A quick thought about the use of professionals to supplement your son's training...
Two kinds of professionals: one for on-the-field activity, and one for off-the-field.
If I had to prioritize given limited resources:
- For POs: pitching instruction
- For Position Players: hitting instruction
- Strength training
- For Position Players: fielding instruction
- Physical Therapy (proactive, not reactive)
- Nutritional guidance
- Eye examinations
- Speed training
Have we engaged with all of these professionals at one time or another? Yes. Consistently? #'s 2 and 3, and the others on an as-desired basis.
Are we made of money? No. Is there a money tree in the backyard? Haven't found it yet. So we've always been careful about how we budget for this, and making decisions based on ROI and what we could do on our own, given proper research.
Here's the big factor that mucks everything up: we're dealing with teenagers, and by definition, we as parents don't know crapola. Nature of the beast. He's going to listen to a trusted outsider before he listens to you. Two examples:
1) I'm very knowledgeable about nutrition, given my lifting background. But there was nothing I could say that would be taken as gospel, and after a while I just needed a professional to come in and lay down parameter, which by the way, was exactly the same as what I was saying!
2) Acquaintance of ours played professionally, and is full of on-the-field baseball knowledge. Was he a source of expertise for his son? Nope!
Sometimes you have to pull in the big guns because you are you, and son is son, and that's just the way it is.