How many do you keep?

Some schools in Illinois keep 2 frosh teams with about 20 each, 1 soph team 20-25 and 1 varsity 20-25. Just what I have seen. Best of luck to your son.

You never know who will keep growing, or who will get better. I say keep em.

My son's HS kept about 25, maybe a couple more when he was a freshman. Varsity coach says you never know who will come out of the woodwork after growing a little. He was right, team won everything last year including #1 ranking in nation (son was a junior). Some important players were not key players as freshmen. Some were middle of the road as freshmen, some were studs as freshmen. HS player of the year as senior for Northern California barely pitched as junior, was a stud as senior. D1 freshman now.

It will all work out.

When my son was a freshman the coach would only keep 35 kids (varsity, JV & Freshmen) combined. If he had 5 seniors graduate he would take 5 freshmen the following season. That is a poor idea in my opinion because once you cut the kids their freshmen year those kids move onto another sport and you never get them back.

Freshman year is another hurdle of baseball. Most of the players will have their dreams end this year or next year on JV. Because so much occurs in terms of physical development at this age a coach would hate to cut a kid who may be on the edge of physically blooming and becoming a player.

When my son was a freshman the third string catcher on the freshman team hardly played. By the time he was a junior he was 6'2" and batting fifth on varsity after playing JV as a soph. He was a completely different player than he was at 5'6" two years previous.

We have 15 Frosh, 15 JV & 21 on Varsity. I think some will float between the teams. there are only 9 Soph players in the program, 17 Frosh and a ton of seniors -- 11 I think.

I recall that my son's HS kept 20 as well. A bunch of the boys sat for the first time in their lives, and by the next year cut themselves.

The bigger truth is the xtra kids/families contribute towards fundraising....nuf said

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Originally posted by SultanofSwat:
You never know who will keep growing, or who will get better. I say keep em.

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Originally posted by birdman14:
I recall that my son's HS kept 20 as well. A bunch of the boys sat for the first time in their lives, and by the next year cut themselves.

This sounds very familiar. Survival of the fittest.

Our high school has over 3,000+ kids attending and about 120 good ballplayers choose to tryout each year(not including returning Varsity players who do not have to tryout). This year we kept 19 freshmen, 25 on JV, and 21 on Varsity. Many of the JV players did not have to tryout either. So you are talking about 20-22 new kids entering our program out of the 120 that tried out. That means about 18% of the kids make the team where 100% of the kids make the football team. Just doesn't seem fair that the school will purchase facilities and equipment for 300+ football players, but only gives $5,000 per year to the baseball program to purchase baseballs and dirt. The booster club (parents) has to fund uniforms, equipment, tractors, even the replacement of the outfield fence. Our baseball team has reached the playoffs all 10 years of it's existence, reached the state 5A championship game once, made the final four twice, and been top 8 and top 16 multiple times. The football team has made it to the playoffs only twice and lost in the first round each time. Yet it has a budget of $400,000. Only in Texas, where football is king, will you see such an injustice!

Thanks for all the replies. I can see a multitude of reasons that all probably have merit, Later developers, more pocketbooks for fund raising, etc.
Just wonder how it will go down if not many drop out. Our teams are set up for a bottleneck in 1-2 years and how it goes cutting upperclassmen. New coach so no JV/varsity tryout this year. Kept all that were in program last year that came back. Have 20 frosh and 17 sophs between the 3 teams.

If the coaching staff is adequately staffed, by all means, keep more can only help the program but if understaffed, it hurts the program as I have witnessed over recent years.

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Yet it has a budget of $400,000. Only in Texas, where football is king, will you see such an injustice!

Wow.. quite the budget. BUT tell me how much revenue the football team brings in each year. And the baseball team?

This is one side of the Cy-Fair HS football stadium in the Houston area. What you can't see from these angles is the JumboTron.

hmmm... we have a JumboTron, but no palace at the other end.

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Originally posted by HRKB: Only in Texas, where football is king, will you see such an injustice!

Son's former teammate moved to Abilene this year....to play football at Abilene this year.

His dad said he was gonna do it. And he did. Saw him on ESPN two or three times. Berj Yepremian.

Our high school has 750 students we keep about 32-37 players and it will depend on players we feel we can develop.We will keep as many Fr.that we feel have enough talent to be able to compete in our program.Experience tells us that if a player will buy in to the program we can make him a player before he leaves.Our Fr. are given 1 year to show the willingness to plug in to the program. We feel if we invest 2 years in a young man then he does not have to try out anymore.We have 4 players that are currently playing college baseball that I wondered during their Fr. year if we had missed on when we kept them. Thankfully, these are the young men that make coaching special. We have other players that are playing college baseball but they were able to show their ability at the Fr. level.The point I am trying to make is that we do not limit ourselves with a set number of incoming Fr.we try to develop as many as we fill can help us in the future. Many just need the opportunity.

I think roster sizes for each level can vary depending on the talent level trying out. I can see a freshman team rostering a high number because freshman players are unknowns and if they can show in tryouts they have some potential, they'll make the team. The freshman teams where my son played typically rotated a lot and everyone typically played enough innings or games to get a good look.

JV level is where they get weeded out because they have to decide who can contribute on the varsity level. So while there's still a bit of platooning at the JV level, the top JVs are shuffling up & down between JV & Varsity teams, the better JV's who play every inning but not called up are those who most likely make the varsity next year but not ready to play up. The ones who ride pine on JV their soph year are prety much finished. Also, depending on the number of seniors who start on varsity, the JV team may be loaded with juniors because there's no room on varsity to play and these players are seen as varsity players the following season. JV teams loaded with juniors was fairly common among the large classification schools.

While this is typically what I saw during my son's 4 yrs, I can't say if it's like that every year because a HS baseball roster has a huge turnover year-to-year.

When my son played, his HS team carried about 15-17 on the frosh, jv and varsity teams.
Freshman played freshman ball only and when they got in their sophomore year, they had a shot to make varsity although that was rare.

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Originally posted by Bulldog 19:

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Yet it has a budget of $400,000. Only in Texas, where football is king, will you see such an injustice!

Wow.. quite the budget. BUT tell me how much revenue the football team brings in each year. And the baseball team?

Bulldog,

Don't drink the cool-aid! Check out the picture below posted of Cy-Fair. Stadiums like this (and like ours) are not built by fans, they are built by tax -payers in bond elections. Our football team doesn't even come close to paying for their facilities, equipment and such from selling tickets...lol. That old argument holds water in college, but not in high school where tax payers provide stadiums nicer than many college programs!

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Originally posted by Rockford Baseball Mom:

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Originally posted by birdman14:
I recall that my son's HS kept 20 as well. A bunch of the boys sat for the first time in their lives, and by the next year cut themselves.

This sounds very familiar. Survival of the fittest.

Totally agree. Keep the kids.

Stu

figure 6 to8 pitchers on a 20 to 25 man roster and it is not a large number in fact I like 20 for practice.as a player I was concerned only with how many players were at my position and who I had to beat out for the starting spot.

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Originally posted by Saints9:
Have some free time due to winter weather in Louisiana! My son just started the high school baseball trip. Not sure if it was the varsity coach that drove the decision or the frosh coach but anyway they kept 20 kids for the frosh team. That seems like alot but was just wondering what others do and maybe it's not really alot. Just curious as to others thoughts on this. Enjoy this site quite a bit since I found it by the way.

I thought the same thing when my son was a freshman a few years back, he's a senior this year. His frosh team had 18 on the roster. There were no freshman moved up to JV, and one player was moved up to varsity. Today's varsity roster consists of seven seniors from that original Frosh team, in addition to the four year varsity letterman. A few of the studs continued to work hard and no doubt a major factor in the success of the program. On the other side, you have a few kids that had potential, but didn't want to put in the time and ultimately either were cut or just lost interest and quit on their own. There are many changes and plenty of attrition from a Frosh Class of students to their Senior Class.

Keeping 20 is the right thing to do...because who knows where everything will stand 3-4 years from now?

My son's school had a "no-cut" philosophy for frosh. The AD and coach believed that at that age there could still be some "late bloomer" that they didn't want to miss.

And, often they were right. I saw a number kids who were daisy pickers in junior high really catch on by the end of Frosh ball and later become the studs of varsity.

quote:

Don't drink the cool-aid! Check out the picture below posted of Cy-Fair. Stadiums like this (and like ours) are not built by fans, they are built by tax -payers in bond elections. Our football team doesn't even come close to paying for their facilities, equipment and such from selling tickets...lol.

But once that stadium is paid for, how much money does the program bring in? I'll bet much more than the baseball program. You still haven't answered the question.

And what people fail to realize is there is a HUGE difference between football and baseball. Baseball is about the baseball players. No one else. High school baseball is all about the players. Football is not. Football is a community thing. You've got the band, the cheerleaders, the dance teams, and you close down communities for Friday Night Lights. Oh, I guess I should probably mention the 50-100 players on the field too..

There's a reason taxpayers pay for these things. Football brings in more people than any other sport and even if it's not making a ton of money, I'll almost guarentee it's making more than most other sports.

to25 is a nice number for practices especially when you include pitchers in that number. as a player you should only beconcerned with the number of players at your position and who you have to beat out to be in the starting lineup

I'll keep two and take three new ones.

*College 35 max as per Ncaa rules
*Pro 40man 25 at the show rest working to get there.
*Travel max 15 ,few will only pitch
*LL 12perfect - 14max
*HS Var's 21 or less
*JV 18/20 some var's will play here now and then
*b-team every 9th grader that has work ethic and is coachable let some know this is more like pre tryout for next year.

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Originally posted by I'mJustADad:
The bigger truth is the xtra kids/families contribute towards fundraising....nuf said

No doubt about it.