Fall

Taking the fall of rising freshman year off to train was one of the best things my 2022 RHP did for his overall development.  

Forget about what the various organizations want, do what’s right for your son whatever you determine that to be.  Even the ones who are saying you shouldn’t skip fall ball now will be lined up to take him next summer.

My kid is a rising senior and will be playing fall ball for the first time to acclimate to the college schedule. During his hs career he used the fall to play other sports and/or on a plan to get bigger stronger faster, even through the fall 2020 when everyone was pushing for fall ball because of the pandemic and getting more looks. His rational was he was only looking at HA schools and the recruiting timeline really did not change. His biggest metric jumps were a result from getting stronger.

Travel ball orgs rarely want what is best for the best arms in their organization. They want to showcase those kids all over the place and then claim responsibility for developing them. You are doing the right thing by training in the fall vs playing meaningless games.

He's a 2025 and a RHP?  Training seems like the no brainer to me.  I say that for a few reasons.  First, my 2021 son has played different versions of fall ball off and on since about age 7.  Yes, they're a way to get extra reps in, but the quality has consistently been crap.  On its best day, its a step down from spring and summer ball.  Football is big in our area and it takes a LOT of the baseball talent out of the mix in the fall.  To make matters worse, our experience is that coaches, players and parents are way more laid back about it in general.  It all adds up to much less juice from the squeeze.

While son starting lifting around the same age as your son, I didn't see it produce any meaningful gains as a freshman or soph in high school.  As far as I can tell, he simply wasn't lifting seriously enough.  It was 3-4 days a week and felt closer to the bare minimum.  He simply didn't love it enough at that time.  But his last 2 years of high school, he got 5-7 days per week serious, stayed in the weight room longer each day, and started getting protein and creatine into the mix.  Once all that happened, the results became easily visible.  Not just in his build, but in how hard he was hitting and throwing the ball.

Now, is your 2025 ready to get serious about training, lifting, etc?  No clue.  But if he is, he can do a LOT with the time this fall.  A helluva lot more than he can by playing fall ball as a rising freshman.  While some will disagree, I lean towards believing that the human arm only has so many throws in it.  Assuming that's the case, I wouldn't waste any of them against fall ball competition this fall.  It's a marathon; not a sprint.

You can do both. Focus on training, but get on the mound a few times as a guest pitcher, couple/3 innings a time or two.  They go together.

All this makes sense. We (wife, son and myself) made our mind up before summer ball ended that he wasn’t doing any games this fall. We felt like he threw enough between school/travel and needed time off the mound. One other reason-weights. He has to get stronger and he realizes that. The team trials in Cary opened his eyes. We will see if he puts in the work.

This will be his first time lifting any weights. He will have two hours a day of strength/conditioning at school with a former D1 baseball player. On top of the two hours, he will be doing an arm care program at a facility 5 days a week. He actually started Monday and will go until HS season. He enjoyed this program last year and saw results this summer.

I was just curious what the consensus was here.

We've done/do both for our 2024.  When he was younger (9u - 14u) we would play fall ball but it was more local tournaments and we didn't travel much further than 2 hours from our house. We also never played more than 4 tournaments from right after Labor Day in September to the last weekend in October.  Way less stressful than a full spring/summer season. It was great for some extra reps and a little more laid back and fun for the boys.  During this time, he also worked out at his baseball centric training gym (started at age 11).

Last year (15U - rising freshman year) we did not play fall ball.  He'd had a long summer and took the time off to focus on really hitting the gym and football.  He played HS ball this spring and showcase this summer (15U).  Now, as a rising 16U, he is playing fall ball.

Three reasons for him playing fall ball: (1) He wants to play college ball and he is in prime recruiting time for his class (2024) and has several schools looking at him.  He plans on using some of the tournaments to further his recruiting process and keep/put more eyes on him; (2) He plans on using the tournaments (only playing 4) as a way to stay "fresh" for some of the camps he will be attending this fall/early winter; and (3) Effective 8/1/21, his organization became part of a large national organization that has a great college recruiting portal and he wants the opportunity to be a part of that and possibly make the 16U National team in the spring.  He does plan on continuing hitting the gym 3-4 times a week as his gym programs for "on", "off" and "light" season so he can stay the right amount of active and engaged (if that makes sense!)

@cocdawg posted:

All this makes sense. We (wife, son and myself) made our mind up before summer ball ended that he wasn’t doing any games this fall. We felt like he threw enough between school/travel and needed time off the mound. One other reason-weights. He has to get stronger and he realizes that. The team trials in Cary opened his eyes. We will see if he puts in the work.

This will be his first time lifting any weights. He will have two hours a day of strength/conditioning at school with a former D1 baseball player. On top of the two hours, he will be doing an arm care program at a facility 5 days a week. He actually started Monday and will go until HS season. He enjoyed this program last year and saw results this summer.

I was just curious what the consensus was here.

When my son was a high school freshman he was the last cut from varsity. It wasn’t the end of the world. Varsity sucked that year (6-16). The team had some real first class horse’s behinds seniors.

But I asked my son what was the difference between making varsity and not making it. He knew right away. It was upper body strength. He hadn’t started filling out yet. He had just grown from 5’4” in 8th grade to 5’11”. He only weighed 135.

He played high school soccer and fall ball. He played high school basketball in the winter. But he was in the gym three days a week at 6am. The next year at 6’ 160 was an all conference year on a second place team. And he was still growing and filling out.

Whether playing or not hitting the weight room is important.