I'm having a discussion with a guy at work about his son's 11 U team. He was in the quarterfinals of a big tournament this past weekend, an elimination game.
Bottom 7, tie game, and they give up a leadoff triple. Get the next two outs, and the other teams big huge hitter comes up. They intentionally walk him and get the next guy out. They go on to win the game, but lose the next game, and were done for the weekend.
I said even though it would be considered good baseball strategy to do it, I said it was odd to do it at that age group. Why not let his pitcher pitch to the kid, and learn how to get the big guy out instead of learning how to walk a guy. I asked what the pitcher learned from that. He said the team learned a great lesson in baseball strategy. I said they could do that by watching a game on TV. I was probably being an A$$, but I then said all he did was show everyone at the park that he was a smart baseball mind, and that he took the ball out of his teams hand when the game was on the line.
So who is right? Is walking kids at that age good baseball?