One thing that Steve and I put a lot of time into is creating our line-ups and so I thought an entry on our process might be interesting. There's a combination of trying to do what's best for the team by having the best players at the position playing, but also doing what's best for each individual. Sorry for the poor formatting, but I wanted to be able to show what the lineup looked like at various points.
The first thing to decide is our batting order. As I mentioned in the last entry, Alex had been batting lead-off but hadn't been producing, so we decided to move Andrew up to #1 and put Alex in the 6 spot.
We always start with who our pitchers are going to be. Our kids have mandatory rest times based on how many pitches they throw, but because we haven't had a game since Monday and our kids are limited in how much they can pitch in house league, all of our players were eligible to pitch. As we have a game again today, we decided to split our 4 best pitchers at the moment (in no real order), Jordan, Andrew, Danny, and Nate between the two games. We put Jordan and Nate yesterday deciding each would pitch 2 innings, with Nate starting and Jordan closing. Nate got the starting nod since were he to pitch efficiently we were OK with the idea that he could go into the 3rd inning.That left 3 innings of pitching left to do. We decided it was time to see Alex again (who I was very high on before the season started, but had a rough first appearance) and to look at David and Michael in a game situation for the first time.
Then came catchers. We had felt that some of our other catchers were coming close in skill to Aaron, our primary catcher, especially on throws to second base, and so we decided to catch Aaron 4 innings, play him at 3rd an inning because we're still not completely sold on Danny, and rest him two. As we have 12 players, 3 players must sit each inning. Steve and I divide the sits roughly equally so each kid sits twice, except for our three best fielders, Jordan, David, and Alex, who all sit once. We wanted Andrew to catch two innings and David to catch one inning, preferably after he had pitched. We put Aaron at 3rd during one of the times Danny would sit. So after doing pitchers and catchers this is what we had:
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1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
Andrew |
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|
C |
C |
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|
Jordan |
|
|
|
|
|
P |
P |
Aaron |
C |
C |
X |
3B |
C |
X |
C |
Danny |
|
|
|
X |
|
|
|
David |
1B |
1B |
1B |
P |
X |
C |
1B |
Alex |
|
|
P |
|
|
|
|
Michael |
|
|
|
|
P |
|
|
Ryan |
|
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|
|
|
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|
Justin |
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|
|
|
|
|
|
Brett |
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|
|
1B |
1B |
1B |
|
Nate |
P |
P |
RF |
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|
|
|
Ross |
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|
|
|
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As you can see we had filled Brett in at first when David wouldn't be playing it. We then took care of the middle infield as we knew when Alex wasn't at short we wanted Jordan there meaning Alex was going to have to rest when Jordan wasn't pitching and vice versa. For simplicities sake we had Alex rest in the 1st and Jordan rest in the 2nd. After Jordan, we like Ryan next best at second so we plugged him in there. However, in order to make Ryan's sits non-consecutive, which we do to try and keep them in the game, we had to give Michael an inning at second.
Next we did 3rd base. Danny remains our primary third baseman and we like Michael next best at 3rd so we did Danny's second sit when Michael was available and filled in Danny for the rest. That left our infield complete.
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
Andrew |
|
|
C |
C |
|
|
|
Jordan |
SS |
X |
SS |
2B |
2B |
P |
P |
Aaron |
C |
C |
X |
3B |
C |
X |
C |
Danny |
3B |
X |
3B |
X |
3B |
3B |
3B |
David |
1B |
1B |
1B |
P |
X |
C |
1B |
Alex |
X |
SS |
P |
SS |
SS |
SS |
SS |
Michael |
|
3B |
2B |
|
P |
|
|
Ryan |
2B |
2B |
X |
|
X |
2B |
2B |
Justin |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Brett |
|
|
|
1B |
1B |
1B |
|
Nate |
P |
P |
RF |
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|
|
|
Ross |
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|
|
|
|
|
|
Centerfield is the most important of the outfield positions, so we that was our next focus. We like Andrew the best in Center, so we put him in there and figured out where he would rest. We also like Ryan in CF so he got an inning there.
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
Andrew |
CF |
CF |
C |
C |
X |
CF |
X |
Jordan |
SS |
X |
SS |
2B |
2B |
P |
P |
Aaron |
C |
C |
X |
3B |
C |
X |
C |
Danny |
3B |
X |
3B |
X |
3B |
3B |
3B |
David |
1B |
1B |
1B |
P |
X |
C |
1B |
Alex |
X |
SS |
P |
SS |
SS |
SS |
SS |
Michael |
|
3B |
2B |
|
P |
|
|
Ryan |
2B |
2B |
X |
CF |
X |
2B |
2B |
Justin |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Brett |
|
|
|
1B |
1B |
1B |
|
Nate |
P |
P |
RF |
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|
|
|
Ross |
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|
|
|
|
|
|
At this point it was just about filling in the gaps we had and figuring out where Michael, Justin, Brett, Nate, and Ross would sit. Generally speaking we move Justin around the outfileld, while we put Nate and Brett in right and Ross in left. Hence a short time later we had our final line-up:
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
Andrew |
CF |
CF |
C |
C |
X |
CF |
X |
Jordan |
SS |
X |
SS |
2B |
2B |
P |
P |
Aaron |
C |
C |
X |
3B |
C |
X |
C |
Danny |
3B |
X |
3B |
X |
3B |
3B |
3B |
David |
1B |
1B |
1B |
P |
X |
C |
1B |
Alex |
X |
SS |
P |
SS |
SS |
SS |
SS |
Michael |
X |
3B |
2B |
X |
P |
LF |
RF |
Ryan |
2B |
2B |
X |
CF |
X |
2B |
2B |
Justin |
X |
RF |
CF |
RF |
CF |
X |
CF |
Brett |
RF |
X |
LF |
1B |
1B |
1B |
X |
Nate |
P |
P |
RF |
X |
RF |
RF |
X |
Ross |
LF |
LF |
X |
LF |
LF |
X |
LF |