Son decided as a HS sophomore that he wanted to spend his junior year of HS living and studying abroad in Europe. It was the greatest year of his life.
He had already made several recruit visits to D1 programs in fall of his sophomore year and knew that suddenly disappearing from the recruitment scene for a year, age 16-17, would in no way help his baseball recruitment, and in all likelihood hurt it. At the very least he knew shutting down his baseball development for the age 16-17 year would not be ideal. But he went anyway.
The schools he had visited prior to his departure "moved on" while he was gone. He played no baseball, couldn't even play catch, for 11-months age 16-17.
It was the greatest year of his HS experience. It gave him a new understanding of the world and a fluency in a second language that he never would have had, had he not called a timeout from baseball.
Even though he is now playing at a D1 university, I don't think he has yet recovered from that missed year of baseball development in what I believe to be perhaps the most important year of physical development for a HS recruit, 16-17. But he developed as a person in a way baseball never would have done. For that alone it was worth it.