Reply to Baseball Development AMA

Forum Index » Sports General Discussion

Reply to "Baseball Development AMA"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I have a question if you are still around (or if any other baseball parents want to weigh in)? Providing tons of details because I think they are important...

My son is 13U this year (7th grader, turns 13 in January) and played on a Majors level club team this past fall. He is small and pre-puberty (5’1” 90lbs). He didn’t see a ton of playing time this fall (batted and played the field both about 50% of the time). He played more in league games, and less in tournaments generally. Played RF/LF. Does get IF reps at practice. Roster of 13. Batted about .350 (all singles) but much of that was against easier pitching than the top of the lineup of course. Didn’t play more due to his lack of power at the plate, and (IMO) his size. He is the shortest on the team (though 2 other boys aren’t much taller) and the lightest by at least 30-40lbs. Half of his teammates are 5’7” or taller, and there are a few over 6ft. He is a good fielder and played well in the OF. Is also capable of playing MIF, pitching, catching. (Was primary catcher on this previous club team). Has a strong arm for his size. Gets reps at 2B in practice but has never been asked to catch even in practice or to pitch.

He has been invited back for the spring season. They plan to play tournaments only (which is where he has typically seen less playing time...last tournament he got 6AB in 4 games). We have not asked the coach about playing time expectations etc for Spring and really aren’t sure it is appropriate to even do so. I would expect the playing time to be the same as it was for fall tournaments.

The coaching is excellent and this team is very well regarded. Their goal is to prepare the boys for high school ball.

We expect DS to end up average sized or even a little tall (DH is 6’1”, I’m 5’7”) but he is clearly going to be late to puberty.

Stay with the team for Spring or move to another team (perhaps a AAA team where he will see more playing time)? I think current team will keep DS around for 14U if he keeps working very hard, and I doubt he would make another Majors team at his size. There isn’t a lot of roster turnover between spring and fall in our area so may take some work to find him a good situation.

It is a great team but DS is bummed to not play much, and only limited positions. We have not discussed Spring with him yet. Encourage him to stick with this team and keep trying as he will grow eventually? Or move him to another team? We don’t see many small kids at the Majors level so in many ways he is lucky to even be playing on this team. And he IS seeing playing time, just not as much as he would like. However, I don’t think he has a shot to earn a bigger role anytime soon (certainly not by this Spring). Not sure which way to steer DS.

Thoughts?

Any thoughts?

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics