Playing up....need opinions

If staying down allows son to play with kids in his own school class grade, then stay there and be one of the best.

If your son is young for his grade, and playing down means playing with kids who are mostly a school grade behind, then play up.

Basically, stay with kids who will graduate high school the same year.

I tend to agree with Stafford.  Play with who your future competition is unless you can play up and still be one of the top players.

I also say to give your son and yourself a true idea of their abilities try to play at the highest level you can within your age group.  My son was never the best player on any of the youth teams he played on but we always competed at the highest level we could.

Several of his 2016 peers played at lower levels and dominated their competition and were all stars, etc.  My son and his youth ball teammate were the only ones to see time as freshman with the varsity this year all the others were on the freshman team. 

IMO, it really depends on what age group, and if you'll get play time playing up or not.  If you get plenty of play time I say play up...if you get plenty of pine time playing up, stay down and play, can't get any better sitting

Little field or big field?  Make sure you stay on the little field through age 13 (cal ripken/little league 12).  I don't think they ever have more fun than that 12 year-old year.  After that, I think you need to play as high as you can and still compete.  You get better by playing better competition and competing, not losing and being overmatched.  That is my opinion.

When I started a 9U travel team a bunch of years, I had a couple kids playing up  They did well and learned a lot.  You couldn't tell the difference between the younger kids and older kids.  By the time the team was 12U (they were 11U) they began to struggle a little bit.   I talked to the parents, and they decided it was time to find a team with the same age group prior to moving to the big field at 13U.  A year later, they thrived and continued to thrive.  Both kids that played up recently  committed to play D1 baseball.  That was my experience from a coaching perspective.  Your mileage may vary.

I know examples of both, and some work out, while others do not. One example in the negative would be that a father kept pushing his son to play more often(beyond the regular league)and kept trying to get him to play with older kids. The kids was decent, but still, he was just a kid and there was no way of knowing whether he would be "good" or not. Eventually the kid got fed up with too much baseball, and riding the pine too often on older teams. Today the kid plays a different sport, never to step into the batters box again.

Another kid with a driven father played up starting around 12 years old, and now he is a senior in HS with a top D1 commitment.

My own son was asked to play up as he got older, and we decided to let him do both. It was a greater time commitment for us, but he loves baseball, so we let him. Today he is playing college ball and still has a passion for the game.

So I'd suggest being careful and not pushing him too hard. See what he wants to do, and if he has the desire and you have the time, let him do both for a season and see how it works out. Of course you need to protect his arm if he pitches, so make sure to keep a pitch count and inform the coaches what he has done on his other team.

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If it puts you 6 or lower in the lineup I would not advise to play up. Bat in the 1-5 hole you are on the right team, even if you get a few less games in.  If the coaching sitch is about the same, stay with the young guys and have fun bashing; he can blend with older guys soon enough.  jmo

In the preteen years through 13u play with your friends and age group. Once a kid has mastered the full size field he should play up to his level of ability. 

Until seven years ago youth baseball age deadline was close to many school's age deadline for grade. With the baseball move to May 1 I believe it's better for kids to play up if it means playing with their grade. 

With a May birthday I saw no reason for my son to play another year of LL when he had already torn it up and was successfully playing 7th grade ball on a full size field. By playing with his grade technically he was playing up in 13u and 14u. But at fifteen and sixteen he played up an additional age group since he could compete.

Great responses. I agree: play with you age group on the small diamond unless your child is "old" for the group, then play up. On the big diamond, play up if the player can truly compete and earn time in the field and in the BO.

What about the situation in which playing "up" would mean playing against less "talent."  In other words, playing down with a good team who plays top notch talent vs. playing up on a lesser team who doesn't have as competitive of a schedule. 

Also, what about the effect of coaching/training.  Playng down for an organization which has resources and great instruction vs. playing up for a couple of "upset dads."

In the example described from our experience I felt it was more beneficial for our boys to play in their age group and play the best teams they could compete with.  Whenever we took this team up a year into a lower classification we won significantly more often than we lost mainly because even though we were a year younger our pitching was stronger than theirs.

My son played years for us "dads".  Last two years have been with an organization.  Both have their issues, but my son has greatly benefited from the better instruction. 

My son got an opportunity to play up part time when he was 14. His hitting coach had an opening on his 15u team and offered to let him play up when he was available. He struggled early because he was not used to the pitcher's abilities. Location, curves and change ups were better. Once he made the adjustment he flourished. But what we didn't expect was when he would go back to his 14u team he began dominating that level. The next year he played up fulltime and played every day.

I would say the circumstance has to be right and if it is absolutely play up. When he gets to high school there will be as many as four years playing together. My son just finished his sophomore year. He made varsity so he was a 16 year old playing against guys as old as 19. We had a freshman on our varsity as well. So he was 15 facing off against those 19 year olds.

Play at the highest level he can "play" at, not be on a team, PLAY.

Like others have mentioned, my son played up every year until he got to 12u.  He played one year there as an 11u and a second as a 12u.  During the fall of his first 12u season through the summer of his second, he spent some time playing 13u or 14u to learn a little more about the bigger field.  Once his second season of 12u ended, in the fall, he started playing 14u, which is up a year once again.  That's where he's at currently.

Where does he go from here?  I'm not even thinking about it.  HS starts in September and we'll see how that goes.  

But I should mention that every kid is different. Do what's best for your son based upon his size and maturity level.

Son never played up during youth ball before HS. He preferred to play with his friends on a AAA TB team. He was the only freshman that made Varsity. Several of the freshman on frosh baseball played up on their summer teams.

What's playing up in preteen ball? Is an 11 playing LL Majors with 12s playing up? If an 11 makes the 11/12 all star team is he playing up because there's a 10/11 team? 

I thought my son's 11yo year of LL was a great experience since there were so many quality 12yo pitchers. When he was twelve he owned the league. Then the age deadline changed. He was eligible to be 12 again with his May birthday. It would have been a waste of a season. There were upset parents since he might have been the tipping point at states.

I agree with Trojan-Skipper ... but I think playing-up/playing-down is the same as Elite vs Select.  Regardless of age, its about aligning your son-player's skills with the right experience level.

Find the right team (age AND skill level) where he will be in the upper-middle third.  You don't want him to be #1 (where he is not challenged enough) and certainly not #9 and lower (where he won't play enough and/or not get his preferred field position or spot in the pitching rotation).

As you get closer to HS you want him playing with his future Varsity teammates but you also want him to see the best competition as much as possible which means finding the right balance of competition with the right team situation (where he plays enough against that competition level).

No sense playing with the best team in you area (or playing up), if your son doesn't get regular ABs or opportunities on the mound against that level of competition.

Playing up at the right skill level is correct...

But also have a constant reminder out there that these guys are older, and THEY may want to do things with you off the field that YOU are not allowed to do because of your age and because your parents don't allow it... Also, just because they may act a certain way and say things in the clubhouse or dugout, doesn't mean you can act and say those things as well...

My kid is a freshman playing Varsity and this year I've had to tell him 'NO' on multiple, multiple occasions... The upper-classman have a magnet-like pull on the younger guys, believe me!

Thanks for the great replies.  My son is 4 days from the age deadline.  So he has been playing up so to speak to play with his classmates instead of in a younger division.  He hits in the top half of the lineup so I guess I will leave him where he is and see how he physically develops over the next couple of years.

d8;

My son was 13 when he played in the Northern California Legion program with 16-18 year old players. Over the next 5 years, a total of 40 players in this league played in the MLB.

Observe his reactions to the situations in the game. Can he handle failure? Is he frustrated? His objectives will be to improve on his reaction time, his mental and physical quickness and his ability to adjust to the situation.

When he was 16, Robert played on the Chicago Cubs Scout Team against Sacramento City college. During the 14 inning game, he struck out 6 times. I asked, "do you want to return next week"? He said Yes!

THE NEXT WEEK HE STRUCK OUT ONLY 2 TIMES IN 14 INNINGS.

The White Sox sent Kenny Williams [now the GM, then an OF in the minor leagues] to play on the Scout team at 3b. Robert played SS and was instructing Kenny where to play. They are friends to this day.

Each "play up" situation is different and should be evaluated with the player, his family and the coaches.

Bob

I didn't get a chance to read anyone else's response...so I am sorry if this is redundant.  I will try too later.

I think the #1 thing is you need to play at a level where you will...play...a lot.  Very good research seems to point to this being one of the single most important factors.

Does that mean you play t-ball (a lot!) when you are 8 or 9 years old and should be  playing closer-to-real baseball?  No, absolutely not.  But your question was about playing-up.

On a practical side, I used to run about a 1,000 player PONY league.  MANY parents played their kids "up" and effectively caused their kids to lose interest.

Gotta play...gotta have success...gotta be not overwhelmed...gotta have fun.

I agree with this approach, as long as it is good baseball.

Youth baseball segments players into age groups based on birthdate.  Using April 30 as the current cut-off, whether or not a player should ‘play-up’ may be different for an early developer born in June and a late bloomer born in April.  Having the June kid ‘play-up’ may not be a stretch, the player may even more naturally fit in with the group of players ahead of him; only dropping down age-groups to help ‘dominate’ all-stars or a specific tournament.  But the April kid may be in a de-facto ‘playing-up’ situation within his designated age group.

As stated by other responders, finding the right level of challenge is most important (too little challenge you risk complacency and boredom, too much challenge can be spirit crushing).  Of course this dilemma is at the core of lots of parenthood questions, not limited to picking a baseball team.

My son is heading to High School and we live in Southern California.  He has always played on teams at his age-group level.  He has friends in his grade that are on the younger side of the birthdate cutoff and they have always played within their age group.  Now they’re all lumped together trying to make the High School team.  Watching them at a camp this week, there is definitely a range of skillsets on the field, but I don’t know that whether boys played up or not has made any material difference.

oh, one more thing ... not directly addressing question:  When contemplating if the team or program is right for the player, I believe you should be looking at how often they practice (more is better) and how/what is being taught at those practices, not how often they win tournaments.

I can tell you from my sons experience last year as an incoming freshman, it did not matter if a player had previously played up or not.

Boy, the advice here has been really, really good.  I'm going to offer a few thoughts, not because I think it'll add a great deal to the great core advice being offered, but hopefully because I'll touch on a couple of things not mentioned too much so far.

I've resisted playing my son up (he did play 16U as a 15U last year, and he played Fall Ball up years ago; and of course now he is a Varsity starter as a sophomore in HS, which is "playing up" in a sense) but have sought out the best competitive level of baseball for him at his own age division as much as possible. Usually this has meant playing in a good local league during the Spring, where he can play every day (even through mistakes, and work on an improve upon weaknesses in his game that might get him benched or pigeon-holed at a higher level), and then seek out invitational showcase team opportunities later in the summer ("showcase" isn't really the right word, because we generally look for opportunities to play in competitive events, just seeking out the best opportunities to play with an against the best players regionally and nationally at his own age). PG events, that sort of thing.  I feel this has allowed both a developmental path that sometimes gets lost when playing up, but still has pushed him with very good competition (at least that is true if you find the right opportunities), and so far that has worked well for my son.

I don't think anybody should diminish the benefits of developing the confidence and swagger of a dominant player, and learning the lessons of leadership that often come with "staying down" even if the player is capable of being an average player at the next level.  That mental side of the game needs to be developed, too, and can carry over in exponential ways once the player does move up.

Another thing I don't think I've seen mentioned that is true for the best kids - the kids who do play at Jupiter, or in the PG World Series events, or Area Code, etc. - it is better for them to play with their own age once they are playing in those events.  Most scouts and recruiters, IMO (those who are scouts and recruiters feel free to correct me if I am wrong) want to focus on players who are more immediately "available" to them, and probably prefer to judge players within their age peers.  I'm sure there are exceptions for the truly exceptional players (and the posts above give pretty good rules of thumb for that), but I think that is generally true.  So, for at least part of the year - the showcase season - I think it is usually best for players to stay with their own age.

One final thought:  There has been a lot of talk about what is best for players on an individual basis.  What about the more macro level?  What is best for a league, or a division?  How often have you all seen the best players leave (to play "select" or to "play up") only to see the next tier of player follow suit within a year or two?  Eventually the "lower" level/division is decimated, and the kids who remain by default usually lose interest in the game, and the division becomes essentially irrelevant.  Then the process repeats itself, because the "elite" player wants to separate himself from the masses and seek out better competition - and more players (and parents) think of themselves as "elite" than truly are.  I truly think most kids and most leagues/divisions would be better served by kids resisting the urge to "play up" unless and until it becomes painfully obvious he can't get any better playing against his own age.  It's just better for everybody. 

Just my $0.02.

...(too little challenge you risk complacency and boredom, too much challenge can be spirit crushing). ..

I have a lot...and I mean a LOT of experience with youth baseball and decisions by parents. I can only think of 1...literally 1...out of possibly several thousand...where this approach was attempted.

There are nearly no parents that veer towards too little challenge.  There are many...MANY...who veer towards too MUCH challenge. 

I don't see a big advantage to playing up. There is too little focus on getting the best coaching, too much focus on the level of playing at too early of an age, IMHO. 

And where will the player have the most fun? This should be a major consideration.