@nycdad - 40% of the roster is freshman and transfers. My guess is that the coach wants to make an impression that there's zero tolerance for anything below expectations. It's been three weeks. I told my son to give it time. I doubt this will be going on by the spring.
We have two HS in my town. Both coaches are different. Our coach sort of gave the "stars" a lot of wiggle room on things. The other coach made kids run poles. The whole team. Catchers ran in full gear. They ran poles for an hour at the end of every practice. They ran poles after every game - home or road, win or lose. Everyone ran, studs and scrubs.
My son always said, if he played for the other coach, he would have quit. "That's not baseball." And I suspect he would have quit.
So, this is a new situation for him. They had to run again the day after the fly ball suicides because of something else in the intrasquad that day.
Maybe I'm wrong and this will be going on longer than I think? FWIW, the program doesn't have a history of a lot of freshman transferring out. Most freshman return and those who don't are usually cuts. And, again, it's very few.
It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks.