#1 Rotation Guys and Matchups

Bum
First congrats to the kid. That is cool for a Junior to get the nod as the #1. I don't think the coach would be squandering wins, it sounds to me that the coach has confidence in his team and his pitchers. This is great experience and only helps your son get ready for the next level. Doesn't his team play the same team twice in the same week? That is how it worked out here. So really he will be pitching against the tough teams and the weak ones too. Having a low ERA is great, and like you said it can be deceiving, if it's against weak teams only it will show when a player moves on to higher levels. Most pitchers want to face the tough teams, its in their nature. Sit back and have fun watching.

I know what you mean, at times the parents have more nerves than their player.
Good Luck

Bum good question. I see it much the same as lclcoach. This is not about protecting an individual’s ERA or W-L record. This is a team sport and a good coach wants to win every game and he should approach it that way. If my son is the “best” pitcher in the rotation I would expect, and want, the coach to throw him against the toughest teams. This is not about his HS stats (we all know about HS stats). This is about recognizing the fact you have a son that a coach has enough confidence in to give him the ball against the toughest teams. (those are the games that get in the newspapers and a clip on TV)

quote:

If you're always pitching #1 against the better teams and #3 against the weaker teams, as a coach wouldn't you be running a risk of squandering your best pitcher or losing a game you might otherwise have won?

There is no way I would concede defeat to the tougher team by throwing my #3 pitcher just so I could save my #1 pitcher beat a weaker team. Again, the individual ERA is not and should not be considered.

quote:

Some teams have a tendency to match up #1 against the tougher teams, rather than having a set rotation like in the pros.

I don’t think you can compare HS pitching rotations to the pros’ rotations. Setting your pitching rotation in a four games series against the same team is completely different that playing a home/away series or maybe 3 different teams in one week. College is different too. Colleges rotation are set for a three games weekend series against the same team and coaches sometimes change their pitching rotations within a three game series to match up against their opponent’s pitching rotation.
Fungo

I think this is an interesting question. Lets say you are not a dominate team and you play 30 games and you will need 20 wins to get to post season. 10 of your games are against top notch opponents and the others are a mix. Why not save your #1 and #2 for the games where if they pitch you have a 90% chance of winning. Throw your #3, #4, etc at the top notch teams and hope you get a couple of wins.

Once you hit post season throw your #1 and #2. Again, an interesting question.

Congrats Bum! This is what makes him stronger, Knowing that the coach has confidence in him and going against the better teams and their #1. Just knowing that the margin for error is smaller will usually make them focus a little better! Seems like kids thrive in this situation and step it up. Good luck this season.

First of all you never want to go on the field thinking you cannot beat the other team---you want your best pitcher available against their best in every game .

Too many times I have seen coaches in tournaments go with a # 2 or #3 arm in the semi final game saving their #1 for the title game---trouble is you have to win the semi before you get to the final

Bum, we match up #1 and #2 in Conference games. We don't have the option of throwing them against "weaker" teams. We seem to always get the ace from each conference opponent. I'm not very happy with our conference and have openly stated that it is a non-conference conference. We play 2 conference games almost every week. However, many of our conference school are able to "tweak" their schedules so that they play only one conference game many times in their schedule. Exactly when to they do that? The week they play us.

If your son is drawing the #1 for the other team, he is having to work for his w's and in the end, the cream will rise to the top. Good luck!

Good points all. My son is the #1 on his team and his coach believes in pitching him as often as possible, which means every 5th day. The way our schedule works is most weeks we have two conference games and a non conference DH on Saturdays. The coach will tweak the rotation slightly, giving #1 an extra day off if that means #1 goes against a better team. We've had a pretty good team in the past, and the better teams we play have the same type of tradition so naturally a rivalry develops. Situations like those are where #1 sits an extra day to get the matchup. He never comes back a day early from rest to matchup though.

Don't know if it's right or wrong, just they way it's done.

Some high school leagues in Oregon are moving to playing a three game series against each opponent in one week rather than playing each opponent three times over the course of the season in different weeks.

I think this is a great idea, because it reveals which teams have pitching depth, and it prevents the manipulation of matchups that can distort the true picture of which teams are better.

Unfortunately, my son's HS league is not one of the ones that has made this change.

intresting question & kudos the the little Bum (intended better than is sounded )

some responses indicate a variety of strategies. there might be several right ways.

our conference games are home/away - Tues/Thurs series

we have some pretty good coaches in our area who basicly stick with their rotation thruout the season ... if the #4 guy ends up facing the reigning confernce champ & the #1 guy matches up with "sisters of the poor academy" - so be it.
these are historicly successful programs & their guys throw with about the same 5-6 days rest most of the season

others try to plan the match-ups ... this is where it gets tricky with weather/makeups because a guy's rest days might vary from 4 to 14. these are hot/cold programs, seem more injury prone (to me anyway), and more coachs seem have "greyed hair/no hair" from tying to out-smart the weather AND the schedule

quote:

by fungo: This is not about protecting an individual’s ERA

sometimes it is ...
our hs state awards are voted on by coaches who basicly never see the players play, sooo some coaches DO match their #1 guy vs weaker opponents .. to them All-Ohio awards trump their w/l records


to further complicate things, our State Tourny play begins with a month left in the season during the heat of the conference races, often forcing a coach to focus on one path & put the other on the back burner. some guys focusing on both paths might put their pitcher's health on the back burner too

Bum,

Congrats to the boy. Of course he’s not outwardly nervous, if he was, he likely wouldn’t have been given the job. Of course you’re nervous, if not, you wouldn’t be a normal dad.

Its interesting to see how many different ways leagues are set up. When my son was in HS, he too was the #1 on a team that played lots of back2back conference games with the same team. But, they might play a team on a Fri or Sat and again on Mon or Tue, so he’d sometimes end up throwing both games.

I always saw it as quite an honor, as did he, but the truth is, it takes quite a toll on the kids, no matter how physically or mentally strong they may be. Just give him lots of support and watch that arm!

But since my boy graduated, the league his HS team played in has expanded in the number of teams, so they’ve spilt into 2 leagues with 6 teams. They play 9 non-conference games before the conference games start. The teams in both leagues are all D1(Large), and of those 9 non-conference games, 4 are with teams from the other league, so there’s definitely some good competition.

Once the conference games start, they are scheduled to play each team back2back2back on a Mon-Wed-Fri. I like this system much better, because assuming there’s no rain delays, any one P might get to throw 10 innings against one of the other teams, but that’s far different than what P’s like some of those we’re reading about here, and my son faced.

The real benefit is, the coaches are now forced to develop more than the 1 or 2 studs because there are some weeks when you’ll be facing the top teams 3 games in a row, and what ends up happening is the rotation gets much more like a ML rotation. All of the P’s get to throw against both strong and weak teams.

Personally, I like it a lot more!

Scorekeep, CoachB, TR and others, thanks for your input and words of encouragement.

Really, though, he's not nervous at all. He is a very confident kid. Probably because he has had so much experience and success in high level showcases and tournaments. He was also undefeated 7-0 on J.V. last year.

Mostly I was wondering from a pure strategy point of view. But to be honest maybe in the back of my mind, since its his Junior year, I am of course concerned how it will go. Like TR Hit says, you have to pitch against the best to be the best!

So I guess I just confused myself. I think now I'll shut up and see how the season goes and enjoy it come rain or shine.

Good luck to all your kids this year!

quote:

Originally posted by Bum:
enjoy it come rain or shine.

Best advice ever!

The best should face the best - period. Let's put it this way: You don't start Bryan Baake in Game 1 if you have Roger Clemens ready to go! I think "throwing off" suggests to your team that you can't win that particular game - so I'd go stud vs. stud every chance I got.

Unfortunately for the middle of the road team, that answer is not so clear cut. If you need a certain amount of wins to qualify for the playoffs, your rotation might reflect the need to get those wins.