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So, with regard to HS or Summer teams, do your pitchers ONLY pitch?
One poster said they often feel that their best pitcher is their best hitter/fielder as well. This kind of shocked me because where I come from if you are 16/17/18 and title yourself as a pitcher that is ALL you do. Sometimes coaches will allow other positions to pitch an inning or two but if you are considered a pitching prospect you don't hit or field or do anything else. You are a PO (Pitcher Only), and this even allows you a discounted rate on your summer team.
I wondered how it went in everyone else's neck of the woods. Does your pitcher only pitch? How many of your pitchers get to hit? What is the norm?
HS - team's primary objective is to win. Smaller schools with smaller pools of players to pull from often are left with a limited number of "good" players that will help them compete. So, if you have a good arm and you are a good player, you are likely to be a 2-way guy. Also, if you know how to pitch well, you are likely to be a decent player in general and you are likely to be a 2-way guy. Bigger schools with more depth can afford to ID players who they want to focus as PO's and not lose too much by not having them as a position player. Next man up. This allows those PO's to focus on honing their craft. Of course there are exceptions. It is fairly common for the best few players per team to have the best arms and so they are desirable as 2-way guys regardless of school size (Remember, most HS players were the best all-around players coming up through the youth levels). Some of these guys see their future as one or the other so they may ask to focus. Others want to play both ways. Some coaches are more protective of arms than others. Programs of all sizes also run across players who can contribute on the mound but can't crack the starting lineup as a position player. And, these days, there are more and more kids getting specialized pitching training at an early age, so that's where they are most competitive.
Summer ball - depends on age and focus of the program. Much of the same applies but if a program is more focused on recruiting, they are more likely to put a guy on the field only where they feel his future is or where he can best showcase his talents as opposed to where he may best help the team win. So, a HS 2-way who's future is more likely as a P will more likely be a PO for the summer team.
Just for kicks, I went through and did something similar to Root... looked at Maxpreps for our local HS leagues and a few bigger SoCal leagues for comparison. It pretty much verified my observations. Bigger programs had more PO's. Although, I was surprised that there seem to be more and more PO's with smaller schools now than, say five years ago.
Our school, over the last five or six years, has run the gamut and we are fairly small - 7-800 kids. Our P's would usually at least hit when they are on the bump, some had to be in the lineup regardless and some were PO. PO were the minority. But the rest of our league and the other league in our immediate area consist mostly of much bigger schools than ours (1400-2700) so I see that first hand as well. BTW, Root, it is not uncommon for us to run into SoCal and Central Valley schools that are 3K+ kids.