HS coach won't play son

Nick's Mom, to be honest, I anticipated that you would not have many of the answers (although I thought you would have a few).  I presented those questions for several reasons.  Coach May is right in the fact that it won't change the coach's current assessment of your son.  But I sensed from your opening post that there is probably a significant gap of awareness of the skill sets your son possesses and what the coach is looking for at the HS level.  Those questions were formed with the intent of letting you know that most HS varsity starters are working hard in the off-season to hone their skills.  Most are playing with decent club programs and tracking their measurables so that they know specifically where they stand and what they need to work on.  Many are attending the better showcases so they have a better feel for where the bar is when it comes to better players in the area and region.  I'm not saying that your son has to do all these things.  Confidence is good but some humility via awareness can go a long way.

 

Little League coach feedback isn't really relevant at this point.  That was several levels ago and the funnel continues to narrow.  Good private instruction is great but keep in mind that it is in their best interest to communicate lots of positive comments.

 

Agree with others that it was the right question to ask at the wrong time.  I will add... a coach looks for all players to embrace their role.  Your son said "I am not a scrub.." to the coach.  That could be seen as disrespectful to the fact that the coach has chosen for him to be a member of the team in some role.  It is important for all players to embrace their role in order for the team to be successful, even if that role is keeping the book, helping with runners and creating positive atmosphere on the bench.  I know that was not his intent but, again, just for awareness.

 

Nine plate appearances in what I would guess would be late inning non-critical situations or starts against lesser opponents are not what should be used as your measuring stick.  As others mentioned, his PT is earned primarily by what coaches see with the hundreds of daily reps, daily attitude, speed, arm strength, power, game awareness and ability to execute at the current level.

 

I would caution against putting much thought or stock into the posts that suggest your son is sitting because he may have a bad coach who is not evaluating your son fairly or properly.  Even if true, it is not where your son needs to be focusing his efforts in order to earn that PT he desires.  His focus should be on getting so much better that he leaves no doubt.

 

Lastly, you mentioned your son was not receptive to some of the advice.  So, he may feel he is not getting a fair shot.  To put what others have said in a different way... he can either whine and mope about the injustice and make things worse or he can come to grips with the fact that it is this coach who he must impress with his play and attitude and put every effort possible into accomplishing this.

  

 

 

I would also add that son's coach puts value in doing everything for the team.  Not just playing, cheering, being a good teammate, but also field maintenance.  Son told me the other day, don't worry about why XXXX isn't playing.  He's not playing because he's lazy.  He said he doesn't show-up early for field maintenance, and by not doing so, he is not being a team player.  Son said XXXX won't play, and he hasn't played for the last 4 games.

While I am sure they are getting good, solid, reps, the amounts just don't add up.  If you take your 9 starters and give them 1000 fielding reps and 1000 hitting reps, that's 18,000 total reps over 30 hours.  That's something like 600 reps per hour.  Unless you have a lot of coaches and resources and can break up into many stations, you're probably doing something significantly less than 1000 reps per player.  Especially for the backups (probably another 5-10 kids), who probably get less than the starters. 

 

At my son's school resources are tight.  They only have two tunnels.  Varsity monopolizes them.  So the lower levels rarely get to hit on a regular basis.  With a single coach, situational infield/outfield is a slow process. 

 

Not to get bogged down into calculations and such, but the reality is the backups are getting less and less opportunities to prove themselves.  They just need to be ready when called. 

And BA and OBP mean very little to the coach if he's not squaring up and barreling the ball.

My suggestion for fast track to PT.

HIT HIT HIT. And I mean hit. Not bloops, not walks, HIT

He gets one AB? He better produce. Or he will sit.

Some perspective....

 

Be thankful wherever your son is.  Be most thankful that he is a vibrant, healthy boy.  My son got called up late to varsity his sophomore year, got no playing time whatsoever, and yet, we were beside ourselves with joy.  He played for the largest public high school in the state of Ohio and even making the freshmen team was an achievement let alone getting playing time on varsity as a sophomore.  I never advised him one time in his career to talk to the coach.  The coach speaks to the team with the lineup card.  The player will not change that decision based on verbal argument.

 

Look, this whole topic and debate boils down to control.  Control the things you can control and let go of the things you can't.  This will take the 800 lb. gorilla off you and your son's shoulders.

 

What you absolutely CANNOT control:

Coach's decision

 

What you CAN control:

1a) Your attitude

1b) Your effort

 

Focus on the what you can's and let go of the what you cannot's.  It will simply your life and lead to ultimate happiness.  Now encourage the young man to get to work and have the best attitude on the team.  Encourage him to do this while keeping his mouth shut.  Someone will eventually notice. 

I mentioned in one of my posts about starting to hear some parents chirp about playing time now that we have settled into conf. play.  Im sure I will start hearing about my sons hitting the last two games.  O for 3 w/walk last night 0 for 2 w/2walks game before.  If you looked at his BA you would say he's only an average hitter.  What the BA does not show is the pitcher pitching 50 MPH two games ago.  Kid was way out in front of the ball.  He knows it, the coach knows it.  He was one of the few kids to actually put the ball into play.  Last night he went 0 for again.  He was hitting the snot out of the ball.  2 kids made exceptional plays to keep my kid off base.  As my son said. "sometimes you just hit them right at the kids; dad".  

Yet the other kids, whose parents will chirp,  strike out at bat.  My kids average is probably the same as some of theirs at this point, but he only has 2 Ks on the season.   He was hitting .698 before he went into the 2 game slump.

We do 4-fungo infield 3 times a week for 30 minutes at a time. There are variations to it, but each position gets roughly 400 groundballs hit to them a day (we don't slow down swinging or we use machines/fungoman, so about a gb every 4 sec or 15 a minute for calculation). About 5 deep at every infield position (sr - freshman), that's about 80 gbs a day or 240 a week at the bare minimum. 30 hours is over three weeks of practice for us (only 8 hrs per week per UIL), so you can see we're close to or past the 1000+ mark I referenced off the cuff, and that's just in our one drill. ANd most of those are quality reps with our kids.

 

If you mean 1 coach with one fungo and 9-kids on the field than you have a point, but like I said, that's a very crappy practice.

Ok with my luck this will be the n last straw and I will be the one yelled at for hijacking!!  But I do like the debate on practice reps.  Ironhorse I agree on the reps.  In fact I dont even have infielders throw back.  Start with two buckets one by me and one by no more than 4 fielders.  I hit they field and drop in their bucket.  Rapid fire.  When my bucket is empty they run theirs in and switch.  Hundreds of grounders in a short amount of time.  Stations are the key.  If you don't have a lot of coaches then groups of 2 doing flips, hitting from tees, fly balls (2 groups total 4), ground balls (2 groups total of 4) that's 12 kids.  Got more?  Add a couple stations.  How about 4 kids (2 pairs) working on rundown catch?  The possibilities are endless.  And you really only need 2 coaches.  Too much standing around at baseball practices!  Let's improve our reputations and get organized!  Everyone doing something!

Last night I umpired a lopsided game that ended by run rule after 4-1/2 innings. The home coach started subbing players in the bottom of the third and had all nine of his eligible substitutes in the line up by the bottom of the fourth.

 

Even with a 14-run lead, he watched every at bat his subs took with keen interest. Every time one of them took a strike he didn't approve of them letting go by, he barked out a reminder that this was their chance to show they can hit and if they don't want to hit, they will sit.

 

One at bat in a blow out may not be much of an opportunity, but if it's the only one you get, you'd better seize it.  

 

 

Nice post swamp. Very true.

How much of an opportunity the kid has to show himself may depend on the off season. He needs to be aware of every opportunity to show himself. In the fall of soph year my son passed on travel and played for the high school fall ball team. This was even though he was on varsity soccer.  He had shortstop won by the end of fall ball. Tryouts in the spring were a formality. He had been called the heir apparent since 8th grade. But he wasn't taking any chances. He also attended every winter indoor workout.

Very true.  My son has pretty much been to everything he is eligible for.  Camps prior to frosh year, summer ball, any meetings, and off season workouts --when he could.  Our school prohibits in season athletes from attending the off season open gym workouts during their active season.  So when they ran the open gym's this past winter my son was playing basketball.  He was not allowed to attend the baseball open gym.  I've been told they primarily do this for two reasons.  1 - to keep the kids from burning out.  2 - To make sure an in season athlete does not get hurt at an open gym.

In addition to the school stuff, my kid would work out with his travel team 2 or 3 days a week during the off season.  How many days he got in depended on his football/basketball schedule.  In addition starting in December he worked out with his hitting and pitching coaches as well.  His travel program actually ran practices 5 days a week but due to the basketball schedule he could only make W, Sat and Sun.  And W and Sat were hit or miss depending on his basketball schedule.  

 

 

 

 

I have a very good friend who was a year and a class behind me in sports. He was very talented. He was a QB in football and a LHP in baseball. But he was one year behind a dominant class that won state titles in both sports. As a soph QB he played JV while a junior watched a senior be all state. The next year as a junior he carried the clipboard while the QB a class above him became all state. Then senior year my friend was the starting QB after every starter but one graduated. He spent the season running for his life until he got injured. He could have been all state had he started either of the previous two years.

 

in baseball he was on JV as a soph. There were five pitchers ahead of him. Three were drafted in the top twenty rounds of the MLB draft. My friend was skilled enough to make the Legion team as a soph (no travel then). But he was behind the high school pitchers plus two more from a Catholic school (one drafted). Only one pitcher left after that year. He sat through another season. The Legion team won two state championships. My friend barely pitched until his last year of Legion. He dominated. He went on to pitch at he D1 level for a team that went to the College World Series.

 

The problem my friend had wasn't a stupid or unfair coach. He was buried behind a load of talent. Now, what do you think the dads thought of the Legion coach when their son's backups on the high school team started over them in Legion? The high school and Legion coaches saw and evaluated the talent differently. Personally I thought the Legion coach got it right. But the truth was it was just two coaches seeing different abilities in players.

Please put me in touch with your admissions office and a good local realtor....I'm moving my family to your district.  You might have a few sharp edges , but your program appears to be what most of us would wish for our kids.  Kudos to you, sir.

I'll agree with that.  You obviously have way more resources then we have.  I'm not sure we even have a full bucket of balls. 

Haha. We definitely have more than adequate resources, but far from the tops in our area. I think what most coaches need are prepared plans and a little creativity. As long as your willing to take the time to teach your kids how the drills work and the importance of quality reps, a lot of times they can start running them themselves, and seniors take ownership of teaching which makes them better. 

I can't really add much, as I believe Coach May and some of the others have hit the nail on the head, but I do have a couple little things to offer.  What is your son's long term goal?  Does he want to play in college?  If so, his HS soph playing time won't have a lot to do with that.  But his grades will.  His club team will.  His work ethic will.

 

In 6th grade, my 2015 set a goal to make varsity as a freshman.  I'm happy to say he accomplished that goal and has been a V starter since the 3rd game of his freshman year.  As a freshman, he set the goal of playing in college.  I'm happy to say he has signed a scholarship to play in college.  To achieve these goals, above all, he worked extremely hard - on and off the field.  He's never had a drink or smoked anything.  He's never been in any trouble.  He also knows the importance of good grades. And you know what, the first question every college coach he worked out for wasn't "How much playing time did you see in HS?"  It was "What'd you get on your ACT?"

 

I know it's hard for a soph to sit.  I know it's hard for a mom to watch.  Try to look at the big (long term) picture.  Focus on grades, too.  And help in the ways you can.  Not to toot my own horn, but I happen to be a phenom as a front-tosser.  Every day, after a three hour practice, I front toss at least 100 balls to my son.  If it's dark or bad weather, I set more than that on a tee in the garage.  Every night. In season and out. I'm there to listen, and have sat through enough workouts to offer some advice on little tweaks.

 

Be supportive and don't talk to the coach.  Look at the big picture and focus on the long term goal.  Everything will fall in to place.

That was kindof mean...but funny.

Now if it were me,  jp would be complaining how mean I am..or in his words....sometimes the best response is no response.

Right jp?

nicksmom, you have gotten excellent advice. Best of luck.

There are posts when you can tell the OP just doesn't know. Many of my conversations over the years have been with people that just didn't know. They need someone they can go to for advice. I once had a mom of a player who played for a team we faced in HS. She got my number from one of our parents during the game. Her son was a stud. I remembered him from the game. She called me and asked me some questions that made it clear she "just didn't know."

 

Their school had a terrible program. I just directed her to a guy that ran a program in their area. Two years later he signed with an ACC school and was drafted after his Jr year. This site is a valuable resource for people who know and don't know. But it also can serve as a means of stress relief for those that feel helpless to help those they love.