what to do

With my sons we always stuck with travel ball. If your son is talented find him a good travel program. DM me if your looking for programs.

My son did both in the summer before 9th grade.  He was up front with the coach that he was playing travel, but was still able to make almost all of the HS summer league games.  The schedule worked to his benefit as most of the league games were mid-week.  He started out playing for the combo freshman/sophomore JV team and earned an opportunity to play with the varsity team.

 

I can say that my son took the opportunity and ran with it.  It paid off for him in his freshman year in HS.

 

But this is what happened with my son.  Depending on your HS, coach, and schedule your mileage may vary.

Travel ball will probably be better competition, and a good coach should be able to recognize talent when he sees it and should want his players playing at the highest possible level.  That being said a lot of high school coaches aren't the brightest so its a crapshoot really.  Come check out my blog all about catching at www.candidcatcher.wordpress.com, catchers never get any love and its time to change.

Agree with blau....fortunately for us, my son's HS coach realized that having him play top level travel ball was much more beneficial than playing summer ball with the HS team so we never had any issues.  Some of his friends and other parents didn't understand how we could leave the HS kids to go play all over the Midwest....though maybe now that he's signed an NLI with a D1 maybe they'll figure it out...lol.  I don't know your situation with regard to your son's talent...or the level of summer ball where you live...but in most cases, playing travel ball witl benefit your son in the long run...if his goal is to play baseball after HS

His overall great grade. If he is interested then make his admission in senior championship in new year..

Play at the highest level he can earn playing time    JMO.

I concur with Fenway, travel ball is generally more competitive than HS afffilliated team/leagues....at least down here in the south. Some coaches do expect their players to play fall ball and are adament about it, but ours acknowledges the advantages for travel ball etc.

+1

So you have Parks & Rec, travel, HS summer as options. 

 

Play with as many as you can. Get on the field. Find some competition. 

 

Bottom line about HS coaches - they are going to play the players that they think they can win with. Getting to know them the summer before you enter HS could be an advantage. Might also not be. 

 

And fenwaysouth is 100% correct. 

 

 

Often, this is regional. In Denver, forever, the HS had an iron fist on the players. Pretty much they wanted their players in the HS leagues in the summer and, if you wanted to play in the spring, you complied. However, this past summer a couple of the local academies who have grown exponentially over the past two or three years had all of their kids show up at the summer HS league tryouts. From what I gathered, they tried out and then informed the coaches they weren't going to play - they'd be playing summer ball on their academy teams. This involved a large percentage of the local talent, so we'll see what happens this spring.