Playing travel before the big field will not make your son better. Talent is talent and hard work is hard work regardless of the league you play in especially at a young age. People that play travel at young ages thinking that it is advantages to their kids development IMO are wasting their money. Now if you are doing it because your son gets more enjoyment out of it, okay.
I don't think the facts support this. If you look, you will see that the best HS teams in your area (Mater Dei, JSerra, El Toro, etc) are stocked with kids that grew up playing travel ball. Kids that started travel ball at 13/14 seem behind the 8 ball.
Because those kids are already very talented. TB at the early ages did not make them better players. Until puberty you don't really know. There are thousands of kids that start early and don't play HS, what about them?
I have to agree with standball on this one. This is more of the very Talented were playing Travel Ball. How many of these Kids TB team mates are still playing?