Specialized at only 9th grade?

CaCO3Girl, here's another thing to consider when talking about HS tryouts.  The coach isn't only thinking about this year when picking a JV and Varsity team.  Or a Freshman, JV and Varsity team.  He's thinking 3 and 4 years down the road as well.  Say he picks his Varsity and JV team and needs to decide what to do with the freshmen.  He may not be picking a freshman team,  He's probably picking his future Varsity team.  How does this affect things?  Coach knows that between Varsity and JV, he has 4 catchers, but only 1 of them is a senior and 2 are juniors and one is a sophomore.  He really doesn't need a catcher for the next two years.  On the other hand, lets say he only has one good 1st baseman and he's a senior.  He knows he's going to be struggling for a 1st baseman for the next two years.  So, once cuts come for the freshman team, he may have a very good freshman catcher and a couple kids who are not quite as good, but they are 1st basemen.  He may take those 1st basemen over the catcher because of the future needs of the team.  The catcher and his family may see this as "daddy ball" or "politics", but the coach is really just thinking ahead for what his team will be needing over the next 2 or 3 or 4 years.

 

Does this make sense?

CaCO3Girl,

 

Just for background purposes, you might be interested in this from Wikipedia:

 

"The defensive spectrum is:

Designated hitter – First baseman – Left fielder – Right fielder – Third baseman – Center fielder – Second baseman – Shortstop – Catcher – Pitcher

In some versions of the defensive spectrum, pitcher and catcher are not included, since certain defensive demands of those positions are so specialized as to be inapplicable to players at other positions

 

The idea of a defensive spectrum was first introduced by Bill James in his Baseball Abstract series of books during the 1980s. The basic premise of the spectrum is that positions on the right side of the spectrum are more difficult than the positions on the left side. Therefore, the positions are easier to fill as one goes left on the spectrum, since the physical demands are less. A corollary to this is that, since defensive skill is at less of a premium on the left side, players at those positions must provide more offense than those on the right. Another corollary is that players can generally move from right to left along the spectrum successfully during their careers, but moving a player from left to right is quite risky."

 

and also this: http://www.lookoutlanding.com/...ing-the-defensive-sp

 

must be tough school,  at our school large 6A program in Texas all the freshman usually make some sort of team.   Better ones to JV,  but the others on freshman teams.    I think they weed themselves out the next year for the most part.  

My son played first base on varsity as a freshman and probably 50% of the throws from the coaches 5'6" son at SS were in the dirt.

Back to the OP - a player who is a utility player that can play multiple positions stands a better chance of making the cuts than a player shooting for a specific position.

       
       
only if he.can hit.

 

My bad.  I should have typed "a utility player who can hit". 

 

My son was one of these as he moved up from JV - he had played 3B, 1B, catcher, and OF.  At the varsity level he started as catcher, moved to 3B and then to 1B.  Was recruited by a JuCo as 1B and is now at a D2 university as a 1B/DH.    And yeah, he can hit - batted .400+ in HS, .365 at JuCo and currently (after 2 games) has a .571 avg at the D2.