The Freshman Roster

Welcome to high school baseball. The rules of engagement are 1) help your son succeed, 2) root for the team (that includes his teammates) and 3) never disparage one of his teammates. It's a TEAM. You pull for everyone in the program at every level. If you have the need to break down skills or personalities do it privately with someone you trust who will never make your comments public.

Were you at practice over the coach's shoulder to see the Stalker? When I ask my son what pitchers are hitting on the Stalker he says he never knows what other pitchers speeds are in tryouts and practice.

RJM- I saw the kid throw the last two or three minutes of practice (I was picking up my son, my son was keeping stats on potential pitchers at the time) This is not at all the point. The point is I worry about a program that is not paying enough attention to realize they gave a roster spot to a kid who was never even there and does not want to play and laughed when he found out they mistakenly added him.

Are you sure it is a mistake? Several Frosh teams in my area have a "no cut" policy for sports until the JV level.

It was an oversight to roster the kid who has no intention of playing. They obviously must have a no cut policy even if you miss tryouts and don't call the coach

with freshman baseball it could take 21 to end up with 9.

learn to concentrate on the things you can control, don't sweat the things you can't. these 4 years will be filled with many things, most important is your memory of your son's journey.

If your kid is on the varsity as a freshman, then why worry about what the freshman team does picking their team. That's for the HC do worry about. If the varsity team is good, then the HC is only looking at top players from the sub-varsity levels anyway that can or will help the varsity down the road and typically, there's little oversight at the varsity level when it comes to keeping players who don't show up or don't belong on varsity.

good point dad your right, i'm really not worried about it just found it interesting and i hope all the boys enjoy getting to wear the uniform because from reading other threads it is not that way in many places

quote:

Originally posted by seattlestars16:
RJM- I saw the kid throw the last two or three minutes of practice (I was picking up my son, my son was keeping stats on potential pitchers at the time) This is not at all the point. The point is I worry about a program that is not paying enough attention to realize they gave a roster spot to a kid who was never even there and does not want to play and laughed when he found out they mistakenly added him.

Do me a favor and keep a copy of this roster and open it back up on the opening day of your son's senior season....

you will find a much different team in 4 years...its a good bet you will find starters on this frosh team no longer playing baseball and possiblly some members whom you currently feel are not roster worthy as starters....

the baseball pyramid gets pretty steep from here on up.....

good post piaa. What I worried about freshman year for my son is almost shameful know. On the college recruiting circuit, we had sit down meetings with 12 college coaches. My son used all five of his official visits. In all those meetings we talked about HS baseball one time and even in that meeting the coach interupted Rightyshortstop to say how he doesn't really care about HS. I think my son hit .180 in freshman ball and was miserable every day. Never mattered a lick. Made varsity as a sophomore was the only junior, position playing starter, and now captain as a senior. Try to have fun. Its going to be a mess either way.

leftyshortstop,
Good advice!
I just wrote to a parent here with the same advice, telling them someday you are gonna look back at the HS years and laugh at the things you worried about (injuries excluded).

I can count on two hands how many freshman I cut over my years as a hs coach. We didn't have a freshman team we only had JV and Varsity. The JV was comprised of Freshman and Sophs of course and th Varsity was Jr's Sr's and the talented Fr and Sophs that we believed could help us win.

The reason I kept all the freshman was the fact that many of them are no where close to being what they can be. Many have never thrown , hit or practiced 6 days a week in their life. Many have never had any legit coaching or instruction. Many are physically behind the other players your evaluating them against. Many are not neary as mentally mature as the other players. You give them a chance to be in a program and you wait and see what happens. You give them chance to see what its all about and what they will need to do and then you see what happens.

I would much rather keep a kid and later find that he simply did not have the work ethic or desire to work to get better. Than cut a kid and never give him a chance to have that fire lit. You are losing nothing by giving a young man a chance. The ones that I have cut over the years were simply in danger of getting hurt by being on the field. Or their attitude was so bad I didnt want them around our other players.

piaa_ump is so right in his post. Many times the players coming in ahead will be passed up by the kids that flourish once in a program that can offer them an opportunity to do so. Fresh and Soph starters on varsity can end up sitting behind those same kids others wonder why they were not cut. It happens all the time.

When your son is a senior go take a look at the freshmen and you'll wonder how most of them could ever get to be the size of the seniors, but they do.

You seem to have a pretty good strong program there if I've got the right school so they must be doing something right.

Your son is in a great position if he's made varsity at a good program as a freshman. Don't sweat the small stuff and don't be patronizing toward the kids who aren't there yet. We've watched kids who were on the national stage at 12 and 14 years old and are still doing fairly well (i.e. D1 signs) get left in the dust by kids who were unknown back then.

In these economic times it is surprising that schools are still fielding freshman teams--many programs have gotten down to JV and Varsity

A lot can happen between freshman year and senior year, physically, mentally, and maturity wise -- although the time will fly by. Give it a chance and try to lighten up on the negativity when discussing other players. You never know the development that can occur over time.

2 words - dugout club