With all due respect to @CTbballDad, I worry about his advice falling into the wrong hands. And there are LOTS of wrong hands out there. In his case, his son was freshman of the week after one week and a starter right after that. No one will argue that’s realistic for all but a very select few. That’s tremendous and super early success that almost no one sees. The problem is, most players and parents will look at that and think “yeah, my kid is capable of doing the same thing.” No, they’re not.
I’m no expert, but most collegiate summer rosters I’ve looked at are not small. So I’d argue it wouldn’t be difficult (especially for a recent high school grad) to avoid too many innings on their arms. I couldn’t see too many collegiate summer coaches telling an 18 year old recent HS grad that he absolutely must pitch a ton for him this summer. If that’s the case, you’re a freshman of the week type outlier or that coach did a horrific job of putting his summer roster together if he needs a HIGH SCHOOL kid to carry that much water for him on the mound.
While I could be convinced that a freshman with a solid work ethic will be fine, I’d first want to see what people define as “fine.” Because there are LOTS of freshmen with GREAT work ethics that do not end up fine according to their definition. I look at work ethic as college baseball 101 for anyone who simply wants an opportunity to possibly see the field ever. Great work ethic can be seen across all decent or better programs that never results in playing time let alone starting. If I were coaching and you had subpar work ethic, get packing. Then I’d go ask the remaining players who can show me something much more than just strong work ethic. I’m in management always tell my people that today it’s no longer enough to just work hard and expect to get ahead. The expectation is that everyone works hard. Out of those people, I’ll take the ones that also work just as SMART. Just because you’re sweaty doesn’t mean you’ll ever play.