u/AwfulMouthful

We've been casually looking for a chance to move to a competitive 12U team, and I have to say I'm shocked by how bad teams are at this stuff.

These AI-generated posters you see on FB and softball groups are particularly big offenders. How do you not put where you play? Do you think you're going to sweet-talk me into driving three hours each way for practices? Also, how do you not think to list the date of the tryout ("Wednesday" could be a lot of Wednesdays, particularly with how the algorithms work - this could be this week, it could have been 2021).

Then there's the coaches. Hey, we're only one player away, we swear we have a whole squad but we won't talk about who they are and need your commitment no later than tomorrow. Your kid will play their position and middle outfield and bat cleanup. C'mon, what are you, used car salesmen?

But my new favorite? Team where they swear they're great coaches and love the kids but absolutely will not tell you where they're playing so you can go see a game and where they absolutely won't give you access to see a game recording in Gamechanger. Let me tell you man, there's nothing you could possibly be hiding that's worse than what I assume here.

For a lot of these professional coaches, this is your job man. How are you this bad at it?

Long story short: One of our sister teams has a coach who can't continue in the fall so the team is reforming a bit. We have a chance to pick up a kid to replace a player who's headed to 14U, with the caveat that it'd cause org drama if we were to try and grab their ace or best hitter or etc.

We haven't seen them play much in person, but looking at their batting stats I see one kid that I think they really undervalued. Kid doesn't hit for power, but over the spring and summer (a fair number of ABs) consistently had a high OPS and takes 6+ pitches in almost 40% of plate appearances. But they bat her 8th or 9th and routinely sit her on Sundays (knowing the coach, it's in favor of tall kids with big swings).

I realize a lot of gamechanger stats are screwy because of parents doing parent things, but I figure that stats like Strike Outs and OPS are fairly safe indicators.

Are there other stats actually worth looking at? Or, alternatively, are kids stats completely worthless and I'm overthinking this?

Long story short: One of our sister teams has a coach who can't continue in the fall so the team is reforming a bit. We have a chance to pick up a kid to replace a player who's headed to 14U, with the caveat that it'd cause org drama if we were to try and grab their ace or best hitter or etc.

We haven't seen them play much in person, but looking at their batting stats I see one kid that I think they really undervalued. She doesn't hit for power, but over the spring and summer (a fair number of ABs) she consistently has a high OPS and takes 6+ pitches in almost 40% of her plate appearances. But for reasons I can't figure, they bat her 8th or 9th and routinely sit her on Sundays.

I realize a lot of gamechanger stats are screwy because of parents doing parent things, but wouldn't those sorts of stats still be telling (particularly if you're comparing them apples-to-apples to other kids on the same team)? Are there any others that you'd pay attention to? Or am I kidding myself and they're all basically worthless?

With the college world series behind us, I was reflecting on the quality of the game and the broadcasts and think there are things that could be fixed to make the games more entertaining from both "game on the field" and broadcast quality perspectives without compromising the basic sport or trying to make it into something it isn't (AKA baseball).

As an example, my feeling is that the broadcasts focus way too much on the pitcher. You'll see players shifting around to play a certain batter and it never gets a mention, a fielder will make a great play and it's right back to droning on about the player in the circle. After watching a few games I found it painfully repetitive.

Other suggestions? Rule changes, updates to the fields, broadcasting issues are all in play.

For coaches out there, how often do you consider significant changes to your lineup?

We're about to head into our 5th tournament of the spring and there are a couple of kids who have improved significantly and a couple who are really struggling at the plate against the better pitching we're seeing this year. A couple of significant changes seem to be called for (last year's biggest bat can't make contact, meanwhile the kid we stashed at the bottom of the lineup has been a base-hit machine since she got back).

I want to give slumping batters time to figure it out, I don't want to break anyone's confidence but I also don't want to let it go on too long and wind up leaving wins on the table.

How often do you do major adjustments to your lineup?