2024 Softball Season Review: A New League

 

 

What you're looking at up there is a jersey for each of the three softball teams I've played for since getting back into the sport in 2018.

And to remind you where we last left off, I began the 2024 season searching for yet another team. The regular third baseman for the Stunners was ready to return from injury this year, so they no longer had a spot for me on the team. (No hard feelings, as many of those guys have played softball together for 15 or 20 years.)

 

Well, after scouring the local softball message boards and posting some information, I'm happy to report that I did find a new team for 2024. 

 

 

 

Not quite the feel-good moniker you'd be looking for, but hey, softball team names are known to be pretty wacky. And they needed a third baseman. Besides, not only would this be a new team, it would also be a new league. I went into it with a completely blank slate.

It turned out pretty well. Let's get right to the stats. 

 

The competition level in this new league fell right between the previous two I played in: Not as strongly challenging as the Stunners' league, but a little more competitive than the Wolfpack's league.

 

Ultimately, it was a tale of two seasons for me. Here's the TL;DR: 

 

  

The biggest difference for me was the Monday night games compared with the Sunday night games. Mondays are usually long, busy days at work for me. It can be pretty tough to finish at 5:00pm. Oftentimes my Monday nights involved rushing to finish up with work, grabbing a quick bite to eat, getting my uniform on, and zooming over to the fields to play a doubleheader. And as much as I like to say No excuses, play like a champion, I definitely showed up to some games during the Summer season feeling physically and mentally drained. (Just look at the difference in my batting average from the summer to the fall!) There were even a couple of games where I noticed the outfielders moving in on me, because I was making such weak contact.

In addition, our pitcher left the team pretty early on during the Summer season. And when our captain asked me if I had any pitching experience, I reluctantly said yes. Pitching is not my favorite thing. Combine that with some tough luck and rough defense, and it affected my enjoyment of the game. It's not to say that I didn't have some good outings where I managed to pitch well and keep our team in there, but let's just say I also had a couple of pretty big stinkers. I hesitate to share my pitching stats, but here you go.

 

 

  

I will say that pitching in this league was a lot more challenging than the fill-in pitching I did for the Wolfpack a few years ago, where most hitters were free swingers. I didn't walk many people at all in that league. But in this new league? Wow. Hitters have good eyes, and they're willing to take walks, as you can see by those numbers. And once they notice that you're struggling on the mound, they take even more pitches—even close ones! I can't tell you how many pitches I made that just missed landing past home plate for strikes. That's not to mention the couple of tournament teams we played against who had a few guys capable of rocketing balls over the fence, 300 feet away, even if your pitches were a little out of the strike zone. Oof.

In any case, for the Fall season we recruited an actual pitcher, picked up a few new players with skill and speed, and I went back over to third base. In my first game back at the hot corner I went 3-for-4 and made some good plays in the field, and felt much better about things for the rest of the season.

Speaking of third base, here are my fielding stats for the year.

 

Overall, I played fairly well at third, and made a few nice diving stops and double plays over the course of the year. I made a handful of errors as well. Some were throwing errors, and others were fielding errors. (It's the fielding errors that bother me more.) As a pitcher I also fielded well, snagging a few hot come-backers over the course of the season. I made just one silly throwing error when I cut off a throw to home plate from the outfield and tried to nail a baserunner who ventured too far off second base. As for those few innings at catcher, they were logged during a doubleheader when I tweaked my lower back early on, and just couldn't play third base for the rest of the day. Thankfully, that was the only weekend when I was more literally a member of the Walking Wounded.

Bonus Content: Playoff Stats!

We played well enough in the Fall season to make the playoffs. Impressively, this league holds a best-of-three series for each playoff round. (One round each Sunday for three consecutive Sundays.) We swept through the first two rounds, and then met up with a pretty tough team in the finals. We lost the first game, but came right back in the second game with a win. Unfortunately, they got the better of us in the final game with some timely hitting and fantastic fielding, so we finished runner-up. It was still a heck of a run, though, especially considering that we didn't even come close to the playoffs during the Summer season.

Here are my playoff stats.

 

 

 

A Deeper Dive

Just like last year, I kept a basic spray chart. Since we made the playoffs this year, I added those numbers to the totals. Have a look.

 

 

 

Last year, 50% of my hits went the opposite way (left field), 29% went to center, and 21% went to my pull side (right field). This year I spread things out a lot better, and I'm pretty happy about that. As for the ratio of fly balls to line drives to ground balls, I definitely leaned more heavily toward grounders and less toward line drives this year. (Last year it was 40% grounders, 55% line drives, and 5% fly balls.) 

 

Now part of that is because I collect some singles by deliberately slapping grounders through the hole, just to get on base. But I'd be fooling myself if I didn't acknowledge that a swing flaw revealed itself in 2024—especially during the Summer season. A pretty good percentage of those ground balls probably came from swings where I was trying to hit a line drive, and just got on top of the ball. It's lucky that some of them found a hole in the infield. 

 

Bu there's a positive to share. Throughout the Fall season and into the playoffs, I really started to figure things out and hit more line drives again. That helped to restore my confidence. We'll see what kind of work I can put in during the off-season, and hopefully I can start out next season on a similar roll.

More Bonus Content: League Leaders!

Speaking of confidence, I got my swing working well enough during the Fall season to lead the team in hits (31) and batting average (.721). In addition, across the 9-team league I was ranked #5 in batting average for all batters with a minimum of 25 at-bats. (I had 43 at-bats, which tied for 9th overall.) Yeah!

 

Okay, analysis over. 

 

Now I'm going to look at the goals I set at the end of last year, and give myself a letter grade for each one.

Learn How to Pull the Ball Again (B+)

I'm pretty happy here. It took me a while to really nail things down, but once I did, I started recognizing inside pitches and turning on them more confidently. I hit a few solid line drives into right field, including a rocket shot that drove in the winning run from third base in extra innings during a Fall season game. This also kept defenses a little more honest with me. There were times when I pulled the ball in a couple of consecutive at-bats, and when the opposing team put the lefty shift on me the next time I was up at bat, I went oppo for a hit. That felt pretty good.

Stop Lunging at Short Pitches (B)

Not bad here, either. I did develop a better eye for short pitches (those that fall short of the plate, or on the plate) over the course of year, and my higher number of walks is evidence of that. I also noticed that I took more pitches in general, and took some at-bats deeper in the count than normal. That's very good for me, because I'm a bit of a free swinger. I've got more work to do here, but overall, it's a definite improvement.

 

Figure Out a Way to Produce on Bad Days (Incomplete)

Last year I posited that my bad days on the softball field were, in part, the simple result of getting older (I'm firmly entrenched in my mid-40s). After another year, I'm more confident that's the case. Some days you just feel tired, and not quite sharp physically or mentally. And like I mentioned already, that summer schedule—6:00pm doubleheaders every Monday right after work—didn't do me any favors. 

 

But really, those are all excuses. I've just got to do a little better at getting on base and playing good defense on those bad days. I'll make this a goal again for next year, and we'll see what I can do. I don't know. Maybe it's time for an over-40 league? Maybe I should start drinking coffee before games?

 

It's all stuff to think about. For now, let's keep the good mojo going. Here are a couple of things I'd like to work on for next year.

 

Keep that Swing Flaw Away

Like I mentioned a little while ago, I struggled with my swing during the Summer season. I was seeing the top of the ball too much and hitting it into the ground, even when I felt like I was trying to make a level swing. I think a decent part of this was a result of all the golf I played during the year, and how I spent much more time on my golf game than my softball game. (Being a two-sport guy has its challenges, for sure.) Recognizing the softball swing flaw and fixing it during the Fall season was a big win for me. So now it's just a matter of taking down some notes and reminding myself of the solution. Let's go hit!

 

Get Back in the Gym

This is more of a general life goal, but the fact remains that I've hardly worked on my strength and flexibility over the past couple of years. Getting back into that routine will certainly help my softball game, both at the plate and in the field.

I'm writing these goals down on the blog because I think doing so will help keep me accountable. Let's see what happens!

And that's my assessment of the 2024 season. Overall, I enjoyed the year. I got out there and met even more new people and made some new friends. And although the level of competition in this league is a step below last year's league, I think it's a pretty good fit for me. I like to challenge myself and work to improve my game, but I also just like enjoying some weekend softball. So I wouldn't mind joining the same team again, especially if they choose the Sunday afternoon time slot again. However, I'll also keep my eyes open for other teams and leagues, including over-40 leagues. We'll see. Maybe I'll have yet another jersey to add to my collection next year.

 

I look forward to checking back on this post at the end of next season to see if I made some of the improvements that I laid out here. For now, I'm going to enjoy a little time off for the holidays. 

 

Thanks for reading along and following my experiences. 

 

Did any of you get out and join a softball league this past year? Or play any other sport?

 

Feel free to share some of your own experiences in the comment section.