2019Dad posted:RJM posted:Gaining 25 pounds in five years isn't significant. It's very common for a baseball player to gain 15-25 pounds in two years when entering college. My son was 170 when he finished his senior year of high school. He was 195 two years later while only growing one inch. Once his training and diet was geared to one specific sport rather than multiple sports he put on weight and muscle. His soccer training was torturous. He lost weight every August and fall in high school.
I disagree. He was drafted at age 20 and hadn't gained any weight by age 23 (the Dodgers were "unsuccessful" in getting him to gain any). In those three years, I'm pretty sure his training and diet were geared to one specific sport. The difference is, he was done growing; comparing your son at ages 18 & 19 (when he was still growing, as you noted) to a fully grown man between ages 23 and 28 is not an apt comparison. Also, putting 25 lbs on someone who weighs 145 is more significant than 25 lbs on someone who weighs 170.
I don't know what Dee Gordon did or didn't do. My point was that a common reaction is surprise, because Dee Gordon is small -- but he is not as small as he was when he was 23. And after years of trying to gain weight, there was certainly an incentive for him to try to get bigger.
Nearly 100% of my closest friends and acquaintances are meaningfully bigger in some way than they were in their early 20s. Metabolism slows about every five years, and as a result, people get bigger, in one way or another. I personally gained about 20-25 pounds from age 23 to age 28. It all wasn't the kind of weight gain you want, mind you!!!! But, nonetheless...
For an athlete to go from 145 to 170 is truly an afterthought. In baseball terms, a player could stop using smokeless tobacco and gain 10 pounds in a month!