I know that Limited Level Ups maintains a tier list for each set which they update periodically. I'm wondering, do any other top players do this? I'm interested in comparing and contrasting. I know a lot of folks do pre-launch tier lists but I'm specifically looking for one that gets periodically updated to reflect new thinking.
I coach a 10U Rec team. We play in a county league that has 20 teams. We practice once a week and have 1-2 games per week. We're non-profit, volunteer, Rec only.
We don't have a Travel program. Travel players would be welcome to join, but we don't have any.
I have a team of great kids. Many of them have played before together both in softball and other sports, and they have good attitudes. They listen at practice and put in the effort. They want to win.
The problem I'm really struggling with is that we keep running up against other Rec teams that are in a completely different class because they have an ace pitcher.
We don't have any pitchers who can throw with a textbook windmill motion with the hop and everything. We have girls who are trying their best to learn that motion and get the ball over the plate.
Then we run into a team that has a girl who is about 6 inches taller than everyone else and is throwing in the 40s mph with textbook form. Our girls don't know what to do because they can't catch up with the pitches. I don't even know of a way to safely simulate 45mph windmill pitches in practice.
For games, we usually get 4 innings in. Travel players can pitch 2 innings, non-Travel players are allowed to pitch 3. We've run into a number of teams that have a highly talented pitcher who is not Travel (according to what they tell the umpire). I can't verify it, but let's assume they're telling the truth. That ace pitcher can pitch 75% of the game.
One team in our league has allowed 5 runs total in 10 games because they have one of these "not Travel" aces. I watched them play, their fielders barely knew what to do because they've faced so few batted balls all season.
My issue is this: I don't care if you play "Travel" or not -- if you have a perfect windmill pitch, you were taught how to do it outside of the Rec league. We practice for one hour per week. There's no way any team is teaching proper pitching in that time span. The motion requires a ton of practice and oversight from someone who knows how to teach it. I've seen so many girls who practice a ton at home and still can't get it because they don't have an expert giving them feedback. They try their best but end up with weird motions and bad habits just to get the ball over, to not embarrass themselves when they do pitch.
Maybe the ace's parent knows how to pitch and taught them, but when I talk to other coaches, most of the ace pitchers take private lessons. Parents are paying hundreds of dollars a week for private lessons, to pitch elementary school Rec softball!
I don't care if we win or lose, but my team does. I'm having a hard time keeping them focused because we're heading into playoffs soon, we have a pretty good record because we usually beat teams without ace pitchers because we have better fundamentals like baserunning and fielding, but they know they're going to run into an ace in the playoffs and not be able to hit the ball.
Have any leagues out there figured out a way to level this playing field? Obviously you can't have rules like "You can't pitch if you know how to actually pitch" and no one wants to get into a messy situation of evaluating individual players to place them at higher levels or split teams into skill divisions, but I feel like this is close to killing our rec organization. We didn't have enough players for a 15U team for the first time this year, and parents are starting to grumble about how it's not worth playing in this "Rec" league anymore if they allow pitchers like that. But I don't have the solution other than to take it on the chin and try to convince our girls they did a great job when they feel awful about not being able to catch up to a pitch.