Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - Fear of Failure

Barkeep49 · 06-06-2011, 03:02 PM

Alright it’s been a long time since I’ve updated last. With school over for me I have more time to write, and I regret not having my chronicled my evolving feelings on our season up for the last few weeks.

Losing

Essentially that’s what we did between my last update and our tournament that was held Memorial Day weekend. There was another blow-out loss in there. There were some difficulties with parents which arose and lingered longer than necessary. Fact is we didn’t play well. We lacked pitching or we lacked hitting or both. Just bad news all around.

The Tournament

Memorial Day weekend we played a tournament. And it went well. Really well. It was a B-Level tournament so we knew we’d have a fighting chance. And sure enough on Friday for the first game of the tournament we come out and slaughter rule the other team, 12-2. It was a pretty good feeling.

Game 2 on Saturday? We scrape by against an inferior team, winning 8-5.

Sunday we are scheduled to play the last team in our pool, who has also proceeded through 2-0. Unfortunately there is bad rain Sunday afternoon, so the game gets canceled. No worries, we think, they’ll just cancel our 4th game, to be played against a team from another pool, and move on. Except that they end up just calling the whole tournament. No matter that Memorial Day was 90 and Sunny. So we leave the tournament in a good place, if a bit frustrated.

Post Tournament

So first game post-tournament we promptly revert back to our to our losing ways. We had been down 15-10 and claw our way back to 15-15, but our pitching just can’t hold and we end up losing 17-15.

Before our next game we decide to do our first overhaul of the lineup. We’d gradually tweaked the lineup over the course of the season, but this was the biggest wholesale change.

New Line-up:
1. Ryan (Originally 7) - The kid has an unbelievable On-Base Percentage, currently at .667. He walks a whole lot (about 25% of the time) and when he’s not walking he’s getting base hits. He’d hit 4th most of the season until this lineup reshuffling, but how do you not start the game with a kid who lacks big power but will get on base ⅔ of the time?
2. Aaron (Originally 3) - We put our best hitter in the 2 slot and Aaron is definitely our best hitter
3. Michael (Originally 6) - Though Michael has given Aaron a bit of a run for his money lately
4. Alex (Originally 1) - Alex had started off 1 and dropped as low as 7, before settling in at 4
5. Justin (Originally 12) - We knew Just wasn’t the worst player when we batted him there the first game, but we thought he belonged in the discussion. We were wrong. He has the second most base hits on the team, after Michael.
6. Danny (Originally 4) - He’s been pretty solid lately and it speaks more to how well we’re hitting that he’s not higher than a reflection on him.
7. Brett (Originally 10) - There’s a pretty big drop-off between Danny and Brett. Brett still hits too few balls in the field (75% of his at bats have been either walks or strikeouts), but when he does connect he can really hit it hard. We’re hoping to see some more consistent contact from him.
8. Andrew (Originally 8) - He’s ended up where he started, but took the scenic route to get there having moved up for 1 game to lead-off when it was clear Alex wasn’t the right kid there, but dropped back down to 8. Arguably he might deserve to go ahead of Brett, but since Brett walks a fair amount and Andrew puts the ball into play a fair amount, this works better since even if Andrew gets out he’s likely to move Brett along.
9. Jordan (Originally 2) - We’d quickly realized that Alex wasn’t the right lead-off hitter and Aaron was better than Jordan, but Jordan had been our lead-off for most of the season. That was a HUGE mistake. He looks good swinging the bat. And during practice he swings as good as he looks, but he was not producing in games. We started talking with him during the tournament about the need to improve, and he has as he’s now walking more than he’d done before. We’re going to give him a little time to figure things out before dropping him into the bottom of the order carousel which is where he should bat based on merit.
10, 11, 12 - Rotation of Nate, David, and Ross
So that the same kid isn’t batting last every game we rotate this kids, who are all about the same statistically, through the bottom three spots. Some games one or to of them will have a good game before reverting to the mean. David’s been particularly frustrated as he’s another batting practice hero. He’s lately seen some improvement, so who knows.

Wouldn’t you know it having a kid who is 3x as likely to get on base as the previous lead-off hitter helped get things going? We come out strong and build up a 10-2 lead heading into the 5th inning (out of 7). At which point we collapse. Errors, hits, and general disaster means we head into the 6th holding a 10-8 lead. No worries though as we have our best pitcher, Jordan, ready to go. So naturally he doesn’t have his normal exemplary command and we blow it. Kids were in tears and Steve and I didn’t try to make them feel better, as we wanted them to use this feeling as a spur to play better.

And wouldn’t you know it? They did. Our bats continue to perform for us, and our pitching was great as we slaugher another team 15-3. It’s pretty incredible that a 4 win team has two of its wins thanks to slaughters. Just shows that this team could be good, we just need to start playing consistently. And hopefully this will be the week to do it, as we play the 1st team we beat again tonight and then on Wednesday have a rematch against Sunday’s victims. Here’s hoping for a winning streak...

06-06-2011, 03:02 PM	#8
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	Alright it’s been a long time since I’ve updated last. With school over for me I have more time to write, and I regret not having my chronicled my evolving feelings on our season up for the last few weeks. Losing Essentially that’s what we did between my last update and our tournament that was held Memorial Day weekend. There was another blow-out loss in there. There were some difficulties with parents which arose and lingered longer than necessary. Fact is we didn’t play well. We lacked pitching or we lacked hitting or both. Just bad news all around. The Tournament Memorial Day weekend we played a tournament. And it went well. Really well. It was a B-Level tournament so we knew we’d have a fighting chance. And sure enough on Friday for the first game of the tournament we come out and slaughter rule the other team, 12-2. It was a pretty good feeling. Game 2 on Saturday? We scrape by against an inferior team, winning 8-5. Sunday we are scheduled to play the last team in our pool, who has also proceeded through 2-0. Unfortunately there is bad rain Sunday afternoon, so the game gets canceled. No worries, we think, they’ll just cancel our 4th game, to be played against a team from another pool, and move on. Except that they end up just calling the whole tournament. No matter that Memorial Day was 90 and Sunny. So we leave the tournament in a good place, if a bit frustrated. Post Tournament So first game post-tournament we promptly revert back to our to our losing ways. We had been down 15-10 and claw our way back to 15-15, but our pitching just can’t hold and we end up losing 17-15. Before our next game we decide to do our first overhaul of the lineup. We’d gradually tweaked the lineup over the course of the season, but this was the biggest wholesale change. New Line-up: 1. Ryan (Originally 7) - The kid has an unbelievable On-Base Percentage, currently at .667. He walks a whole lot (about 25% of the time) and when he’s not walking he’s getting base hits. He’d hit 4th most of the season until this lineup reshuffling, but how do you not start the game with a kid who lacks big power but will get on base ⅔ of the time? 2. Aaron (Originally 3) - We put our best hitter in the 2 slot and Aaron is definitely our best hitter 3. Michael (Originally 6) - Though Michael has given Aaron a bit of a run for his money lately 4. Alex (Originally 1) - Alex had started off 1 and dropped as low as 7, before settling in at 4 5. Justin (Originally 12) - We knew Just wasn’t the worst player when we batted him there the first game, but we thought he belonged in the discussion. We were wrong. He has the second most base hits on the team, after Michael. 6. Danny (Originally 4) - He’s been pretty solid lately and it speaks more to how well we’re hitting that he’s not higher than a reflection on him. 7. Brett (Originally 10) - There’s a pretty big drop-off between Danny and Brett. Brett still hits too few balls in the field (75% of his at bats have been either walks or strikeouts), but when he does connect he can really hit it hard. We’re hoping to see some more consistent contact from him. 8. Andrew (Originally 8) - He’s ended up where he started, but took the scenic route to get there having moved up for 1 game to lead-off when it was clear Alex wasn’t the right kid there, but dropped back down to 8. Arguably he might deserve to go ahead of Brett, but since Brett walks a fair amount and Andrew puts the ball into play a fair amount, this works better since even if Andrew gets out he’s likely to move Brett along. 9. Jordan (Originally 2) - We’d quickly realized that Alex wasn’t the right lead-off hitter and Aaron was better than Jordan, but Jordan had been our lead-off for most of the season. That was a HUGE mistake. He looks good swinging the bat. And during practice he swings as good as he looks, but he was not producing in games. We started talking with him during the tournament about the need to improve, and he has as he’s now walking more than he’d done before. We’re going to give him a little time to figure things out before dropping him into the bottom of the order carousel which is where he should bat based on merit. 10, 11, 12 - Rotation of Nate, David, and Ross So that the same kid isn’t batting last every game we rotate this kids, who are all about the same statistically, through the bottom three spots. Some games one or to of them will have a good game before reverting to the mean. David’s been particularly frustrated as he’s another batting practice hero. He’s lately seen some improvement, so who knows. Wouldn’t you know it having a kid who is 3x as likely to get on base as the previous lead-off hitter helped get things going? We come out strong and build up a 10-2 lead heading into the 5th inning (out of 7). At which point we collapse. Errors, hits, and general disaster means we head into the 6th holding a 10-8 lead. No worries though as we have our best pitcher, Jordan, ready to go. So naturally he doesn’t have his normal exemplary command and we blow it. Kids were in tears and Steve and I didn’t try to make them feel better, as we wanted them to use this feeling as a spur to play better. And wouldn’t you know it? They did. Our bats continue to perform for us, and our pitching was great as we slaugher another team 15-3. It’s pretty incredible that a 4 win team has two of its wins thanks to slaughters. Just shows that this team could be good, we just need to start playing consistently. And hopefully this will be the week to do it, as we play the 1st team we beat again tonight and then on Wednesday have a rematch against Sunday’s victims. Here’s hoping for a winning streak...