Advice from those that have been there

Long toss.

Spinedoc,
I think the two main baseball specific things to work on during the off season at your son's age are arm strength and hitting. During the off season when my son was your son’s age I would take him to a hitting instructor and I would also soft toss to him in the basement. At about that time I bought him an Atech soft toss machine and a net and set him up a hitting area in the basement. Using this machine he could hit on his own. I agree with the arm rest and then start him on a long toss program like CA dad suggest. You might want to find an inside area (gym) to work out in until the weather breaks.

My son just went through this last year. It seems like your son is a great player so he should be excited about moving up. Long toss is VERY important. I know the winters up there must make for a short season. We're lucky here in Georgia. Last Dec/Jan, I got to take my son out on the field to get used to the dimensions. It was 60-70 degrees! But besides strengthening his arm, have you considered speed and agility training. I took my son and he loved it. It added to his speed and made him a lot more confident on the bigger field. It also kept him from going crazy waiting for baseball season to begin.

Did he have any desire to play football with his friends? I think football, basketball or even s----r would be great for a very athletic boy and it sure sounds like he is very athletic. It is JMO, but I think playing other sports is a GOOD thing.

The two things that hold kids back the most when they move from the little fields to the "real field" 60-90 is arm strength and speed. LONG TOSS, and work on speed and agility training. Of course you always need to work on hitting.

Kids have a shock because a can-o-corn flyball to the centerfielder would have likely been a HR. The first time you look at the infield from homeplate, it is slightly intimidating as a player because everything is so far back than what we were used to. Arm strength, in my opinion, is what ends a players "baseball career" after middle school. Throwing from each of the positions is so much longer than what you are used to and so many kids do not know how to make the throw to the cutoff from the outfield. Be sure to emphasize long toss and quickness on the basepaths. I have a workout that one of us HSBBwebsters sent me and if you are interested, PM me. It is basically a small collection of drills that improve first step quickness both for fielding and out of the box running and along the basepaths too. Do long toss once every three days and be sure to take your hacks during the offseason. Good Luck!

Is there a fall league in your area? That is how I got used to the bigger field.

I thank you all for the help. To answer some of your questions: There are no good hitting instructors that I know of locally, so I haven't gone that route. He doesn't want to play any other sports, not sure why (I wish he would, he has the perfect physical attributes to be a great run n'gun QB)

Our plan was long toss 2 times a week plus the switstik/whiffle ball drills in the basement with as much catch and live hitting as weather allows. We also do some Epstein drills as well as some of Mankins stuff. Kind of a hybrid of the 2.

We live in IA (town of 80,000), but baseball takes a back seat to football, so we don't even have year round batting cages, let alone a fall league. The best news is that we are moving to Omaha this time next year, I have already found a hitting instructor, an indoor facility and a fall league, so things are definitely looking up.

I never thought about speed and agility training (GREAT IDEA), he is already quick, but I have never seen a kid that was too quick, that's for sure. Especially since he will have a lot more ground to cover at short next year.

Again thanks, and I look forward to any more advice.

It seems like most baseball people I know think speed and agility are one and the same. My son wasn't speedy but he was very agile. Some of the agility training he went through looked something like football drills. It emphasized footwork and manuoeverability. I think this is a really underemphasized skill in baseball. It also worked on greater flexibility. Obviously, this helps with range of motion and with reducing injuries. My son loved it but his buddy who signed up for the class hated it. I guess each kid looks at things differently. I really encourage you to at least look into it.

I would have to agree with Coach May, the skills that seem to be lacking when the boys move up is speed and arm strength.

Hitting line drives becomes even more important on the big diamond especially if there is a grass infield. With the grass infields grounders just don't have much of a chance of getting through. And, on the most high school fields a 300' flyball is just a long out.

Speed, arm strength, and 200' line drives are the skills they need to compete.

Don't chase him from the trampoline; it's a great workout in more ways than the average folk would know.

Long toss and other baseball-specific stuff is fine. But I'd let him perhaps train and compete in the national Punt, Pass and Kick competition. It's football, yet it's not.

It's probably a year or two too soon to begin weight training, but what about something a little different, like a martial arts class?

At this age, exposure to a lot of different things is good. I remember I took both of my two oldest boys to a tryout camp for the sport of luge. They loved it; it was completely different. They just weren't any good at it.

Funny thing, my third son came up to me this summer and asked why I didn't take him to a luge tryout. I told him that had he put down the electric guitar sometime this summer and asked, I would have. He said, OK, then went back upstairs and started playing again.

This, of course, all happened after JV football practice.

My son is passionate about baseball and his saxophone. Nevertheless, he decided to go out for 7th grade tackle football for many of the same reasons you expressed. He never played before but he is having a blast. He also likes to cheer on the high school football team and goes to the games with his baseball buddies. In fact, that is just where we came from tonight before I logged on. Another sport my son is going out for is basketball. He has played before and I suspect he'll make the team. He isn't as passionate about those sports but he says it helps him keep conditioned until baseball season... I can only tell you what he says since I am far from an expert on the matter. I also live in a small town of 60,000 and we don't have Fall baseball or batting cages either. Football is big here, too. My son has a friend that is an excellent pitcher but he won't go out for other sports. He complaines that he is bored during football season, too. His mom speculates that he doesn't think he'll be as good at other sports as he is at baseball and that is the crux of the problem. I suppose I can see that. It sounds like your son is quite talented at baseball. Do you think maybe he is worried about the same thing? The comfort zone isn't there. Just a thought. How old is your son? Is he old enough to go to the high school games (football, basketball, s****r, swimming, ect.) with is buddies and have fun as a spectator? Where we live the high school sells athletic passes to the middle school students for $20 that gets them into all of the athletic events that take place at home.