Player development (what to do?)

I would recommend waiting a year (until 10YO) to go that route. When he is 10, get him playing on a team that matches his grade in school. That will have him playing on his level, rather than playing "down" as he is having to do this spring.

When he hits 13YO, let him play on older teams if they are good quality teams.

Don't sweat this year. *Or even next year, for that matter.* What league he plays in this year won't have any effect on what goes on when he is in HS.

Thanks Texan. 13 seems to be the age to really "turn the corner".

Pat,

Don't worry about the teams right now. Focus on getting your son the best coaching/intruction you can find so he develops good mechanics (fielding,throwing,hitting). Maybe there are some camps given at your local HS/College you can sign him up for.

My son has been in the same position as your son. I agree with Texan that the most important thing is playing with his grade level, and it will not matter this year what level he plays at. My son is now 13-league age 14. Looking back, I wish we had formed an 11U maybe a 10U summer tournament team for a couple of local tournaments. We did do a 12U for Cooperstown (highly recommended, do it if you can) At 12 you can tell a lot of kids have already played in many tournaments, it would be good experience for 11U to play a few summer tournaments as long as it does not consume the whole summer. As far as travel/Select teams I would look for a good baseball program with a facility in your area @ 12U. It seems most kids that play at high school level have trained in a program. Even at a JH level it becomes clear what kids play baseball all year, versus seasonal.

bdad,
He is taking hitting lessons for the first time this yr. It's real easy to get caught up in the moment and overreact to a situation like this. Especially when it's your kid. When in reality...he's 9. He's got a lot of baseball in front of him.

Pat,

And there's nothing wrong with being the best kid on the team

nuts4bb,
Our league puts together 11U tourney teams also. We also host a great 11U tourney. he has been on 2 9U all star teams, and played 12U in the fall. So he has started to experience of playing "extra baseball". I think the idea is to find a balance. Support what/how much he wants to play while, if he does show talent beyond his years, try to grow that at the same time.

Playing on two leauges may be a little much at 9yo. Why have you decided to "stick" with the town leauge if your son has the talent to play with 12 year old players? Is it friends and teammates? Or is it his comfort zone? Personally I would just go with the AAU team and say goodbye to the LL. Got to move up someday if you plan to move up. By the way, I am very opinionated on the subject of playing up when you are talking about a talented player. I think the talented player needs to play with players of equal talent no matter what the age. My son was 11 and played on a 13u team. At 15 he played on an 18u select team. He could have been the best player on just about any team in his age bracket but in doing so he would have stagnated and played to that team’s level. So I disagree with some of the posters that say it’s OK to be the best player on the team. A high school team is made up of players from 14 years old to 18 years old. College teams are made up of players ranging from 17 to 24 or so. The best players play and it will become obvious that age is secondary to talent. In order for a player to develop to his max, he has to be challenged and there is nothing like competition to stimulate that challenge. Understand there can be some non-athletic situations arise because of a young player playing with older boys. There is a great difference between a 15 year old player and an 18 year old player when it comes to accepted social activity so parental guidance and common sense should prevail with the young player.
Fungo

PS: You can never get to second base if you never leave first.

quote:

Originally posted by Fungo:
...Got to move up someday if you plan to move up. By the way, I am very opinionated on the subject of playing up when you are talking about a talented player.
...
PS: You can never get to second base if you never leave first.

Gracious, the kid is only 9YO!

Fungo,
I tend to think the same way. I believe talent should prevail over age. And I'm definitely struggling with this more so than my son. Although he has recognized differences. I.E. with the 12u team he played with 3 OFer's and not 4, and so on. The struggling part is that we have our roots with this league (I played in the league when i was a kid). And yes if he plays "down" this year he will have his best friend on the team. I think I'm approaching this like we'll get him in season coaching and instruction (hitting, not sure about pitching) so he can try to keep his skills tuned.

How much fun will he really be having later in the season when there is no competition and no incentive for him to play at a top level? We opted to take our son out of LL his last year of 12's because there was no incentive to improve. He had played travel ball since he was 10 and always "played up" until recently (and actually his entire team "played up" last weekend, which we won ).
Where will he be getting the best coaching? For my son, it was always more fun if he was learning and being challenged than it was to be "the stud".

At 9YO, the after game treat is still very high on the priority list...

I agree with both BBDad2007 and BBfam.

I remember my son being the stud of his youth leagues and enjoying every minute of it. Playing along side his schoolmates made him someone the other boys talked about with admiration. It was a great confidence building period.

But we also sought out tougher competition via travel ball.

Just try to strike the right balance as best you can. If you get yourself into such tough competition that his average falls to .200, you could crush all that confidence and take a lot of fun out of the game at an early age. But if he's hitting .750 in Little League and .375 in travel, that's still being a stud while facing some challenges regularly.

The other key is to make sure your son keeps his head the proper size. Watch out for him becoming the braggart of the rec league. I've seen that happen and it is just plain ugly.

Of course, the kid will take his cues from you, so make sure you're not the braggart of the stands.

At 9 years of age age the name of the game is "FUN" and learning more every day--- A thought for you and your LL---when I ran our town LL we did the regular season and then during the summer we put together a team of the better players in town who were not away on vacation and played a 30 game schedule including tournaments in neighboring towns---oh--one other thing --our LL was not Wiliamsport connected so we had freedom to do what we wanted

Moving up or staying put --- neither one is inherently "bad". Forcing a kid to “enjoy” playing at the recreational level and force feeding him an “after game treat” could be as unpleasant to him as pushing another to play on a select team and not allowing him to eat cup cakes at all. It depends on the player. If your child is into “fun and games” and not into serious competition then recreational baseball is a great venue. But if he loves to compete and is self motivated to rise above the rest then his parents should seriously consider giving him the opportunity to compete at a higher level. I still enjoy watching recreational baseball and enjoy watching the players and the parents having fun ---- but as they say: It’s a completely different ball game. ---- "Hey Bubba, have you batted yet???"
Fungo