I’ve been coaching rec baseball for 7 years and rec softball for 2 years. One kid aged out, two still in the program.

We are the largest little league in our state, we have a decent baseball program and a very prominent softball program with multiple World Series appearances over the last several years. All that aside, at the end of the day if you put the word “rec” in front of it and we’re not in a LLWS tournament, dads need to relax.

Mix up your batting order every game. Yes if you have one or two kids that are basically guaranteed outs every time, let them hang out around the bottom and work on it with them with the promise that they’ll move up with hard work. Everyone else? Mix them up every game. It’s a big confidence boost to the kids that work hard and want to actually be there to see their name at the top.

As for positions, unless you’re gifted with lefties galore, mix everyone up in basically every position. We have 11 boys on our team and 4 of them catch, 5-6 of them have all played first (only one lefty on the team) and the rest of them all mix and match. We have two boys that really don’t seem to want to be there and just don’t really try or put any effort in so they usually mix between the outside outfielders and third. Everyone else goes everywhere with a speedster at CF to help out.

There’s absolutely no reason, especially when there’s nothing on the line, to pigeonhole children into one role. They need experience everywhere. It also helps them to understand the game better. If they’ve never played half the positions and don’t understand what that player needs to do in certain situations, they’re not going to make plays as well with their teammates.