re: The benefits of playing travel ball 9 months a year

that club really does play way too many tournaments at young ages. We haven't even played in 20 tourneys total as an 05 team.

I said the development was lacking...there's no real plan there, that's my point. At least Barca's coach has them trained up better. He's training with them tonight, so I'm still holding out hope.

The medals are 2.5 years of tournament ball.

I prefer 2d’s method.. quality pitchers these days aren’t very efficient because many only look at innings.. Young pitchers need to learn how to throw strikes first and work the edges as they develop.. It doesn’t help that many umpires reward pitchers for hitting the setup spot 4 or more inches off the plate..

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Some kids walk a lot of batters and it inflates their pitch counts.

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9 and 10 year olds, yes, they walk a lot of batters...the older they get you dont see as many walks

As a high school coach I'm unbelievably against playing 1 sport for this much time. Especially at a young age. Does it give kids solid foundations for that sport...yes. It also doesn't allow other muscle groups to develop that would intern benefit their best sport. I think playing multiple sports also puts kids in different roles on the teams. You might be a leader on one, and a role player on the other. Offensive player in football, but a defensive player in lacrosse.

Drew Brees and Josh Rosen really attribute their footwork to tennis.

Tom Glavin and JJ Watt were big time hockey players.

OBJ was a phenomenal soccer player.

I'm also crazy against travel ball when kids are under the age of 15. It's not a body development thing, but rather a let them be kids during the summer thing. Let them ride bikes, swim, climb trees, and relax. Take a weekend to do something different as a family to make memories. You can always take ground balls or hit off the tee.

Your buddy is a douche. Sorry...

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This all continues and next thing you know, your kid has worn out his arm and you've dropped $100K on a baseball career while you're living vicariously through them. You spend every weekend driving from Lafayette to Metairie and you have no life.

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100k? For 5 years in travel ball? Kids only really travel from 9-13 or so...after that the cream has risen and kids have school ball and a few select events.

My son plays, we play from March till end of June. Get together and have tournament or two in the fall. Practice a few times leading up to those, but all of the kids are playing football or soccer or basketball, so it is hard to round everyone up.

I do agree that arms are overworked. A lot of kids use a whole lot of tricks that are not mechanically sound at early ages to gain velocity. There could be some changes at the 9-11 year old ages that could make it safer and more enjoyable, but I doubt any are implemented.

With that said, my son had arm soreness on Sunday at practice...but he also played about 9 hours of wiffle ball on Saturday with his buddies in the neighborhood. No pitch counts were observed there, or throwing rocks into the bayou all morning, or the backyard football game Sunday before practice.

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Potential to profit off your kid when that pro money rolls in

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According to OP, all the kids are burnt out and that is why lsu baseball sucks.

No money to be had there.

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From my perspective, most kids who play in high school participated in travel ball. It sucks, but its true. kids playing 60 games a year are always going to be better than a kid who plays 12. By high school, the differential in fundamentals is very obvious and the kids from travel ball, for the most part, win the spots.

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Yup. Somebody look up the high school and D1 Top 20 baseball rosters and tell me which kids did not play travel ball.

Yeah but the point is that an elite athlete can show up and displace you at any random point in time with little to no experience.

If you're not so athletic that you cant just show up and dominate at most all sports then I think Gaston is correct, specialization may be your only shot at high school varsity in your sport of choice.