I noticed in looking at some new makeup of some high end caliber teams in the 2008 U14 group specifically and see a LOT of moving and shaking, ONCE AGAIN. I mean c'mon, I can see if your kid is a stud, thats one thing and that is wonderful, but to keep moving him from team to team, year in year out. Does anyone have an opinion on these occurances. Does it factor in to his future when being recruited into college? Is his and his parents' committment level to the "TEAM" ever get questioned? How can a group of parents and players that may have been on that team for a few years already be OK with it knowing the kid cant seem to stay committed to a team. I know this topic is always hashed over about this time of the year but give me some of your thoughts if you have'em.

Eric this is often happens in teams from where we live. Kids look for the best team possible to play on so they often switch teams. There is also a high "dad" influnce on where their kid plays, often at the younger levels. Switching teams is a part of youth baseball. By the way colleges don't care or look into if a player switched his 14u team.

kids switching teams?

big kids switching teams (BA)

Its just part of life...part of our evolving culture. People don't stay in jobs very long anymore either.

While I'm probably more of a "team" or "career" person (same employer for 27+ years), I don't begrudge anyone trying to find a better situation. I've run teams for a number of years and have never stood in the way of a player moving to a better situation for him...I've even promoted our best players onto better teams. The kid's development is most important, not our team winning games. JMO.

EricG - As a father of a player who switched teams this past off-season, I think there's value in it. He gets a different set of coaches to help expand what he's learning on (and off) the field.

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Its just part of life...part of our evolving culture. People don't stay in jobs very long anymore either.

Boy, You can say that again!

Read an article last week in a business magazine that said that if you are not switching companies every few years that you will be labeled as "having no ambition". The advice being to forget stability, forget loyalty...switch companies regularly and often...as a career builder.

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The advice being to forget stability, forget loyalty...switch companies regularly and often...as a career builder.

wonder if the guy that wrote that is still working at that magazine ...
if not, was he asked to move on?

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...wonder if the guy that wrote that is still working at that magazine ...

Now, that's funny!

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Here is my two cents on the subject. Some of the team jumping is a function of parents thinking that a particular team/coach will give their son a higher profile. Why this is important at the younger ages escapes me, but along the way with my son, a number of people jumped teams on the thought that it would improve their son's fortunes later. In most cases, this turned out to be untrue. Still others jump teams because their son is not playing the position that they want him to play, or is not getting enough playing time. It seems everybody's kid is a shortstop or a catcher these days and hitting 1-4 in the lineup. I guess it is a free country. The thing I always wondered about was whether or not the kid really wanted to change teams. I know my son always enjoyed his teammates and was disappointed when someone decided to change teams. My observation is that 12-14 is about the age where there can be a disparity in physical size and talent and a lot of the parents of "early bloomers" think they have the next Roger Clemens, only to see his peers catch up with him a year or so later.

After having been through the whole youth and high school baseball thing, I am convinced that the best thing you can do is find a team where your son is a good fit and let him enjoy playing. If he is truly talented enough to play at the next level, there are always ways to get him recognized.

after each high school year, does your high school form a team for June or do you join a travel team for June/July? Some high schools REQUIRE participation in some form of June-only baseball after the respective high school season is over. Some kids go on to play travel ball for june/july and "blow-off" their high school post-season June teams. What has been your experience? Seems to be quite common here in northern indiana and from all info gathered, popular for high school teams in other parts of indiana to do this too. Is this just an Indiana thing?

Many high school teams in Georgia have summer teams, especially schools with the better prorams. In Georgia my understanding is that summer teams cannot be mandatory and the teams cannot be coached by the school coaches.

At my kids school we will have only 8-10 players (between varsity and JV) that will play summer ball outside of the high school.

Some schools have a very high percentage of their palyers that play summer ball on various travel teams. Other schools have summer programs that play '30 games in 30 days' so they get it over with and kid can move on to other summer activities with minimal disruption. In Georgia, none of it can be mandatory.

My two cents worth. During the non-HS season, to progress as much as possible the player should play at and against the highest level that he can get significant quality playing time.

If he can play a lot of minutes on a higher level team and is interested in challenging himself. Do it.

If he isn't getting the playing time, go to a team that is a better fit skill and playing time wise.

If he is happy where he is at, stay.

Don't stay in a situation that the boy is unhappy with.

My two cents, what he said. (Mike's dad)

My kids have switched teams, even though they did not want to. We discovered that our 13 year old son (at the time) was coached by a xes offender who had made moves on a number of the kids-- we left in a hurry (at the end of the season, though, but we never left our son alone with him), two were in an organization run by an embezzler who took in the funds but didn't pay any bills, including utilities for the training facility--we ended up being locked out (some with their equipment inside). We also were away at "nationals" and found out that the guy never paid the tournament fees so the families had to come up with extra $$$ and learned that a couple of dads had been paying for a number of tournaments so the girls could play...by the way, the team fees were steep--$1500 PLUS fundraising.... This same guy also had an affair with the mom of one of his players. Well, not just an affair, but left his family to move in with the other family--their daughters remained teammates....Not the environment that we wanted our girls to be around.....Another of our kids left because we discovered that the coach was just plain NUTS--requiring the 10 year old girls to drink 3 Red Bulls during a tournament and putting these little girls on weight loss or weight gain programs...

So there are really good reasons to change teams. We would have liked to stay with these teams longer, but we (morally) couldn't.

But it was also good to change to get another coaching perspective and to meet new people.