JV vs. Varsity for HS Freshman

Your son does indeed sound like he has quite a future!

Ours was a sophomore on varsity for pitching too...although up to now he too was a 2-way player. Coaches stuck with him through thick and thin and I too believe him to be quite a bit better pitcher at the end of the season compared to the beginning. He started, pitched 6 innings and got the win in the section quarterfinal and started the section championship going 4 pretty good innings.

The coaches also handled the 2-way things pretty well I thought. It was clear (to me too) that he couldn't beat out the incumbent senior at his infield position...but they practiced him all year as a 2-way player, BP, infield...the whole thing...got him some game ABs when they could and told him to be ready to hit for himself next year.

Pretty cool when you can really trust your son's HS coach and it works out well! Your experience sounds similar.

One last comment...freshman on varsity? I think its fine if everyone understands ALL that it means...including allowing your 14/15-year old son to be in the dugout and a party to 18-year old conversations. Just an extra angle to consider.

Good luck moving forward!

Our experience was a little different but I couldn't have scripted the outcome any better.

Our Freshman son had the opportunity to play fall ball with the varsity and jv boys. When the season began, they moved him "up" to jv where he played the majority of the season. Got to know a lot of the 2011 kids, became the team leader and if I may say so, had a great season. Led the team in pitching, rbis, hr's, and runs scored.

Toward the end of the season he was "brought up" and got to pitch one game on varsity. Did well there too. He got to go with the team as they won their 3rd consecutive section championship. Didn't play a single inning there and had a blast! He loved being with the older kids and as a credit to the coach and his program, they were great with him. Not once did they disrespect him or make him feel like an outsider. They treated him no different than any other player on that team. (Although, I hear ya JBB. Some of the dugout talk was a little mature for my liking .

One thing that I really like was that he played most of the year with the soph's who will be his teammates for several years. This gave him the chance to bond with that group. If he had played all year on varsity, he wouldn't have had the opportunity to bond with kids closer to his age.

My son also got the opportunity to play varsity as a freshman. Pitcher as well, although he is not the giant your son is. He was one of the starting pitchers, but did not play position. What our coach did was have him pitch for the varsity and then play position on JV when he was not with the varsity. As it turned out, he didn't wind up playing a whole lot of JV.

I was very pleased with how it turned out. At the varsity level, he had to actually pitch and not just throw the ball by guys. He was challenged and held his own. We are in arguably the toughest region in the state and he did pretty well.

We have been playing on our 15u summer team for a couple of tournaments now. We have played a number of varsity teams. No seniors, but plenty of rising jr's and sr's. He has pitched 10 innings and allowed only 1 unearned run. I think alot of that has to do with the challenge of pitching varsity during the year.

I have always said you should play at the highest level you are capable of competing in. It will only make you better. Sounds like your son is well on his way to that. Good luck to you.

My son was pulled up to varsity early in his freshman season when the senior catcher was put into the pitching rotation. It definitely had its downside - very few at bats, since he played only every third game and the DH'd for him.

It took him awhile to find his swing again when summer ball started and his AB's became regular again. But catching varsity pitching and playing the varsity game as a freshman without question sped his development.

Bottom line, the team needed him to fill that role.

Hi, Aldoinla. 2B was brought up to varsity at the beginning the season of his 8th grade year (small school). He was a 13-year-old 5-3, 145 pound DH. The head coach liked his contact swing, and a couple of the seniors asked the coach to bring him up. It was a huge compliment. He hit .311 for the first 13 games, then started pressing and struggled badly. He bounced back at the end of the season, and hasn't looked back. There is no question that his struggles made him mentally stronger.

The worst part about the early call-up was that we were looking forward to a nice, relaxed, fun JV season, and all of a sudden he was put into the varsity pressure cooker. Plus he missed his friends on JV, and there was a lot of animosity from some JV parents who thought it should have been their son. But that's all water under the bridge. That coach was forced out after that year, but he believed in 2B, and we'll always be grateful.

The best part of the early call-up was that he was mentally ready last summer to start at 2B on a 16U summer team that went to East Cobb and to the USA 16U nationals. Without the varsity experience, I don't think he would have been ready to play at that level. We'll be back at those tournaments this year, and he's a veteran at the ripe old age of 15!

Sounds like your son has a very bright future ahead. Good luck!

My last guy was ready for varsity as a frosh but coach sat with him and told he plays his seniors and it would better for him to play everyday on the JV and then as a soph he would be the starting CF at the varsity level---no problem and it all worked out---the HS has/had an endowment for a College Baseball Camp every summer at a major Division I school for the player they felt deserved it-- he got it and spent the entire time at the camp being tutored on his OF play as well as hitting

2Bmom, your son was an example of the type guys who can handle varsity as a freshman or Junior high player. They have to be able to handle adversity and bounce back when the inevitable struggles occur. I constantly stressed to my younger son who played on the varsity as a frosh that when he struggled with the pitching that there were other ways to contribute. He was a good bunter with great speed, played 6 different positions. He filled in as backup catcher and did some mopup pitching work. After his first 13 or 14 ab's the hitting got better and he really hit well the last 3-4 games. All this served as a building block for Soph. year and this year the average climbed to .314. Now in the summer select he's working on squaring the ball up with more power and sure enough its coming on. I think fighting through the earlier ups and downs was a real help because baseball is always a struggle to adjust.

quote:

1)The worst part about the early call-up was that we were looking forward to a nice, relaxed, fun JV season, and all of a sudden he was put into the varsity pressure cooker. Plus 2) he missed his friends on JV, and 3) there was a lot of animosity from some JV parents who thought it should have been their son.

My son experienced #2 and 3 even though he got along with the varsity players. The JV players were his friends and classmates in school. In my son's situation there was animosity because sophs don't normally make varsity. However, being on varsity and being in the pressure cooker is what it's all about. I don't think I could have handled a second year of watching JV ball. You don't need to feel pressure as a parent. It's your son's game. My son started 1-9. I figured he eventually get going. He did. I think there's more pressure at the JV level where the parents wish their kids were on varsity.

The real animosity was aimed at a freshman who made varsity. He was the first ever. This is a large classification high school. One JV parent who didn't know they were talking to his dad ripped the kid. The dad asked one question, "Have you ever seen him play?" The response was a no.

Wow, great comments!

My son did not experience any animosity from other parents or kids....thank god. The varsity guys accepted him immediately, probably because he could actually play. Our team was pretty short in the pitching department and they had to get my kid prepared for this year where he will be one of two starting pitchers as a sophmore. I'm guessing that the experience will help him in the long run but it was pretty tough on me to watch him sit and then fail for 3/4ths of a season. I still wonder what would have happenned if he had played 1/2 the season in JV and teh second 1/2 on varsity. I'll never know.

Yes, his frame and strength belie his age but it doesn't mean that a kid is not going to go through the normal transitions that every child has to go through from middle school to high school.....even if your kid is considered to have a "high ceiling". The coaches frustration with his development bothered me a bit. What can you expect from a 14 year old who put on 4 inches during the year? It was a year of constant adjustment to his delivery. I'm not making excuses for him, but I think that the expectations were set a bit too high. Even I got a bit caught up in it. I just than the lord that he found it in the end or his freshman experience would have been a real wash.

We'll see if the effects of this "rapid developmenet" plan shows any results this year. He needs to step up and become a leader on the mound this year. It's a lot to ask a 15 year old, but I think he's ready for it.

Transitions are what is going on all the time throughout life. It's not just elementary school to middle school to high school to college to real world or little league to babe ruth to freshman team to jv team to varsity team. You find transitions when you are 60 years old and you are going from working to being retired.

With transitions there will follow failure and adversity. Life is not easy and you will fail at something a lot but you got to learn how to handle it.

Some kids can be thrown to the fire and they respond right away. Some learn to handle the responsibility. Other have to be brought along slowly and others never make it. This is the toughest job for a real coach - to find out who can handle what pressure and when. One kid will vary to another and one year from the next. It's tough.

If your son had been placed on the JV team this year and been there the whole year he still would eventually have to handle the trasition to varsity and the pressure that comes with that. There is no avoiding it so the coach has to make the decision - is this kid someone who can handle the pressure or do we need to bring him along? Sounds like he felt he could handle it.

The next decision the coach has to make is how to treat the kid when he does face that failure that comes with the transition. Some kids you can drill and they respond while some have to be soothed and comforted (not real sure how to put it without sounding insulting) and a whole bunch that fall somewhere in the middle. Sounds like to me that the coach felt your son could handle the treatment of high expectations. That should be a honor in my opinion.

When high expectations are placed on a kid and he fails in a game or in a week doesn't mean he hasn't lived up to those expectations but high school kids think of things in terms of extremes. They think "I had two hits today - I'm the greatest player in the world." or "I went O-fer today - I stink." That is a lesson good coaches try to teach their players - that one at bat, pitching performance, or groundball isn't the whole picture but what is said and done for the season is what matters and what makes you successful.

To achieve that a coach has to put that pressure on that kid because we are hoping that it will create focus and a hunger to compete. The kids who respond like that are the easiest to coach because we don't have to force them to compete. They naturally do and love it and thrive in it. But sometimes that pressure is too much and a coach has to know when to back off - once again a very tough thing to know.

The vast majority of kids will end up being brought along slowly through the JV and then to varsity but every once in a while a kid comes through who can handle it right away. When you get that kid you use them because usually they will learn to handle the pressure. They may fail more early on but if done right - by the player, coach and parents - they learn and grow from it.

I am a hot shot second baseman and I was put on J.V. for the season. All of my friends and all parents thought I would be the starter on Varsity. I played the first half of the season on J.V. and was playing incredible. I had a batting average well over .700 and was turning double plays like crazy.

I got put on varsity and performed very well. I had a batting average of about.300 and this was at the team's hardest part of the schedule. I found that going up in level is better than going down because of the practice.