My son is in over his head

As a rising 10th grader he needs to be playing 15U with the other rising 10th graders, age is irrelevant once you get to high school and beyond.  You need to play with your graduating class.  

As for the rest of your post, what are his aspirations within the game?  Does he dream about playing beyond high school?  Does he do more than dream, does he work on his game outside of organized practices. Does he eat and lift to get bigger and stronger to improve his performance?  Knowing those answers will influence the guidance you will get.

As to the struggles, we put our kids in youth sports to gain life skills and learn to deal with adversity.  I would tell him simply that baseball doesn’t always love you back.  Every player at some point is going to struggle and many will quit as a result.  

Baseball can teach a lot of life lessons. Setting realistic expectations. Obviously adversity, things won't always go your way, coaches/teammates/umpires can all be a pain at some point. There's not a lot of success in the game - you will fail more than anything else. If you're head and shoulders above everyone you will succeed more in the HS/college ranks but there can be a lot of teaching moments. Kids don't always want to hear that from their parents, but they should be having fun.

Meaning hey, maybe you went 0-3 today but you had a good approach at the plate and the pitcher just executed really well. Or you didn't get many balls out in right field but you were able to back up the wild throw from the third baseman when he overthrew on the bunt, and instead of the kid going to third we kept him at second. Those are small victories inside the game. Yeah it's fun to go 3-3, but that doesn't always happen.

If they're having absolutely no enjoyment, yeah maybe they do something else. It's always going to feel a bit worse in the moment, so I wouldn't rush for a decision until some time after the season.

It’s pretty common for kids to drop out of Baseball around that age.  Baseball is a really really hard sport to play, if a kid doesn’t love it they won’t stick with it once they get to a level where it becomes really difficult.

I would tell him “this is a good opportunity to learn a life lesson, about commitment.  You committed to this team, so we’re going to need to have you stick it out for the summer.   You don’t need to keep playing Baseball after this summer, if you don’t want to, there are lots of things you could be great at.  What are some other activities that might interest you?  Let’s try to help you find ways to make this season fun. “

Thank you for your response. He has no desire to play beyond high school and honestly I doubt he'd ever be good enough. His pipe dream is to hit 90 pitching. He's not a big eater and does go to the gym a few times a week but he's 125 pounds at 5' 9". He does do lessons every week but he certainly isn't overly motivated where he's working on something every day. He's more of a I'll do just enough kind of kid in all aspects of his life. Like 90 is still an A so why do I need a 99.

Based on the fact that he doesn’t want to play beyond high school, I would not keep playing summer travel ball.  The cost and time commitment simply isn’t worth it. I know this is going to go against the grain but just pull him from the team.  Yes, let him quit, that’s a life lesson too.  Sometimes you find yourself in a situation that makes you miserable and isn’t leading anywhere and it’s ok to just stop.  It’s ok to stop being miserable, stop wasting money, and stop wasting time.  Recognizing when you are in over your head and making a decisive move toward self preservation is a valuable life skill.

If he still wants to play the game but not at the highest level find a recreational league and keep enjoying the game.  Nothin wrong with that at all.

Baseball isn't for everyone.  It is a Darwinian journey with some portion of kids dropping out each year until you've got maybe 5-10% of former Little Leaguers making their HS varsity team.  There's lots more to high school than participating in a sport that isn't a fit and isn't fun.  One of my son's stopped playing baseball in HS and joined the cross country team.  One of the best decisions he made.  I asked why cross country - he said he wanted to do a sport that I (his dad) knew nothing about and couldn't "help" him with...

Did he play on his high-school team, and did he enjoy that?  Can he keep playing in school if he doesn't keep playing this summer?   Or would his HS career depend on his playing this summer, even if he feels he's not having success?

Maybe he’s hit the wall and isn’t likely to become a high school varsity baseball player. A lot of kids hit the wall once past 14u.

If he doesn’t aspire to play past high school he might be better off in a Legion or other rec program. If he can’t push himself to compete at the 15u travel level maybe he should find a level he can compete and enjoy the game.

He did play high school this spring and hated moments of it as well. I talked to him some more and he just really misses his old team and old coach from before his team was bought by this elite organization. He made great friends, great memories and just loved everything about it. He's a quiet kid, slow to make friends, who doesn't like change. He will definitely make JV next spring. As far as varsity I think it's too early to know. It will depend how he develops as well as the kids coming up behind him. The school expected them to play summer with a "quality" team. I didn't see anyone on the team that is playing like who we are competing against this summer. I have never heard of legion or red programs. Just rec. I don't even know if rec goes up to his age.

Pull the shoot, take up the trumpet.

I don't really disagree with _most_ of what's been said above, but I do have a different take.

It sounds like he's overmatched by the level of talent on the other teams, not by the level of talent on his own team. I understand that he's not super-motivated and that he doesn't have friends on the team yet, but the primary issue is that the team is getting run-ruled every game.  That is no fun.  And that is on the coaches, not him.  Travel is no longer for just for the can't-miss D1 studs. There are plenty of tournaments filled with teams comprised of players who will never play past HS Varsity, and in many cases not past JV. 

In your situation I think I'd talk to some of the other disgruntled parents and try to unite to tell the coaches to play a more reasonable schedule. If they refuse, walk, and get a couple of the dads to put together a new team focused on learning the skills necessary to play in HS and having some fun.

@Justamom1234 posted:

He did play high school this spring and hated moments of it as well. I talked to him some more and he just really misses his old team and old coach from before his team was bought by this elite organization. He made great friends, great memories and just loved everything about it. He's a quiet kid, slow to make friends, who doesn't like change. He will definitely make JV next spring. As far as varsity I think it's too early to know. It will depend how he develops as well as the kids coming up behind him. The school expected them to play summer with a "quality" team. I didn't see anyone on the team that is playing like who we are competing against this summer. I have never heard of legion or red programs. Just rec. I don't even know if rec goes up to his age.

It appears your son is only into baseball when it perfectly suits his needs. Life is rarely this perfect. If he wants to keep playing he’s going to have to develop a stronger work ethic and stronger desire to compete and play. It appears he desires to play as opposed to wants it. Based on his desires he sounds better suited for rec ball. It’s all fun, smiles and ice cream cones. Based on your description of the situation your son son sounds like a kid who doesn’t care to put in the effort for success. He probably can’t grasp how hard the kids who want it (success) work at it.

My kids loved playing varsity and travel. But they were completely committed to being the best players they could be and playing at least to the college level. It involved committing to a daily schedule away from the teams. It involved being committed when they may have preferred doing something else. Sometimes the only fun part was the vision of the future.

Note: Auto incorrect preferred red to rec and made the change when I posted. I meant rec ball. Where my kids grew up Legion was another level of rec ball. It was high school varsity bench players and JV players.

I've read every post thank you. His team has gotten extremely unlucky as far as who they've drawn to play against. Multiple national level teams. Today one kid was 16 years 11 months old -- that's 2 full years older than him (and multiple others were over 16 - those full beards are shocking!). We've told him we just need to move you to a more local team with various levels that don't play just in high profile tournaments. He thinks if he can't compete at this level he should quit. I think expecting to play great against kids who clearly will go on to do amazing things in baseball is unreasonable for the average high school player at an average high school.

And I completely agree - he's unwilling to put the work in that the kids that are competing at the highest level are. I don't think all the work in the world would get him there though based on his body type. I'd just like him to not be miserable.

Justamom, it's been a long time since I've post.  But I've seen it all, from T-ball to pros.  The 13-14 age group is the demarcation point.  If your son loves the game, he should not worry about how he compares against the talent at this age.  If not, let him be a kid.

Also, Justamom, the body type thing is totally bogus.  Son was the smallest kid on every team and still ended up Gatorade State Player of the Year.  The key is the mindset.  Does he love the game?  If not, stop.  If he does, overcome.

Although sometimes it doesn't seem like it, this is the HIGH SCHOOL baseball web.  The focus does not have to be playing on a top national team in order to play in college, it can be playing in high school, if that is fun, and if you're at a school that allows kids to be on the team who "only" find it fun.   Not all schools expect full-out effort from everyone.  Was your son frustrated in HS because he wasn't playing much?  or because the team wasn't good?  or didn't like the other kids?  or the coach?  or because he didn't meet his own expectations?

My oldest son played high school JV golf for 4 years.  There were 5 kids in his grade who were superstuds and they were the varsity.   My son was naturally good enough to stay in the next group.  If he had worked hard at it, maybe he would have cracked that group, but he didn't seem to care that much (or maybe he didn't think it would help), and so he did not do the extra work, the lessons, the weightlifting, the summer tournaments, etc.  To be honest, I never quite understood why he kept with it for 4 years, but he said he liked the practices.  Now he plays golf for fun.

Note:  he dropped baseball after 8th grade, but umpired rec-league baseball all through high school, earned quite a bit of money.

I think if you are smaller you have to be that much more talented or work that much harder. My son isn't willing to to work hard and I know he's no star athlete. For the high school team he started pitching first then when they realized he could hit, he played 100% of the time. He ended the season with the top batting average for the team. He can definitely hang with the kids on his high school team (not varsity). He liked the kids, coaches were ok, he didn't love the program mostly because it wasted tons of his time and had no set schedule. He takes AP classes, advanced everything and it was hard for him to keep up with the hours of homework after practice every day and still do the other things he loves doing. The only time he truly couldn't wait to be there was when playing his old teammates that go to a different high school. I do think my husband's going to make him finish his commitment to this summer season.  After that he's going to take a break. We'll see how he feels in the spring. He's never had a season off. We think that will tell him if he misses it or if he's truly done. Thanks for all the advice.

@Justamom1234 posted:

I think if you are smaller you have to be that much more talented or work that much harder.

This is a tough one because if you read that statement as an absolute it's wrong, in my opinion.  However, I would say that if two players had similar skills I feel the larger one would get the nod all else being equal.  From my experience, the smaller athletic kids develop much younger/quicker than the bigger kids.  The big athletic kids eventually catch up.  Just my two cents.   

I would be saying the same thing as your husband.... finish your commitment but it's tough to watch your kids not enjoy the sport.  Good luck.