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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Looking for advice about switching teams. DS plays mid-level travel baseball (13u) and we are thinking about moving him. I know that no club is perfect and he likes his team, but he is interested in playing in HS and we are not confident that the current team is the place to help him grow in the areas where he needs work. That said, we also know that there will always be issues with other clubs/teams/coaches and we could end up trading fine for worse. DS wants to stay on good days, wants to move on on bad days.

I am primarily interested in hearing from baseball people about the factors that they weighed before switching and what people feel is most important for HS prep, but also open to hearing from people who have been in a similar situation in another sport. FWIW HS will be in MoCo, but still TBD public vs private.  [/quote]

For baseball, there are two aspects to consider:
1) Skills coaching: How good is the current coach at coaching skills vs. the potential new coach. Improvement in baseball at MS ages is directly tied to your coaches ability to improve the fundamentals and teach advanced skills properly. For example, if you are a hitter -- what part of your swing makes you able to hit a 65 MPH fastball with no problem, but struggle to hit a 85 MPH fastball? Does the coach know how to adjust your swing to make hitting that faster pitch possible? Its never as simple as "swing faster".

2) Playing time: Does the playing time challenge your player to put into practice the skill they work so hard on. Using the hitter example, playing on a team where the competition can't locate pitches effectively/throw hard, etc. will probably not be valuable even if you are in the starting lineup of every game. The opposite is also true -- getting a lot of playing time on a team where pitchers can routinely (8-9/10 times) beat you as a hitter isn't going to help either.

Ask your  player what they think.  Are you learning anything new? Are you learning as fast as you can be? Do you feel challenged in the games? If the answer to these questions is no, its probably time to switch.

Your question about making the HS team is very context dependent.  Some HS teams are good, others aren't.  For private school you may be able to talk to the coach ahead of time and get a good idea of your chances to make a team.  Public HS usually won't do that. If you can't talk to the coach, go to some of the games for the schools you are looking at.  Don't just watch the varsity team, watch the lower levels teams as well.[/quote]

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