Winning=Buying In


Winning=Buy In



It doesn't always take winning to show the team that they should buy into your philosophies and what you are trying to do, but it doesn't hurt to win early. Winning early can give you a ton of credibility early as a coach. You can do all the building of relationships, and joking, teaching, along with quality coaching that you want with a team if it doesn't turn into W's early then you might have a problem on your hands. Now I am in no way saying that you must win to have buy in to your program, but what I am suggesting is that winning helps with your credibility as a coach.

Winning early helps player buy in to your program and it can also lead to another level of involvement from the team. Tensions can be high as you enter the season and player may be unsure about a particular coach and what they might consider doing for a given season. I have seen coaches lose a team before the season starts due to a variety of different issues, but winning will somehow keep the glue together no matter how little "glue" there might be for a given situation.

Losing early on the other hand can lead players to question you behind your back, start to doubt in your abilities as a coach, which can also spread and manifest itself within the team. As the coach in these situations it is important to come with the same consistent attitude whether you win or lose in these early games. The message should be on the marathon, and not the sprint. Coaches should ALWAYS be stressing the idea of getting better which can help the team reach its peak performance toward the end of the season and not the beginning. Winning and losing does not determine what kind of coach you but what winning can do for you is help you set the correct agenda, get players into the right mindset, and allow them to see what COULD be in place for the team.


The Squeeze (Leftovers from games)

  • Wooden bat baseball is so much different from metal bat baseball. Honestly I couldn't have imagined worrying about getting a runner in from 3rd with no outs by just getting a ground ball during the High School season. Obviously this is going to have to be something that I monitor as the season goes along. 
  • Talk about being efficient, during the high school season I had kept pitchers on a strict pitch count keeping them around 50 to start and 80 by the end of the season. (Only had one player throw a complete game) The starter yesterday throw 70 pitches and give us a quality 5 innings of work. Again this is something that I am going to have to manage as the season progresses. 
  • I loved how the team was able to come together during the early part of the season. A lot of the guys seem to know each other and the other guys who just joined or may not know anyone have adapted and moved around very nicely. 
  • The game was won yesterday just on our defense and baserunning along. Pitching was studly, but everything else really kept us in the game as a team. 
  • Made a huge mistake by not getting a good look at all the pitchers before the season. Looks like I will be learning on the fly when it comes to the pitching staff. Not a huge mistake but definitely a misplay by me. 
Thanks for checking in! Find me on twitter @MrRodrigues2

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