Many times youth coaches are unsure or worried about how to pick their roster and how many players to carry. Duke Baxter breaks down how to properly pick your roster size as a youth baseball and softball coach.   

Picking a roster does not mean just focusing on the number of the players that you have, but making sure your team has all the elements you need such as the right number of catchers or pitchers. When numbers start to get above 12, we are typically taking pitcher only, so time is not taken away from position players. 

During bigger tournaments, we will see teams who have upwards of 18 players. This is because the farther you get in a tournament, the more games you play, and the more arms you need. Once you get to 3-5 games in a day, you need so many more pitchers than you can provide with a team of only 12.   

Because of this, optimal team size depends on what age the baseball players are and the level they are playing at. While it is much easier to coach a smaller team, the coach needs to make sure that you have reinforcements if someone doesn't feel well or a player gets hurt to avoid having to switch everyone's position to accommodate the lost player. With enough players, a hurt teammate is always a disruption, but it does not disrupt the solidarity of the team because there is someone just as good to take his/her place.   

Here at Zoned, we like 11-12 players on a team, and when we have more than that the player's are POs.

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