Best advice for HS freshmen ball player

Work on upper body strength. A significant difference between freshman and upperclassmen is strength and the ability to drive the ball.

Be the first to practice/trouts and the last to leave.

During warmups match up with a player who can through hard and accurately.  You don’t want to be the throwing pair where the ball is going all over the place.

Look like a ball player from the moment you step out of the locker room. No untucked shirts. No hat on backwards.

Don’t clown around. Move away from anyone clowning around.

Don’t talk about other players unless it’s a compliment.

Get baseball work in ahead of tryouts. Show up as close to midseason from as possible.

if you miss a pitch or make an error don’t react. Tune it out. Get focused on the next pitch/play.

Don't wear your 14u travel team tee or jacket.

Hustle never looks bad. Lack of hustle does.

Look coaches in the eyes when they speak to you.

I like @RJM's list.  I'm going to add to it:

• Write down reasonable, and stretch goals for yourself. Review when the season is over.  Share those goals with someone who will be seeing you play, and compare notes at the end of the year
• Be a great teammate, and set a great example
• Help your parents around the house. They are driving you everywhere right now.  Put some minutes back into their lives
• Stay on top of your studies. If you need help ask for it.  The last thing you want to do is jeopardize your spot on the team due to grades
• Hit the weights, and speed drills. Getting bigger and faster is not optional
• Find a buddy (or buddies) that is as driven as you. You can do long toss, hitting drills, etc.. together.  You'll push each other to get better
• Hustle 100% of the time. My kids were taught “yes, sir”, “no, sir” when a coach asks a question.  That goes a long way where I live.  Respect is the key here
• Learn the coaches signs enough that you could teach others if you had to. Coaches like players who quickly learn the signs and execute their game plan
• Don’t get hung up on high school positions.  Leave that to the coach.   Do focus on hitting
• Never, ever be late. As my son’s high school coach used to say, “10 minutes early is late”.  Come to practice and games prepared

be the best "somebody on it" guy for foul balls, and the best ball retriever from the back stop.  Every team needs one, and it might make you stick on varsity in a couple of years, because you know your roll.

If you are not playing another sport, go to all the optional workouts, open fields/gyms, etc.  They are opportunities to show the coaches what you have, before tryouts in the spring  (if the coach has a comprehensive program, he will already know most of the team before tryouts).

Learn how to lift weights using proper technique.

Don't expect to do all your training with the team.  Work outside team activities as well, especially if you have a friend to work with. Or maybe your travel team also has off-season stuff.

But don't talk about your outside training with the HS coach; he will make decisions based on what he sees and what he needs.

Put all the gas in the car his effort will consume, and let him drive. Who knows where the journey will lead, but it's his and he should enjoy the heck out of it...  

Great information above. I would add, try and stay away for negative and/or trash talking teammates as much as possible. For some reason trash talking each other seems like the "cool" thing to do nowadays. IMO there is no place for it, especially between teammates. From what I have seen it is the worst at the Freshmen and JV levels. For the most part when they get to varsity it calms down a little.

One thing I did for my 2024 when he was starting HS was getting him a few one-on-one sessions with a good coach who showed him proper techniques for using the weight room equipment. 

@anotherparent posted:

If you are not playing another sport, go to all the optional workouts, open fields/gyms, etc.  They are opportunities to show the coaches what you have, before tryouts in the spring  (if the coach has a comprehensive program, he will already know most of the team before tryouts).

This.  In retrospect, we are quite convinced that the coaches felt they knew quite a bit about the players heading into tryouts from open gyms and optional lifts.  At son's high school, a small group of freshmen were asked to tryout with the older players as a result.

One thing I would add...boys that age are often going or will go through tremendous growth spurts.  Those growth spurts can place them at risk for various overuse injuries.  Players should train, but vary their workouts, and never skip stretching, warmups, or arm care.  Physical rest is also important.

If you can hit, they will find a spot for you.  Tee work, soft toss, wiffle ball games for fun, batting cages.  In the winter, tee work into a tarp and I got a bag of popcorn and would throw soft toss in the basement with the kernels.  Kids loved to peg me with them.  Made a mess but the focus required to hit them was intense.  plyo balls. Hitting for average on any high school team is key.  You need power to get past high school.

There was one batting coach in town that threw a ton of balls and made up tons of silly games to make them focus on achieving something.  Had to hit the L-screen, back of the cage 8 out of 10. Get a "hit" 4 out of 5. Can't hit the floor or pop up, etc...  Miss the goal you get 10 push ups.

Insane focus on the basics.

You can throw them a ton of grounders to get repetition. 10 to the middle, 10 to left and 10 to the backhand.  10-15 minutes and your done.  Inside or outside as long as you have about 12' of space.  YouTube coach Washington from the Braves. Start on knees then move up.  If it's good enough for the pros... Hitting grounders takes too much skill for most dad's or mom's, anybody can roll one. Maybe use a warped ball for difficulty.

Outfield. Have them stand in the middle and throw it around the clock and make them react.  Run football routes and make them catch the ball on the run.

Joe Madden's saying "do routine better."

Initially, you can start these drills and try to make them fun.  Eventually, they have to start dragging you out to get better.

@ILoveBaseball04 posted:

This.  In retrospect, we are quite convinced that the coaches felt they knew quite a bit about the players heading into tryouts from open gyms and optional lifts.  At son's high school, a small group of freshmen were asked to tryout with the older players as a result.

One thing I would add...boys that age are often going or will go through tremendous growth spurts.  Those growth spurts can place them at risk for various overuse injuries.  Players should train, but vary their workouts, and never skip stretching, warmups, or arm care.  Physical rest is also important.

Absolutely we know after workouts what we are going to decide.  At that point tryouts are a formality.  I tell my guys I'm not going to cut them from early September to mid February but I will make cuts after 3 days in the middle of February. Do you want to give me 3 days of information or about 5 and a half months of information to decide?

@Tres Elakes 24 posted:

One thing I did for my 2024 when he was starting HS was getting him a few one-on-one sessions with a good coach who showed him proper techniques for using the weight room equipment.

Can't stress this enough.  Pitchers and hitters (should) have a different set of workouts.  When they all get in the gym together without guidance, it can be a mess.  I signed son up with a sport specific trainer outside of school.

Absolutely all of the above is great information as usual. I learned a lot from this board. My son could always play but as he shot up in height his weight did not match because he grew so quickly (lost some athleticism with this height). I have always lifted so I guided him and also had him with a personal trainer to make sure he learned proper technique. When you are under weight for your height you need size and strength. I taught him how to lift "heavy" properly to understand heavy means heavy to you with proper form. Until you have a base level of size and strength the sports specific stuff isn't nearly as helpful. He also began to count calories and protein. The weight room can change your game. I witnessed him go from an above average player to leading his team not only as the ace on the bump, but the best hitter on the team. The added size and strength also turned him from number 9-10 speedwise junior year to the third fastest while being 6'4" and 185-190lbs. I really think with today's recruiting world without the weight room he doesn't get a scholarship to play college baseball. Now at college a few of the older PO's ask him about what he does outside of team workouts to stay his size. I can't thank this board enough for helping guide myself to help him make a decision. He went to a small school where he was loved and it's obvious as his coach texted me the other day in reference to something and i said he is loving his new adventure. Coach said that makes me happy, I know we were both worried about him being homesick and seven hours from home. Well, apparently, he's loving it and not coming home until thanksgiving break which was what we discussed. The go where you are loved and will have a shot to play immediately was the best advice period. The three other schools offering were similar percentages, but it was obvious which coach had him as one of his main targets and the other equal to offer was two hours closer to home, but looking at their roster we both thought he might not pitch his freshman season. Junior season: number three in the rotation with 26 innings and 55k's, batting average of .275. Senior year: ACE on the mound with 90k's, ERA of 0.58 and walked 11. Batting average of .420 and lead almost every other stat. Only change was size and strength.

@BB328 posted:

So I realize that there is alot of focus on college ball and the elite hs ball player here but I was wondering if you could rewind time and your son would be entering HS and playing 14 or 15U, what advice would you give to a kid just entering that phase who mostly likely will play JV as a 9th and 10th grader and Varsity as junior/senior who still needs to develop more as a player.

Son is not yet a man but not really a boy and mid way thru puberty.

I feel like we are entering a new phase here. There is so much advice for the younger age groups online but not for the older.

Yup.  Just went through this.  I like the advice above and some have touched on this…. The key for my son was ownership of his growth.  At some point I told him something like:  we can do any lessons, any training, anything you want but you have to want it and know what that lesson or training will achieve for your growth.  This 14-15 transition is really the key to them taking the keys and owning it.  

This next part is highly dependent on your son’s skill level, but definitely move towards playing on the best team he can in Summer (fall too if that applies).  Get away from the neighborhood driven or comfortable teams unless they are playing the best teams at the highest level.  Not only do you want to immerse your son in a highly competitive program but he needs  to face the best competition.  And playing where he’s comfortable doesn’t usually push them to compete.  

Focus on strength and speed.  At this point in your 14-15 players life, he should have ‘most’ of the baseball movements down such as positioning and cutoffs. So don’t sweat taking a fall off if it is to focus on baseball specific strength and speed.  Coming out of 14u, most every parent is used to being at weekend tournaments just about all year long.  As a parent, the loss of that experience is hard and the thought that it should continue into HS is misguided.

If your son is anything like mine, you have to carefully word your conversations because at 14/15 they do start to understand they might be way smarter than you and their attitude will show.  And they can start not wanting to even hear you speak, but mostly it’s just around their friends.  Don’t worry, it only lasts about a year or two.  Haha.  

So that leads me to my last bit of advice.   Be silent mostly.  Be supportive in their journey. And help them make it their own journey (not yours).