...when the kid is 1) older than twelve 2) "high level" 3) want to 4) meets your son's goals 5) and you can afford it.
And as long as your kid's not pitching a lot, it doesn't hurt to run around with crazy baseball parents spending lots of money under twelve years old. Just make sure your kid is having fun and takes a break from it. Raise your hand if you have bought clothes to match your son's team. Raise 'em high.
Now let's get back to being in the MLB by 18...
Clothes to match the team? Only a polo shirt or tee with the team logo because I was a coach. When I stopped coaching, no.
Back in rec league sports every year all coaches were given polos that said "Coach." I also received "commissioner" and "board" polos. Some wore it like a medal. I had enough people approaching me in the grocery store without a sign that said, "Complain here."
RJM posted:johnnysako posted:Me and kid just had this conversation the other day about how long he will play for his TB team and will he ever play for the Tri State Arsenal, i said, if your ever good enough, now get to work
My son decided he would rather beat them than play for them. When he was that age they were the top team in each age group. The motivating comment directed at my son was made by an ***wipe dad of a 5'8" 13u player when my son was 5'2". Guess what happened when my son was 6'1" and the other kid was 5'9". At the time the kid no longer made the Arsenal team.
We dont play them, ever, we dont travel more then 45 minutes to play except to Ripken MD and Cooperstown this year. Not sure where they even play at 12U, In fact i didnt even now they had 12U team, id be willing to bet I cant afford it anyway. Ive heard those comments a couple years back, i dont hear them anymore.
I would bet that at least half of the 9 year olds on "the best" 9 year old travel teams never set foot on a high school baseball field. So forget about that. Keep him playing, make it fun. My opinion is the summer after 9th grade, then if college baseball is still his goal, get on a team that gets exposure, has a coach or organization that has contacts and goes to tournaments where they'll be seen. before that, just make sure he's learning and having fun.
BackstopDad32 posted:2020dad posted:joes87 posted:Define "The Best". Is it the team that wins the most games? The team that does the best job of developing the kids to play "at the next level". The team that does the best job getting the kids in the right places to be seen?
IMO there is no reason for a 9YO to be too concerned about being on the best team. They should be playing on the team that gets them the most on field time and provides good development through coaching. Now if the goal is to play in college (which it should not be at that age) and your path to college runs through a program which is difficult to make at the older level as spaces are locked up at a younger age then you may want to consider getting involved in that program at a younger age.
Isn't this really the question? How do we define elite or best? In our case my son is clearly not good enough to be on some super team that just meets at tournaments and has players from several states. So for him there are really only a few choices. There are about 4 or 5 'best' organizations/teams in the entire state. Only two are within an hour. He is at one of them. He is 14u. One of the parents said the other day "how cool is this for the kids... A Florida commit and possible draft pick out of HS is giving them front toss" I guess I never really thought about it that way. There are a bunch of D1 commits at our place. But then I stopped and thought about what he said... Its true it is neat. And they see these kids first hand and their work ethic. And they understand what it takes and what you have to become. I think that may be the most important part of being with an 'elite' organization.
I don't think the above can be dismissed. The talented And driven should be playing, practicing and in the gym with each other. Like minded individuals like this foster competition and growth naturally.
^^ I agree! I wish my son would have tried out for his club team a year earlier. He is a 2018 and this summer will be his first with the team. In hindsight, last summer (as a rising Sophomore) would have been an ideal time for him to start with this club team. He works out with D1 college commits 2-3 days per week. It has been a tremendous motivator for him and has really helped him solidify his goals and understand what he needs to do to achieve them.
pabaseballdad posted:I would bet that at least half of the 9 year olds on "the best" 9 year old travel teams never set foot on a high school baseball field. So forget about that. Keep him playing, make it fun. My opinion is the summer after 9th grade, then if college baseball is still his goal, get on a team that gets exposure, has a coach or organization that has contacts and goes to tournaments where they'll be seen. before that, just make sure he's learning and having fun.
During the offseason (because this idea has come up before), I looked at the 9yo rosters from on USSSA from my son's 9u season. Just looking at the top six teams in the state, almost all were on JV or varsity rosters last season as freshmen. In fact, looking at the roster of my son's 9u team, every single player will play varsity as a sophomore. All but my son and another kid are on the same 4A team. My son moved and will play varsity elsewhere and the other kid played varsity on this team last year as a freshman, but moved out-of-state in the off season. I think you will find, across the board, the rosters of top 9u teams are made up of rosters of kids who will play high school ball at something around a 90% clip or above.
Can someone help a newb out, what defines a top 9-13U team, do they travel the country and play certain tournaments where they get ranked?
roothog66 posted:pabaseballdad posted:I would bet that at least half of the 9 year olds on "the best" 9 year old travel teams never set foot on a high school baseball field. So forget about that. Keep him playing, make it fun. My opinion is the summer after 9th grade, then if college baseball is still his goal, get on a team that gets exposure, has a coach or organization that has contacts and goes to tournaments where they'll be seen. before that, just make sure he's learning and having fun.
During the offseason (because this idea has come up before), I looked at the 9yo rosters from on USSSA from my son's 9u season. Just looking at the top six teams in the state, almost all were on JV or varsity rosters last season as freshmen. In fact, looking at the roster of my son's 9u team, every single player will play varsity as a sophomore. All but my son and another kid are on the same 4A team. My son moved and will play varsity elsewhere and the other kid played varsity on this team last year as a freshman, but moved out-of-state in the off season. I think you will find, across the board, the rosters of top 9u teams are made up of rosters of kids who will play high school ball at something around a 90% clip or above.
I did the "reverse" of this exercise recently, where I looked at the playing history of the two JV squads at son's 6A school. The results were surprising to me. Many players, way more than I expected to see, had either no history at younger ages 8-12u (presumably rec) or primarily AA experience. However, the overwhelming majority played at least AAA level USSSA beginning at age 13.
johnnysako posted:Can someone help a newb out, what defines a top 9-13U team, do they travel the country and play certain tournaments where they get ranked?
http://www.perfectgame.org/Rankings/
Our friends at perfect game do that. It's clearly fragmented, as it is only perfect game events. California and west coast are very underrepresented. Georgia/Florida/SE overrepresented. But teams on the ranking are definitely "high ranking".
I'm sure there are other rankings out there.
My kid was never on the best team, but did play on a few where his playing time was limited due to competition at a position/performance., probably 12U and 14U. We tried to find those teams that could compete and win, which is fun-er while allowing him to play and not sit. From 15U till 17U until college, he played on a team that was good but allowed him to pitch alot. He enjoyed that too. I can recall listening to baseball friends complain about their/other kids and teams and limited playing time etc on "Elite" teams and i was glad we made the choice we did at 15U.
roothog66 posted:pabaseballdad posted:I would bet that at least half of the 9 year olds on "the best" 9 year old travel teams never set foot on a high school baseball field. So forget about that. Keep him playing, make it fun. My opinion is the summer after 9th grade, then if college baseball is still his goal, get on a team that gets exposure, has a coach or organization that has contacts and goes to tournaments where they'll be seen. before that, just make sure he's learning and having fun.
During the offseason (because this idea has come up before), I looked at the 9yo rosters from on USSSA from my son's 9u season. Just looking at the top six teams in the state, almost all were on JV or varsity rosters last season as freshmen. In fact, looking at the roster of my son's 9u team, every single player will play varsity as a sophomore. All but my son and another kid are on the same 4A team. My son moved and will play varsity elsewhere and the other kid played varsity on this team last year as a freshman, but moved out-of-state in the off season. I think you will find, across the board, the rosters of top 9u teams are made up of rosters of kids who will play high school ball at something around a 90% clip or above.
roothog, I guess you got me there. I was using our experience, my son played on a "good" for this area 9-10 year old travel team. out of that team of 12 kids, only my son and three others are still playing, our best pitcher ended up ruining his arm before he was 15 (that's a whole separate thread I'm sure), best infielder is now the captain of our hs hockey team, others lost interest, focused on soccer, or just got passed up. I'm sure others have different experience, but I do strongly believe that the goal at that age should be just to keep them playing and having fun. Plenty of time to get serious and worry about recruiting later.
At 13U, he'll want to play on the best team possible where he's receiving a satisfactory number of reps.
He'll jump to 14U this Fall, and tryouts for those teams will take place in the June/July timeframe. It's at this point where he'll want to consider a very good to excellent organization, again where he'll play a satisfactory number of reps.
At the 15U level, that's when you'll want to consider an elite organization, but only if he's forecasted to play. This is very important, as you can't get to the 16U level without succeeding at the 15U level! Ditto 16U to 17U.
CACO3Girl,
You're going to get a lot of different answers, which is the beauty of HSBBWeb
I've had 3 sons go through this decision on their way to high school baseball with one playing in college (oldest son). It was very important for my oldest son to play against the best competition (his choice). So, from 11U all the way to 18U that is what he did, and it pushed him to get better at each step of travel baseball and high school. It was the same for him with academics. He is a very driven individual. My middle son liked baseball alot but didn't love it. He liked to play good competition but he didn';t live for baseball.....he liked baseball when it was on his terms. He challenged himself more in the classroom. My youngest didn't play travel baseball or American Legion until after he made the high school team as a freshmen.
Three very different paths. We provided the level of baseball that my sons wanted in their young lives. it was 100% up to them.
pabaseballdad posted:roothog66 posted:pabaseballdad posted:I would bet that at least half of the 9 year olds on "the best" 9 year old travel teams never set foot on a high school baseball field. So forget about that. Keep him playing, make it fun. My opinion is the summer after 9th grade, then if college baseball is still his goal, get on a team that gets exposure, has a coach or organization that has contacts and goes to tournaments where they'll be seen. before that, just make sure he's learning and having fun.
During the offseason (because this idea has come up before), I looked at the 9yo rosters from on USSSA from my son's 9u season. Just looking at the top six teams in the state, almost all were on JV or varsity rosters last season as freshmen. In fact, looking at the roster of my son's 9u team, every single player will play varsity as a sophomore. All but my son and another kid are on the same 4A team. My son moved and will play varsity elsewhere and the other kid played varsity on this team last year as a freshman, but moved out-of-state in the off season. I think you will find, across the board, the rosters of top 9u teams are made up of rosters of kids who will play high school ball at something around a 90% clip or above.
roothog, I guess you got me there. I was using our experience, my son played on a "good" for this area 9-10 year old travel team. out of that team of 12 kids, only my son and three others are still playing, our best pitcher ended up ruining his arm before he was 15 (that's a whole separate thread I'm sure), best infielder is now the captain of our hs hockey team, others lost interest, focused on soccer, or just got passed up. I'm sure others have different experience, but I do strongly believe that the goal at that age should be just to keep them playing and having fun. Plenty of time to get serious and worry about recruiting later.
A lot of it is going to be regional. The teams I was looking at were mostly metro Denver teams, and there are enough high schools that you could spread them all over the place and still have a lot of high school roster spots left.
Where I live now, we lost all but one starter from last year's team. This year's starting line up will look almost exactly like the local all-star team from 10u up. My son moved here two years ago. If you look at the 12u all-star team from here that went to the Cal Ripken World Series in 2012, seven of those starters will start on the high school varsity as sophs or juniors, one other will be on the bench and the last guy may play jv or varsity - toss up. But, other than my son, none played high level travel )no one in the area did).
pabaseballdad posted:I would bet that at least half of the 9 year olds on "the best" 9 year old travel teams never set foot on a high school baseball field. So forget about that. Keep him playing, make it fun. My opinion is the summer after 9th grade, then if college baseball is still his goal, get on a team that gets exposure, has a coach or organization that has contacts and goes to tournaments where they'll be seen. before that, just make sure he's learning and having fun.
I think this comes down again to defining 'best'. And as always when we have these conversations also differs from one area to another. Also there is the fact these kids are so young they have no idea what may be their favorite sports later on. But around here certainly they make high school teams if they choose to with few exceptions.
Go44dad posted:johnnysako posted:Can someone help a newb out, what defines a top 9-13U team, do they travel the country and play certain tournaments where they get ranked?
http://www.perfectgame.org/Rankings/
Our friends at perfect game do that. It's clearly fragmented, as it is only perfect game events. California and west coast are very underrepresented. Georgia/Florida/SE overrepresented. But teams on the ranking are definitely "high ranking".
I'm sure there are other rankings out there.
Usssa has rankings but they are not very reliable. However if you look at it in clumps page 1 is going to be better than those on the bottom half of page 2 and beyond. The very top ranked teams - by power ranking not points - are sure to be pretty good.
johnnysako posted:RJM posted:johnnysako posted:Me and kid just had this conversation the other day about how long he will play for his TB team and will he ever play for the Tri State Arsenal, i said, if your ever good enough, now get to work
My son decided he would rather beat them than play for them. When he was that age they were the top team in each age group. The motivating comment directed at my son was made by an ***wipe dad of a 5'8" 13u player when my son was 5'2". Guess what happened when my son was 6'1" and the other kid was 5'9". At the time the kid no longer made the Arsenal team.
We dont play them, ever, we dont travel more then 45 minutes to play except to Ripken MD and Cooperstown this year. Not sure where they even play at 12U, In fact i didnt even now they had 12U team, id be willing to bet I cant afford it anyway. Ive heard those comments a couple years back, i dont hear them anymore.
It's been several years since my son played 13-16u. At that time the travel teams in the area played a lot of ECTB tournaments in Reading and Allentown.
When we had long breaks between games I sometimes watched part of 9u to 12u games. Actually I was observing the parents for delusion. There was plenty of it. 9u Arsenal parents were paying $300 per month for lessons year round plus the cost of the team. They thought their kids would play college ball because they were in the Arsenal program. I got to know a dad in my son's age group. Only four players from the 13u team made the 17u team.
2020dad posted:Go44dad posted:johnnysako posted:Can someone help a newb out, what defines a top 9-13U team, do they travel the country and play certain tournaments where they get ranked?
http://www.perfectgame.org/Rankings/
Our friends at perfect game do that. It's clearly fragmented, as it is only perfect game events. California and west coast are very underrepresented. Georgia/Florida/SE overrepresented. But teams on the ranking are definitely "high ranking".
I'm sure there are other rankings out there.
Usssa has rankings but they are not very reliable. However if you look at it in clumps page 1 is going to be better than those on the bottom half of page 2 and beyond. The very top ranked teams - by power ranking not points - are sure to be pretty good.
Correct. And I think these guys do a pretty good job with 12U and 13U rankings: www.baseballyouth.com/rankings (these ones are from last May)
My son played on the "best" 9u team in our town, and it was recognized by the community as the best for one reason--we had the best coach. He picked players with strong work ethic and willingness to learn, wit's parents who were supportive. He avoided players with attitude. He picked players who could be taught, and he taught them to both play and love the game.
joemktg posted:At 13U, he'll want to play on the best team possible where he's receiving a satisfactory number of reps.
He'll jump to 14U this Fall, and tryouts for those teams will take place in the June/July timeframe. It's at this point where he'll want to consider a very good to excellent organization, again where he'll play a satisfactory number of reps.
At the 15U level, that's when you'll want to consider an elite organization, but only if he's forecasted to play. This is very important, as you can't get to the 16U level without succeeding at the 15U level! Ditto 16U to 17U.
While I agree with this 100% in terms of 14U, 15U, etc., for the OP poster's son, since he is a 2020, I think next year he is going to want to play 15U -- in other words, on a 2020 team. And I agree at that point you'd want to consider an elite organization. Otherwise, if her son does 14U next year, a lot of the competition in 14U will actually be in 8th grade, which I don't think would serve him well, long-term.
