Just wondering, how many of the high school programs around the state have organized pre-tryout workouts. I know some kids that go to Fuquay that have said they have a very structured workout schedule. My son's school basically has none, unless the kids do it on their own.

My son's HS has preseason workouts. We're located just north of Charlotte NC. First they have open field fall workouts. These are run by the seniors on the team and coaches are not allowed to be on the field or direct the workout, by NC HS rules. Then around mid-Nov they go into conditioning and weight lifting. This is allowed to be supervised by the coach. Next they have 8 on 1 workouts where the coach can take eight players on the field and run workouts. Then comes try-outs. Everything but the 8 on 1 is open to all boys that want to play baseball. The coach asks various groups of boys to come to the 8 on 1 workouts. By the time tryouts come around, the coach has a very good feel for who the players are.

Up here in Greensboro we do some off season stuff but it is kinda hard since the coaches are only allowed to have 8 kids at a time. (Never understood the NCHSAA rules) but anyway most of our stuff is for pitchers and catchers not much for position players just a few afterschool running days.

I've wondered about the 8 to 1 rule also... guess it's so a coach can't workout a complete team at one time. What if an assistant coach as well as the head coach were involved? working with seperate groups of 8 or less each?

This is fantasy at my son's school, there have never been more than 6 or 7 show up for voluntary workouts except just before tryouts.

You can only work with 8 players and only those 8 per day. You can have as many coaches as you like but only 8 players. You can have open field and all players are allowed to participate but when you have open field no coaches including volunteer coaches can be present at all. Conditioning is allowed with no restrictions on numbers as long as baseball specific work is not done. Running lifting plyos its all good no restrictions. There are "dead zones" in the fall and winter that last around 30 days. These coincide with the start of football and basketball seasons. During these periods no 8-1 is allowed but conditioning is with no numbers restrictions. We have a very structured off season program. During Dead Zones we have weight lifting running and plyos for all. During 8-1 periods we have 8-1 workouts and the rest are conditioning. We rotate the players from day to day so everyone is getting baseball and workouts. We start in August and finish it up mid Jan. We bring pitchers and catchers on Jan 31 8-1. We work them up untill Feb 14 when the season begins.