Spend the money on a hitting coach instead of travel. Is on the bigger size for his age, average, smaller? Does he pitch or catch?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IF he's having issues now just wait till 13u.

I was shocked at how bad 13u was. Shocked. Are they all this bad?

13u baseball is horrible. The big field makes pitching a nightmare, catchers don’t have the arm to pick people off, those HRs on the little league field are now fly balls, and all the parents know everything. People jump around teams because they think the problem is that everyone sucks except their kid. Just survive this time without letting some coach overthrow your kid’s arm.

Don’t forget to develop athleticism and strength in other sports and strength/speed training.

+1 Also--everyone is starting to freak out about whether or not their kid will make the HS team and parents start complaining about the need for the team to be more competitive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IF he's having issues now just wait till 13u.

I was shocked at how bad 13u was. Shocked. Are they all this bad?

13u baseball is horrible. The big field makes pitching a nightmare, catchers don’t have the arm to pick people off, those HRs on the little league field are now fly balls, and all the parents know everything. People jump around teams because they think the problem is that everyone sucks except their kid. Just survive this time without letting some coach overthrow your kid’s arm.

Don’t forget to develop athleticism and strength in other sports and strength/speed training.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IF he's having issues now just wait till 13u.

I was shocked at how bad 13u was. Shocked. Are they all this bad?

What specifically were you shocked by? The quality of play as they transitioned to the big field or the player/family/coach attitudes and behavior? I was not prepared for how rocky that fall would be as boys adjusted to the big field and how so many players on the other teams looked like high school kids.

Anonymous wrote:IF he's having issues now just wait till 13u.

I was shocked at how bad 13u was. Shocked. Are they all this bad?

No advice on how to convince him that LL isn’t a demotion but I think it’s important to know when to pull the plug on a team. Sounds like you need a change. Moving to another team is tricky because you could just be trading (and paying) for a whole new set of issues. If you find a team/organization you can stomach or even really like, stay put and count your blessings. All it takes is going to a tryout to remind you of all the awful characters you could be interacting with. Someone on another thread said “the grass is brown everywhere” and IMO that nails it.

If your son loves baseball but there aren’t any travel teams that are good fits (or you don’t have the stomach to go through the search process), downshift to LL and find a good coach to do skill work. Once the dust has settled maybe consider travel ball again but do your best to only try out for teams that you’ve vetted as much as possible—understand who they play, find someone who knows the boys/parents, try to get a sense of who the coaches are etc.

IF he's having issues now just wait till 13u.

Sounds like you've not had a good travel ball experience. How did you pick what team to tryout for?