Williamsport Dreams

Flipp,
Let me say this just ONE MORE TIME!!!

Funny thing is I'm rooting for them. They're a good bunch of kids and even though I don't agree with what they've done I like the managers, coaches and the people associated with the league. The manager of the tournament team that most of the kids play on during the rest of the year is a great guy and I run into him pretty often at tournaments.

I'm also hoping to see them play in the regional final on TV. Unfortunately I expect to be on a plane back from Florida that evening so I'll probably miss it.

Mary Ann,
Got it. Printed it so I'll remember. If he's not there tonight I won't see him until next Friday as we're headed to Yosemite through Thursday.

By the way, Conejo is the #1 seed now going into the semifinals of the West Region. They didn't play all that well against Wyoming, only winning 8-1. However, they are well situated in the semifinals as Nevada and Arizona will almost certainly have to use their aces against each other while Conejo should be able to use someone other than their ace against Northern California. Conejo will also have the advantage of seeing who Nevada and Arizona throw against each other before playing their semifinal game.

Oh, and Flipp and Callaway, thanks in advance.

I've been following their progress. The MN team was beaten in the Midwest final on Sunday by Iowa. That MN team (Robbinsdale Little League) is from our district and is the team that beat my son's team to get to the District championship.

My son couldn't even watch them play in that game. He hasn't quite gotten over the loss yet. He was the losing pitcher in that game. It was kind of ironic to see them lose to Iowa they way they did. It was very similar to our game against them.

That's baseball!!!

Jason

Flipp,
My son and I watched most of that game together. He was amazed that those teams were playing in the regional tournament. We faced at least 4 pitchers in our district tournament who were better than the Iowa pitcher. There was another pitcher in the district tournament who was a better pitcher that we didn't face because they lost early in the tournament. We also didn't face Conejo Valley in the district tournament and they have 3 or 4 pitchers better than the Iowa pitcher. I realize the Minnesota team wasn't throwing their ace, but the pitchers from Minnesota were the kind that just plain got hammered by the stronger teams in our district tournament. I was impressed by some of the hitters on the Minnesota team. They hit fairly well off the Iowa pitcher even when he was throwing fairly hard in the first inning. We weren't impressed by either team defensively.

The third place (second best though) team in our district tournament would have beaten either of those teams handily. The second place team would have probably beaten either team and we, the 4th place team in our district, would have probably beaten Minnesota but lost to Iowa unless our better defensive play was enough to get us the win. On the other hand if Minnesota was able to throw their ace against us they would probably beat us since we don't have a great hitting team.

To be honest that is why many of the players (and coaches) have had a hard time getting over the loss. They truly believed that they were a better team then that Robbinsdale team. Robbinsdale was destroyed in pool play by a team we beat in the double-elimination round.

They beat our team, won the district tournament, won the state tournament and were one win away from the Little League World Series. I'd say that makes them a pretty good team. Sure your team may have beaten them, but on any given day an error, a clutch hit, or a hot pitcher can win or lose a game - especially when you're talking about 12 year old kids.

That's what makes the game so great!

Jason

Flipp,
Agreed. However, there were two teams in our district that nobody thought we were better than. We didn't have a realistic chance to beat either one. One team, Oxnard Northside, crushed us in the first round of district. I didn't throw my son against them until the final batter and perhaps we would have fared better if I had started him. However, I don't think he could have done better than holding them to 5 or 6 runs even on his best day. They didn't throw their ace against us. The pitcher they threw against us was comparable to the the Iowa pitcher although he only threw mid-60s or a little above.

Conejo Valley beat Oxnard Northside, but I think if Conejo Valley had been split up the way they should have, then Oxnard Northside would be playing for the West Region title. Also Oxnard got themselves in a situation where they didn't throw their ace against Conejo Valley.

There was another team that was slightly better than us, Port Hueneme, that we had a chance to beat. They had better pitching than we did with two pitchers throwing harder with better command than the Iowa pitcher (they may actually have had almost as good pitching as Conejo Valley) but their hitting was no better than ours. My son limited them to just one earned run and they beat us 2-1 because of the one error we made in the game and because I didn't do a good enough job substituting.

I have enjoyed watching the regional playoffs on tv. However IMHO, you cannot accurately judge how good a pitcher is just by watching him on tv and just by one game. It will be interesting to see how the teams match up once they get to Williamsport. Watching last years regionals I didn't think Massachusetts would do well but they did very well. It's why you play the game.

Bkekcs,
Hopefully I'll get a chance to see Conejo Valley play on TV. That way I can get a feel for how the teams look to us compared to how they look on TV.

Little League trivia - Here's one for you Williamsport dreamers. Can you name the player who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and also was a member of the Little League team from Southern California that participated in the LL World Series? If you can't get that one, here's a little easier one...name the former Angel that played for a California Little League team in the LL World Series.

How's that for predicting who would represent the West Region before the tournament ever started? Of course when you are in a position to know that a team was stacked by skirting the rules it makes it a bit easier.

Of all the teams, CV looks like they have the most baseball players on their team. All of the players look like they know how to play the game.

redbird5,
They are, and have been well coached for years. Most of the kids play on their tournament team which has done fairly well in the USSSA majors in Southern California and a couple others play on a select team that has also done well against top competition. You can do all the things they've done to stack their team and never get close to Williamsport. Last year Conejo Valley didn't win the district despite having the same advantages. The team that won the district last year had a lot of 11yos. As 12yos they were a very strong team and may well have been the second best team in the west region. However, they weren't as good as Conejo Valley this year. This year's group is very talented and well coached.

We were beaten by Conejo Valley twice in the 9-10 tournament and soon after that the father of the best player in our league up to that point pulled him and the next best player in our league off our tournament team which he managed. A year later they left the league. They knew we just couldn't match up with that Conejo Valley team and that there was no hope of reaching Williamsport. That being the case they didn't see any advantage to keeping our tournament team together and joined a select team. Back then Conejo's starter wasn't a force on the pitching staff and the catcher wasn't on the team, so they've improved considerably from the 9-10 team that won the So Cal divisional tournament. By the way, they didn't go undefeated in that tournament like the announcers were saying. They lost a game in district (their pitcher went to the hospital with appendicitis after the game) and lost another game later in the tournament.

From what I saw, they are head and shoulders above any other US team. The LHP from Owensboro, KY could give them some trouble, though.

Could you make it to the LLWS without your pitchers throwing a CB if they had a good CU?

redbird5,
I agree that lefty looks pretty good, although I didn't see how hard he was throwing since I've only seen a few clips of him.

Yes, I think a team could make it to the LLWS without curve balls. It takes longer to develop a decent CU than to develop a decent CB so the kids learn how to throw the CB. The problem is finding pitchers who don't throw the CB. Our 11yo team made it to the SoCal tournament this year and neither pitcher threw a curve. One had been throwing a curve for a while but ran into elbow problems and his dad (a former D1 pitcher) finally shut down the curve. He was forced to learn how to throw a change and by the end of the season had a decent one.

However, a good CU is just as or more effective than a good CB. My son has shut down Conejo Valley (without a couple of their better hitters) throwing only a low 60s fastball and a CU.

Another example, we played a scrimmage game over the weekend and the other team had a very good cleanup hitter. My son struck him out easily throwing nothing but change ups. The kid's next at bat our hardest throwing pitcher threw him a low fastball. He hit it to the fence. His next at bat we had our curve baller in there. He hammered another one to the fence. He was able to stay back on the curve. He wasn't able to stay back on the CU.

This isn't to say there aren't times when I wish my son had another pitch in the arsenal. However, I don't see any reason to start with the curve for another year at least.

I think California, North Carolina and Texas will be the US teams to beat. Kentucky certainly has a very good pitcher but because he was so dominant we didn't get to see what they can do in the field. On the ESPN radar the Kentucky kid was throwing as fast as 74. Besides his speed I thought he mixed it up pretty well. The series will be fun to watch.

CADad,

That is what I was thinking. We have focused on CUs for 2 years now. We are entertaining the idea of getting into LL at 12U.

The KY LHP hit 74-75 a few times and mixed speeds well.

redbird5,
If you do decide to get into LL you generally won't be able to do so as a team. The tendency would be to break the kids up among the regular season teams. In general you'd have most of the top players in most any league but there'd be some kids already in the league who'd earn their way onto the all-star team and some other kids who'd make it based on "tenure". Local leagues will drool over one or two top players being brought into a league, but will circle the wagons if you try to bring in a whole team's worth of players.

Just from the few clips I saw the KY pitcher had nice arm action and looked like he could be expected to have a bit better command than the Conejo Valley pitcher.

Going into the tournament I didn't think Thomson would be CV's ace. They've got some other kids who don't throw quite as hard who were better pitchers in the past. Then again we haven't faced Thomson since Thanksgiving and at this age the kids can change a lot. At that time he threw hard but I didn't think he was able to hit 70 mph.

Any predictions for the LLWS? I think Conejo Valley will do well in pool play but it looks like Kentucky has a shot against anyone with their ace on the mound.

I don't think the KY team can hit very well. I think CV should get through the US pool fairly easily.

No idea on the Internationals, though.

Richmond Texas-all the way!

Sure looks like it will be between Texas and California in the US bracket. Big bats on both sides.

Look out for Lincoln, RI!

Sandman,
Not that you'd have any reason to be biased!

hehe... our league did lose to them in the State finals, so yeah... a bit biased indeed.

Our kids beat Conejo Valley as 9yo when one or two of their best players were playing on the 9-10 team and tied them in this season's Thanksgiving tournament where they were a bit short-handed although they did have Thomson and Brower. They beat us twice in the 9-10 tournament and beat the team that knocked us out of the 11-12 tournament in the championship game by a score of 13-0. So I'm not the least bit biased.

Anybody happen to see the Conejo Valley vs Davenport game and remember how hard Conejo's pitcher was throwing? We remember him as being a mid to high 60s kid and I was wondering what the ESPN gun was showing.
Thanks,
CADad

He was around 60-61

That's a bit of a surprise. My son said he didn't look like he was throwing that hard but generally that won't cut it where we play and he's done pretty well against strong competition in the past.

On any given day...

Looks like Conejo Valley and Texas will be the top seeds. Isn't the same Texas team in the LLWS for the second straight year? That doesn't happen unless you've got a Sean Burroughs or you are getting around the population and residency rules.

By the way, anyone see this morning's game and see how hard Brower was throwing? I remember him looking like mid 60s at most. He used to be their ace at 9-10 but I think he dropped a bit in the rotation over the last couple years.

The Texas team is from the same league as last year but with only one returning player (who has been amazing-Grichuk, is his name-not sure of the spelling) The manager had a son playing last year and another one on the team this year.

Saw TX team play for first time Tuesday afternoon.

The Texas team has a powerful offense. They seem to be well schooled in rotational hitting mechanics, and have been absolutely destroying the hanging breaking ball. Have you seen some of the BOMBS those guys have hit? Look at their run production - 43(?) runs in 3 games. Can Conejo valley tame this offense? I don't think so, but that's just MHO.

Pete H,
It will depend on how Ginther uses his pitchers. So far it looks like he'll start Thomson tomorrow and possibly not have him available for the Texas game. I think that would be a mistake. Thomson held what may have been the best hitting LL all-star team in the country to just two runs during district play. However, that was before the hitters had played enough games to gear up to the faster pitching. He also was reasonably successful against a very strong hitting Nevada team. I think Texas is comparable to Nevada in ability.

I've also seen their other pitchers hold some very impressive hitting teams that were stronger than any LL all-star team in check during tournament play.

I don't think they can completely stifle the Texas offense but they can certainly keep them in sight and the question then becomes does Texas have the pitching to stop Conejo Valley? Should be an interesting game if they do end up playing each other.

CADad,
I haven't actually seen the Conejo Valley team play that much. My comments were based more on what I had seen of Texas and my overall impression of the pitching in the series (plus I just wanted to stir the debate a little ) Lots of breaking balls in general, too many IMO. I believe I heard the announcers talking about how the Texas team has worked specifically on hitting the curve, a strategy that has worked well for them so far. Opposing pitchers have paid dearly for hanging curves against them. If the CV coaching staff has done their scouting, which I'm sure they have, then we should see lots of low fastballs and with some good CV defense, they should send Texas packing (assuming they beat MD tonight of course).

It would have been interesting to see how Texas fared against Sturgeon. I don't think their offensive numbers would have been quite as impressive if they had faced Sturgeon when they played Ky. They seemed to hit about the same as Conejo Valley against Morganton. Once we've seen how they do against Maryland tonight we should have a better feel for how Conejo and Texas match up if Conejo wins.

They will need to throw Thomson for an inning tonight if they want to make sure he is sharp for the Saturday game.

Well now that I've seen Conejo play Maryland and only beat them 3-1 I still have to give Conejo a slight edge over Texas. Last night's game was pretty typical for Conejo. In the regional semifinals they beat Northern California 3-1, while Nevada beat a strong Arizona team 15-2. Conejo had mercied NorCal in pool play. Conejo of course went on to defeat Nevada. It looked close on TV but a friend who was there said they merely toyed with Nevada.

The key in all this is how Texas does against the 70+ mph fastball. I don't think we've seen them go against that type of pitching so far. Even if Thomson struggles a bit I've seen Karp shut down some very impressive offensive teams.

I didn't get the impression CV was toying with MD. Except for the missed pop fly at third, MD seemed very solid defensively.
Texas is a well coached team, particularly in the hitting department. You think they are taking any 70 mph BP today? They have to know what's coming. Still, it's not the low fastballs they have been launching. I don't think Thompson is going to offer them many fat breaking balls though. I have to give CV the edge, but I'll root for Texas just in case.

I have not seen the Texas Team play in person, but from my experience with Texas teams is that they have faced pitchers at that caliber. Maybe not in LL but probably during the tournament season.