Pitch Smart USA and Roster sizes

I can't give you an exact number, because how many pitchers you bring to a game may depend on how your program is structured.  When my son played travel at the HS level he played for a fairly well known travel organization.  They structured things differently then the normal travel ball program.  There were 3 teams at his age level.  From week to week you did not know what team you were going to play on.  Where you played depended on many factors, mostly you were placed on the team where you would get the most exposure for where you projected to play after HS.  For instance if you were projected to be a mid D1 player and a team A was playing an exposure tournament where there would be mostly SEC guys, team B was playing in a local tourney with little exposure and team C was playing a tourney that expected a lot of local colleges you most likely would be sent to team C for the weekend.

Pitchers were part of the pool and where you were assigned depending on exposure needs as well as pitching needs.  Figure we would have between 4 and 6 pitchers at a game.  If you were at a game it was expected you would get mound time.  Sometimes it was only for an inning, but you got mound time.   This setup allowed the program to adjust pitching rosters to ensure they had enough pitching to last a weekend.  Pitchers basically showed up for their assigned game, did their job and left.  You could be playing back to back games with an entirely different pitching staff.  

A normal weekend setup would be 9 to 11 position players on a team.  Of which 2 or 3 were two way players and would see some mound time.  Over the course of the weekend we would see about 12 to 15 pitchers rotate through the team as well.  If I were to guess, I would say the average roster worked out like this.  5 strictly position players, 4 two way players, and about 10 pitchers per team.

It is tough for a team that only has one team and not a lot of players to pull from to make it deep in big tournaments.  You do not want to take players and not play them but you also want to play your best.  There is the never ending question in older teams, Am I going to showcase players or win the tournament?  Very rarely can a smaller team go in with both mentalities.  The bigger organizations not only have the better players, per average, but they also have a bigger pool to pull from.  They can bring kids in from other teams in their organization and can bring kids up from other age groups.  A team this summer won a big tournament in a big southern city, no names to protect the innocent, and their final four pitchers were not on the roster for the tournament.  They were in their organization to some extent and were legal players for that age group but were not on the roster.  A couple of them came in from another tournament that week in a different city.  The average team could not do that. 

I say all that to say you need to have enough to be competitive and not too many to be the guy who brings kids and doesn't play them.  I also say you have to know your pitchers on your roster.  My son can go out and throw the limit every time and a friend of mine's son can only throw about 50 pitches.  I know another kid who played with son this year that was only good for 25 pitches at the most and everything went away, speed and control.  So if you have my son on your roster he could throw a complete game every weekend, (except he is on pitch count this fall due to number of innings thrown spring and summer).   Most of the tournaments in the fall usually have small bracket play due to time constraints so make the pool play games count.

All of that leads to there is no set number.  Depends on your pitchers and your goal.

When my son was playing tournaments at Diamond Nation a few years ago, there were always teams who declined their playoff games if they ran out of pitching during pool play. DN would just move other teams up accordingly. I always liked that approach. Normally all the recruiting was happening during the scheduled games anyway.

My rule of thumb has been take the minimum number of games and multiply by two.  So if it's a 5 game guarantee you need 10 pitchers.  then again, this also depends how talented your pitchers are.

My son's 15u team played in a couple 7 day PG events and with 17 rostered kids (12 pitchers in there)  we were tight on pitching after the first bracket game. 

How you pitch your kids and what day you pitch them has such a huge impact with Pitchsmart rules. If your last pool game is against the other tough team and you save your ace for that game then you won't have him for bracket play.  BUT, you won't make bracket without him because only the top team from each pool advances.  Double edged sword.

It’s been a few years, but my sons team had a standard set of 14 players.

During big tourneys, Pitchers came in and left for the day as needed.

Rarely did the “pitchers for hire” stay longer than their appearance or pay a fee.

The team was from a hot weather area and the coaches network with College Recruiters. I assumed that the Travel Coaches received names/contact of pitchers Recruiters wanted to see and Invited them to be seen. 

It’s a great system IMO, because teams would have Recruitera at games that wouldn’t have been there without the “Blue Chippers.” EVERYONE GOT A LOOK.

Con’t.

My son ( position player) had 0 Commitments as a Jr. and wound up being seen by Recruiters that didn’t have him on their list (We’re from the NE).

He would up starting as a freshman and went to Omaha 2x.

Im thankful that his travel coach augmented the roster with big lefties for the big events.

The amount of two way players at D1's is few and far between.   Kids that both pitch and play a position at 16U & 17U are for the most part fooling themselves, and jeopardizing their arm health.

I'd say you need 10 or 11 position players, maybe 1 two way player at most, and at least 10 pitcher only's.