PLATOON SYSTEMS AND PLAYING TIME

Along with my comment that your job as a little league coach is to make them want to play that sport next year, comes your responsibility to let each player play.  We have all witnessed the teams that will only play their best players the greater part of the games and then let the less talented players get an inning here or a quarter there.  Can you imagine anything more boring than sitting the bench every game except for bits of playing time here and there?  Let me ask you, do you not think that kid feels less about himself as a person?

I am adamantly against little league programs that actually cut kids so they can form elite leagues.  You can certainly divide leagues up according to talent levels but you don’t have to cut 8, 9, 10 year old kids.

We played a platoon system in football and a rotational start system in baseball.  I strongly feel that kids need to be involved in the game from start to finish.  I can hear the questions now:  But how can you hide a kid who is less talented??

You don’t.  You coach him.  You teach him.

Here is how I learned that I had no right to look at a 9 or 10 year old kid and determine his or her future in a particular sport.  As a high school coach, I had a young man who was 5’2’’, 125 lbs. as a sophomore.  Big feet, kinda gangly and a bit uncoordinated.  He was a joy to be around—always smiling, funny as heck, and tried so hard all the time!  I had decided not to make any cuts but to stay out until EVERY kid had work.  So, this sophomore played sophomore ball that year. 

By the time he was a senior, he was 6’2’’ and weighed 190 lbs.  He played CF and pitched for us and never stopped being a joy to be around.  He ended up at a 4 year university, throwing 95 mph and was headed for a MLB career with the Cincinnati Reds organization.  Unfortunately, elbow problems prevented him from playing MLB but he went on to become the pitching coach at his alma mater, giving many other kids the benefit of his experiences and an opportunity to excel in baseball.

What if I would have cut him when he was a sophomore?

So, I decided then that I would never make a judgment about a youngster’s future ever again.  I decided instead that my objective was to keep the player interested and coach him.  I was committed to playing everyone.  But, wait a minute, doesn’t that mean more work for the coaches?  Yes.  It does.

Your responsibility now becomes emphasizing (or developing) that player’s strengths and minimizing his weaknesses. 

Maybe you help him perfect his bunting.  Maybe you figure out ways to help him with double-teams on blocking.  Maybe you use a stunt on defense that gives him a two-on-one advantage.  Maybe you spend extra time with him and help him learn how to read fly balls and get a jump.  I don’t know.  Everyone is different with different strengths and weaknesses.  The point is that’s what you signed on for—to coach.  So get to it.

The downside of platooning in football is that your awesome running back may end up as a corner in high school.  Or your chubby lineman may develop into the starting fullback on his high school team.  Both examples actually happened on our teams.

So, you don’t know.  That is why we had everyone work on both offensive techniques and defensive techniques at practice.  We had defense days and offense days.  Not to mention that we had a 2-deep back-up system in place that came in very handy and, more importantly, gave many players a chance to experience the game from the other side of the ball.

To apply the same approach in baseball is less than realistic.  Fortunately we had fewer players on the baseball team and so we actually ran a position by position rotation where we had more than one player.  Our catchers rotated, our pitchers obviously rotated (and played other positions as well), our second basemen rotated, and our outfield positions rotated.  Again, a pre-planned back-up system was essential, especially when various players left for vacation.  So we moved in that sub and rarely skipped a beat.