Collegiate Wood bat; Rising Freshman

MOM:

what are your options. Is there a local baseball experience? A strong Summer College league will provide a year of experience. Keep a daily diary of your experiences and the opposition. You will see them again.

Bob

Mam, just to clarify, rising freshman as in will be attending college for the first time next Fall, correct?  Is son a P or position player?  Much of this will depend on what league he is being placed and what the playing time arrangement is.  Also, as Bob said, what are his other options?

Pro's -

-head start on playing games against college players (depending on league) can do wonders for confidence and preparation for freshman year.

-he will likely be assigned to summer program the next few years and this will acclimate him to the process.

-many summer college programs have access to fitness facility and at least many of the meals are included, so that cost can be largely recuperated.

Con's -

-your boy won't be home for summer and he probably won't be the next few years either.

-If he is a P, it can be wearing on the arm and he will want to be fresh going into his college fall season

-more difficult to work and earn money (depending on league) over summer.

-he will have to get used to living away from home three months earlier than planned, possibly with much older kids and without the focus of schoolwork to keep him "busy".

If your son has a good local option, this is probably something the HC would be fine with.

He will be a Freshman in his program in the Fall. He is a Senior in HS now. 

His local options are little shaky, the team he has played for the high school years has our two strongest pitchers (except mine of course!) not playing with the team this summer. There will be a drop off for sure, and last summer was so-so.  I am not even sure this team will be together at all. 

I think the options in our mind were to stay home and work with his strength and conditioning coach, pitching coach. Or find out if there is still space for him to play with the Wood Bat collegiate as the coach indicated as possibility. Do people typically find their own placement or does the coaching staff do this? He is a pitcher/position player and has pitched weekly at HS.

The positive side of this are looking fairly good for him, just wanting to make sure it is money well spent. (College is expensive!)

OK, so since he is a P and likely getting plenty of innings during his senior HS season, I think your option to stay home and train for strength/condition and P instruction is a very good one.  I think you would have to have more of those specific questions answered regarding the college summer league to properly weigh between the two.  Controlling IP would be crucial but there are other important considerations as well.  Is he ready emotionally, living arrangements, training time, what will diet be, are parents ready emotionally, does he need his "one last summer" before diving into the commitment of college baseball, level of competition, etc.

With regard to his current summer program, I think you and he need to look at that program differently now.  It becomes a preparation tool... an opportunity to get live innings against live hitters in something close to the desired timing and quantity.  No longer a "let's win!" proposition, if that's what it was previously.  The weaker composition is actually to his advantage as he is more likely to be able to dictate how much he can throw and when.  They can either accept his conditions or go another direction.  My guess is they would accept.

I strongly agree with Cabbagedad--stay home and train; play locally.

I wouldn't go to a summer league full time as a pitcher....especially after just finishing a HS season.  Take some time off, work on getting bigger and stronger, remembering he'll be playing against 19-22 year olds the next 4 years instead of 15-18 year olds.   If he wants to throw some innings in a game, you can always find a team looking for pitching somewhere, even if it's only for a weekend.  Also, a lot of college summer teams will be looking for pitching in late June/early July to finish their seasons...due to injuries, homesickness (meaning girlfriends) or pitch inning limits.   Your profile says Central US.  Depending on where you are, you may not be too far.   My son is graduating in May and is going to be an assistant coach for the summer league team he's played for the last 3 summers in the Great Lakes League.   I'm sure they'll probably need pitching at some point later in the season (they end the mid-July).  His team is allowed 1 rising freshman...and at this point I don't think they have any.  PM me and I can give you some info on his team and the league.

Get bigger, stronger, faster, and skills development - no question not even close. Come into the fall in the best shape he can be in as he will be competing with "big hairy men" for 9 slots that no one wants to give up, particularly to a green snot nosed freshmen. Also rest up and prepare for the grind that is college baseball and mentally prepare for the coming lack-of-sleep-mental-and-physical-grind-onslaught that neither you nor him can comprehend until be gets there. 

This doesn't really go to your question but I'll offer it up. The best thing we did for our son the summer before his freshman year was to send him to summer classes. He got to get acquainted with his fellow freshman teammates (all of them attended), the coaches, the campus, and town. That it was all free didn't hurt. Also, those A's from the somewhat easy classes come in handy when crunch time comes with travel and classes (keeping the GPA up).

SomeBaseballDad posted:

This doesn't really go to your question but I'll offer it up. The best thing we did for our son the summer before his freshman year was to send him to summer classes. He got to get acquainted with his fellow freshman teammates (all of them attended), the coaches, the campus, and town. That it was all free didn't hurt. Also, those A from the somewhat easy classes come in handy when crunch times comes with travel and classes (keeping the GPA up).

You can do above and the strength and conditioning.  Sounds like the best route if your son was used heavily during HS season.  I would think the coaching staff would give a workout plan, even if unsupervised. I would think he would be pitching in the fall practices.

Food for thought.....

1. Have your son take one or two classes during the Summer at his college. This will allow him to adjust to the rigors of college academics before he is required to take a full load and play baseball at the same time.

2.  Have him train his butt off during the Summer. Train more than you play!

3.  Offer to eat up some innings for a Summer Team to test his training progress and gain some experience at the college level play.  Do not commit to play full time, just pick up here and there.  Good pitchers are always welcome.. 

4.  Take the $2,000 you would have spent to play all Summer and use it for items 1,2,&3.

Would you guys advise the same for a position player?  I think a summer of taking some classes and then training and hitting at a top facility with HitTrax, etc. is a much more efficient use of time.

K9 posted:

Would you guys advise the same for a position player?  I think a summer of taking some classes and then training and hitting at a top facility with HitTrax, etc. is a much more efficient use of time.

I think some of the same principals apply but some do not.  In both cases, you want to show up in the fall in great shape, fresh and ready to jump into the grind.  In both cases, you need to be prepared for the rigors of college classes combined with the nearly full time rigors of college athletics.  That said, I think there is generally more allowance given toward a pitcher to work his way into game sharpness and it is more of important to keep the arm in shape and fresh over summer (possible rest, definitely no overuse).  The position player will often be thrown immediately into intersquad play and expected to perform right away.  So, playing competitive games over the summer is more necessary.  In both cases, it is critical that the player is ramped up and ready for a vigorous fall workout program.

So, some summer classes and training at a top facility would be great.  Even better if he can figure a way to mix in some competitive game AB's (toward the end, at least) as well.

K9 posted:

Would you guys advise the same for a position player?  I think a summer of taking some classes and then training and hitting at a top facility with HitTrax, etc. is a much more efficient use of time.

I guess I would say a lot depends on how good of a student the player is. If your son is a straight A student then playing over the summer might be a better option. My son was a pretty good student in HS but he had to really work on it. We were leaning summer classes, when the academic advisor stated how well the kids who attended classes over summer did it was a easy decision. When you read here over and over about what a grind college baseball is believe it.