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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid didn’t start travel baseball until 12u, so maybe my experience isn’t relevant…but from what I can tell talking to his coach and the kids who’ve been with that coach since 10u, they practiced twice a week and did weekly doubleheader games on Sunday. They were/are in the Northern VA Travel Baseball League, which also includes some MD teams.

Some teams do winter workouts, which can include hitting, conditioning, and some indoor field work. One of my kid’s friends was a star on his 10u/11u teams and he skipped winter workouts to no penalty.

The DH games can be time-consuming, especially if your games are a decent drive away. For us at 14u now, they’re at least a 6 hour chunk of our Sundays.  Some teams only play one game or some only on Saturdays. We also play Wednesday games- not sure if 10u also generally does? So for my son, he’s at 2 two hour practices, 1 mid-week game, and 1 doubleheader on Sunday.  I’m sure there are teams who do much more and teams who do less.

[b]I’d also ask the coach about their batting philosophy. They should be batting the whole lineup at this age, in my opinion, not just the top 9 or 10.  Ask how many they intend to roster- too many kids and someone’s riding the bench for too many innings or too few kids and you’ll struggle to field enough players for a game if someone is missing.[/b]

My son loves it (doesn’t always love the Friday practices, if I’m being honest)- loves the game, the dugout camaraderie, seeing his name on his jersey. If and when he stops loving it, we’re done, but for now, I love seeing him in his element.[/quote]

This will give you a ton of insight.

At that age (and honestly, up through 14 IMO), the team should bat the whole roster on pool play games, and then maybe the best 9 on Sunday.  For league play, everyone should bat.

A general rule of thumb is that they roster the age.  So a 12u team should have 12 kids, 13 has 13 and so on.  Obviously, 10U will likely want to have 11 or 12.  You add more roster spots as they age because the pitching toll becomes greater.  If you pitch a pool play game 1, you should be done pitching for the weekend, and your defensive positions should be limited in the subsequent games.

We've seen 13U teams that roster 18-20.  Kids will come to a tournament and not even get an at-bat.  It's horrible.

You could also ask about when they start to get primary defensive positions.  Our 10U team had everyone taking IF and OF.  Now, at 14, there's a group of OFers and a group of  middle IFers, and a group of corner IFers.  There are 1-2 that float in between, but we've seen the growth in both groups by focusing primarily on one defensive position.

I would also ask if there are expectations of hiring private coaches beyond practice.  Some teams will suggest pitchers get a private pitching coach.  Some will say that hitting is to be done on your own time and not at practice.  and some will have those coaches available to you (for an extra price of course).  There's nothing inherently wrong with expecting the kid to put work in on their own time.  But you should know, as the person that will both foot that bill and have to drive your son to these private lessons.

That said, when you find the right coach, right boys, and right parents (holy cow, having the right parents is important), it can really be a lot of fun! [/quote]

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