As a new baseball season begins, I thought I’d share my thoughts on one of the oldest debates in youth sports: playing time.
If you’re a volunteer coach—especially a coach with your own kids on the team—it’s easy to feel like you’ve earned a little privilege. After all, you’re the one organizing practices, managing the lineup, preparing the field, coordinating snacks, handling fundraising, and responding to whatever the league asks you to do on short notice.
It’s tempting to think that at the very least you can make sure your own kids get good playing time. Maybe make sure they pitch, play some shortstop, or get the key infield positions.
But I made a different choice.
I was that kid who sat on the bench. I was the kid who got stuck in right field. It wasn’t much fun.
And the funny thing is—I loved baseball.
I just wasn’t coached very much. Because of that, I didn’t develop very quickly. I would have done anything to play the infield or get more chances in the game. Instead, I mostly watched.
That experience stuck with me.
As a coach today, I always sympathize with the kids who aren’t the most skilled players yet. I work hard to teach them mechanics and fundamentals so they can become meaningful contributors to the team. That perspective has shaped how I approach coaching.
Interestingly, as I got older, my coordination improved. I played adult softball and by the time I was in my 60s I could hit the ball pretty far. Once I learned proper mechanics, people even asked if I had played high school baseball.
I always laugh and tell them the truth:
“I barely got off the bench. I mostly played right field.”
The point is this:
Kids develop at different rates.
Coordination comes at different times. Confidence grows over time. Skills improve with coaching and opportunity.
But love for the game is fragile.
When you sit a kid on the bench or stick them permanently in right field, you increase the chance that they lose interest in baseball altogether.
Now, there are places where maximizing wins makes sense. Travel teams and tournament teams are different environments. The players are usually more advanced, and there may only be a few games to compete.
But in a house league regular season, the mission should be different.
Personally, I wish every league had a rule that required:
- Equal innings in the infield
- Equal innings in the outfield
- Balanced bench time
One practical tip for coaches:
Add columns to your lineup spreadsheet that track:
- Total innings played in the infield
- Total innings played in the outfield
- Total innings spent on the bench
Over the course of the season, try to keep those numbers as balanced as possible.
Of course, there are exceptions.
If a player shows poor effort, they earn bench time.
If a player is a discipline problem, they earn bench time.
But if a player is trying, learning, and working hard, they deserve meaningful playing time just like everyone else.
Simply placing a player in the outfield in a league where very few balls are hit to the outfield isn’t really fair. Many leagues try to address this by requiring a minimum number of infield innings—often two per game—which is better than nothing.
But it still misses the larger point.
If a player truly cannot catch the ball and poses a safety risk, then yes, placing them in the outfield may make sense while they continue learning.
But if they’re improving, paying attention, and showing love for the game, we should be doing everything we can to develop them, not hide them.
As youth coaches, we have enormous influence over whether kids continue to love baseball.
Please don’t do anything that might extinguish that love.
If you have questions or thoughts, feel free to reach out.
Coach Grossman
coachgrossman@coachingyouthbaseball.com
