Hello, I just found out that the high school my son will be attending will have two freshman teams. From the looks of the incoming freshman camp, there will be about 35 players trying out for the teams. Is this common practice to have two freshman teams in high school? Is there an advantage or disadvantage? Thanks in advance everyone for your respnse.

My high school doesn't have it. My school is small so it is natural for it to have one team. I really have never heard of two freshman teams (only one high school and they keep everyone who tries out). The advantages are: more kids get to play, no hurt feelings, and more dovelopment. Disadvantages: lower number in the win colemn, could be cuting off someone's goals. Hope this helps.

I agree with Bulldog21. Wow, never heard of two freshmen teams at one school before. It must be a large school. I think it’s good for baseball in general, good for the community, good for the weaker players because it provides them the opportunity to play baseball. However it could be a disadvantage for the player that falls somewhere between the studs and the weaker players. Facilities could get crowded and coaching could be limited. A player could get lost in the shuffle if he fails to make an impression. Since your son’s goal should be to make JV and then varsity, he needs to look beyond the freshman year. He needs to understand it will take more individual effort on his part to be noticed. He needs to be self motivated and understand the importance of hustle and work ethic. While I think player advancement should be based solely on talent it would not hurt in this situation if the parents make sure they are involved in the support activities. Since the pool of parents will be larger than normal, it would become easy for the parents to become lax in their support.
Fungo.

Some schools in our area field 2 freshman teams. My sons school wanted to but didn't have enough players so they kept 19 kids on the one team. No one was cut. A lot of kids never played or played an inning or 2. I believe the thinking behind it is that some kids will grow, get better and they don't want to give-up on anyone.

I have seen a school which carried two freshman teams. They have in the past had over 100 freshman tryout for a overly large freshman team where they would cut all stars from their LL and Pony teams, so they expanded this last year and had two freshman teams. They once in a while moved players from one team to another.

The challenge would be what happens the next year when they go to JV and there are JV's which stay back with the JV team for a second year.

Very good points everyone. My son is not the stud nor is he the weaker player. He falls somewhere in between. I agree that the objective is to make the JV team. He is up for the challenge. His school is not really big (approx. 1300 students), but bb1 the coach did say exactly what you said about kids get better and he doesn't want to give-up
on anyone. My next question is what is the position in baseball that is in high demand? Are schools looking for pitchers? My son is a pitch and plays the outfield when is is not pitching.

Calsportsmom
two teams with only 1300. That is great. My sons school is twice that size and couldn't get enough kids for two teams. Most are gravitating towards lacrosse.
Pitchers especially left handed pitchers are always in demand. Catchers and SS I think would be next. GT signed a catcher out of my sons school recently. From what I've seen about HS pitchers be very careful that they don't overuse him. That is a big issue in many HS in our area. Make sure he knows to say he's had enough to his coach even though the coach should be saying that to him.
www.asmi.org might have some helpful info on pitch counts and things. Also this board has always been very helpful to me. Even though we've had our differences.

My sons high school doesn't have any freshman baseball team, only JV and varsity.

If we had an AD who cared anything about baseball (but we are in Texas), we would have two teams. Some in our district do. We had 55+ try out last year and expect that this year again.

The more I think about it, it may be a good idea. I just wonder how it's going to work.

From what I understand my sons HS in the past has been able to field two teams. They tried to balance the teams and that didn't work to well. I think you want as many kids as possible to play together through HS. There needs to be an A and B team. Hopefully that would make the kids that made the B team work harder to get better and the other kids work harder to stay ahead.
Also the B team may still be better than some other HS.

How does this work in terms of following the state rules towards scheduling?

What I mean is in Kentucky you are allowed to only schedule 36 games at each level - varsity, JV and freshman - you can actually schedule as many as you want but can only play 36. I am assuming California has a similar rule.

Using Kentucky rules would each Freshman team get 36 games or would each Freshman team get 18 games - or some mixture to total 36 games?

Coach,
I'm not sure about the state rules but 18 games in the spring season is common. I think because of weather issues. You're lucky to get those in. Then you hopefully would have the state playoffs that would carry you into legion or connie mack.

Our school (5A) does not have a "Freshman" team. By name it is called the Sophmore team, which is primarily Freshman anyway with a few Sophmores. We have about 75 incoming Freshmen tryout and the Sophmore team has about 20 on the roster.

I could see having a Freshman team and a Sophmore team, then JV and Varsity. Think of all the extra income benefits for the booster club. We have the quantity of players, the problem for us is the field practice space.