Beezer

Next time you come, please take advantage of our ball park. The facilities are excellent and very well maintained (like most everything on HHI). They are located just across the Cross Island Parkway very close to Sea Pines. They are usually empty and you are welcome to use the fields, cages, etc. They do not get enough use!

Ross.

(edited) Now that I think about it, you'd probably prefer the beach!! Sorry, sometimes I forget, being a local!!

FlippJ

Great swing! Very "Epstein-esque". I am anxious for bbscout to pop his head in and comment on Brandon's swing. I'm no expert but is that what they mean by "rotational"?

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Originally posted by Callaway:
BTW Boomer and Gene dominate their Rec league. Boomer started and Gene closed last spring as 9 year-olds in Minors and won the League Championship in a walk. They are both back this spring on the same rec. team. It should be a snoozer...

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Then why not develop some other pitchers along the way too instead of just giving the 2 studs all the innings? I don't wanna launch the whole "egalitarian" thing, but I would think that in rec ball, at that age, who wins the league is somewhat "tainted" if they did so by just having won the draft lottery.

My 2 cents.

Sandman

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Then why not develop some other pitchers along the way too

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Ya think!? I have discussed that very thing with Boomer's coach and he is COMPLETELY obsessed with being the All Star coach and WINNING the Dixie World Series!

"You don't understand Ross, It's a southern thing! and you're a ****yankee anyway!."

"Do you know how much history there is with Dixie Youth?"

In this rec league, the Division Champion's coach becomes the All Star coach! WooooHoooo!! Who cares!!

I don't want to be there and Boomer is bored with the quality of play but mom "understands", being a southerner, and insists that Boomer play in rec ball... that's why I said snoozer. It's a battle that I can not win.

Ross

Oh to answer your earlier question 5' 110lbs.

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Originally posted by Callaway:
Beezer

Next time you come, please take advantage of our ball park. The facilities are excellent and very well maintained (like most everything on HHI). They are located just across the Cross Island Parkway very close to Sea Pines. They are usually empty and you are welcome to use the fields, cages, etc. They do not get enough use!

Ross.

(edited) Now that I think about it, you'd probably prefer the beach!! Sorry, sometimes I forget, being a local!!

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Sounds like a plan but I'm not sure when/if we'll get down this year. At this point we're kind of planning to use the baseball tourneys as mini vacations but I have a strong hunch the family will get that HHI itch at some point and we'll end up down there anyway. Our problem is that we stay in Palmetto Dunes @ Captains Walk in a 3 br unit with my wife's parents so it ain't cheap and he just lost his job.

If we do head south, I'll give you a heads up and we'll get together. Maybe we could even catch one of Boomer's games or something.

You can't miss us.....we'll be in the mini van w/ Ohio plates and the HHI sticker on the back window.

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"Hey dad.......how 'bout a catch?"

Ross,

That's a shame that the coaches put themselves over the kids at such a young age. I can see Mom's point about playing rec ball though (presumably w/ his friends).

I guess I'm kind of proud that we managed to rotate 6 pitchers all season, as well as gave every kid at least 4 innings in the field every game (league min. = 3), w/ at least 1 inning in the infield. With this much sharing, we still managed to come in 2nd regular season. (Take a guess how many pitchers pitched all season on the team that won the reg. season? )

Even in the playoffs, w/ our league pitcher rest rules, we still had to pitch 4 kids in the finals - and we were mighty glad that we had done so all season. This helped us win the playoffs, which, IMO, was sweeter than just giving our studs the lion's share all season to win the reg. season.

This was LL Minors. Once they hit Majors though, I'm not saying I'd advocate this type of rotation.

I had a hunch that Boomer might be big; that's usually the ones that have their way on the mound.

Best of luck to him and you,
Sandman

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Originally posted by Callaway:
Ya think!? I have discussed that very thing with Boomer's coach and he is COMPLETELY obsessed with being the All Star coach and WINNING the Dixie World Series!

In this rec league, the Division Champion's coach becomes the All Star coach! WooooHoooo!! Who cares!!

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Our rec ball is very political like that as well and I'm glad to be out of it

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"Hey dad.......how 'bout a catch?"

Sandman,
Our rotation this year in LL majors (depending on who I get in the draft) will be the two 12yo pitchers each throwing 3 innings per game with the 11yo pitcher throwing when we have to go extra innings or to mop up if one of them seems tired. I won't intentionally draft more than one more top 12yo pitcher (I start with one - my son) to keep from having a kid who deserves to be pitching not get enough innings. Only having two will also give me plenty of incentive to protect their arms.

CADad,

The team my son is on has an interesting dilema this season. He plays LL and his team was an expansion team last season. They drafted the top three 11 year old pitchers. The ace couldn't pitch because of a growth plate issue (long story) so my son and the assistant coaches son became to top two starters. By the end of the season another 11 year old showed some signs of being a dependable pitcher.

Going into this coming season the team is LOADED, and I mean LOADED, with quality 12 year olds. Many of those 12 year olds got a lot of experience pitching as 11 year olds. On top of that the ace pitcher will be added to the staff so that gives the team 4 quality 12 year old starters.

One problem though... The league has a rule that 12 year olds can only pitch a combined 12 innings per week. It'll be interesting to see how the pitchers are handled. You can bet the #1 player taken in the draft by this team will be an 11 year old who can pitch.

It's going to be an interesting season to say the least. The good news is that five of the returning seven 12 year olds have homerun potential. They might just be able to outscore teams.

Jason

FlippJ,
The 12 inning limit is a Little League rule not a local rule. Most managers run into problems when they relieve a 12yo with another 12yo in the same inning, not realizing that they've just used up two of the 12 innings in the same inning. Another LL rule is that you can't use more than 3 different 12yo pitchers in the same week so even if you were willing to split up the innings you couldn't use all four of them in the same week.

I had a similar problem with 10yos a couple years ago when I drafted a couple kids as pitchers with my son and another pitcher as their backups. One of the two frontline pitchers didn't pan out and my son was slightly better than the other backup. Given that I tried to use the kid who didn't pan out for quite a ways into the season the other backup got almost no innings until I threw him in the championship game. Interestingly, the frontline pitcher who did pan out, my son and the other backup may be the three best pitchers in the league this year, with the other backup possibly being the best. Unfortunately, since we redraft each year I'd have to be pretty lucky to get one of the two other than my son.

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Originally posted by CADad:
Sandman,
Our rotation this year in LL majors (depending on who I get in the draft) will be the two 12yo pitchers each throwing 3 innings per game with the 11yo pitcher throwing when we have to go extra innings or to mop up if one of them seems tired. I won't intentionally draft more than one more top 12yo pitcher (I start with one - my son) to keep from having a kid who deserves to be pitching not get enough innings. Only having two will also give me plenty of incentive to protect their arms.

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That makes sense... at the Majors level, IMO. In Minors, should there really be as much emphasis on winning as in the Majors? (a bit of a rhetorical question, as I'm really not looking to launch a long debate, just stating an opinion).

You're right CADad. I'd forgotten about the 3 12 year old pitchers per week rule. Unless my son just comes out and dominates he may not see much mound time this season.

Makes me wish the league he's in redrafted each year.

Jason

Sandman

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That makes sense... at the Majors level, IMO. In Minors, should there really be as much emphasis on winning as in the Majors?

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Why does it make sense at 11 and not 10?

Personally, I don't think that winning should be the primary goal in rec ball in Minors or Majors. It's rec ball....

For the same reason it makes even more sense at 13/14 and less sense at 7/8. The line has to be drawn somewhere, no? IMO, a good place is from Minors to Majors.

To each their own I guess.

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Originally posted by Callaway:
Personally, I don't think that winning should be the primary goal in rec ball in Minors or Majors. It's rec ball....

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Should winning be the primary goal for 9-12 year olds who aren't playing rec ball?

Sandman,
Agreed. In minors (this was mostly 10 and 11 yo) we wanted to win but that wasn't the primary emphasis. I just don't feel with a maximum of 12 innings per week available that you can effectively develop 4 pitchers. I'd rather do a good job of developing 3 pitchers and focus on bullpens with the fourth one (we also had a fifth kid who wanted to pitch who we threw bullpens with and gave very limited game innings) than do a poor job of developing 4 pitchers by giving none of them sufficient innings. My original intent for that minor league season was to have my son catch most of the innings and pitch little if at all. He ended up pitching about 1/3 of the innings and catching only about 1/3 of the innings that year. Unlike most kids who start as pitcher/ss and then migrate to other positions he's turned into a pitcher/ss over time.

In general our LL tends to be a bit more competitive than it probably should. The kids went to Williamsport several years back and now that seems to be the standard we get judged against.

FlippJ

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Should winning be the primary goal for 9-12 year olds who aren't playing rec ball?

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Yep, it should. Don't get hung up on the word "primary" though. The competition is much better and the commitment from both the player and the parent is much greater. While winning isn't everything, winning is certainly the goal.

Any child has the right to play rec ball but not every child is capable for select/travel ball. They are not the same IMO.

(Edited: Just to be clear. IMO it should be the goal of the "player" not the parent to win. When I said the commitment from the parent is greater that should have no bearing on how the player feels about winning or losing. To be honest, as a parent/non-coach I couldn't care less if the team wins or loses as long as my son plays his best and enjoys it. But, I do expect him to want to win very much. Sorry for the ambiguity.)

I agree CADad. I don't believe we "effectively developed" 6 pitchers. And we maybe could've helped further develop our top 2 a bit more had we not given the bottom 3 (or 4) time. Two of them were marginal at best, but wanted to try pitching. Another 2 were my son and the manager's son, who also wanted to pitch (more than they did even), but we were leery of giving them more innings than others, lest we be accused of "Daddy ball".

Here's how the innings broke down for us:

15.67
17.00
18.00
10.00
12.33
8.00

So basically, we used mostly 3 pitchers too, but gave some time for 3 others to try it out.

Sandman, FlippJ & CADad

Do your sons play select/travel ball? I'm just curious because it's a lot more fun!

Not yet Callaway.

But wouldn't that type of generalization depend upon the caliber of each local rec league?

Though I do understand that whether there are 3, 4 or 6 "less developed" rec kids per team, if travel ball has 0, then I can see how it might be more fun.

We may explore that within the next year or 2. Right now, I'm pretty sure Kevin'll have his hands full playing as a young 10 in 10-12 LL Majors this season.