Should Your son Play Fall Ball

It's a question without any context, and the answer is more complex than what the article delineates. The question that should be posed is this: "What is the role that 2017 fall ball plays in the long term plan?"

Prerequisite: a long term plan. Without that, then the player/parent is floating along without a rudder.

So for you parents out there with middle schoolers and early HS players: pull together your plan.

If you dont play football or soccer and dont throw 10,000 pitches all year why wouldnt you

I read that article last night, and it made sense.  Cressey is a shoulder guy, it's an easy concept to understand that the less stress on your shoulder the better your overall shoulder health will be.

A tweet that he retweeted yesterday shortly after this article was "The best arm care tip you can give is not an exercise; rather, it's telling a 12-year-old not to pitch 12 months a year."

S. Young, welcome to the site...  thanks for posting that Cressey piece.  I sent you a PM

Fall Ball is great for freshman.  Gets them accustomed to the coaches, teammates, and quite frankly... its the longest tryout they will ever get.  For the Upperclassman, it all depends on if it fits into their plan (see JOEMKTG's post, above).

the article talks a lot about pitchers and innings pitched but doesn't as much discuss position players

My Kid (2021) isn't playing Fall Ball this year.  Instead he's focusing on getting Bigger/Stronger/Faster and working on swing mechanics.   He's taking 2 straight months off from throwing and will take at least the 1st two weeks off of school from all Baseball activity just to get acclimated to high school academics and take a break from hitting

Fall Ball can be a great thing, and my Kid will likely want to play Fall Ball a year from now, but with high school winter workouts starting in January, and travel team practices starting in late October/early November, when exactly is there time off?   Especially time off from throwing.  Something has to give

My 2021 hasnt thrown (until this week) since 7/16. He's not a starting pitcher but does throw inning's here and there. That stretch of downtime was hard for him and is itching to get back on the field. We spent that time being a kid of course but also on the bigger/faster/stronger. He managed to put on 6 pounds during that time that he drastically needed. His HS has a fall team in which he can make 6 of the 15 games, his commitment is with his TB team which is about 8-10 games and 3-4 tourneys for Sep and Oct. We dont throw from Nov-late Jan early Feb. We dont do any baseball Nov-Dec and start hitting in Jan so fall works for us.

Thanks for posting the article.  It does make some good points.

My 2020 son gave up soccer this fall (he made varsity last year) to play fall ball. I would have been fine either way, but he decided he wants to focus on baseball and he wasn't happy with the way he played this summer.

I think that multiple sports are best, especially before HS. And because my son Is primarily a pitcher, I absolutely count his innings and his total pitches--if he were near 100 innings, he wouldn't pitch this fall.  But for a high schooler with aspirations to play in college and plans to work on specific aspects of his game during Sept and Oct, fall ball can be a good option. As with pretty much all things (especially pitching-related), I don't think one size fits all.  

I -do- think parents ought to be prepared to step in on the fall ball decision if they think their kid needs a break to avoid injury or burnout.  

Son is a position player who played fall ball throughout. He used it to tinker with a few things in swing, or used more situational approaches (hitting the other way, etc). Son played varsity soccer during fall, few conflicts. Fall ball coaches knew he would not make any practices. Hit fine and threw, but baseball running was more sluggish from soccer. Fall ball particularly was beneficial junior year, when he went to a couple of school specific camps, where he remained sharp.

Regarding Fall Baseball with a Travel Team vs. High School team:  I wholeheartedly agree that it should be one or the other to prevent overuse or fatigue.  That being said, make sure the juice is worth the squeeze, IE: is your TB team playing a similar amount of games and similar completion as your HS Fall team?  If so, is the cost worth it? 

Bottom line, just make sure which ever direction you go, your son is being developed properly without overuse or without breaking the bank before he's even step foot on a HS field. 

The article begs the question. I mean, it starts with "we know that playing baseball year-round is a bad idea" . . .