ish, this is indeed a pitching question, and I’ll see if I can give you some answers. The first thing I need to know is what sort of repertoire you have—how many pitches you throw and how much success you’re having with them. A pitcher who has just a couple of pitches—fast ball, curve, changeup for example—could go either way, and a lot depends on how well he’s using them, which one pitch is in his estimation better than the others. If you think you’d be more comfortable “playing down”, do that, but if you are looking for more of a challenge you might try to pitch in a higher league. However—if you have a considerable arsenal…
I remember that when I was fourteen I hooked up with a very good team which might have been called semipro if the players had gotten paid! I didn’t have a fast ball to speak of, but I did have a curve ball, a knuckle-curve, and a couple of different changeups, and I could change speeds, and I did all right with what I had. Then, at age 16, I learned the slider, and it became my strikeout pitch, and I ended up with a very good assortment of pitches—eight or nine of them, to be exact. My best pitches were that knuckle-curve and old Filthy McNasty—the slider which I had nicknamed for a character in an ole W.C. Fields movie because that was exactly what it was. It was my strikeout pitch, with a sharp late break, and being a natural sidearmer I used the crossfire extensively.
So, if you think you might want more of a challenge and you have a few pitches to mess around with, go ahead, move to the higher league. You might become a better pitcher for all that. Just remember: move the ball around, high, low, inside, outside, and change speeds—and throw strikes. As Satchel Paige once said, “Home plate don’t move.” 8) 