What's your thoughts? 10U teams playing 12U

[play4fun]

Just curious as to what the general population thinks about a competitive 10U "A" Travel Ball team, who wants to earn a berth to 10U "A" National, who keeps playing up in 12U "A".

Does this really affect the pitcher going back and forth with different pitching distances and a larger ball?

What about the stress on the players knowing that most of them do not do well in 12U "A" at this time due to maturity, size, and power. Some of these teams do really well in 10U "A" but when they play up in 12U "A" they get pretty beat up on.

10U is different from 12U,14U, etc. and it seems like like would do better staying in 10U and concentrate on getting more playing time during tournament play instead of going home early and disappointed.

This happens alot in Texas so I was just wondering if it happens everywhere else.

[bkatona]

If the pitching is strong enough and the girls can adjust to the greater distance and bigger ball, great, but it's a jump to the 12" ball and 40' pitching distance for a 10 y/o (our DD is doing just that now, but she started pitching with the big ball and 40' distance, so the adjustment was not as large as it was for some of her peers). 12U pitchers throw hard and have multiple pitchs (change-up, curve for some)...your team should be the better for it in the long run, but might get smoked in a few games.

[DonnieS]

We had a strong 10u team a few years ago and would play up. It was helpful for the pitchers but it hurt the hitters. They would have 5 more feet to look at the ball and hit pretty well at 40 - then switch back to 35 feet and struggle. At least thats what we blamed it on, who knows.

[slapper]

Got to agree with Donnie on this one. When we moved up from 10u to 12U we had girls who were not very strong hitters hit the ball pretty good. Several of the pitchers we saw actually threw harder in 10U with a 11 inch ball from 35 feet compared to the 12U pitchers with a 12 inch ball from 40 feet. Our pitchers took a beating but the fielders and catchers got plenty of work. For us we would play up the first tournament of the month and stay down the second tournament. We would look for the tournaments with 6 or 7 game guarantee so were could get the most work. By the end of the year we were more competative playing up.

[DonnieS]

If you 10u guys do this a lot, get one of those 14 inch balls for your girls to throw at pitching practice - during early part of the workout. It knocks the 12 inch ball down to size. May not be for everyone but it helped us during those transitions and also when you actually do move up to 12u.

[Demonboy]

It's ok but they should stay away from the top tier 2nd year 12's. That would be just ugly.

[sftballjnkie]

My DD was playing on a 2nd yr 10U team last yr but was still 1st yr 10U age. When they moved up, we kept her down to allow her to be a "big dog" pitcher in 10U to build up confidence. She is a dominant pitcher this year and has grown mentally stronger. She could hang defensively and offensively at 12U, but needed the time to mature more before moving up. She transitions well from the 11" ball to the 12" ball as her pitching coach uses the big ball to get her to use more power. He makes her pitch with th 12" ball from 40' in practice from time to time because she has to work harder to get it 40'. Makes her pitch faster from 35' with the small ball. I don't see the benefits of switching back and forth.

[soreshins]

I do not recommend playing 12U leading up to Nationals. My experience was that the pitchers got used to the 12 inch ball and the 40 foot distance. When we went back to 10U at Nationals our pitchers had trouble keeping the ball down. This caused them to go deeper into counts. The end result was more 3-2 counts. I would suggest that you schedule friendlies with the other Nationals bound 10U teams in your area.

On the up side we had no problem transitioning to 12U.