Playing young guys

Great topic. I'm no HS coach and my 2017 son is a freshman at college, but that won't keep me from chiming in.

I have mixed feelings on kids playing up in HS. First off, a middle school kid would have to be amazing (a true no-doubt stud) to make, let alone play, let alone start on a HS V team (and that team would probably have to stink on ice too).

I'm not a fan of Fr playing V unless they play a lot. Not necessarily start, but they should be solid contributors, otherwise let them be leaders and get reps on JV.

Of course, you play the best 9 at that time. However, if two players are truly very close in what they can do NOW, and they are both on the roster, I generally support giving the upper classman a shot. Is this entitlement? Perhaps a little, but I'd call it: true push goes to the older player. Again, if an underclassman is better, he gets the opportunity.

As far as making the roster. In general, IMHO, junior year is the time to cut players, when cuts are needed, who have not developed enough to merit the spot. I'm not a fan of HS rosters with 30+ kids, and I've seen them. But if a hard-working kid sticks with the program and is a senior, AND there is room on the roster, let them stay and ride the bench. Just be honest about their role.

My son was a year behind a catcher whose uncle and brother were the starting catcher for our modest sized HS in NoVA. I was told by other parents that my son would play JV and be the back up until the other kid graduated. Half-way through my son's Soph. year he got the nod and the other player went to DH and 1B. And folded like a tent, batted like 0.100, and was livid about the demotion (I heard). He quit baseball and did not play his senior year, which did hurt the team.

It depends on how good the younger players are. The team that won our league last year had three freshmen starting (2 position players and 1 SP) -- all three are ranked in the PG Top 100 in their class, and all are committed to elite P5 programs. I think any coach who has a "rule" about not playing freshmen might change his rule when the right kid shows up.

I think they are better off playing and developing.  My son was pulled up 3-4 times as a freshman and was basically chasing foul balls.  In addition, he felt like the other guys didn't want him there...which they probably didn't. The bus rides were really awkward for him.  He ended up asking to just stay and play with his own team and turned down the invitation to go to playoffs.  This year he will go up and will be more accepted and be able to actually play.  If they can't hit off varsity and will have a dh, you are taking away their opportunity to grow as hitters, which will hurt you later.

We have a large school (4,000+) and Freshmen rarely make Varsity (a couple of exceptions in the past decade).  A few sophomores make Varsity - my son was one of them last year.  He and another played regularly.  But the other not so much, which caused a bit of consternation.  But then again, they saw higher level competition and played with travel team over the summer.  I'm with HShuler.  Put your best team out there regardless of age.  Younger kids will rise to the occasion.  Older ones will support the younger ones if they want to win.  Ultimately, Coach has to make the call on what's best for winning and his program.  All of the rest of us -- especially parents -- need to get in line and live with it. 

Best players play regardless of age. If a 14 year old is better than an upperclassman, then he starts.

however if there is no real difference between the 2. Play the older kid and work the younger one in to games to prepare him for the varsity competition.

2019Dad posted:

At my son's HS the coaches are very upfront on these points at the annual parents meeting:

• If two players are viewed as comparable in the coaches' eyes, the younger player will get the playing time. The older player has to be better than the younger player (in the coaches' view) in order to win the job.
• But there is no reason to bring a younger player up to sit him on the bench. So the coaches will say "sometimes the backup is not on varsity"
• "Program -- Team -- Player, in that order"

P.S. -- it goes without saying that the better player will play. The tougher decision is when two plays are close -- roughly comparable. In that case, Younger >>> Older.

I highlighted part of your post and have a simple question...why?  In my opinion having the younger "backup" player sitting on the bench 1) Sends a message to the older player that his backup is sitting right on the bench ready to go and 2) Allows the younger player to learn the varsity coach's coaching style and expectations to better prepare him to play at the varsity level.

Little bit off topic but I am curious when I see 4,000+ for school numbers.  Is this 7-12? 9-12, etc...???   The largest highschool in my state is about 3,000 and that school looks like a college campus.  I cannot imagine another 1,000.   My son's highschool is in the top 10 largest in state.....we just built a new 72 million dollar highschool that is enormous (or at least I thought it was). 

Coach_TV posted:

2019Dad posted:

At my son's HS the coaches are very upfront on these points at the annual parents meeting:

• If two players are viewed as comparable in the coaches' eyes, the younger player will get the playing time. The older player has to be better than the younger player (in the coaches' view) in order to win the job.
• But there is no reason to bring a younger player up to sit him on the bench. So the coaches will say "sometimes the backup is not on varsity"
• "Program -- Team -- Player, in that order"

P.S. -- it goes without saying that the better player will play. The tougher decision is when two plays are close -- roughly comparable. In that case, Younger >>> Older.

I highlighted part of your post and have a simple question...why?  In my opinion having the younger "backup" player sitting on the bench 1) Sends a message to the older player that his backup is sitting right on the bench ready to go and 2) Allows the younger player to learn the varsity coach's coaching style and expectations to better prepare him to play at the varsity level.

These kids are coming from travel teams who MAYBE have 15 players to a High School team of 20 or more players.  I can see having the young buck sitting on the bench going very wrong.  While I can agree it's important for the kids to understand that as they get older they will get less and less playing time, with more and more kids on the team, I do not think it's going to go well showing that fact to a 9th grader.

MANY of the JV players last year were in culture shock when they didn't play much.  And I don't think that is indicative of a bad attitude I think it truly was culture shock.  If I was the parent of a talented 9th grader being considered to sit on the bench at Varsity or play half of the JV games I would hope my kid was on JV. While high school baseball does need to have a team first mentality I wouldn't blame a kid for seeking out a home school team where he played in most of the games if all the HC had planned for him was riding the pine at the Varsity level.  It would be very difficult for a 14 year old to accept he's on a team but not playing, especially if he's a stud.

stayfocused posted:

Little bit off topic but I am curious when I see 4,000+ for school numbers.  Is this 7-12? 9-12, etc...???   The largest highschool in my state is about 3,000 and that school looks like a college campus.  I cannot imagine another 1,000.   My son's highschool is in the top 10 largest in state.....we just built a new 72 million dollar highschool that is enormous (or at least I thought it was). 

Lol....I noticed that too.  We have less than 600....and 70 kids trying out as freshmen is crazy to me.  We're lucky if we have 30 in the program total....grades 9-12

Buckeye 2015 posted:

stayfocused posted:

Little bit off topic but I am curious when I see 4,000+ for school numbers.  Is this 7-12? 9-12, etc...???   The largest highschool in my state is about 3,000 and that school looks like a college campus.  I cannot imagine another 1,000.   My son's highschool is in the top 10 largest in state.....we just built a new 72 million dollar highschool that is enormous (or at least I thought it was). 

Lol....I noticed that too.  We have less than 600....and 70 kids trying out as freshmen is crazy to me.  We're lucky if we have 30 in the program total....grades 9-12

Just to clarify, there were around 25 Freshman trying out, the other 45 were 10-12, and many of the 10th graders trying out weren't on the team the previous year.

JV was 10 freshman, 7 Sophomores, 2 Juniors.

V was 3 Sophomores, 10 Juniors, 11 Seniors. 

Of those 11 seniors 8 went on to play in college, six in baseball and two in football. 

+1 Shuler. 

In my experience i've seen it work a few ways. Son's HS typically went with older guys (as CaCo's example) suggested.  My son was one of 3 "hybrid" players who as freshman made varsity but could pay down to JV or move up to Varsity. Funny thing is, the other two pretty much played varsity all season and he played down most of his frosh year, primarily pitching and then got called up to play varsity when the JV season ended. Of the others, one of them started varsity as a catcher all 4 years and was taken in the 11th spot MLB draft when he graduated and the other was a pitcher who was redshirted as a frosh at power 5 and quit his soph year and is no longer playing college ball. 

As a SS, an older kid played and pretty much beat out my kid. He couldn't hit or bunt. Played decent defense. My son was smaller and was probably same level of hitting..although i think he could have done better overall and certainly better at moving runners etc /bunting. Defensively, my son would make all the hard plays and make them look easy but the 4 hopper to short would get him tied up. I think leaving him down ultimately helped him grow as a pitcher but back then i wanted him to be the SS on varsity and did not get my way. 

As a pitcher, he dominated JV and was the #1. I think he had an ERA under 1...maybe a .079. I know these don't matter...back then we loved that s^&*. One thing i wondered about was if he could have had that year of pitching vs varsity level HS guys...would it have helped him be better? I think his PC would have been lower on varsity though as he would have been a bullpen guy. 

It all worked out in the end. I say play the best players, but coaches take a S$%*pile of criticism anyway and i'm not sure if you ever win that argument with the older kid/parent unless you win a lot and then again they won't even be happy if they weren't in that equation. I worked the concession grill, ended up announcing the home games for his junior and senior year and my wife was a teacher/coach at the HS (now an asst principal) and son played travel for the assist HS coach travel team all 4 years in HS so i bet you there were still folks who thought my son got preferential treatment due to that connection instead of his performance. You can't can't win.

One thing I've noticed through a lot of the post is Varsity coach and jr high and all different coaches.  We have 5 coaches total for 7-12 one of which is volunteer.  I as the head coach do head coaching stuff with varsity but I'm at every other game all the way down to help.  Other coaches are considered head coaches for J.V. and Middle school but they are younger guys in most cases that are also with me at the varsity level and ask me how I would like things done.  Just an observation is all.  We also have about 900 in our school and are in the second largest class in the state.

stayfocused posted:

Little bit off topic but I am curious when I see 4,000+ for school numbers.  Is this 7-12? 9-12, etc...???   The largest highschool in my state is about 3,000 and that school looks like a college campus.  I cannot imagine another 1,000.   My son's highschool is in the top 10 largest in state.....we just built a new 72 million dollar highschool that is enormous (or at least I thought it was). 

Not 4000+, but more like 3,800 at ours.  Grades 9-12 all in one building.  Not a campus.  This was the preference of the community a few years back when we had a choice on building out a new campus or spending money remodeling the current school.  The community choose the remodel.  Our HS is considered one of the tops in the country academic wise but it really has the feel of a smaller school with a family atmosphere.  The community did not want to loose that. 

Many of the other large schools in our area have multiple buildings.  Normally frosh in one building and 10-12 in another.  There are a couple of larger schools that have a small college type of campus as well.

Buckeye 2015 posted:

stayfocused posted:

Little bit off topic but I am curious when I see 4,000+ for school numbers.  Is this 7-12? 9-12, etc...???   The largest highschool in my state is about 3,000 and that school looks like a college campus.  I cannot imagine another 1,000.   My son's highschool is in the top 10 largest in state.....we just built a new 72 million dollar highschool that is enormous (or at least I thought it was). 

Lol....I noticed that too.  We have less than 600....and 70 kids trying out as freshmen is crazy to me.  We're lucky if we have 30 in the program total....grades 9-12

When my older son was a frosh there were 115 kids trying out for Frosh baseball.  Two teams of 16 players on each team.  

By the time my younger one (4 years younger) got there the numbers had dwindled down to about 75.  LAX and shrinking population played a part.

fhobbs013 posted:

One thing I've noticed through a lot of the post is Varsity coach and jr high and all different coaches.  We have 5 coaches total for 7-12 one of which is volunteer.  I as the head coach do head coaching stuff with varsity but I'm at every other game all the way down to help.  Other coaches are considered head coaches for J.V. and Middle school but they are younger guys in most cases that are also with me at the varsity level and ask me how I would like things done.  Just an observation is all.  We also have about 900 in our school and are in the second largest class in the state.

...and I assume most schools are like this.  Our HC graduated from our school, lives in town, but teaches in another District.  He's early 30's, no kids.  Has absolutely no connection to the younger kids, even though our youth baseball program is really good and has a lot of good baseball guys that help run it.  Even when my son and the grade above him were younger and the coach knew they were coming up thru youth/Jr Hi, he never came to a game.  His dad (who had a state title coaching at another school) was heavily involved...knew the kids, came to games, etc.  HS...not once.  He has lost so many good athletes/players over the years because of people's stance that he "just doesn't care".  He isn't a bad coach...and actually does very well in a good league considering that if the best baseball kids would have kept playing his starting lineup would likely be 3-4 kids different every year. 

joes87 posted:

Buckeye 2015 posted:

stayfocused posted:

Little bit off topic but I am curious when I see 4,000+ for school numbers.  Is this 7-12? 9-12, etc...???   The largest highschool in my state is about 3,000 and that school looks like a college campus.  I cannot imagine another 1,000.   My son's highschool is in the top 10 largest in state.....we just built a new 72 million dollar highschool that is enormous (or at least I thought it was). 

Lol....I noticed that too.  We have less than 600....and 70 kids trying out as freshmen is crazy to me.  We're lucky if we have 30 in the program total....grades 9-12

When my older son was a frosh there were 115 kids trying out for Frosh baseball.  Two teams of 16 players on each team.  

By the time my younger one (4 years younger) got there the numbers had dwindled down to about 75.  LAX and shrinking population played a part.

Wow, those kind of numbers are amazing from a small town NW Ohio perspective lol.  We don't have 300 boys in the entire HS.  Last year's freshman class had 15 kids come out for baseball....that's by far the largest we've had....at least in the last 15+ years.  Typically it's 7-8.   Son's class had 5.  Of those 5....on a given day depending on who was pitching those 5 were our:

Starting SS,  #1 pitcher, sometime catcher

Starting Catcher, #2 pitcher

Starting CF,  #4 pitcher

Starting 2B

Backup Catcher, DH, #3 pitcher, sometime RF

Gotta have guys who can play multiple positions when you're in a small school lol

Coach_TV posted:

2019Dad posted:

At my son's HS the coaches are very upfront on these points at the annual parents meeting:

• If two players are viewed as comparable in the coaches' eyes, the younger player will get the playing time. The older player has to be better than the younger player (in the coaches' view) in order to win the job.
• But there is no reason to bring a younger player up to sit him on the bench. So the coaches will say "sometimes the backup is not on varsity"
• "Program -- Team -- Player, in that order"

P.S. -- it goes without saying that the better player will play. The tougher decision is when two plays are close -- roughly comparable. In that case, Younger >>> Older.

I highlighted part of your post and have a simple question...why?  In my opinion having the younger "backup" player sitting on the bench 1) Sends a message to the older player that his backup is sitting right on the bench ready to go and 2) Allows the younger player to learn the varsity coach's coaching style and expectations to better prepare him to play at the varsity level.

Because the younger play can develop more by playing than by sitting on the bench. That's the reason.

Anyway, there is intense competition for playing time, with or without the younger backup on the bench -- for example, this year the varsity will have (rough guess given that some are sophomores) between 9 and 12 players who will end up going D1 and a whole bunch of the other kids will play D3  (right now, 5 current D1 commits, and 4 seniors going D3). Plus, the program is run as a program. What I mean by that, is the coaching style and expectations of the JV coach are closely aligned with the varsity coach. A lot of times the teams will practice together. So it's not like being banished to Siberia.

2019Dad posted:

Coach_TV posted:

2019Dad posted:

At my son's HS the coaches are very upfront on these points at the annual parents meeting:

• If two players are viewed as comparable in the coaches' eyes, the younger player will get the playing time. The older player has to be better than the younger player (in the coaches' view) in order to win the job.
• But there is no reason to bring a younger player up to sit him on the bench. So the coaches will say "sometimes the backup is not on varsity"
• "Program -- Team -- Player, in that order"

P.S. -- it goes without saying that the better player will play. The tougher decision is when two plays are close -- roughly comparable. In that case, Younger >>> Older.

I highlighted part of your post and have a simple question...why?  In my opinion having the younger "backup" player sitting on the bench 1) Sends a message to the older player that his backup is sitting right on the bench ready to go and 2) Allows the younger player to learn the varsity coach's coaching style and expectations to better prepare him to play at the varsity level.

Because the younger play can develop more by playing than by sitting on the bench. That's the reason.

...

Regarding the bolded... This is a prevalent thought.  But, this is a two-edged sword and it is another situation where each individual brings a different set of circumstances.

If a player hasn't had a lot of competitive game experience or his skill set plays out well in practice but lacks in games, then yes, he should be developing by playing more games at the lower level.  However, if a player plays a lot of competitive travel, will likely face JV opponents that are weaker than he is accustomed and the coaching is deeper and better at V (all of which are often the case), then that player may very well be better off getting daily reps and instruction from those V coaches, playing inter-squad and practicing among those better V players.  Overall, he will develop more there.  He is getting his competitive game action in with travel (and don't forget, many travel teams lean toward little practice, lot's of games).  This can be a difficult situation for the player and parent to accept because this is often the first time the player has not been a key starter on the field.  But, in the big picture, can be better for him in many ways.

Most players on the V/JV bubble fall somewhere between these two scenarios and there are dozens of other factors that come into play.  If that second player is truly likely to see zero PT, that certainly tips the scales.  If he is your best depth option at some position/s and will likely at least get spot action, the program and team are better having him on V.

How will the team and program flourish most?  How will the individual flourish most?  It is a balance.

we have about 2200 kids 9-12, grad classes of just under 600 is standard. We have 70 plus kids for baseball tryouts every year since my boys have been involved in the program. Coach typically keeps 20 on Varsity 20 on JV and 15 freshman.

This year we have 3 pitchers D1 committed and 4 others that will pitching D3 or D2...and we aren't particularly special, that is kind of my reference point a ways back when I said very few if any freshman play varsity.

old_school posted:

we have about 2200 kids 9-12, grad classes of just under 600 is standard. We have 70 plus kids for baseball tryouts every year since my boys have been involved in the program. Coach typically keeps 20 on Varsity 20 on JV and 15 freshman.

This year we have 3 pitchers D1 committed and 4 others that will pitching D3 or D2...and we aren't particularly special, that is kind of my reference point a ways back when I said very few if any freshman play varsity.

Same.  Last year on JV my son faced a kid throwing 87, there was no room for him on Varsity.  Throwing 80 puts you on the bubble of JV/V in most schools in our division, usually landing on JV.  Whereas in many schools across the US 80mph is the stud varsity pitcher.  We have at least 6 kids throwing over 85, and 3 of those are throwing 90+ on V this year, and that is not uncommon.