are war stories. There can be a little competition about who has the juiciest scandal or gossip.
"So, how's it going?"
"Pretty good. Pretty good. Say, did you hear about ... this guy actually did ... he said ... right to the players ... and the team up and quit ... he's trying to ... but ..."
"Excuse me one second." To wife who is trying to pull him towards the field where their daughter is playing because the game is about to begin, "You go ahead. I'll be along in a minute. I want to finish this conversation with Ralph first."
So, the moral of the story is, there is a strange animal out there called "the collector." If you encounter him, kick him in the shins and then run away as fast as you can. You probably won't recognize him at first. But if others tell you this is what he does, pay close attention. They very well may be right. Don't stay on a team with a collector as coach. Find someplace where there is actual loyalty. That means a team where words like allegiance, sacrifice, commitment, common goal actually mean something. Don't merely accept that these terms are thrown around. See that they are lived up to. See that you, your kid, the coaches and everybody else around you is willing to live up to them, for one year.
Good luck in your softball endeavors.Labels: parents, youth tournament teams
Permanent Link: The Collector
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