3 for 1

Tonight I wrote three lineups for tomorrow’s game. The first went unfinished for over an hour because I couldn’t make it work.  My challenge is in balancing relatively equal playing time with fielding a competitive team while giving everyone a chance to play infield a few times during the game. 

The second lineup was produced by the recognition that there’s an app for that.  After a brief search of the Market my lovely wife found and downloaded an app for generating lineups that balance playing time and bench time.  The computer did a decent job of distributing playing time and provided enough control to assign pitchers and catchers.  However, where it excelled in efficiency it lacked in the human element (as you might expect from a mindless computer with limited data available). This lineup could have worked but it left us exposed in ways defensively that would have made us less competitive and put players in positions they were not ready for.

The third lineup started with a very systematic distribution of bench time. This method benched one player from the top, middle and bottom thirds of the batting order. In this way I was guaranteed to have a balanced team on the field and avoided having to schedule an inning where “I had to” bench two top players to avoid over sitting the middle and bottom players.  Pitchers and catchers went in after the bench positions then shortstop and first base followed by second third and the outfield positions.  This was a nice way to get the kids evenly distributed while still having a bit more control on the positions and personnel filling each role.  This method was pretty good but I fear its mechanical nature has led me to miss something that I’ll have to either endure or question and adjust in the middle of the game. And as I’ve told my team, it’s best to not ask me questions during the game because there is just too much to think about to think.