Going big, or being realistic?

 Welcome aboard, there is nothing wrong with picking and choosing your lumps especially early on. I have seen games lost on Monday because we need to win both games on Thursday. Perhaps toward the end of the season with a few wins under your belt you can pick a school that might be a little stronger than yours and you can go at them real hard with your ace.

Thanks doc! 

 

Did i mention that its my alma mater? Thats right, teaching and coaching back home! Real excited. 

 

Our season opener is at home tomorrow against a top contender. We have our neighbor/rivals on saturday with a lower end team between that im confident in my #2 guy for. Im gonna go for it this first week with my ace in the big games because the schedule just seems to work out, and take it from there. Im mostly just hoping the team will be understanding if i go with this approach in the future. I dont want them going into a big game thinking: "well, hes not pitching whats his name, so i guess we are planning on loosing." 

Welcome, CoachZ.

 

I'm not a coach, so won't try to answer your question -- but I just want to say ... your obvious commitment rocks.

Thanks JP! I appreciate the support.

Give it a day and you will hear from the high school coaches who have dealt with your situation. I only coached travel. I would start by pitching the best against the best. Then assess the situation as the season goes on. Is your season about three games a week for five weeks? The article about UMPI playing all their games on the road was posted here about three years ago. I didn't play high school ball in Maine. But I played for Nova when it was Caldwell Post.

RJM, yes. With the weather this year, its basically going to be the month of May, and the first week or 2 of June. About 3+ games a week and the occasional saturday DH. our schedule this first couple weeks is set up well for me to test the waters. I also have a stand out freshmen hurler who im thinking of giving the start to a big team to see how he fares.

I'm in the same boat as you. You have to temper the want to win every single game and go after the games you know you should win. Then let the chips fall where they may against the more talented teams.

Now if you can get away with throwing your 2 or 3 pitcher against the lesser teams and have your 1 go against the big dogs, he might be able to keep you in the game longer for the bats to come through the 2nd time in the order.

I'm onboard with your strategy and used to use it when I had teams with pitching staffs not deep enough to run in a traditional manner. Truth is, if matching your #1 against the oppo's #1 and #2 against #2, etc. leaves you in the clear underdog role with every matchup, I think it prudent to try to arrange your pitching in a manner that gets you the number of wins necessary to secure a post season bid.

It is a balancing act.  You want to build to the point where they are confident going up against anyone, best v best, but you also have to have some success to build on.  Winning games, of course, is success.  Reaching playoffs is success.  Playing good baseball is success but, at some point, they need to see positive results.  Much depends on your goals.  So, yes, there are times when shuffling the deck with pitching order may make sense.

 

When we first took charge of the program, the team was very much in need of any wins, so we kept the relatively weak non-conference schedule in place and occasionally threw our best against weaker opponents.  Now, our schedule is loaded with teams three and four divisions above ours and we hold our own.  It is more challenging when you are small because you are more inclined to have up and down cycles but it can still be done.  One thing we learned along the way is that when you throw a #3 or #4 pitcher against the better teams, they can be effective because those teams are geared up for harder throwers.  That is one way to approach it and present it to your team so that they do not think you are conceding the game. 

 

Expanding on that thought, you should always consider what types of teams hit what types of P's better or worse.  If you play league opponents multiple times at different points in the season, consider if you want the same P to throw against them.  Did your P dominate first time thru or did he barely get by and is less likely to be effective a second time around since this team already saw his stuff?

 

I will add that we also balance those decisions with trying to keep a regular rotation so that P's get proper rest.  We will look ahead several weeks and set it so that it best matches what we think will help the team AND protect the arms.

 CoachZ, If I may say one more thing about a probable one sided game, is to try to take something specifically from it and get better. Such as if you are going up against a bunch of big hitters, this might be a game to focus on how we work cut-offs and pitcher backing up 3rd. If a team is loaded with speed, I might work my pitchers that week on holding runners close and giving my catchers an opportunity to throw someone out.

Good luck.

Go ahead and let your number one face the better teams early on.  You may be surprised or you may be proving that stacking the rotation is what's best for your team to get wins.  If you do stack the rotation don't let one kid end up on the receiving end of the starts of the good teams.  Spread that luxury out to many guys because it's really not fair to those guys to take that much abuse.  Kids aren't dumb and they will know what is best for the team but you don't want to alienate one or two guys to take all that abuse or they won't be the loyal team players that you hope them to be.

Thanks so much everyone. And good point about making sure my last guy isnt always getting mashed on by the big teams. We played the defending state runner up from the next division up yesterday and my ace pitched a heck of a game. If it wasnt for a couple kids who missed a lot of time over vacation not playing, we woulda had a really close one. Is looking like we may be a bigger contender than i thought...im always my own worst critic! Haha. Thanks again!

Coachz, when I came to my present school, I was told that I didn't have a pitching staff.  My "ace" had 3 types of curveball but no fastball.  The outgoing coach told me to cut the kid that ended up being my #2.  Turns out, he was a long lost cousin of mine and we didn't know it until regional time when a family member showed up to support him and I recognized them from when I was a kid.  I had a lefty that weighed maybe 100 lbs.  We had a tough schedule and I made it tougher when I took over.  We took 2 pitchers (3 and 4) and made them 1 pitcher.  They were totally opposites in pitching style.  We took the "Ace" taught him to throw Fastballs up and in and then curves and he won 10 games.  We took the #2 and he won 10 games.  We used the lefty here there and everywhere.  Pitching by committee is what we called it.  Our "Ace" actually started thinking he was an ace and got real good.  #2 turned out 180 degrees opposite of what I was told and was a great leader.  You need to take their strengths and match them up with who you are going to play.  You can attack one or two of the better teams with "smoke and mirrors" if you can play some decent defense.  We had a very good defensive team.  Then, spread the wealth and the heartache around enough so that your pitching staff roots for each other and feels like they are a unit.  I hope this helps.