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Fall Ball Is a Great Time to See What You Have
It seems like only yesterday that the summer travel ball season was getting started – and teams were already promoting open workouts and private tryouts for the next season.
Well, next season is now officially upon us, and with that comes fall ball games. Back when I was coaching teams, fall ball usually meant one practice a week, a couple of double headers (if you could find another team that wanted to play), and maybe a tournament or two if you could scrape up enough players who weren’t committed to fall sports at their schools.
Nowadays for most teams, though, practices are multiple times per week (3-4 for some teams!), there’s a tournament practically every weekend through Halloween, and maybe even a few more “friendlies” sprinkled in here and there. That’s progress I guess.
If you are following this type of heavy schedule I do have a suggestion for you: don’t just treat it like summer ball 2.0. Instead, use at least some of this time to figure out what you have in the way of players. I mean, hopefully you chose well in the tryout process, but you never really know until you see them in action.
To do that effectively you have to be willing to do something that many coaches these days seem reluctant to do: potentially lose some games you might have otherwise won.
For example, instead of pitching your Ace for one out of two games of pool play and as many bracket games as she can go without her arm falling off like you usually do, try using your #2, #3, or even #4 more. Your #1 will probably appreciate the additional rest and recovery time, and you’ll have more opportunity to see what the other pitchers (especially the new ones) can do in a game situation.
There is also an added bonus to this strategy: If your #1 is a strikeout pitcher and the others are more “pitch to contact,” your fielders will get more work and you’ll gain a better understanding of exactly what you need to work on – whether it’s skills, knowing what to do with the ball, communicating effectively or some other aspect. Better to find out now than next summer when it’s probably too late to do anything about it.
One other thing you can do with pitchers is maybe leave them in the circle a little longer than you usually might to see if they can work their way out of a jam or regain their control if they start to lose it a little. Sometimes all a pitcher needs to get out of funk is to get more innings; this is the perfect time to make that happen.
You can also use the fall to shake up your batting order a bit and give hitters who normally are at the bottom a chance to get a few more at-bats. Maybe you don’t move the whole bottom up to the top at once – no sense in going crazy with it – but moving one or two up strategically might help them find their rhythm better and might give you some extra quality bats throughout the lineup for when you need them most.
Going back to fielders, the fall gives you a good chance to see what your backups at a particular position can do. Instead of using, say, the same shortstop or the same catcher, or the same something else in every game, put those backups into a starting role and see how they handle it; they might just surprise you.
The fall is also a good time to try out different strategies to A) see how your team handles them and B) short up any areas of deficiency you discover.
For example, I know the short game isn’t as important in fastpitch softball as it used to be. Everyone digs the long ball these days, but there are still times when the ability to perform a suicide squeeze or lay down some other type of bunt can make the difference between winning and losing a big game.
If you try it in the fall and it works, you’ll have more confidence trying it next spring. And if it doesn’t, well, that practice plan kind of writes itself.
The same goes for unusual defensive sets. If you’re facing a speedy slapper maybe you want to try pulling your second baseman or shortstop in closer, like up next to the circle, to see if you can take away her speed.
Or if you’re facing a situation where you’re pretty sure the offense is going to try a bunt, bring your first and third basemen in about 15 feet away from home to give them a better shot at making the play. You can even try having them shift into that from a more traditional set once the pitcher is ready to throw the pitch so you don’t give it away.
You can also use the fall to try some trick plays, like those first and third plays you keep practicing but never call, or faking a throw to first on a ground ball to see if you can sucker the lead runner into a rundown. The possibilities are endless.
Sure, there are times when you’re going to have to go with what you know. If you’re trying to win an early bid to Nationals next year to get that out of the way you’re probably going to want to play to win. But if it’s a meaningless tournament, or a showcase where you’re just going to play X number of games and then go home, why not use it to find out what you don’t know?
Yes, it can be difficult to lose a game you might’ve won, and nobody likes losing. But taking that small risk now can pay big rewards down the road.
Don’t just take it from me, though. On our From the Coach’s Mouth podcast Jay Bolden and I have spoken to several college coaches who have followed this fall ball strategy to help them get ready for the spring. If it’s good enough for them…
Leaves photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Honesty Is Still the Best Policy When Talking to Players
There is a joke I heard a long time ago that pretty much sums up the softball player recruitment and retention process. It goes like this:
This guy dies and meets St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. He’s excited about making it to Heaven, but St. Peter informs him that he is required to give the guy a choice about where he wants to spend eternity – Heaven or Hell. The guy is surprised, but figures rules are rules and goes along with it. St. Peter tells him he will get to check out each, then must make his decision.
He starts with a tour of Heaven. It’s everything he’d heard – angels sitting on clouds playing harps, everything white, everything calm and peaceful. It all seems pleasant enough and the guy is pretty sure what his decision will be.
Then he’s sent to Hell for a tour there. The Devil meets him at the Gate and welcomes him in warmly. As they walk inside the guy sees a huge party going on with plenty of alcohol, loud music and beautiful people dancing, singing and having the time of their lives.
“I’m shocked,” the guy says. “This isn’t what I pictured at all. I was expecting fire, brimstone and torture.”
“Fake news,” the Devil responds. “That’s just Heaven’s propaganda to try to keep humans from having a good time while they’re on Earth. It’s like this all the time.”
The guy joins in the party while he’s there, but pretty soon his time is up and he must go back to Heaven and give St. Peter his decision. “What do you think?” St. Peter asks him.
“Well, no one is more surprised than me but I am going to choose Hell,” the man says.
“Really?” St. Peter asks incredulously. “You realize this is for all eternity and there’s no going back?”
“Yes,” the man replies. “I appreciate all you’ve done but I’ve made my decision and that’s where I want to go.”
“Ok,” St. Peter tells him. “It’s your decision.” So St. Peter proceeds to do all the paperwork and send the guy off to his final destination. Once he walks inside, however, the man is shocked. All he can see in every direction is his worst nightmares – fire, brimstone, people being whipped and tortured in all sorts of horrible and creative ways.
“What is this?!” the guy screams. “Yesterday it was all parties and good times, and now it’s just horror after horror.”
At which point the Devil eyes him slyly and says, “Well, yesterday you were a prospect.”
The reason I recounted that joke is more and more I am hearing stories about players being promised the world by coaches during the tryout and/or recruiting process. But once they get there it’s a completely different stories.
Players are told they will pitch, but they never get time in the circle because they “don’t measure up” to the pitchers who were already there. They’re promised they will get plenty of time at an infield position, or catcher, or wherever but when game time comes – not just bracket play but even pool play or round robin friendlies – that playing time in that position never materializes. They’re told they don’t measure up to the girls in those positions (often coach’s kids, no surprise there) even though those girls are booting balls like they think they’re playing soccer, not fastpitch softball.
Hitters with high batting averages and OPS are being pushed down the lineup or sat on the bench entirely because they “aren’t used to seeing the level of competition” – even though they’ve already proven they can handle that level.
What becomes clear is that some coaches, hopefully a very small minority, are telling players and their families anything they want to hear in the courtship phase so they can round out their teams. They have no actual intention of providing those players with the opportunities they seek. They just want them there in case they need body to fill in should one of the “starters” get sick or go down with an injury.
Of course, they don’t want a weak link, so they want to get the best backups they can find. But they’re talking to those backups like they have a legitimate chance of taking over a starting position when that is never, ever going to happen – either because the coach doesn’t think the new player is as good as the current ones, or he/she is looking at his/her own kids through rose-colored parent glasses, or wants to be “loyal” to the current players, or has some other agenda.
It’s ok to view some players as starters and others as backups. It happens all the time at all levels. All I’m saying is then be honest with the player and her parents about the role she will play on the team.
Don’t tell her she will get pitching time when you have no intention of putting her in the circle. And don’t use one bad outing the first time out as an excuse to never pitch her again. She was probably nervous, having joined a new team and all and wanting badly to prove herself. That goes double if the team is a step or two up from her last team.
Instead, give her a few opportunities and then make your judgment. Anyone who works with analytics will tell you that you need a sufficient amount of data to spot a trend. One game, or a couple of innings, isn’t a sufficient amount of data.
The same goes with positions on the field. Don’t tell a player she will get an opportunity in the infield if you feel your infield is set and you don’t want to change it. Let her know where her opportunities are so she can make an informed decision about whether this is the team for her.
The same goes for getting on the field at all. If you see her as a backup or role player, be up-front about it. For example, if you want a speedy player to primarily be a courtesy or pinch runner, tell her that rather than saying she’ll get an opportunity at second base when you know that’s not true.
If you are honest about a player’s opportunities or role, the player and her parents will have no real cause to complain when what you said she would do is what she ends up doing. It’s only when coaches say anything so they can fill up their rosters that the trouble begins.
And it will begin. Because what you’ll likely find is that players who are promised a world of opportunities but instead get nothing of the kind will leave as soon as they figured out they’ve been had.
That, of course, is also the difference between the joke above and the reality of softball. In the joke, the decision of where to go was forever. In our sport, if your coach doesn’t want to play someone there’s always someone else who could use her particular set of skills.
So tough as it can be, coaches, be honest. In the long run it’s better for everyone. Including your own team. Because as big as the sport may seem, fastpitch softball is also a small, tight-knit community, especially at the local level, and people talk.
You build a reputation as someone who makes promises with no intention of delivering on them and it won’t be long before people are avoiding your team/program like the plague.
Yes, it can be tough to have those conversations, and there is a risk of pushing players away you might like to have. But it will save you a whole lot of drama and upheaval. And that alone may be worth it.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 