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Happy holidays to all

My son and I are trying to figure out what to do

He's 8th grade and not on a team right now

We took the fall / winter off from baseball and focused on workouts

 Our original plan was to play in the 15-18 yo park and rec league because it ends before school let's out so we could do summer ball with the high school program and it would expose him to playing with older boys

After to speaking to one of the dads whose son is a year older we're having thoughts of trying to find a travel team instead of the high school summer team.  

  I've heard people say playing summer ball will help your son make the team in spring because the coaches will be more familiar with him then I've also heard that summer ball was just a fundraiser for the program

 

I know every high school program is different but generally speaking would an incoming freshman be better off playing summer ball for the high school or for a travel team?  Will playing for the high school summer program help him make spring team or does it really not matter?

 

Thanks

 

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My son did both in the summer before 9th grade.  He was up front with the coach that he was playing travel, but was still able to make almost all of the HS summer league games.  The schedule worked to his benefit as most of the league games were mid-week.  He started out playing for the combo freshman/sophomore JV team and earned an opportunity to play with the varsity team.

 

I can say that my son took the opportunity and ran with it.  It paid off for him in his freshman year in HS.

 

But this is what happened with my son.  Depending on your HS, coach, and schedule your mileage may vary.

Travel ball will probably be better competition, and a good coach should be able to recognize talent when he sees it and should want his players playing at the highest possible level.  That being said a lot of high school coaches aren't the brightest so its a crapshoot really.  Come check out my blog all about catching at www.candidcatcher.wordpress.com, catchers never get any love and its time to change.

Agree with blau....fortunately for us, my son's HS coach realized that having him play top level travel ball was much more beneficial than playing summer ball with the HS team so we never had any issues.  Some of his friends and other parents didn't understand how we could leave the HS kids to go play all over the Midwest....though maybe now that he's signed an NLI with a D1 maybe they'll figure it out...lol.  I don't know your situation with regard to your son's talent...or the level of summer ball where you live...but in most cases, playing travel ball witl benefit your son in the long run...if his goal is to play baseball after HS

So you have Parks & Rec, travel, HS summer as options. 

 

Play with as many as you can. Get on the field. Find some competition. 

 

Bottom line about HS coaches - they are going to play the players that they think they can win with. Getting to know them the summer before you enter HS could be an advantage. Might also not be. 

 

And fenwaysouth is 100% correct. 

 

 

Often, this is regional. In Denver, forever, the HS had an iron fist on the players. Pretty much they wanted their players in the HS leagues in the summer and, if you wanted to play in the spring, you complied. However, this past summer a couple of the local academies who have grown exponentially over the past two or three years had all of their kids show up at the summer HS league tryouts. From what I gathered, they tried out and then informed the coaches they weren't going to play - they'd be playing summer ball on their academy teams. This involved a large percentage of the local talent, so we'll see what happens this spring.

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