I coach a local legion team. Since we are in rural upstate NY we are made up of the best 1-3 players from 7+ towns. This amounts to an all-star caliber team which is great but I'm worried about getting all these boys enough playing time to keep their focus. Any suggestions?
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Some coaches swap out players every 3 innings and or have one kid start game 1 go 3-4 innings then swap him out. Game 2 have the second kid start then swap him out with kid 1 after 3-4 innings. This way both kids get to play the only difference is who gets to start. You may also take into account the team you're playing. I'd want the stronger kid against the stronger team. The dh role is also available. Kid 1 can dh for the pitcher the entire game. On game 2, kid 2 then dhs the entire game for the pitcher.
MACSDAD;
Do you live near Cooperstown? How many of your players work? Can you use the "double" DH? How many left hand hitters? In my 6 years of coaching the Legion team in N-California, we had similar situation. Every player later played at a strong college program &/or in pro baseball.
Bob
On a legion team this problem will partially take care of itself, as family vacations, jobs, girls, etc. limit the number of players who show up for each game.
When I played Legion the coach schedule extra games against teams in other zones. We played 28 regular season games and about 14 non conference games before the post season. The non conference games kept everyone ready to contribute when it mattered.
