Not just to add fuel to the fire, but rereading these exchanges I see more clearly what I missed earlier..
I’m not up on all the research. Is there a national standard? If not we should be guided by pitch count and parents prerogative. That certainly was not the catalyst for this request.Coaches have brought pitchers in the middle of an inning to face particular batters - a team's strongest pitcher to face a formidable hitter, maybe in a tight spot. Sounds like one of the coaches complained. Is that how this started?
Would we do it? No. Do we have a problem if a coach does that to us? No. I'm not that knowledgeable about baseball, but in the big leagues its done all the time. Pitchers are brought in for one batter, and then done. And true - that pitcher cannot come back. For our team, that is not a change we want.
Like I said I don't know much about baseball, but for the last few seasons we have put in lesser pitchers against the weaker hitters, the hitters later in the lineup. We thought that was advantageous to our weaker pitchers, though it works out the same for the hitters. We intend to do that this year to give more kids a chance to pitch. That is one of our main objectives. We make this decision before the game and assign pitchers at the top of the inning - not the middle. We want the kids to figure it out themselves. If they are in a they can work themselves out, or realize they need to work harder before they pitch again. Then they come out. Yes - it has, and will cost us games..
With this rule change we will start a dominant pitcher and leave him in as long as possible, (the max is three innings) since he can't return to pitch. Then do the same with our next pitcher. The net result as we see it now is fewer kids will get to pitch.
How would this play out initially? Wayne and Avi and Todd and I will agree to waive this rule so pitchers can come back. Alex and Rich - we'll decide at the outset. We can't say for sure how it will manifest until we see a coach figure out a way to use this to his advantage (I bet pinch hitters are next).
Since this issue was brought I must disabuse you all- it's not eleven and twelve year-olds we wish to dominate - it's their parents. I admittedly did a poor job of this last year.
From our perspective what matters more to us is larger teams, and younger kids on our team. Ask the parents and the kids what they think about that. There is too much emphasis on the rules. Once I told a coach his pitcher had to come out - one hit batter three walks, whatever it was. Aside from the strategic error I was sorry immediately. I should have left it up to the coach.