Love and Sabermetrics on the Softball Diamond

C – RF – 2B – RC – 1B – LF – LC – 3B – SS – P

Yes, this was largely based on the pre-1920s spectrum found on Wikipedia. My main premise was that slow-pitch softball is dominated by pull-happy righties, so the four spots on the left side of the diamond are the most valuable.

Now, one could argue that catcher, right field, and second base are more valuable than where they are shown here. But the reality was that any alignment I put out on the field would have some holes, so I just tried to minimize the damage.

As for first base—well, in baseball first base is low on the defensive spectrum because it doesn’t take much skill. But in slow-pitch softball, especially with this team, the ability to consistently catch a thrown ball was not a skill that could be taken for granted.

The preliminary spectrum set, I did my best to break each position down into a skillset, evaluating my players’ range, glove skills, and arm. The arrangement I came up with looked good – at least on paper. Our best infielder went to short—nevermind that he was left-handed.

Of our two best women, one didn’t want to play outfield, so she went to third and the other to left. Our aforementioned speedy, high-energy guy ended up in left center while I manned right center. The remaining positions were filled by people who actually had experience at their respective spots, and for lack of a better options our slugger volunteered to pitch.

There may be no pride in taking a walk in slow-pitch softball, but this team needed all the help it could get—especially since a league rule gave guys two bases on a walk, intentional or not. (In addition, if a guy walked with two outs, the girl behind him had the option to take their normal at bat or also take a walk.)

Fortunately, that rule didn’t differentiate between guys who normally hit the ball 400 feet and guys who normally hit the ball 40. So I preached patience, and it showed off to some extent, as the leader board for walks was peppered with both men and women from my team.

A few weeks into the season, the league batting stats were passed out, and I eagerly dug in. I had been waiting for the stats not only to check my own performance, but to use them to better construct my batting order.

I planned to use Dave Pinto’s Lineup Analysis Tool, but I had to modify it to accommodate the guy/girl rule. It was nothing a little Perl hack couldn’t handle.

The end result still had the girls in descending order by OPS, but this time it was the slugger batting second and the speedster (who apparently struggled in the transition to slow-pitch) batting fourth.

For the guys, I found myself hitting leadoff, thanks in no small part to many dates at the batting cages with the then-right fielder (and my current fiancée). All the other guys slid down a spot.

Sure, it took some explaining and convincing, but I pulled it off. Our high-energy guy accepted the move to third, and our ego-driven slugger tolerated the move to fifth after a white lie about giving him more baserunners to drive in.

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