Yes I’m okay.

I stopped posting partly because I was busy with a new baseball-related job. But then my son developed a new passion in life, leaving baseball behind. So what more could I write about baseball?

Shortly thereafter, COVID-19 entered the United States. One of many impacts of COVID-19 on my life is that I set aside blogging. I intend to resume blogging in 2021, but probably not about baseball. It’s time to bring closure to my baseball blogging.

In this post, my 56th and possibly final post about baseball, I share my thoughts about leaving baseball, going into much more personal detail than usual.

Destined for Baseball?

At the age of 20 months, my son saw a brief baseball video. Within minutes, he grabbed a broom and said, “ball, ball, ball!” Baseball was his greatest passion for the next 13 years of his life as he made his way through 10 years of rec baseball as well as travel ball. Though always behind in physical development compared to his peers, he could throw. Clearly he had a future as a left-handed high school pitcher. Depending on how his body developed and how hard he worked, it even seemed possible he could pitch at the college level.

We met and befriended many youth baseball players and their families along the way. Every year, some would quit the game.

For some kids, baseball was never much fun to begin with. Maybe their parents got them to try it for a year or two and they didn’t enjoy it. Maybe they tried other activities they ended up liking better.

Some kids liked the game for a few years, but then something would shift and they would leave the game. Maybe a coach they didn’t like. Perhaps the fear of getting beaned by wild pitchers after the shift to kid pitch at the age of 9. Maybe the fun got driven out of the game by growing coach expectations for discipline and/or too much travel ball.

By the age of 13, two-thirds of my son’s baseball peers over the years were no longer playing baseball. It was the big field, the 60/90 diamond. Some kids who had enjoyed baseball for many years thought the game had become too hard on the big field. Keeping up would require making the game seem more like work than play, so the remaining players had some combination of talent and/or work ethic.

My son was still smaller and lighter than his peers. His hitting results tanked when he was required to switch to heavier, deader bats. However, he continued to pitch well on both PONY and travel ball teams. He began to workout in support of pitching, both to prevent injury and increase velocity. By the end of 2019, a few months before the age of 15, he was working with a terrific physical therapist to prepare his left arm for his first year of high school baseball.

It seemed as if he was destined to be a lefty “pitcher only” baseball player in high school and everyone was expecting it—his coaches, his peers, his family, and himself.

Leaving Baseball

Though we didn’t realize it at first, the turning point was December 8, 2019. Traverse Fitness opened just a 10-minute drive from our house, and we went to check out their open house on Sunday, December 8, a soft opening of the largest Ninja Gym in California.

My wife and son were familiar with the concept as they had watched the past few seasons of the TV show American Ninja Warrior. On the show, contestants (ninjas) navigate athletically challenging obstacle courses, competing to reach the final course and win a cash prize.

It seemed kind of cool to try out some of the obstacles at Traverse Fitness. But it was more than cool. He immediately fell in love.

Within weeks he was going to the gym 4-6 times per week. One by one, he completed obstacles that were far beyond him when he first started. As his interest in Ninja grew, the amount of time he spent on baseball rapidly declined.

A month later he was questioning whether he wanted to continue with baseball. Mostly it was because he wanted all the time he could get for going to the Ninja gym. But it wasn’t just that.

For a while, he had not been feeling enthusiastic about what his midsized high school baseball program had to offer. He had friends a grade higher than him so he knew there wouldn’t be a developmental program for pitchers (typically, only the largest and most athletically ambitious high schools have pitcher-only programs). If he was going to continue to develop as a pitcher, he was going to have to do it almost entirely on his own, with the help of dad, private lessons, a private workout program (maybe Driveline?), etc.

As his passion for Ninja rapidly grew, his high school baseball concerns grew in importance in his mind. By mid-January, just 5 weeks after his first visit to Traverse Fitness, he decided he was not going to try out for the high school baseball team. His reasons were:

1. Time consuming (likely taking away time from Ninja training)
2. Not as much fun as rec ball
3. Not enough learning in return for his time

He said that if any one of these three things had been different, he would have wanted to do high school baseball.

Are these good reasons to stop playing baseball? They were for him.

I’m fine with anyone who wants to cut back on one activity to spend more time on something they love more. That’s a good reason to quit baseball.

On the other hand, I freely admit that I would have enjoyed seeing him pitch in a few high school baseball games.

I Missed the Signs

I’m writing about this 11 months after he made his decision. With the benefit of hindsight, I can now see that high school baseball was not something he was looking forward to.

My son loves to pitch, but I think he gradually lost enthusiasm over the past few years for all the other stuff you have to do in order to get to pitch in games, such as:

• travel
• conditioning
• arm prep in January
• the warmup routine before throwing the first pitch
• hitting practice
• swinging a too-heavy, dead, BBCOR bat
• practices geared mostly towards position players
• etc.

He told me a number of times that he wished he could pitch hours per day and in many games without getting injured, while doing a lot less of the other stuff on the above list. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

Since he made his decision to not play baseball in high school, he has rarely thrown a baseball, though he did have a little fun between May and July hitting home runs over a 210 foot fence with his (much more fun!) drop 10 Axe Bat. He still loves baseball in other ways, as he follows the goings on in the MLB closely and has spent many hours playing MLB The Show on his PS4.

His passion for Ninja continues. He loves the gym, the culture, and most of all the people. And, unlike baseball, it is an activity where he gets to spend most of his time doing the parts of the sport he loves most.

Ninja has been a lifeline during the pandemic because he became an assistant coach at the gym for camps and after-school programs. As an employee, he has had opportunities to train even when the gym was closed due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Working during a pandemic has been tough for many people. My son feels very grateful to be doing the Ninja work he loves while continuing his training.

As a parent, I am happy to support my son’s passions. My son is the type of person who has one major passion at a time. It was baseball for 13 years. Now he is training to be a Ninja Warrior.

After Baseball

So what will I write about next?

I really like data science. I expect I’ll be writing more articles like Handedness in Youth Baseball that tell a story based on data that I process, understand, and make visual. Topics will vary. But they probably won’t be related to baseball.

The post Leaving Baseball (in a Good Way!) first appeared on FilterJoe.

There are hundreds of chargers on the market, and I don’t want to spend time looking at all of them. I focus primarily on the types of AA/AAA battery chargers that I believe are best for either:

• Average consumers
• Battery enthusiasts who want a high degree of control and knowledge about their batteries

The Powerex MH-C980 Turbo Charger Analyzer fits neither category. However, I decided to accept the charger after all, so I could explore what was for me, a new market category:

• Professionals

So how well does the Powerex MH-C980 address the professional market?

Some people go through 8+ batteries within hours, typically professional photographers or audio technicians, who may deplete over 50 batteries at one event. Each of these types of professionals uses AA or AAA battery-powered accessories at several large events per week.

The MH-C980 is a successor model to several other similar Powerex models that have attempted to address this professional market. Maha Energy provided me with a Powerex MH-C980, carrying case and 8 Powerex Pro AA batteries to try a few weeks before its release. I’ve been testing it since mid-April, 2019.

Note that temporarily, Maha is bundling 8 high capacity low self-discharge batteries with the charger. The Powerex Pro batteries are high quality, made-in-Japan batteries, though I found the actual capacity to be 2600-2650 mAh, not 2700 mAh as advertised on the batteries.

You can buy a bundle with case, charger, and batteries for under $100:

8-Bay MH-C980 Charger with Powerex Batteries and Case

Or you can buy just the charger for about $25 less:

8-Bay MH-C980 Charger

What does the Professional Market Want?

Before I get into any details, let me say straight out that this is not a model I would recommend for a typical consumer. It costs nearly twice as much and is far noisier than typical consumer models. However, for people who charge 8+ batteries per day, the higher cost is negligible and a noisy fan typically won’t matter.

People who go through 8+ batteries/day will want the following attributes in a charger:

• As covered by this site’s most recent annual battery guide, a quality charger must have independent charging channels and circuitry to insure that batteries stop charging at the appropriate cut off (negative delta-V has proven to work best with NiMH batteries). Chargers that do this insure best battery performance, both short-term and long-term.
• Inserting and removing batteries must be fast and easy
• The user interface should be very simple to use, and give feedback that is easy to read
• The batteries should charge quickly to be ready for their next use
• In support of charging quickly, the unit must have thermal management features. This means widely spaced bays and a fan. A simple test for this is that batteries should never be too hot to touch while charging.

I don’t ever go through 20+ batteries/month let alone 20+/day, so it’s possible I’ve missed something on this list—feel free to add additional needed attributes in the comments if you use many batteries per day.

Is the MH-C980 a Good Model for Professionals?

From my first impressions of the MH-C980, I think this model will please professionals. Specifically:

Like most Maha products, the charger has independent charging channels, negative delta-V circuitry, and high quality construction.

There is ample spacing between charging bays, which makes it easy to insert batteries. It’s slightly difficult to remove batteries when all 8 bays are occupied, but once the first battery is out it’s easy to remove the remaining 7 batteries.

Because the bays are independently controlled, it’s possible to insert any combination of AA and AAA batteries in any order. The manual recommends inserting the first battery inserted into bay 1 (after which you may choose to press one of the two buttons), 2^nd to bay 2, 3^rd to bay 3, etc., which is how I tested the unit.

The MH-C980 is very easy to use. Insert 1-8 batteries and it will be done charging in a 2 hours, or less if the batteries are only partially drained.

There are two options that can be chosen within the first few seconds of inserting the first battery:

• Turbo mode has batteries charge at double the normal rate. AA Batteries go from 1000mA default rate to 2000 mA Turbo, and AAA batteries go from 500Ah default rate to 1000 Ah turbo. For perspective, I recommend with typical consumer units to charge AA batteries at 500 mA and AAA at 200 mA, which prolongs long-term battery life in units that are typically cramped and without a fan.
• The other option is reconditioning which will not be needed for normal use. Perhaps once/year or so, running through the reconditioning function will restore batteries to the maximum charging capacity they’re currently capable of.

One button controls turbo mode, the other reconditioning mode. And that’s it. You don’t need to use either of these buttons in regular operation.

After inserting batteries, the display automatically rotates through all 8 batteries, showing how much mAh of charge has been added to the cell. Once a cell can accept no more charge, the word “full” appears and the mAh quantity stops changing for that one battery. But charging continues for all other inserted batteries, with the display showing mAh increasing. One by one, batteries get charged to capacity and change the display to indicate full.

The beauty of this interface is that it does everything you need, including providing information, without having to touch anything. It’s easy to read the LCD in a well-lit area but if you’re in a dim area, pushing either of the two buttons causes the LCD to become temporarily backlit and super easy to read.

All of this sounds great so far. But the most important attribute for a fast-charging charger like this is how cool the batteries remain. I never recommend battery chargers that cause batteries to become too hot to touch. It’s bad for the batteries, and if the batteries get hot enough it can cause them to melt or even cause a fire. So how did the MH-C980 do in operation?

At the default charge rate (1000 mA for AA, 500 mA), the batteries remained impressively cool. It takes over an hour for the batteries to become noticeably warm, and yet they are still cooler than some units I’ve used charging at half of these charging rates. This is accomplished because of the wide bay spacing and the vigorous fan.

You can feel the air moving over the batteries if you put your fingers close to the opening. Lending confidence to the cooling, the fan is quite loud. Given the settings these units are likely to be used in, the loud noise usually won’t matter, but this is certainly not a unit I would recommend to use in a room that is expected to remain quiet.

Though the default charge rate for this unit is already high, the Turbo rate is an extremely fast rate of charging. Personally, I recommend using Turbo very sparingly because it heats up the batteries more and it cuts off charging when the batteries are not quite fully charged (around 94% to 98% of capacity is what I found in my testing). The heat generated from Turbo charging will hurt the long-term life of the battery despite the wide spacing and fan. Better to just carry many additional batteries that can be swapped in while the unit takes a couple hours to recharge depleted batteries.

That being said, there’s no safety hazard in using turbo mode, as batteries are not too hot to touch (though internal temperature of the battery is higher than the outside of the cell you’re touching, because the outside is being cooled by the fan). Again, the higher temperature is sure to reduce the long-term battery life if Turbo mode is used often.

Of course, if you’re in a great rush, you’ll appreciate being able to charge your batteries in about an hour.

One last little thing I noticed in my testing. This charger may not charge some high self-discharge batteries that are at least a few years old. These high self-discharge batteries are lower quality, with higher internal resistance, less capacity, and lower voltage. As a professional, you’re best off removing these batteries from your collection anyway. Consumers may feel differently as some of these very same batteries can be charged and used in non-critical devices (i.e. toys) by a more forgiving charger.

Conclusion

As I already mentioned, this is not a model I’d recommend for a consumer. You don’t often need to charge 8 batteries at a time, so why get a model with a noisy fan that costs a bit more than any of my recommended AA/AAA chargers.

I do recommend the 8-bay MH-C980 charger model for professionals who frequently deplete 8 or more batteries at a time, especially if the usual work environment is noisy (so the loud fan isn’t noticed). Just plug in the batteries and pull them out 2 hours later, hardly warmer than room temperature.

If you’re in a rush, hit the Turbo button.

What more do you need?

The post Powerex MH-C980 Turbo Charger Analyzer Review first appeared on FilterJoe.

But what about youth baseball? How does an understanding of MLB handedness issues impact opportunities for young baseball players? How do coaches assign positions to left-handed versus right-handed players?

The answers depend heavily on coach philosophies, which vary. Given that my son is left-handed, I’ve seen firsthand how the positions he has been allowed to play in youth baseball have varied depending on context and coach philosophy.

In this article, I first share the data on MLB handedness and the reasons why handedness is so important for professional baseball players. The remaining part of the article explores handedness in youth baseball.

MLB Handedness Stats and Analysis (from Lahman Baseball Database)

Before discussing handedness in youth baseball, I think it’s worth exploring the reality of handedness in the major leagues. Putting on my data science hat for this article—I obtained the Lahman baseball data set from baseball inception through the end of the 2018 season and wrote some simple R code to extract, reshape and display the data in order to answer a few handedness questions.

It’s worth noting that the Lahman database is the highest quality data set for baseball available at no cost. What started as a one man effort in 1994 has grown tremendously, and now a team of researchers have collected their efforts to make this the largest and most accurate online source for baseball statistics available anywhere.

The Lahman handedness data is missing for many players before 1930, so I looked at a subset of the data from 1930 through today. Here’s what handedness looks like in modern times, for all MLB players (both pitchers and non-pitchers) who played at least 1 game between 2010 and 2018:

Have these splits have changed over time? Not much.

First let’s look at hitting handedness over time:

Pure right-handed hitting has gone down slightly over the past 90 years, with switch hitting increasing a bit in the 1970s to 1990s, and then left-only hitting increasing more since the turn of the century. The changes have been small enough that looking at the hitting handedness splits from recent times are hardly any different than looking at the whole data set.

Looking next at throwing handedness over time:

Left-handed throwing increased slightly during this 89-year period, but it seems to have peaked in the last 2 decades of the 20th century and has since been in a slight declining trend. Again, the changes have been small enough that looking at the throwing handedness splits from recent times are hardly any different than looking at the whole data set.

It’s worth noting that left-handed U.S. males are roughly 12% of the overall population, yet:

• 26.7% of recent MLB pitchers threw left-handed
• 13.1% of recent MLB non-pitchers threw left-handed

So yes, there’s more demand for left-handed pitchers in professional baseball then there are left-handed male throwers in the overall population.

Notice though that only 13.1% of non-pitchers throw with their left hand. If left-handed hitters are so good, why aren’t there more left-handed position players?

This is partly answered in the next section which explains that, although left-handed hitting is valuable, right-handed throwing is important for fielding. Therefore, there are many non-pitchers who throw right but bat left or switch hit:

• 12.3% of recent MLB non-pitchers throw right but switch hit
• 19.4% of recent MLB non-pitchers throw right but hit left

I don’t know how rare throw-right-bat-left people are in the general population, but I would guess something like 1 in 500 or 1 in 1000. But given that right-handed throwers who can hit well left-handed account for 31.7% of MLB position players, it is very clear that this combination of handedness is very highly valued at the professional level. Being able to throw well right-handed and hit well left-handed is nearly as helpful as it is to be over 7′ tall for a professional basketball player.

The above stats clearly show that, at the professional level, baseball’s various handedness advantages result in different proportions of handedness for both throwing and hitting as compared with the population at large.

Why Handedness Matters so much in the Major Leagues

This section could be an entire article in and of itself, but I’m going to keep it brief and just summarize the primary reasons MLB handedness matters so much:

• The bodies of right-handed throwers are naturally positioned well for the throw to first base after fielding the ball at second base, shortstop, or third base. Left-handed throwers have to turn before making the throw, giving runners a few tenths of a second extra to get to first. Only right-handed throwers occupy these three positions in the MLB.
• Left-handed throwers have advantages playing as first basemen, but these advantages are so slight that both left-handed and right-handed throwers play first base. Big left-handed players who hit well but aren’t very mobile often play this position because they would hurt the team fielding elsewhere.
• Matchups between the pitcher and the hitter typically favor the hitter when handedness is opposite. Managers therefore switch pitchers frequently in close games to gain slight statistical advantages. However . . .
• Hitting left-handed is generally a big advantage, primarily because most pitchers are right-handed.
• Lefty batters also have the advantage of more frequently beating out soft grounders due to better initial body position when running to first base.
• In general, batters will have more difficulty with a left-handed pitcher whose velocity and “stuff” is identical to a right-handed pitcher because they don’t see left-handed pitching as often.

Despite position limitations, the smaller supply of talented left-handed pitchers and hitters causes them to be more sought after at college and professional levels of baseball. As detailed above in the “MLB handedness stats and analysis” section, the numbers are even more extreme for players who throw right but bat left.

College and High School

I have no statistical database to access for college and high school but I am under the impression from numerous conversations and articles read that the same advantages that work at the MLB level also work at the college and high school level.

The distribution of players with certain types of handedness is likely less extreme than in the MLB due to how rarely these traits appear in the population at large. But coaches generally place players in positions using the strategies used in the MLB, because they are trying their best to win games. Therefore, all else being equal, left-handed players will have an easier time getting on to a college team than right-handed players. This is especially true of players who bat left and throw right.

Youth Level: Overview

For players below the age of 13, baseball games are usually played on fields of reduced size. Some rules differ from MLB rules to reflect the smaller field size and lower skill levels. More importantly, game purpose ranges from “just for fun” recreation leagues to highly competitive teams that travel to other states to play against similarly competitive teams.

Below high school age, many players struggle with fielding, especially at ages under 11. Sometimes, a left-handed shortstop is better at fielding a grounder than any other player on the team. A short, right-handed fielder may be much better at catching bad throws to first base than big left-handed players. Should a coach therefore play these players at these positions, even though not traditional for their body types?

Opinions vary on how to assign fielding positions, depending on how much a coach emphasizes winning over development. Coaches also differ as to what they mean by “best for development.”

For example, some coaches believe that prior to age 13 (when play on the big field begins), players will better learn the sport of baseball if rotated through a wide variety of positions. Coaches following this philosophy rotate most players among all positions, regardless of handedness.

Other coaches believe that positions should be assigned as if the players were adults. For example, left-handed players will not play shortstop at the high school level or above, so better to prepare for the positions available in the long run, which are pitcher, first base, and outfield.

Life is simpler for the right-handed thrower, as all positions are possible at any age. However, even right-handed throwers can be subjected to specialization based on body type. Shortstop is typically occupied by the quickest, most athletic players, while big, slow players may end up with nowhere to play but first base or pitcher.

Of course, coaches often choose to play players at certain positions based on how ready they are, regardless of handedness. And coaches who prioritize winning over all else will place players in positions that will give the team the best chance of winning.

Youth Level: Throwing Handedness

For young baseball players who throw right-handed, life is simple. If you’re athletic and you work at your game, you can play any position. Shortstop is the most athletically demanding, while pitcher and catcher are the most impactful positions, so the players with greatest ability on a particular team usually play many innings at one or more of these three positions, even on teams where the coach rotates most players through most positions.

I have heard several coaches say that they would prefer if every right-handed thrower on their team was capable of playing shortstop well. Why? A player who can play shortstop can be easily trained to play any other position. This is an exaggeration, as the catcher position is difficult to master, but it’s a reasonable statement for the other positions.

Life is less simple for left-handed throwers. At the youngest ages, many coaches will play them at a wide variety of positions. However, as discussed earlier, some coaches treat pre-teen kids the same way they would treat players at the level of high school or beyond. The older kids get, the more this is done, until by age 11 it is rare to see a left-handed player playing third base, shortstop, second base, or catcher. In my experience, head coaches are a bit looser about the catcher position prior to high school.

There’s also the size issue. At high school level and above, coaches like big players at first base, and fast players in the outfield. The closer a player is to high school age, the more I see big left-handed players at first base, and smaller more agile left-handed players playing right field. So what this boils down to is:

• Big left-handed throwers who hit well play first base
• Smaller, more agile left-handed throwers who can hit for contact play outfield
• All left-handed throwers will be pitching some if their pitching skill is not too far behind the right-handed pitchers on the team

Left-handed players who don’t fit any of these profiles will be able to play in a recreation league, but will have a hard time making an all-star or travel team roster. Most of the left-handed throwers I’ve known over the years dropped out of baseball between the ages of 10 and 13. I sometimes wonder if part of the reason for that is that they are pigeon-holed into so few positions that they find the game less interesting than right-handed throwers.

There is another drawback for left-handed players that is a natural consequence of ordinary coach decisions on player rotation. It has to do with the skill distribution of right-handed players. Most teams will fill all but the outfield and first base positions with the highest performing right-handed throwers. The coach will rotate the remaining, less skilled right-handed players through outfield positions in order to make sure they get some playing time. Therefore, it happens that left-handed throwers who are quite good at their outfield position will often get subbed out for right-handed throwers who can’t play the position as well.

This happened frequently to my left-handed son at right field starting at the age of 9. Despite playing right field very well, including occasionally throwing out runners at 3rd and home, coaches would often put in a right-handed player with a weaker arm in order to make sure that the right-handed player got any playing time at all. If my son wasn’t pitching when this right-handed right fielder came in, he’d occupy the bench.

Here’s a bit more detail on how being left-handed played out for my small son over his years in youth baseball:

He had a few recreation league coaches who believed players would better learn the game if they played every position. My son therefore played all 9 positions despite being left-handed. After age 10, he played very little third base, shortstop, or second base, but still played catcher occasionally, even at the age of 14.

It’s clear that my son’s high school baseball future is left-handed pitching. But I believe that he better understands the game as a result of playing every position. Though he won’t play the catcher position in high school, he’ll be better able to work with catchers in his role as pitcher, thanks to innings played as catcher prior to high school.

Certain summer coaches have played my son only in right field when he wasn’t pitching. Small left-handed players like him are assigned to pitch or play outfield (usually right field) when the coach has the philosophy of training players on positions that will be available to them in high school. This also was beneficial, as he has learned the right field position thoroughly over the years.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think he was fortunate to get exposure to both development philosophies. However, when I saw him getting slotted into traditional lefty positions at the age of 8 through 10 on a couple of competitive summer teams, I was not happy about it as I thought specialization at age 8 was unnecessary and would hinder his development. By the ages of 12-14, I expected and embraced specialization as high school age approached.

By high school, the remaining left-handers are mostly either decent pitchers or big guys who can hit. Competent left-handed pitchers are valuable to a high school team, and even more valuable at the higher levels, partly due to their scarcity. After many years of being handicapped by left-handed throwing, a left-handed thrower sometimes becomes advantaged in high school and beyond.

An example of the left-handed advantage is how it is easier for a left-handed pitcher to earn a spot on a college baseball roster than a right-handed pitcher. Right-handed pitchers must throw with a very high velocity, typically high 80s, and at some Division I schools the average right-handed velocity is close to 90MPH. Left-handed pitchers, being in shorter supply, can usually make a roster with 2-3 MPH less velocity than right-handed pitchers.

Youth Level: Left-handed Hitting

Most people intuitively believe that a kid who throws right-handed should bat right-handed, and a kid who throws left-handed should bat left-handed. It turns out that science does not support this view.

Research strongly suggests that eye dominance is different from hand dominance. There is also some speculation that eye dominance matters more for hitting than hand dominance, though research on this point is not yet conclusive. Approximately 66% of the population is right-eye dominant, while 88% of the population is right-hand dominant.

Given the many advantages of batting left-handed, and the known fact that eye dominance is often not the same as handedness dominance, there is every reason to let kids experiment. At the ages of 5 and 6, kids can’t hit well from either direction. So why not let them try both?

A lot of parents and youth coaches insist on aligning hitting handedness with throwing handedness, likely because they’re not aware of the eye dominance research.

One of the funniest things I ever saw was a well-meaning parent who kept telling his right-handed player over many years that he needed to show he could hit well right-handed before it made any sense to experiment with switch hitting. When he was 11, this player was at a recreation league evaluation where many coach sons were trying to purposely tank their own scores to provide advantage to their team during the draft (yes, I know this is bad, but . . . so long as there is drafting in youth baseball, people will look for ways to manipulate that draft). Several other right-handed hitters batted left-handed and hit poorly. So, being a coach son, he also batted left-handed. He hit solid line drives and very hard grounders left-handed despite never getting practice hitting from that direction. It was better than his right-handed hitting that he’d practiced for years!

The point here is that there is no reason to stop kids from experimenting with batting left even if they are right-handed. Some coaches won’t let them hit left-handed, and they may get discouraged if they don’t have immediate success. But as mentioned earlier in this article, players who throw right and bat left are in short supply and high demand at the highest levels of baseball. So for a player with significant talent, let them experiment batting left-handed. Encourage it!

Is there Anything to Conclude?

For players who want to have fun playing baseball for a couple years with their local recreation league, does any of this matter? Probably not. The goal is to have fun, and experimenting with throwing or hitting with the opposite arm from what seems natural may detract from that fun. This describes over 80% of the players on any given recreation league team.

However, some players know at an early age that they love baseball and want to keep playing for as long as their talent and hard work lets them play. While learning to throw with the opposite arm is usually difficult, learning to hit from the other side is not as difficult, particularly for those whose eye dominance is opposite to their hand dominance.

For right-handed throwers who choose to experiment with batting left, it may hurt short run performance, but if they can actually learn to bat well left-handed, the long-term payoff could be significant.

For those players who already hit and throw left-handed, it’s worth understanding how coaches assign positions in both the short and long run. Lefties may have fewer playing position opportunities than right-handed players with comparable ability prior to high school. But for lefties who can pitch and who persevere, there will almost certainly be a spot on the roster for them to pitch on their high school team.

And for those of you who are youth baseball coaches—consider letting players experiment with left-handed hitting even if it hurts the team in the short run. You may be doing the kid a big favor in the long run.

The post Handedness in Youth Baseball first appeared on FilterJoe.

Reflections on 10 years of Youth Baseball Rec League Part 1: Ages 2-8

Enjoy the end of the story!

Age 9:

Players aged 9-10 are part of the Mustang Division in the PONY system. Mustang feels a lot more like real baseball because kid pitch begins and steals are permitted (though no leads). Fielding, though not great, is much improved, and no longer the key variable in determining game outcomes.

Pitching determines game outcomes. More specifically: Walks. The team that issues the least walks wins around 80% to 90% of games. Most players are new to pitching, after all.

My son could throw. He had developed a pitching motion years earlier, had done some summer and fall play where he got to pitch some, and had done a few bullpens in recent months. So he came in at an advantage compared to many 9-year-olds. Of course, many returning 10-year-olds had pitched the year before. But anyone who could throw strikes at this age was going to pitch. My son did not have anywhere near as much velocity as kids who were much bigger and/or more physically developed, but he threw strikes, rarely walking batters.

Not only that, but he had developed a new pitch in the off season that he called, “the crosser.” It was thrown like a football, but with his fingers crossed, and it had nasty tailing action despite the low velocity. He tried throwing it a couple times in scrimmages and early season games but could not throw it for strikes. After throwing the pitch one time for a ball in an early season game, one player on our team yelled out, “No, no not the crosser!”

By the end of the season, though, that same player was yelling, “Throw the crosser!” because he was finally able to throw it for strikes, and nobody could hit it.

Hitting is also a new big deal in Mustang, because facing kid pitch is completely different than coach pitch. In prior years, coaches wanted to make it as easy as possible for you to hit. In Mustang, kid pitchers are trying to get you out. Most pitchers have poor control, so fear of getting hit by a pitch is very real, causing some players to step out on every pitch, or in some cases jump all the way out of the batter’s box. Most players get used to kid pitch by the end of their first season, but not all.

The first year my son entered Mustang was also my first season as head coach. I leaned hard on my assistant coaches as well as a parent who was taking a year off from coaching. I also learned from coaching books. I am super grateful for all those who helped me out that year to learn how to coach baseball.

The teams were much more even this year as our league had instituted a parity draft system. The parity draft was an immediate success in creating balanced teams. The only deficiency is that it didn’t do anything about the situation of the top 3 pitchers all ending up on the same team through coach pre-empts. Roughly speaking, that happened (top 2 pitchers, and then 2 more pitchers who were among the top 10), and the team with those top pitchers had the best record. We got wiped out by this team in our regular season games with 0-1 hits per game, but throughout the season we improved every aspect of our game. When we faced this team in the playoffs, we barely lost and put up a very good fight.

Our team was the Cubs. We won about the same number of games as we lost. We had decent pitching and very good fielding but were hampered by below-average hitting. Our hitting was so bad, that my son had the best batting average on the team, and it wasn’t all that high . . . I think it was the only season he ever led his team in batting average. Some of these hits were slow rollers down the 3^rd base line, which are very difficult to field for an out. A couple times he purposely bunted to that very same location, which he easily beat out for a hit.

The thing our team became most known for was come-back from behind victories, which I think happened 4 times. We were also known for having a lot of fun, so much so that having fun in youth baseball became one of my early blog posts.

A very interesting dynamic in this season was how pitchers improved throughout the season. Early games were determined by pitchers attempting to throw strikes, and often failing. Then they got better with both strikes %, and then with velocity. By the end of the season a number were throwing changeups which completely changed the equation. It was a really fun evolution, so the pitcher/hitter arms race became another one of my early blog posts.

I remember that season better than any other on account of it being my first year as head coach, which was hard due to the learning curve. Coaching was much easier in subsequent years.

Age 10:

I decided to be an assistant coach this year instead of head coach. Our team was called the Angels. Theoretically, we were a stacked team, with 3 very good pitchers, a bunch of good hitters, and reasonable fielding as well. However, we had some team chemistry issues due to a couple players who sometimes got intensely frustrated after making mistakes.

We also had one of our most athletic players hit in the face with a pitch. He was uncomfortable in the box thereafter and quit baseball after the season ended. Getting hit in the face with a baseball is terrifying, and the only 2 cases I’ve heard of it caused the player to quit baseball altogether.

My son had his best hitting season to date, because he got a little bigger, got a little better, and began using an Origin Axe Bat that he really liked. But this was a good hitting team, so several players hit even better. He played a variety of positions. But pitching continued to be his specialty, despite the umpires banning the use of his “crosser” pitch a few games into the season. The umpires felt that the crosser was too much like a curveball, which in our league is not permitted until age 13.

The Angels won some, lost some, and had some emotionally uncomfortable moments. We made it out of pool play to the semi-finals in the playoffs, where we proceeded to get blown out. For my son, it was another fun season of rec baseball.

My son’s age cohort happened to have an unusually large number of skilled players, and as their bodies were maturing, this became ever more apparent each year. And in some ways, this was a breakout year for this age group. While my son was still doing great as a pitcher, many kids who were 2-3 years ahead developmentally (and in some cases 6-12 inches taller and 50-100 pounds heavier) shot way ahead of him in terms of in-game performance in every way not related to pitching.

This age cohort was so good that a few months later, our 10u select (all-star) team had its best summer performance in a decade for our PONY league, advancing to the super-regional level in the annual summer PONY World Series competition. My son was part of this AAA caliber team. I mention this only to point out that the caliber of play in this particular year was quite high for a rec league.

Age 11:

I became head coach again. Despite having some experience coming in, this was by far my toughest season as a coach. By this age, some players develop “attitude” and our team was no exception. We had a big issue with “hustle.” Lack of effort drives me crazy and I simply can’t accept it.

I lectured, I drilled, and I lectured some more, but the hustle issues did not go away. Finally, I tried some completely different approaches, taking advantage of our team name, the Brooklyn Dodgers, to inspire hustle based on Jackie Robinson’s example. I chronicled how I managed to turn this team around in Can You Teach Hustle?

For the first time since he started playing organized baseball, my son had a sluggish start to the preseason. His pitching was off, and his strike percentage was the lowest ever— so low that he did not meet the 50% threshold in the preseason scrimmages I required from pitchers who were going to get most of the work. So at first, my son did not pitch much.

Turned out to be just a sluggish start, as he ended up rapidly improving and after the first third of the season was over, he got a lot more work as pitcher. This happened with several other pitchers on the team as well. Our team therefore started the season with a lot of losses due to the hustle issues and pitching woes, but once both turned around, we started winning many games. Against the top team in the league, we lost our first game 26-4, lost our second game 9-6, and then in our final game against them, won 4-2.

One fun thing that happened was we had 3 left-handed pitchers on the same team. My son had a really good deceptive pickoff move that he taught to the other two lefties, so we started getting 1-2 pickoffs per game, which dried up after a few games as opposing teams stopped trying to steal or even take a sizable lead against any of our 3 lefties.

We even became known as a team who hustled by the end of the year. Many bloopers were hit between infielders and outfielders, and we had drilled that so many times that our players were almost always catching those.

We were on fire going into the playoffs and easily won our first game of pool play. However, for game 2, one of our normally very reliable pitchers was nearly run over by a car earlier that day, which I only learned after the game was over. His pitching was off, he was very emotional, and it affected the whole team. When the smoke cleared, we were losing 9-0 after the 3^rd inning. We then proceeded to play the most spectacular 4 innings of baseball we had played all season. We scored 7 runs, while giving up none, but it wasn’t enough. We therefore lost 9-7 and did not make it past pool play.

Though this was a very tough team for me to handle early in the season, in the end it was gratifying that my (not inconsiderable) effort to teach hustle actually worked. Plus, I just really liked the Brooklyn Dodgers name and stylized “B” on the hat.

Age 12:

Occasionally, two head coaches decide to join forces and co-manage a team together. Grady (ages 6-8) and I had become good friends and had developed some differences in coaching style that we thought might be complimentary. We decided to experiment with co-managing a team, and he liked the name Brooklyn Dodgers so I got to keep that team name for another year.

This year was interesting due to the very wide variety of player styles, which required that we individualize our instruction more than usual. For example:

We had some hitters who were afraid to swing the bat, while others were insanely aggressive. It’s pretty normal to have timid batters, and it’s pretty normal to give lectures (followed by drill) about swinging at every pitch thrown for a strike, swinging at “anything close” when you have 2 strikes against you, etc. But this was the wrong advice for two players, one of whom was my son. With these two guys, it was liking adding gasoline to a fire and their batting results got even worse after this team lecture.

So we had to take aside the two aggressive batters and explain something different. Don’t swing at pitches a foot outside the zone. Don’t swing at pitches half a foot above your shoulders. It’s okay to get a walk. Really. These two batters got virtually no walks the first half of the season and many low quality hits from balls chased way outside the strike zone. After the lecture/instruction on dialing back the aggression to wait for better pitches combined with supportive drills, both hitters improved dramatically.

My son ended up having his best stretch of hitting in his career in the second half of the season (perhaps partly due to using an MB50, his favorite Axe Bat ever). The other player did even better, hitting the ball to the 230′ fence with every other at bat, it seemed. In the last game of the playoffs that player hit so well that he got intentionally walked to load the bases when the game was on the line.

We had to individualize other aspects of the game as well—base running, fielding, pitching—the kids and their issues were all over the map. While this is true to an extent every season, it was more true this year than any other, and it helped to have coaches with different styles to address the different types of players.

The end result was again a team that improved by the end of the season and got somewhat hot entering the playoffs.

We got to a playoff game that if we won, would advance us to the championship game. The opposing team had the best regular season record, so we were the underdogs. My son got the start and did well at first but got tired in the middle of the game. They scored a few runs during that inning and when the smoke cleared the game was tied 6-6. The other team picked up 3 more runs so by the top of the last inning of the game, we were losing 9-6. Somehow, from out of nowhere, our team exploded to score 16 runs (one of which was from an intentional walk of the batter who had hit the ball to the fence all his prior at bats. He was very upset to get walked but as first base coach I promised he would score, and he did!). With a 22-9 lead, it seemed like a sure thing we’d win. They picked up 3 runs in the bottom of the inning and then we closed it out. But then . . .

The opposing head coach approached and informed us that he noticed we did an improper player rotation. Rules in our league for that infraction: Game forfeit. And yes – we had made the mistake. Unbelievable.

9 months later my son had a writing assignment in school to write about something really important to you that happened and was packed with emotion. Some kids wrote about the day they got a new pet or the day a pet died. Others wrote about moving from a foreign country to the U.S. My son? You guessed it! He wrote about this game. He described the whole game in all its exciting glory, only to be crestfallen with the forfeit outcome.

The team we forfeited to was stunned after we scored all those runs and went on to lose the championship game the following day.

Though the season ended in this disappointing fashion, the kids still felt like winners. We had, after all, just put up 16 runs in a single inning, and by one way of looking at it, we ended up winning our last playoff game of the season, which is typically only something that happens if you’re the champion. And the kids got way better at baseball throughout the season too.

Age 13:

This is by far the toughest year for me to describe. Partly it’s that the year is too fresh in my memory. Having perspective is easier with the passage of time, as you remember what’s important and forget the details. But I am confident that ten years from now, I will still feel that this season was more complicated, tense, and outright strange than any of our other rec league spring seasons.

Age 13 can be a tough age to coach, as some players become more willful, put forth less effort, and at the same time ratchet up expectations for baseball coaching expertise. Add to that a few circumstances unique to my son’s first year on “the big field,” and all the ingredients were in place for a volatile year. The circumstances:

• 8 out of the 11 players on this team had played together on a 12u summer team the previous year. Their comradery was strong . . . sometimes in a way that led to goofing off and disrespectful behavior.
• These 8 players (combined with a few other players) were skilled enough in the prior summer to beat most AA travel teams, so had developed some of the confidence and “attitude” that you might expect from such success.
• The coach they had the prior summer was by all accounts a fantastic coach who not only had very extensive baseball knowledge, experience, and coaching skill, but also a gift for relating to kids just turning into teenagers. This fantastic coach was going to be a very tough act to follow, no matter who came next.
• There were only 3 head coaches available for 4 teams. An ex-coach whose player had aged out of our league a few years earlier volunteered to come in and be head coach with the help of parent coaches, and that turned out to be our team. In our league, this was the first time in the last decade that a head coach was not related to a player on the team.
• One of our parent assistant coaches drafted the team. He did a great job, as the team ended up with good pitching depth, reasonable fielding, and “good enough” hitting. Our top 3 pitchers compared very favorably with the top 3 from any of the other teams.

In the view of some, “the big field”—the 60/90 field—is where real baseball finally begins. The throws are far, you need to swing hard to hit the ball out of the infield, and the distance of 90 feet from home to first takes a long, long time to run compared to the smaller fields of earlier years. Most of the players on this team were 13u, and therefore getting used to the big field for the first time.

So could this outside coach handle a bunch of close-knit 13- and 14-year-olds on the big field, despite comradery that sometimes bordered on unruly behavior?

At first, it seemed as though the answer was “yes.” His own son was a strong high school player, and his thought was to try to do “high school lite” at the practices. He was not as experienced as high school coaches, though, so he didn’t always know how to do everything. Nonetheless, parents appreciated having someone willing to step up as head coach, and even more so a coach willing to try to get the kids ready for high school.

The team was called the Diamondbacks, and they started out winning most of their early season games. However, the rapport between the coach and his team did not start out great during the preseason practices, and seemed to gradually worsen during the season. As discord between the head coach and his team increased, team performance decreased.

My son loves to pitch more than anything else in baseball. But, it seemed to my son that the head coach did not believe in him as a pitcher. Therefore, he felt he had to be close to perfect in every pitching outing, or he might never again get a chance to pitch this season.

The end result? My son rose to the occasion . . . by the time the season was nearly over, my son had pitched 9 innings and had had given up zero runs, earned or otherwise. He was having his best season ever as a pitcher in every statistical category except for work load . . . 9 innings and 147 pitches over the course of a rain-shortened season, with only 2 games remaining.

The light pitching load was, in one important way, a blessing. It reduced his chance for developing arm soreness leading to injury. In our league, many players between the ages of 11 and 14 developed soreness with their throwing shoulders or elbows, and quite a few ended up injured enough to require extended rest from throwing, sometimes combined with physical therapy.

So far, my son had managed to avoid significant arm issues. At the same time my son’s pitch count total was far below his usual 500-600 pitches per season, three pitchers on his team with heavier workloads routinely pitched with fatigue, sometimes leading to soreness.

With just one game left to go, the head coach said he was needed for his son’s high school baseball games, so the team was turned over to the same coach who had drafted the team. Though this was his first time as head coach, he had been the main assistant coach on several teams and had the full confidence of the families and the players.

The team was now 6-5, with playoffs starting just days after the last game of the season. The new head coach was well known and well liked, and had a way of talking to players that brought them together as a team. The new coach’s gift for gab even worked with this borderline-unruly group of 13- and 14-year-olds.

The Diamondbacks won the last game of the season. They won the first playoff game. They won the 2^nd playoff game.

We were playing really well—our best baseball of the season.

Then we found out the playoff games only mattered for home field advantage, so for the third game, the coaching staff decided to save the top pitchers for the championship weekend coming up in a couple days. Players who hardly ever pitched got some action, and we ended up losing this last, meaningless playoff game.

We won the semi-final game on Saturday and made it to the championship game on Sunday only to find out that our main catcher had suffered an accident with his hand on Saturday night. He was a scratch for the championship game. This caused a domino effect of players moving out of their best positions. Unsurprisingly, our defense stumbled and we lost the championship game.

We can’t help but wonder what we might have been able to accomplish in that championship game if our catcher had not injured his hand.

It will be interesting to see if we view this as “just another season” a few years from now, or whether it truly was more complicated, tense, and outright strange than his other spring seasons.

Age 14:

I keep thinking over and over: 10 years. Hard to believe it’s been that long. I went to a four-year college, I’ve worked for a few years in a row at the same organization. But this local league is the only organization I’ve ever been heavily involved in for 10 years in a row. Wow.

Now a new season is beginning. We are thrilled that Grady is once again head coach. February is typically a time in our league for getting in about 12 out of 16 scheduled practices, as we typically lose 4 practices to rainouts.

This year, the rain is endless. It is raining as I write, and we have had a total of 3 practices on grass so far this year, and another couple on cement. Based on current weather predictions, it looks like we may not have another practice before our first game in March. With so little practice, I expect we’ll look rusty . . .

Maybe I’ll update this age 14 slot a few months from now. Maybe not.

But what I can say is this:

We have been incredibly fortunate to be part of a local PONY league that has been very well organized, provided a great environment for kids to learn and grow, and got a whole bunch of kids ready for high school baseball.

Today, our son submitted his schedule request for his first year in high school. He told us that he was going to write the following in the comment area:

Please do not schedule a last period class for spring semester. I’m going to be on the school baseball team. Practice starts early.

The post Reflections on 10 years of Youth Baseball Part 2: Ages 9-14 first appeared on FilterJoe.

My son just entered his tenth and final year of PONY baseball. So I thought it would be fun to do a 10-year retrospective on how those years went. Rather than make this into a really long story, I’ve written just enough about each year to get the feel of it. This post covers through age 8. I’ll do another post soon that covers ages 9-14.

For me, youth baseball is about the stories and the memories. Many of my memories are still very strong, even from nearly a decade ago.

Most of my posts require a great deal of research. Not this one, so it was easy to write.

Enjoy!

Prior to Age 5:

My son watched a brief video showing baseball at the age of 20 months. He wanted to play baseball constantly thereafter. This interest had little to do with me, as baseball had always been a minor part of my life before my son was born.

I taught him to bat right-handed on the assumption that he’d share the same handedness as his parents. However, after a month of him gradually improving his hitting, he tried to be funny one day batting left-handed. He was immediately a much better hitter. That’s when we learned he was a lefty, and he turned out to be left-handed not just with baseball, but with everything.

By the time he was 2 he could hit and throw (but not catch well). The first song he learned was “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” which he learned before “Happy Birthday.” We sang both of these songs on his second birthday.

Starting around the age of 2 1/2 he wanted to play baseball with me constantly and would cry if we needed to stop playing in order to go eat dinner. The first discipline issue we ever had with him? Throwing hard things in the house . . .

In preschool, he played catch every day with another 4-year-old baseball fanatic, using whatever throwable object they could find, and they hit using plastic bowling pins. That kid’s father’s name was Grady, who turned out to have college baseball experience. Grady ended up becoming a key part of our family’s baseball experience over the next decade and a good friend. He has proofed over half of my blog posts over the years, to make sure I don’t make any “baseball mistakes.”

My son was very small for his age so people would stop in amazement to watch a toddler hardly bigger than a baby hit, throw, pitch, and catch.

Soon after his 4^th birthday he asked when he could start playing with a team. Our local league did not allow players on the field until age 5, so for many months he counted down the days until he could join a team and start playing.

Turns out that the first Sunday game would be on his birthday, so he thought of this as an awesome birthday present!

Several months before entering the league, he started mimicking the pitching motions of many major league pitchers. Satchel Page was the funniest as my son would sometimes fall over as he tilted his body way back.

But out of 20 or so pitchers he mimicked, Cliff Lee’s pitching motion gave him best results. So he adopted the Cliff Lee motion, and you can still see remnants of that pitching motion 10 years later.

The day of his 5^th birthday approached, the day he had looked forward to for so many months, and . . .

Age 5:

I signed my son up for the “Shetland” division of our local PONY recreation league. PONY is the second largest recreational youth baseball organization in the country, after Little League, and it was the closest league to our house. Also, our local PONY league had a reputation for being a good place for more serious baseball players who preferred having a lot of practices and therefore achieving a higher level of play relative to other rec leagues.

However, the 5-6 year old Shetland division is not serious at all.

When the schedule came out, my son was disappointed to find out that our team, called “Team Blue,” had a bye week on the day of his birthday. He wasn’t just disappointed. He was devastated, so we reached out to see if there was any way he could play somehow.

When Team Green’s head coach heard this story, he kindly allowed him to play for his team on this one day. We were forever grateful and I’ve joked with this coach over the years that he is primarily responsible for the baseball player my son eventually became!

For the rest of the season, his regular Team Blue head coach was very patient, had a great sense of humor, and we had a fantastic season. It was full of the typical things you see in 5- and 6-years-olds—crying, picking grass and/or digging holes in the outfield, kids running or throwing the wrong way, etc. But it was still loads of fun for most kids and their parents, and very cute.

Score was not kept, and all kids were allowed to run the bases after an at bat from coach pitch (or with the batting tee if they took too long to make contact). Kids still tried to make outs on defense because most knew the rules of baseball and what you’re supposed to do in a “real game” of baseball, but even a player thrown out could still remain on first and run the bases.

Shetland players met only once/week, on Sundays. The first 45 minutes were used for practicing skills, and the remainder of the two hours was a pseudo game of baseball.

My son enjoyed it, but was already eager to play at the 7-8 year level. At this point in our league’s history, though, players were grouped strictly by age.

After the season was over, I organized summer play, which consisted of a few players from Team Blue and other teams showing up and just having fun. If we could play a game of sorts, we did. If we didn’t have enough players for a game, we did whatever the kids found fun, such as double play practice, hitting practice off coach pitch, etc. This was the first of two summers I informally organized for extra play.

Age 6:

This year, teams got names associated with a color, and my son’s team was called the “Blue Devils.” The assistant coach of last year’s Team Blue became head coach of this year’s team, and he did a fine job. He was also helped out by coach Grady, the father of my son’s pre-school friend, who was also on the team.

At this age, there is no draft—just random assignments. The team ended up loaded with talent. Might seem strange to talk about talent at the age of 6, but . . .

Very first hit of the season from an opposing team went to my son, who was playing third base. He fielded it cleanly and rifled the ball to the first baseman. The first baseman was so shocked to see the ball fielded cleanly and thrown so hard that he didn’t move his glove. The ball hit him just below his glove, in the stomach. He cried and then sat out for the next half hour.

The team quickly shaped up and made many amazing defensive plays. I simply could not believe how much better this particular group of 5-6 year olds were than the prior year’s group. There were even 2 traditional 6-4-3 double plays (SS to 2B to 1B), both of which my son was involved in. Of course, the base runners were very slow . . . but still, it takes a lot to coordinate a double play, even with slow runners.

As it turned out, many of the players on this team turned out to be future all-stars and obvious candidates for local high school teams. This was the last year of random player assignment to teams, as drafting players for balanced teams begins at age 7 in our PONY league.

Age 7:

Finally, Pinto division baseball! You get to keep score, (hopefully) draft balanced teams, try to win, and meet 4 times/week for practices and games. Yes, it’s coach pitch, and there are no leadoffs or steals, but you’re playing the game with the intent to win as a team.

If you’re going to hold a draft, you need a way to evaluate players. So in January, for the first time my son attended an evaluation.

He had practiced a ton from the age of 2 to 6, and was just a couple months shy of his 7^th birthday. He fielded cleanly, threw hard relative to his peers, and hit every ball pitched to him, most making it to the outfield on the small diamond. It was a really good performance from the smallest guy on the field.

Like most leagues, our league allows a player who has a coach for a father to be “pre-empted” to help a head coach go into the season with a coaching staff. But this causes the coach pre-empt players to avoid the draft.

Furthermore, at this point in time our league had a drafting system that kept the 7-year-olds on the same team for the next year, for social cohesion. So the 8-year-old portion of the team each year is mostly already formed, with only a few additional 8-year-olds entering the league for the first time plus all the first year 7-year-olds.

This was not a very good system for drafting, as it tended to produce lopsided teams. It was scrapped 2 years later for a much better system.

The good news is that my son was picked to be on the Padres, headed by coach Grady. Not only did coach Grady know a ton about baseball and working with children, but my son got to be on a team with his baseball buddy from preschool.

The bad news is that he was picked to be on the Padres. The first practice we went to was stunning. To say this team was unimpressive was an understatement. It was not even close to the level of the 5-6 year olds he played with last year.

The Padres returning as 8-year olds had received poor instruction the prior year from a first time coach who was unable to quickly learn the job. In the prior year, Padres lost all games, crazy scores like 40-3 or 35-2.

Bottom Line: Despite having an awesome coach, two athletic 8-year-old players, and several promising 7-year old players, the team inherited several 8-year olds with really poor baseball skills and therefore on paper, the Padres were a really weak team.

And yes—we were a really weak team.

After a month of practices in February, we lost our first few games in March by lopsided scores. Coach Grady and his assistants were teaching the kids baseball skills at a good rate but it could only happen so fast. While the scores started out as lopsided as the prior year, the gap narrowed throughout the year as our team’s skill increased at a faster rate than other teams.

At one point, Grady requested that I start watching defensive plays so we could tell the players things they were doing well after the game.

I did that.

But I also developed a thorough system for tracking what caused an error, the beginning of what was to be a multi-year obsession with tracking anything and everything to improve players and teams.

Grady used the data I was cataloging to adjust what we were working on and it rapidly translated into a higher rate of fielding success. We went from being far below average at fielding to becoming approximately average, and were losings by just 1-3 runs for the last 3 games of the season. We still did lose every game of the regular season.

We entered playoffs as part of the tougher of two 4-team pools, and we finally won our first game! We also lost 2 games by close scores to the 2 teams that eventually faced each other for the championship game.

One of the 2 teams was undefeated for the whole season coming into that championship game, because they had the best fielding by far. Their first and only loss that season was the championship game, as they developed a case of nerves. I got the sense in our age group that parents and some coaches had big expectations at these younger ages and sometimes got very wound up about playoff games, and that sometimes got their own players nervous. Not sure if that was the case in this championship game, but I definitely saw a lot of tension in some of the playoff games during this year and the next year of the 7-8 year-old years.

So how did our family feel about this season? We loved it! It was one of our favorite seasons, because we got to see our players improve by leaps and bounds in all areas of the game, especially fielding. It is amazing to watch a team getting totally blown out every game early season, yet develop into a team that was just as good as most of the others a few months later.

My son said a few times over the years that “It’s better that we lost every game than if we had won every game because I learned a lot about losing.”

Age 8:

My son got to play another year with Coach Grady and the Padres. It was the last year of our league’s system of having 7-year olds return for a 2^nd year together. And this time, coach Grady was not inheriting players from some other coach. He picked these players last year when they were 7.

It was also a year where some kids began to grow very fast. Some players who were beginners or not very good the prior year became much better, partly because of size benefitting their hitting. My son was not one of the ones who grew, and he had been steadily decreasing his practice time over the past year. Therefore, many players passed him up in terms of actual in-game performance. His fielding was good, but he couldn’t hit the ball nearly as hard as many of the bigger players on the field.

From this point on, my son was always the shortest or second shortest player on every team. According to CDC figures, he was 25^th percentile on both height and weight for his first 9 years playing rec ball. Given his size, and his tendency to “step out,” he was never the player on the team who hit the ball hardest. But he also didn’t strike out much, so he could at least be relied upon to hit the ball in play, and typically got many singles and “reach on errors.”

The Padres were much more competitive this year but lost many games by close scores and ended up in 7^th place out of 8 teams. The Padre’s defense was good, but hitting was lackluster at first, as the team did not have many big players compared with other teams. However, hitting improved with just a couple weeks left in the season, and the Padres entered the playoffs as one of the hotter teams.

The playoffs were divided into 2 pools of 4 teams each again. The Padres came in 2^nd place in their pool, which was enough to advance to the semi-finals. The team we played next had the biggest players and the best regular season hitting, but their defense trailed behind the Padres. They were shocked to lose to us. They thought that with their league-leading hitting, nothing would stop them en route to a championship.

Defense is generally terrible at the ages of 7-8. So whichever team has the best defense is the best team, on average. One way I like to measure defensive effectiveness at this level is by how many runs the team gives up, on average.

This year, out of 8 teams, the 5^th place team gave up the fewest runs, and the 7^th place team (our team, the Padres) gave up the 2^nd fewest runs. Both teams had caught up offensively by the end of the season, because most kids eventually get the hang of hitting off coach pitch. So the two best defensive teams faced off in the championship.

The team with the best defense won the championship game. Our team, with only the 2^nd best defense, came in second place.

This was also the first year where being selected for an all-star team become a possibility. We had a very large number of good players so we had enough for two teams of all-stars. By this time, my son had been passed up by so many bigger players hitting so much better that he ended up with the weaker of the two all-star teams.

He ended up making some form of all-star team every year for the rest of his years at ECYB, but some years elected not to play with them. This is the last I’ll say about all-stars because if I start writing about that experience in detail, this already lengthy two-part post would more than double in length.

Overall, another really fantastic year.

My volunteer jobs for 3 years in a row was the team business manager, and it was my last year of doing that job, because the next year I decided to become a head coach.

To read the rest of the story, click on to:

Part 2, Ages 9-14

The post Reflections on 10 years of Youth Baseball Rec League Part 1: Ages 2-8 first appeared on FilterJoe.

My son would still be using it if he could, but due to the new bat standard which went into effect January 2018, USSSA BPF 1.15 bats are no longer legal for use in recreation leagues. The new USAbat standard attempts to bring bat barrel performance in line with wood barrels. Bat makers selling into the recreation league youth baseball market therefore introduced many new bats to conform with the new USAbat standard.

Even without the new bat standard, it was time for my son to move from a drop 10 to a drop 8 bat. He’s 13 now, which means it’s a good idea to get used to swinging heavier bats before BBCOR is required in high school . . . or sooner (see 13u Player Bat Needs).

So how well did Baden’s first USAbat Axe bat offerings perform in comparison to last year’s BPF 1.15 models? I can’t speak for all of them, but I can speak to the 2018 drop 10 Element 2 5/8″ bat which my son began using just before he turned 13. Baden Sports was kind of enough to provide me a sample for review.

To buy the Element or other 2018 USAbat models of Axe:

Axe Bat USAbat lineup

For a 10% discount off the Element or any other Axe bat at the manufacturer’s site, FilterJoe readers may use code JGOL10 when checking out (The code is usually disabled when Axe is having a sitewide sale, as often happens between Thanksgiving and Christmas).

So how well did my son do with the Element Drop 8 USAbat?

As expected, this USAbat model performed worse for him than last year’s USSSA bat.

But how much worse?

Read on to find out what my son and I thought of this bat and the impact of the USAbat standard on the Axe bat line.

A Few Words About the Impact of the New USAbat Rules

Given that this is the first year for USAbat models, any review of one of these new bats is to a large extent also a review of the impact of this new standard on performance of youth bats in general.

I’m going to assume FilterJoe readers are already familiar with the USAbat standard. If you want to brush up on the details of the USAbat standard, you can start with this site’s USAbat article.

The point of this new standard is to reduce youth bat barrel performance to be in line with wood barrel performance. In actual practice, it worked. Therefore, there is no such thing as a “hot” USAbat model.

What I am seeing in our league across the board is that players can’t hit the ball as hard or as far as they did last year when using a new USAbat. What was very clear from this year’s Gamechanger stats was that hitting was much worse for both our team and opposing teams than I’ve ever seen before, while pitching results were much better.

A few of the biggest kids in each division still hit many balls to the outfield. Most smaller players do not. I’ve heard of only one over-the-fence home run in our rec league this year in any division, compared to a typical rate of around a dozen per year across the league in recent years.

However, it’s not just about the “pop.” It’s also about the weight and balance of the bats and how well they can be controlled. Did that change too?

Yes. The weight, balance, and controllability of USAbats has changed.

My overall impression is that, compared to their predecessor models, all USAbat models I have seen used in play feel heavier to swing and are more difficult to control. The result is fewer quality line drives and/or deep fly balls. Here’s an anecdote to illustrate.

My son has a friend about 6 months younger than him in the 12u division with league-leading hitting mechanics, or close to it. Last year, I saw him hit well during games with his Combat Vigor 2 5/8″ bat. He is even more impressive with the Combat Vigor in batting practice, line driving over 2/3 of hittable pitches to deep center field. He likes composite bats so he obtained the Rawlings Quatro, which had impressed early adopters relative to other composite USAbat models. I saw him swing with both of these bats doing batting practice off his dad’s BP pitching. The difference was dramatic, despite both being 30″ drop 10 bats. His swing speed was visibly slower with the Quatro and his normally beautiful swing mechanics did not look so beautiful. In his own words, “This bat feels heavy and I’m lugging it through to the ball.” The Quatro hit quality was much worse, with most hits being grounders, popups, fly balls, and foul balls. He did hit a few line drives, but not quite as far. In short, he had a much harder time controlling the bat.

Bottom line is that all USAbat models are harder to swing, have less pop, and are not as easy to control as their USSSA counterpart bats of yesteryear. This was certainly the case for the Element Axe bat as well, as I explain in detail below.

A Few Words about What 13u Players Need in a Bat

No age is more complicated than 13u when it comes to getting the right bat. For details on that and to get better context for this article, see my recent piece on bat needs for 13u players. A very big consideration for 13u players is the fact that heavy drop 3 BBCOR bats are just around the corner. Some players may already be required to use BBCOR for middle school teams. But even for the majority who aren’t yet required to use BBCOR, many will be on a 14u travel ball team come August 1, and will therefore be swinging BBCOR.

Many coaches therefore believe that 13u is a year to get ready for BBCOR by ramping up bat weight. It’s helpful to consider what kind of BBCOR bat the 13u player will be using in a few months.

It can be a challenge for players of average size and ability to swing a heavy 31″, 28oz ounce bat. For small, light, pre-pubescent players like my son, the challenge is nearly insurmountable. The advice I’m receiving is that he should use a 30″ bat when he first swings BBCOR. So it makes sense for him to continue using 30″ bats in his 13u year, ramping up weight as fast as he is able.

A Few Words about my Son

My son was 5′ 0″, 88 pounds throughout the Spring season. Last year (2017) was his best year of hitting thanks in part due to practicing more, but also because the Axe bat he used worked very well for him. He didn’t strike out much, and the majority of hits were hard hits to the outfield. Hitting is not the strongest part of his game, but it looked like he was starting to emerge as a solid 12u hitter.

However 13u is the age our league starts using the big field (we go from 50/70 field to 60/90). Hitting it to the outfield takes more strength, and when making this transition, he had to use a bat conforming to the new USAbat standard.

So how did he do with his new Axe bat?

So How Good (or Bad) is the Drop 8 Element?

The first drop 8 Element he tried was 31″ long. I received it in October and figured that he would grow a bit, and be able to handle it by the Spring season. His first swings with it were noticeably slower than with his existing 30″ bats. In every way we tested the bat, he performed worse than with his other bats, ranging all the way from the batting tee to live pitching. Quite telling was that when I pitched easy batting practice to him, he could rarely hit the ball well, and when he did, it usually didn’t go as far as with last year’s drop 10 Axe.

In the end, I had to conclude that I made a mistake in getting a 31″ drop 8 bat for a 5′ 0″ 88 pound player. He never did gain weight because he slacked off on workouts, and he didn’t grow much either. As I explained in the 13u bat needs article, it’s not a great move to increase bat length as a 13u anyway. Increasing bat weight is the way to go, to get ready for BBCOR. He abandoned using the 31″ Element mid-season.

He does like Axe bats though so he then tried the 30″ drop 8 Element. This was more like it. His swing looked good off the tee, and while he was not as good at first with batting practice pitches, he got pretty good with it after a few sessions, nearly matching his performance with the drop 10 Axe bat from last year in terms of consistency and how hard/far he could hit the ball.

However, his game performance remained poor, and never really picked up. Gamechanger doesn’t track whiff rate (number of swinging strikes), but his strikeout rate was the highest it’s ever been (32% of plate appearances), and the quality of his hits was low, certainly lower on average than all prior seasons.

Simply put, my son has always had good bat control with prior one-piece Axe bats. He had terrible control with the 31″ Axe Element USAbat, and while his bat control with the 30″ Element was better than with the 31″, it was not good enough to translate into good in-game results. What I mean by control is the ability to adjust mid-swing in order to square up the sweet spot well with the ball.

As I mentioned earlier in the article, though, this wasn’t just about an Axe bat that missed the mark. I saw this throughout our rec league—hit quality with the new USAbat models was down across the board, and I can’t say I really saw any player control a USAbat model really well this year, regardless of model.

Also—a number of FilterJoe readers have left comments or sent me private emails expressing satisfaction with the drop 8 Axe Bat Element, especially models that were 29″ or less in length. This makes sense. If the bats are more end-weighted and difficult to control than in prior years, a way to make it easier to control is to go down in length.

On the bright side, this bat is probably closer to what he’s going to experience with BBCOR than a USSSA bat would have been. My son has realized (belatedly) that it’s going to take a lot of work for a smaller guy like him to be able to swing a BBCOR bat. If he can’t even hit well with a drop 8 USAbat, it’s going to be all the harder with drop 3 BBCOR.

I normally report on the actual versus stated weights for all bats I review. In the past, Axe bats have consistently weighed approximately 1 ounce or so heavier than the weight specified on the bat. That is approximately what I found with these two 2 5/8″ bats:

I do wonder if he would have been more successful with the 30″ if it were only 1.0 ounces over, as opposed to 1.3 ounces.

Who Should Use this Bat?

I’m guessing that part of what’s going on here is that bat makers can no longer make aluminum barrels that are super thin as in prior years, because that would cause the barrels to have too much pop, failing testing for the USAbat standard. Therefore, with thicker barrel walls, USAbat models are more end weighted and therefore difficult to swing with good control than in prior years. It sure looks like it when I watch my son and many other players swinging these bats.

Therefore, many of the old weight/length charts for bats may be out of date. For example, were my son swinging a 30″ drop 8 USSSA Axe Bat, he might be doing fine. But at 88 pounds and 5′ 0″ tall, he is not quite big/strong enough to swing a 30″ drop 8 Axe USAbat very well. To regain control of his bat, he probably would have been better off swinging a USAbat model that was either 29″ drop 8, or 30″ drop 10.

So who should use this bat? If your player likes the Axe knob design, this bat is worth looking into if you size it correctly. If your player weighs over 95 pounds, the 30″ Axe Element USAbat model should work well, and I’m guessing something like 110 pounds for the 31″ model. The 30″ is already working well for my 88-pound son in batting practice so it seems plausible that he’ll start hitting well with it in games when he gains just a few more pounds.

The Axe bat knob has multiple benefits (which I described in my first Axe bat article) and there have been many reports of the Element working well for players who use a length matched reasonably well to their body weight. Don’t make the mistake I made of thinking your player may be able to soon “grow into” an Axe USAbat model, or any other USAbat model for that matter.

Concluding Remarks

My son has used several Axe bats over the last few years. He much prefers the Axe knob design over standard knob design, and he’s really liked being able to control the one-piece Axe bats he’s used in the past. The Drop 8 Element has done nothing to dampen his enthusiasm for the Axe bat knob and one-sided hitting. However . . .

The 2018 Drop 8 Axe Element USAbat model is the first single piece Axe bat model he’s found difficult to control. It’s a big step down from the amazing USSSA 2 5/8″ drop 10 Axe bats he used last year. My son would obviously prefer to use a USSSA single-piece aluminum Axe bat anywhere it’s legal for use.

In fact, the other day he did get to use last year’s drop 10 USSSA Axe bat in a scrimmage, and while his hitting wasn’t spectacular, it was good enough—for the first time all season he reached 1^st base with each plate appearance during a game. He will be allowed to use the USSSA Axe bat for a few games prior to August 1 this summer and is looking forward to having a few last games of hitting success before the BBCOR struggle begins this August.

The big question is how does the Axe Bat Element USAbat model compare with other USAbat models. After seeing a bunch of these USAbats in action, I’m not seeing any of them that stand out significantly above the rest. I have seen a few that seem especially bad. The Element does not seem to be among the particularly bad USAbat models, but I hope that next year’s model is easier to control than this year’s model. Until then, my advice is:

If you have to use a USAbat model, and you like the Axe knob, consider what length and weight you need. Then get a bat that is not as long or as heavy as what you thought you needed. From what I’ve observed so far, all USAbat models are more difficult to control than their equivalent weight/length counterparts in USSSA models, so only by reducing length or weight will players be able to regain control of their bats.

Note that when BBCOR first came out, the first year models did not impress. After several years of innovation, there are many BBCOR models that hitters far prefer over wood bats, despite the barrel itself having no more pop than that of a wood barrel. My expectation is that that, within few years or possibly as early as next year, there will be some USAbat models that are much easier to control than any of this year’s models.

This article may have come off as critical of the USAbat standard. Personally, I think it’s a good thing long run. Obviously USAbat models aren’t as easy to get hits with as prior year models. After all, that’s the point! And it worked. My son had his worst hitting results ever at the plate with his USAbat, with a .129 batting average. But he also had his best year as a pitcher. He did not even give up a run (earned or otherwise) in his first 13 1/3 innings of pitching.

Hitters’ losses are pitchers’ gains.

My son still loves the Axe bat design and is more eager to do batting practice with an Axe bat and its ergonomic knob than the alternatives. He didn’t hit all that well with one of Baden’s first USAbat offerings, the Element. But it did wake him up to the following reality: if he’s going to be swinging a heavy BBCOR bat a couple months from now, he’d better start practicing hitting a lot more than he ever has before.

The post Axe Bat Review: Element Drop 8 USAbat vs Prior USSSA Youth Axe Offerings first appeared on FilterJoe.

Dealing with bats for a 13u player is a confusing mess. I’m here to help sort out the mess so families with 13u players don’t end up with 5 (and soon 6!) bats like we did:

This article defines a 13u player, states who must use BBCOR bats, discusses the logical progression to BBCOR, and goes into all the permutations of which bat is needed for which context.

What Exactly is a 13u Baseball Player?

For many years, the age cutoff for 13u was April 30 for every type of youth baseball organization. That is, you were a 13u for the first 7 months of the year if you turned 13 years old on April 30. If you turned 13 years old on May 1, you were a 12u for the first 7 months of the year. Then, on August 1, the 12u player turns into a 13u player, while the 13u player turns into a 14u player. In other words, August 1 is the date when all players advanced to the next age category, even though April 30 is the cutoff that defines the player’s baseball age.

This continues to be true for most travel ball tournaments in the USA. USSSA is the largest national travel ball organization and there are several sizable regional travel ball organizations such as ALL WORLD in the CA/NV region that all continue to use this age cutoff system. Even though the system has not changed in many years, it’s still confusing enough to people that USSSA has an online baseball age calculator. Other travel ball organizations such as ALL WORLD also have online baseball age calculators.

Several years ago, the national Little League organization shifted the age cutoff date 4 months later to August 31. Little League has grandfathered these changes for some age cohorts. Therefore, anyone in Little League as of the time of this writing needs to figure out for their player whether the age cutoff is April 30 or August 31. A few years from now it will be August 31 for all.

In 2018, the national PONY recreation baseball organization switched to the August 31 cutoff as well, but with no grandfathering.

Simple example: My son turned 13 in March 2018, so he is a 13u in every possible context. He will be a 14u starting August 1, 2018.

Complicated example: One of my son’s teammates was born in June, 2007. That player is a 14u in PONY league, but a 13u for travel ball. On August 1, he will be a 14u for travel ball as well. The 4 month window between May 1 and August 31 puts has caused his baseball age to shift for PONY and Little League (including the PONY World Series summer tournament), but not travel ball.

Once you understand baseball age, you can work backwards from BBCOR to determine bat requirements for a 13u.

Who is Required to Use a BBCOR bat?

The BBCOR standard has been in place at high schools since 2012. BBCOR bats have a wood-like barrel performance and cannot be lighter than drop 3. For example, a 31-inch length BBCOR bat must weigh at least 28 ounces.

BBCOR is required in the following contexts:

• All levels of High School baseball
• Many 7^th/8^th grade middle school baseball teams (13 to 14 years old)
• Most 14u travel ball tournaments

Note that technically, players may choose between BBCOR and wood bats in most of the BBCOR-required contexts. However, wood bats break so frequently that players rarely choose to use them.

My understanding is that nearly all 14u travel ball tournaments require players to swing BBCOR bats. So let’s say you turn 13 in April of 2018. Starting August 1, 2018, you’ll be using a BBCOR bat in travel ball games. Some 13u players are required to start using BBCOR earlier than that as part of a middle school baseball program or if playing on a 14u team.

Preparing for BBCOR Bat Use

It is much, much easier for players to swing a light bat than a heavy bat. At the younger ages, many players have poor hitting mechanics, and the quickest fix for that is to switch to a bat that is so light that it can be used to good effect in spite of poor mechanics and/or lack of strength.

Some kids who never develop good swing mechanics continue to use a light bat until they are forced to switch to BBCOR at the age of 14. I see some players on my son’s 13u and 14u PONY division swinging drop 10 bats. Switching to BBCOR (combined with better pitching) from a drop 10 bat is so drastic that typically, mechanics change for the worse and hitting results plummet. The switch to BBCOR contributes to some players deciding to quit the game.

The local coaches with whom I’ve discussed BBCOR have all said that it’s very helpful to practice with increased weight for many months before BBCOR bats are required. So it might look something like this:

• January through May of 13u year: Use a drop 8 bat for games, drop 5 off the tee. Even better if a player is big/strong enough to start with such heavy bats at an earlier age, but many players won’t be big enough until they’re 13.
• June and July: Use a drop 5 bat for games, BBCOR off a tee
• August: Begin using BBCOR always as a 14u.

Also helpful is to regularly do calisthenics such as pushups, pullups, crunches, planks, and squats.

It’s very important to maintain good mechanics when switching to a heavier bat. It can be helpful to practice with the heavier bat off a tee, being careful to focus on good mechanics, rather than just at batting practice and games where the player will focus more on hand eye coordination than mechanics.

Other Bat Standards

USSSA BPF 1.15 was the standard in youth baseball from the ages of 7 to 13 for many years. Pretty much all youth baseball organizations, both travel baseball and recreational leagues, followed this standard until December 2017. On January 1, 2018, most recreation leagues adopted the new USAbat standard. Most travel ball organizations continue to use the USSSA BPF 1.15 standard.

Why does this matter for 13u players?

The purpose of the USAbat standard is the same as BBCOR: To bring aluminum or composite barrel performance more in line with wood, thus returning the game to its traditional hitter/pitcher balance. It worked. It’s no longer as easy to hit the ball hard or control bats, so there are fewer multi-base hits and the balance of the game has tilted back towards pitchers in organizations that use USAbats.

Given a choice between a USAbat or a BPF 1.15 model, batters will of course choose BPF 1.15 because they have more barrel pop, more bat speed, and they are easier to control.

Putting it all together:

A typical player will likely use a USAbat model for rec league, a BPF 1.15 model with more pop for a 13u summer team, and a heavy wood or BBCOR bat for training to prepare for the August 1 switch to BBCOR for the 14u summer/fall team. In some cases, BBCOR will be required earlier for middle school.

My 13u Son’s Convoluted Example Season: 6 Bats in One Year

My son has a March birthday and is smaller than average for his age. This season he weighed in at 88 pounds and 5′ 0″ as a 13u, and it was his first time playing on the big field (60′ 6″ mound distance, 90′ bases). His 13u and 14u teammates ranged from 5′ 2″ to 5′ 8″, and 100 to 145 pounds. Size matters when selecting a bat.

Our rec league decided to have a transition period for USAbats. Our league did require USAbat for 2 5/8″ bats. However, the league allowed use of 2 1/4″ bats with either the old BPF 1.15 standard or the new USAbat standard. We wanted 7u through 10u players to have access to very light bats. Light, 2 1/4″ USAbat models for 2018 were, in actual fact, not light.

For the 13u/14u division, BBCOR is also permitted and sometimes used by the bigger players.

4 months before his 13^th birthday, I acquired a drop 8 Axe bat, the USAbat Axe Element. I figured he would continue to grow and pick up weight and therefore be able to “grow into” a 31″ bat. I was wrong. He did not grow much and he picked up no body weight at all from October to April. The weight gain was due to working out a lot from June through September, but the workouts did not continue at the same rate or intensity as before.

But even had he grown, or worked out a bunch, I was still wrong. I didn’t realize how close he was to swinging BBCOR. When it dawned upon me that he was going to be swinging BBCOR in August of 2018, I realized that given his size, his first BBCOR model would best be 30″. So he needed to be moving up in weight, for sure. But not length.

Before I realized all this, he tried swinging his 31″ Axe Element for months, but he never could swing it as well as any of his 30″ bats, even ones that were heavier or very end-weighted. It was not even close, even with easy batting practice pitching.

By mid-April he gave up on the 31″ drop 8 bat. In his occasional batting practice, he had been using a wood axe bat to try to build up his strength. It was 30″ drop 5, 2 1/4″. But our league doesn’t allow wood bats. So he tried using his Techzilla XP, a drop 9 30″ 2 1/4″ bat that is really more like drop 7 by actual bat weight, and is heavily end-weighted to boot. In batting practice he could sometimes get hold of one good with this bat, but he could not hit consistently well with it.

I also acquired a 30″ version of the drop 8 Axe Element USAbat. So he tried that one too. He gradually became more consistent with the 30″ Element in batting practice but he preferred to use the Techzilla because of the potential for a bigger hit. However, umpires decided it was not legal. It says BPF 1.15 on the Techzilla but did not have the USSSA stamp, so they believed that it didn’t satisfy league regulations.

He used the 30″ drop 8 Element for the rest of the spring season. He got better and better with in batting practice, but performed poorly in games. When he’d use his last year’s Axe bat in batting practice, he was much more consistent and could hit the ball further, but that drop 10 model was USSSA and therefore not legal for play.

So far I’ve discussed 4 bats he used: the drop 8 31″ and 30″ Elements, the drop 9 Techzilla, and the drop 5 wood Axe bat he used at the cages and off the tee to build strength. Being his 13u year, it got more complicated.

In prior years, there were always plenty of kids for select teams. Typically there was one team that was a year older than him, and 2 teams at his age. However, players gradually drop out of baseball as they get older. This year, there were only enough players for a combined 13u/14u team. He made the team but that’s when we learned that 14u requires BBCOR at travel tournaments. After looking briefly into BBCOR options, our son agreed with me that it made no sense to participate in tournaments where he’d be required to swing BBCOR—he just wasn’t big/strong enough yet. But we did learn that he would have to swing BBCOR by August as a 14u player in travel tournaments.

So instead he tried out for and made a local 13u travel team that is part of a long-term development program for youth baseball players. Now that he’s on the team, he can’t wait to use his last year’s drop 10 bat in games, so he can get some hits for a change. This is bat #5.

He is still hitting off the tee and at the cage with heavier bats (mostly the drop 5 wood Axe bat) to gain more strength. He hardly did any of this in May but as his hitting became worse, he has gained a newfound enthusiasm for training with heavier bats off the tee. We’ll see how long this lasts, but . . .

He asked me the other day to buy him a BBCOR 30″ bat. He wants to practice with the heavy drop 3 bat before August hits. Assuming I buy the BBCOR bat, it will be our 6^th bat this year. We’re just about to enter the season of bat discounting so I’m hoping to pick up a light-swinging 2017 BBCOR 30″ bat over the next few weeks.

UPDATE: I bought a used Louisville Slugger Solo 617 30″ BBCOR drop 3 bat from eBay in late June. Day after we got it, he took some swings off a tee, soft toss, and some live easy batting practice pitches. I may do a detailed review at some point but I will summarize in advance to say this bat is amazing and totally appropriate for him. He is swinging it almost as well as the 30″ drop 8 Axe Element. If he practices a bunch, I think he’ll be able to control it well enough to get reasonable results during games by August when he’s required to swing BBCOR. He is already getting some good hits with it and just needs to get a little stronger and more used to it to more consistently control it.

6 bats in one season. Would have been 5 had I not mistakenly acquired a 31″ bat. But still.

To me, 5 bats in one season seems like entirely too many. I’m fine with two bats—a wood bat for the cages and tee work, and second for games and real baseballs. Hopefully, anyone reading this will be able to plan their player’s 13u player better than I did, and maybe keep it down to 2 or 3 bats.

Even though my son isn’t ready for BBCOR, I’m looking forward to the time in the not too distant future when he’s back down to two bats. He probably won’t be able to swing a heavy bat well at first, but at least I’ll be done with the game of musical bats.

The post The Convoluted Bat Needs of 13u Baseball Players first appeared on FilterJoe.

On many rec league teams, the last spot in the batting order is occupied by the player on the team with the lowest batting average, lowest on base percentage, and the weakest base running skills, as if the last spot did not matter.

In my opinion, this is a mistake. In this post I explain why.

If you read through my series on youth baseball stats, you’ll see that I believe one youth hitting stat dwarfs all others, especially at the 9-10 year old level when pitching and stealing are first introduced:

OBP + ROE (On Base Percentage plus Reach On Error).

A .500 OBP + ROE means reaching first base without creating an out in 1/2 of plate appearances. A .750 OBP + ROE means reaching first (without creating an out) 3/4 of the time.

Why does this matter? Because runners who make it to first, usually make it to 2^nd on a stolen base, passed ball, or wild pitch. And runners who make it to 2^nd often make to 3^rd as well for similar reasons. A walk may as well be a triple. The runner on 3^rd will score with the next ball hit into play that isn’t caught.

This sequence plays out especially frequently at the ages of 9-10, but also somewhat at ages 11-12, and even a little bit at ages 13-14 as well. As field size increases, it gets harder to steal, fielding improves, and batting averages decline, so the value of OBP + ROE declines as players get more skilled and move on to bigger fields, but it still matters.

What does this have to do with batting order? A lot. Let’s start with a review of the first 5 spots in the batting order.

If your goal is to maximize run production, you want your highest OBP + ROE players in the first 1-3 spots in the lineup, and then your players most likely to drive then in occupying the 3-5 spots of the lineup, typically the hitters on the team who can hit the ball hardest. The #3 hitter is especially key as you want that player to be both good at getting on base and running the bases competently, and also good at hitting the ball hard and bringing in any runners that are on base. Therefore, the #3 hitter will typically be the player whose batting average (perhaps with ROE added in) is the highest on the team, not a player who gets to first often from a lot of walks.

All this is standard doctrine that doesn’t really change at any level of baseball, though the ROE part becomes meaningless at the highest level of baseball because errors are rare and little influenced by anything the batter does. Stated in terms of general principles:

If you have runners on base, you don’t want them wasted. And if you have players who often get hits, you’d rather them get the hits when runners are on base, causing some or all of them to score.

You won’t see much debate on how to arrange the 1-5 spots of a lineup, assuming everyone agrees that the stats for the players are an accurate representation of their hitting ability and what kind of hitting production is likely in future plate appearances.

What about the spots after the #5 spot? Many times, I see the remaining spots filled in approximately descending order of hitter effectiveness. In other words, in a 12 player batting lineup, the first 5 spots are filled in as described above. Then you rank your batters in terms of hitting effectiveness and put the top ranked remaining hitter in the #6 spot, the second highest ranked player in the #7 spot, and so on until the #12 spot is occupied by the least effective hitter on the team, and often the least effective base runner as well.

Computer simulations suggest that this might actually be the best ordering for MLB baseball. But I can’t imagine that computer simulations would generate the same results for youth baseball, assuming base running, wild pitches, etc. were taken into account in addition to the hitting stats.

Let’s assume in a 12 player lineup that the #8 hitter doesn’t hit the ball hard but gets on base a bit due to walks and dinks down the 3^rd base line that often result in singles. This #8 batter is also a fast runner and/or competent base stealer (However, the #8 hitter is not getting on base as much as the hitters occupying the #1 or #2 spot in the lineup). And let’s say the #9 through #12 hitters are all lower OBP + ROE hitters and worse at running the bases. The #12 hitter is the worst base runner of them all.

So here’s what can (and does!) happen. In the first inning of hitting, 2 runs score and the 3^rd out is made by the 7^th batter with 2 runners stranded, because the hitters at the top of the lineup are, after all, good hitters. The second time this team bats, the 8^th batter leads off with a walk. Steals 2^nd. #9 strikes out. #10 weakly pops up to the shortstop. #11 grounds out. Inning over, runner stranded.

The 3^rd batting inning starts off with the #12 batter striking out. So we have 1 out going into the top of the order, with no runners on. Or even worse, the #12 batter walks, followed by the #1 batter grounding into a double play because the #12 batter didn’t steal 2^nd base and was very slow to run to 2^nd base when the grounder was hit to the shortstop (or a double play due to a fly ball and the runner being thrown out before returning to first). Yes, I know, double plays don’t happen much in youth baseball, but . . . another possibility is that the top of the order guy makes it to first safely, advancing the #12 batter to 2^nd. No stealing is going to happen for the speedy top of the order hitter or anyone else, though, because the bases are clogged. It’s even possible no runs will score this inning despite going through the top of the order with 2 runners on and no outs, again because of the slow leading base runner stopping the running game and increasing the likelihood of force outs or double plays.

So if I don’t like the descending order for #5 through #12, what DO I like?

The baseball savvy among you already know where this is going, as I stacked the lineup to make it somewhat obvious:

The #8 batter who gets on base so much should be the #12 batter. He is absolutely wasted in the #8 spot. He may have the 3^rd or 4^th highest OBP + ROE on the team, but in the #8 spot he will almost never score. Put him at the #12 spot and he will score a lot of runs, and he will not clog up the bases.

On every team I am the head coach, players hear my spiel about how much I value the batter in the last spot of the lineup. If they start getting on a hot hitting streak and the #1 or #2 hitter cools off, I may rotate between them, moving the #1 or #2 guy to the last spot, and the formerly last batter to the #1 or #2 spot.

The goal of baseball is to score runs. Stranded runners don’t score runs. So the guys who get on base most (but without much power) should occupy the #1, #2, and last spots of the lineup. While I probably value the #3 hitter more than any other on the team, the #1, #2, #4, #5, and last hitter in the lineup are all super important to the game plan as well.

My son knows all this and is actually one of those hitters who gets on base a lot but in most seasons hasn’t had much power. When he is getting on base a lot but always getting stranded because he is #7 or #8 in the lineup, he will sometimes tell me in private he wishes his coach would put him last in the lineup, not just so that he could score more runs, but because he wants his team to score more runs and therefore have a better chance of winning.

For all those coaches out there putting the weakest batter in the last spot of the line up—don’t do it! At the very least make sure the last spot is occupied by a fast and competent base runner, but better yet make sure he gets on base a lot, with an OBP + ROE among the top few hitters on the team.

For all you parents who grumble about your player batting last despite getting on base a lot. Your coach may or may not communicate the reason. But consider that your coach may be doing it because it’s best for the team if your high OBP + ROE player scores a lot of runs rather than getting stranded.

The last spot in the batting order matters.

The post Last Spot in the Batting Order first appeared on FilterJoe.

 Yes!


 But how?

Try doing a few google searches for articles about small or big players in youth baseball. Did you find anything? Me neither. Outside of a few opinions shared on forums devoted to youth baseball, you’ll find nothing. That’s amazing, considering how big of an impact size has at the youth level.

In youth baseball, the bigger you are, the harder you throw and hit the ball, on average. Therefore, bigger kids usually get more playing time, bigger roles on the team, and more opportunities. Meanwhile, smaller kids are usually given less interesting roles and more bench time.

Some of the bigger kids clearly perform better at the young ages, especially with hitting. Will they continue to outperform all the way through the end of high school? Apart from highly gifted athletes, do smaller players even stand a chance? How can parents better support their child if they understand how their kid fits in, size-wise?

In this post, I explore these issues by first laying out the 4 possible scenarios, and then exploring each scenario separately.

The 4 Possible Player Size Scenarios

Consider two 12-year olds. 4′ 8″, 82 pound Carl looks so small standing next to his 5′ 6″ 130 pound teammate Bob, who just started shaving. But Carl keeps growing, and a few years later Carl has a huge growth spurt. By age 18 Carl is 6′ 3″ tall and 190 pounds, while Bob is 5′ 7″ tall and 140 pounds. Bob was an early developer. Carl was a late developer.

In other words, big versus small before puberty is only part of the size/development equation. Early versus late development matters more.

For the purposes of this article, I’m going to consider 4 possible growth paths for kids:

• Always Small (Small/Small): Small as kid, small as an adult
• Late developer (Small/Big): Small as a kid, big as an adult
• Early Developer(Big/Small): Big as a kid, small as an adult
• Always Big (Big/Big): Big as a kid, big as an adult

These categories are not precisely defined. For example, consider a player like my son at the 25^th percentile of height/weight from the age of 3 to 14 but who (likely) ends up at the 45^th percentile at the age of 18. Prior to high school, he always appears 1-2 years younger than his peers. I would consider this player a late developer in the small-big category despite not being all that big at the age of 18, because that is how his baseball experience will pan out. On the other hand, a player who starts at 45th percentile and ends at 45^th percentile, and physically develops at an average rate would have an experience more in line with a small/small. And a player who started at 65^th percentile and ended at 70^th percentile with weight/height may well actually follow more of the late developer small/big path if they appear to be less coordinated than their peers at a young age and not have the slightest signs of puberty until they are 14. Consider the above categories as templates for how a player experiences youth sports, not precisely delimited size categories.

Obviously you can tell whether a kid is currently big, small, or of average size. But can you actually tell what is coming later?

The simple answer is you can’t. You never know for sure until a person is in his or her early twenties. The more complex answer is that you can usually get a rough idea. There are various formulas for estimating adult stature, and you easily use an online calculator to get that estimate. There are also various clues, such as:

• How tall are the parents? If the parents are tall, chances are good that their child will grow tall regardless of whether they are small or big at age 10.
• Was one or both parents an early or late developer? If the kid is small but at least one parent didn’t finish going through puberty until nearly done with high school, there’s a good chance that the growth spurt will come later and height/weight may eventually catch up to (or surpass) peers.
• Birthday? The oldest kid on an age-segregated baseball team is typically 11 months older than the youngest. At the age of 18, 11 months hardly matters, but at prepubescent ages, 11 months typically adds 2-4 inches of height, 10-20 pounds, and neurological development that leads to greater coordination. The youngest player of a given age group will make up the size difference when puberty is complete for all.
• For kids who are 10-14 years old, what signs of puberty do you see? A big 12-year old with no baby fat, an unusually muscular body build, lots of pimples, and the first few tufts of chin hair may end up being small as an adult. A small 13-year old who still looks pre-pubescent and would not look out of place among a group of 11-year olds may end up being of average size at the age of 18, or possibly bigger than average. He’s nowhere near done growing so it’s hard to know.

To elaborate on these last two points: there’s a difference between chronological and biological age. A kid is chronologically 12 years old on the day of his 12^th birthday. But if he has many signs of being well advanced through puberty, he may well be biologically 14 years old. This means that his biological development is average for someone who is 14 years old, despite only being chronologically 12. The same of course can happen in reverse; a 12-year-old may look very small with no signs whatsoever of even having started puberty, perhaps biologically 10.5 years old despite being chronologically 12.

A child’s true biological age cannot be determined precisely based on appearance or the clues discussed above. While doctors can reliably test for biological age with X-rays of growth plates to determine bone age, most children don’t get bone age X-rays. Without X-rays, a child’s biological age can (at best) only be roughly approximated.

Why does all this matter? The kids with biological age a couple years higher than chronological age will not only be bigger and stronger, but they will often also be more mature and coordinated as might be typical for someone who is older. All of this means that, on average, such kids will be athletically advantaged throughout childhood. By the time high school is over, the heights and weights (and more importantly neurological and muscular development) of many slow developers catch up to (and in some cases surpass) their peers, and this will have a big positive impact on their relative performance on the field.

There is often confusion in size discussions about other important differences between players such as athleticism and acquired skill. Obviously someone born with incredible athletic talent will be noticed and go far no matter what their body size or type. In baseball, Jose Altuve is only 5′ 6″ tall but is an extremely gifted athlete. Basketball had Mugsy Bogues, a 5′ 3″ point guard. Yes, if you are as athletically talented as Altuve or Bogues, and you work hard, you will go very far.

However, the typical recreation baseball league, AA travel ball team, or even AAA travel ball team is not going to have a single player who has even close to the athletic talent of Altuve or Bogues. This article focuses on typical young athletes playing baseball, who are perhaps between the 25^th and 99^th percentile in athletic talent. Those in the top 1% of the athletic talent pool are so gifted that they will likely thrive no matter how big they are or how their athletic development is handled. For the vast majority of players who have more ordinary talent, size has a huge impact on the experience, as discussed in detail below.

Parents who understand where their child falls among the four categories of size may be better able to support their kid’s aspirations to play baseball or other sports, whether it’s just to have fun for a few years at the recreation league level, or whether it’s to eventually play high school varsity baseball.

Scenario 1: Always Small (small/small)

Sometimes it’s easy to tell if a small 8-year old will grow up to be a small adult. If both parents are much smaller than average, then it’s likely their small 8-year old will eventually be a small 20-year old. It’s possible for such a child to have a huge early growth spurt at the ages of 10-13, temporarily making him bigger than most of his peers. However, this is not too common, and even if it does occur, he’ll still be one of the smallest players on any team for all but 1 or 2 years.

Does this mean he should quit baseball at the age of 8?

Not at all!

There are other variables besides size that determine baseball success, namely athleticism, throwing ability, and perhaps most importantly the motivation to practice (with high quality and quantity). There are many stories (such as this one) of small players who loved the game of baseball so much that they worked incredibly hard, kept improving their mechanics, and persisted no matter what the obstacles, eventually surpassing most peers regardless of size.

Note that in the long run, if the child will be attending a small to mid-sized high school, there will almost certainly be a few players on the team who are considerably below average in size. However, being able to make the varsity team of a very large high school team as a small player is tougher, requiring considerable athletic or pitching talent in addition to high motivation.

For players with average or even moderately above-average athletic talent who are not extremely motivated, small size has a big impact at the elementary and middle school years.

My son is always the smallest or second smallest player on every team he’s been on. He recently turned 13 years old but looks to me more like 11 or 12. I’m a 5′ 10″ adult who didn’t finish going through puberty until the end of high school, so it’s possible my son will be an average-sized 18-year old like I was. Or maybe he’ll come out a bit shorter than that. More likely than not, he’s in the late developer category (small/big), but who really knows?

However, I’ve had a lot of experience seeing how the smallest guy on a team is treated, and I’ve taken a keen interest in other small players I’ve seen, including ones with very short parents.

The most obvious thing to notice about small baseball players is that there aren’t very many of them playing in a recreation league or any other form of organized baseball. According to the growth chart put out by the CDC the median height of a boy just turning 9 years old is 4′ 4″, and the median height a few days before he turns 10 is 4′ 6″. So you might think you’d see many players in a 9-10-year-old rec league division who are below the height of 4′ 5″.

Nope.

When my son played his first year of PONY Mustang (ages 9-10), I looked around our league. Out of about 60 9-year olds, there were around 6-8 players who were below 4′ 5″ tall, as compared with the 25-35 you might expect from a random sampling of 9-year-old boys in the U.S. My son, who has consistently been close to the 25^th percentile of height and weight for his age, is always the shortest or second-shortest player on his team.

What I also find interesting is that kids who are at exactly the median height for their age according to CDC are often considered “small” on their teams, because so many kids attracted to the sport of baseball are bigger than average. In this article I consider these median-sized kids small as well (especially if they seem to be trailing their peers in puberty/physical development), because coaches tend to think of and treat median-sized kids as small. However, it’s not a black or white thing. The shorter the player (and further they lag behind peers in physical development), the more intense will be their experience of what it’s like to be considered “small” by coaches and peers.

Many smaller players are discouraged from playing sports to begin with. Often the parents are short as well and believe that athletics is a lost cause for the small, so don’t particularly encourage their kids to try sports at a young age. There are undoubtedly other social factors at work that subtly discourage smaller kids from ever trying an organized sport.

Some short parents do encourage their small players to join organized sports. And of course some short children develop a desire to play sports on their own. So there are always a few small players who join recreation baseball leagues between the ages of 5 to 9.

I’ve observed that most of the players below 45^th percentile of size quit within 3-4 years.

When I see kids quit the game of baseball, regardless of size, it is typically 1 of 3 reasons:

1. Too fearful of getting hit/hurt by a baseball
2. Don’t like the game much, especially the slow pace (so they switch to a more active sport like soccer or basketball)
3. They become discouraged at performing worse than most players, especially at hitting

The first two reasons are common to players of all sizes. However, from what I’ve observed, a disproportionate number of players who drop out for the 3^rd reason are kids who are either smaller or whose biological age is lagging their chronological age. This strikes me as a shame because it’s not much different than taking a kid with average ability and forcing them to play with kids who are 2-3 years older. Yes—quite often a short player performs at a much lower level than his peers. A normal reaction to performing poorly is to quit and get involved in activities where average effort leads to average results. A short player with average (or slightly above average) athleticism must exert much more effort to get average results.

Some people point out that it’s only natural for kids to be attracted to activities at which they have success, and to avoid activities which are much more difficult for them. For smaller kids who are likely to be small as an adult as well, isn’t it better to steer away from activities for which there is little hope of attaining a high degree of mastery in the long term?

Maybe so, but there’s a lot of small kids that love baseball, and it’s still possible for them to enjoy playing baseball in their childhood.

For small kids who love baseball but don’t have extraordinary athleticism or motivation, it’s easy for parents to find an environment in which the player can thrive. Simply join a recreation league that allows kids to play based on ability (or size) as opposed to age. Even some age-based leagues allow exceptions for kids to “play down” or “play up” based on ability or size. Small players with average ability do fine when playing with players of similar size.

As someone who writes frequently about bats, I must also mention that short and light players should use short bats. Every time my son has used a bat that was too long for him, his hitting suffered a great deal. At the older ages it’s even more important: if a short player keeps playing baseball through the age of 14, they will be required to buy a very heavy (drop 3) BBCOR bat, and that bat will need to be short if a small hitter is going to have any chance at all to hit well. At age 14, I would not go over 30″ length of BBCOR bat for a very small batter and 29″ should be considered (note that my son tried a 31″ drop 8 bat as a 13u for several months with poor results). So given that 29″ or 30″ BBCOR is the end game, at the younger ages small players should be reluctant to get longer bats. They should limit length to 30″, while gradually increasing weight from the ages of 12 to 14 until they reach drop 3. (Note: 6 weeks after this article was published, I purchased a light-swinging BBCOR 30″ model for my son and it’s working out surprisingly well: Louisville Slugger Solo 617 30″ BBCOR drop 3 bat).

An interesting issue is when the kid is small, but displays considerable talent and/or skill in some aspects of the game. It’s an especially interesting issue when such a kid is in the late developer category. What then? This is discussed in the next section.

Scenario 2: Late Developer (small/big)

I think my son pretty well fits the late developer scenario so I’ll use him as an example to start off this section.

My son has been 25^th percentile for height and weight throughout childhood. Even though he’s usually the smallest player on a baseball team, he’s likely to end up closer to 45^th percentile (perhaps 5′ 9″) by the time he’s in his last year of high school, passing up at least a few players in height. He will soon be 13 years old, but looks more like he is 11 or maybe 12. A neighbor asked recently if my son was 10.

My son is not among the fastest runners, best hitters, or hardest throwers in his rec league. However, he is a lefty who throws accurately with efficient mechanics. He has above-average athleticism, a thorough understanding of the game, and a non-stop love for baseball that literally started before he was 2 years old. In recent years, he has been valued at both the rec league and AA travel ball levels for his pitching, getting consistently good results.

Though my son has had some success at the game, and especially with pitching, it hasn’t always been fully recognized. There have been times on more competitive summer teams when my son generated team-leading pitching stats, yet was not given an opportunity to pitch at a critical tournament; instead he watched from the bench or right field as a harder-throwing, bigger kid threw away games with numerous walks and wild pitches. I have seen him bumped to the bottom of the batting order on teams where his batting average and on-base percentage was higher than all but 4 or 5 players, because he did not hit the ball as hard in batting practice. I have seen big players playing first base despite numerous errors and little ability to scoop throws out of the dirt while my short left-handed son is sitting on the bench. And then the one or two token innings he gets to play first base for the weekend, he makes all the plays, including scooping throws out of the dirt and nailing a runner at another base. But then, the first time a shortstop makes a throw that’s out of reach for the short first baseman, it confirms what the coach thought all long: it’s best to play one of your biggest players at first base.

As a parent, it was maddening when I started to see this kind of thing at the age of 8. But in recent years I’ve not only accepted the reality, I’ve actually come to think of being a short, late developer as an advantage. Why?

The obvious advantage is that he has to work harder and develop better mechanics to keep up. These kind of habits will better serve him in the long run. But there’s also something specific if the short player happens to have pitching ability (even better if he’s a lefty pitcher, like my son):

Arm overuse at young ages (and most especially for those with bad mechanics) often leads to pitching arm injuries in the long run. Since the age of 8, my son has each year logged approximately 900 game pitches in 60 innings of pitching (I’ve tracked it, mostly with Gamechanger). This is a modest workload, as compared with several big, hard-throwing pitchers I’ve observed pitching 2000-4000 pitches annually. My son may well suffer an arm injury before his baseball days are done. However, chances are much higher for permanent injury with bigger players with worse mechanics who throw many more pitches and sometimes pitch through elbow or shoulder pain.

If your small player learns to compensate for bias by practicing more, learning more efficient mechanics, and playing harder and smarter, then be happy with what this leads to in the long-term. Even if he doesn’t play baseball in high school, developing the right kinds of habits to maximize performance in anything is only going to help later in life.

As a parent, it’s very important to encourage your child to work harder in the face of bias. Encourage your kid to control what can be controlled, and ignore the rest. It’s rarely possible to control what a coach thinks or does. So focus on what can be done, which is work hard, develop good mechanics, and take advantage of whatever opportunities arise.

It may be hard for some parents to accept perceived unfairness, especially when current in-game performance is overlooked in favor of size-based potential. What I’ve observed over the years is many coaches do not evaluate players purely based on current in-game performance. Coaches know from experience that on average, bigger players are better players. Even big, athletic players currently making many mistakes will eventually improve with repetition. Put bluntly, most coaches believe that the bigger and more athletic, the greater the potential upside. Most coaches believe the exact opposite for shorter players unless they display incredible athleticism. Even if a coach notices that a short player is performing very well at the moment, upside is considered limited.

It’s unusual for a pre-pubescent late developer to participate in the rarified levels of play attained by elite travel ball players. It’s hard even to attain the somewhat challenging AAA travel ball level. So what. Just let late developers play at the level where they’ll get some playing time and enjoy the game. If they keep enjoying the game, they’ll keep playing. If they develop good work habits and catch up in size and physical development, eventually they’ll have their moments of glory. These moments may not come until their 3^rd or 4^th year of high school, or in rare cases later than that (read the Daniel Nava story for an extreme example). But they will come. And as I detailed in the prior section—be sure to use a short bat.

Scenario 3: Early Developer(big/small)

What I just described for late developers may sound frustrating for parents of such players to watch. They may watch their child over the course of many years unsuccessfully compete with players 6-9 inches taller and 50-100 pounds heavier, sometimes even getting passed over despite superior performance. However, being the parent of an early developer can be even more frustrating.

Time and again, I have seen parents of a big, muscular kid below the age of 12 get very excited about their young ballplayer’s future prospects. He hits the ball harder and farther than most players in the league. He is one of the hardest throwing pitchers. He is usually a fairly high draft pick for the local recreation league—that is, if he hasn’t already been recruited away from rec league to join a travel ball team.

Occasionally, an unusually large, talented, hardworking young ball player plays well throughout childhood, in high school, and eventually as a starter on the local high school varsity team, despite topping out at a relatively modest height of 5’7″ or thereabouts. However, I have already seen a few large kids who were not so hard-working pretty much stop growing at the age of 12 or 13, an age when some players grow 6-9 inches in less than a year and pass them right up.

That’s when the dreams of some parents come crashing down. The game speeds up, the players are all getting better, but their own son’s physical development and baseball performance no longer keeps up with his peers. But in one crucial way, it’s even worse:

Many early developers develop bad habits when young. Their size and early physical development allow them to perform well if they have poor hitting and throwing mechanics, lackadaisical base running skills, unsound fielding skills, and a negligible work ethic. In some cases, I see such kids get away with poor performance—that is, they get given many chances on account of their size, and must perform quite poorly to lose the confidence of their coach.

Of course, some early developers work hard at their game, developing excellent skills and work habits. In many cases these players leave rec league to join travel ball teams, and sometimes higher level travel ball teams.

However, given that my son plays in recreation league, I get to see some early developers who did not matriculate to travel ball. At the young ages, these early developers competed with players who were mostly not at the same stage of physical development. For example, think of what it’s like when an 11-year-old baseball player plays among 8-year olds. Even if he’s just slightly above average for an 11-year-old baseball player, he is so much better than the 8-year olds that he can coast without having to exert himself. I have seen early developers who seem like 11-year olds among 8-year-olds. They don’t just look bigger. They also look older and more muscular, despite being the same age.

If you know the genes in your family tend towards early development, and you can see that happening with your young baseball player, it’s important to temper expectations for yourself and your player. As I explain in So You Want Your Kid to Be a Good Baseball Player, you don’t want to praise your son’s talent or current performance. You want to praise their hard work. Given that they are physically advanced for their age, I think it’s worth encouraging them to play with other physically advanced players.

In my view, one of the better arguments for travel ball is to give motivated early developers a chance to play with other early developers, so that coaches and heightened competition can help them develop a work ethic and more advanced baseball skills. There still may be disappointment down the road when an early developer is eclipsed in high school by players who were half a foot shorter at the age of 9. But size isn’t everything in baseball. Working hard and smart from the earliest ages all the way through high school is the only way a player will find out how much ball player is actually in them, no matter how big or small they start or end.

Scenario 4: Always Big (big/big)

This is undoubtedly the weakest section of this article. Why? Because I don’t have much experience with it. Many big, athletic kids with big, athletic parents leave recreation leagues at a young age to join travel ball teams. Quite often, such players quickly advance from the AA level to the much more competitive AAA level, or perhaps even higher. Given that my son is a small late developer, my contact with “always big” players has mostly been with those who have limited aspirations to make the best use of their talents. Coasting through a rec league (even a really good rec league) as one of the best players on account of size will for many players not provide enough incentive to work hard, develop better mechanics, and refine fielding skills. Travel ball is a reasonable answer for such players, if they aspire to start as a varsity high school player some day.

Having tall, athletic parents, and growing up taller and more athletic than one’s peers confers advantage at every stage of one’s athletic career in sports that reward size. Baseball is obviously one of them, because size helps with both throwing and hitting. Apart from the possibility of coasting as mentioned previously, the main downside to being big and athletic all the way through is the potential for overdoing it.

It is easy to get carried away at the early ages for those who are identified early as having the right set of genes. Some play year round, join multiple travel teams, and/or play for an elite team that begins very intense training and a very demanding schedule at an early age. While there is no doubt that repetition and exposure to the best coaches and stronger competition will advance such players faster than if they just play a few months each year of rec ball, there is overwhelming evidence that year-round play or excessive pitching and/or throwing increases the chances of repetitive stress injuries and/or imbalanced physical development.

To be blunt, some very promising big athletes peak during or just before high school, but after accumulating too many arm injuries (usually elbow or shoulder), go into decline. This will have the biggest impact on catchers and pitchers, but declining arm strength does impact defensive ability in other positions as well.

I don’t have enough personal experience to be able to recommend the right balance of exposure to higher levels of training and competition for big, athletic, talented, and motivated players so as to best promote their development without exposing them to excessive repetitive injury risk.

My extensive readings suggest that year-round play in a single sport is not good for anyone. So one thing I do recommend is encouraging young baseball players to rotate out of baseball in the fall and winter to play other sports, or at least taking a couple months off each year from baseball to give the arm time to recover. And if you’re not playing multiple sports, it’s better to start a regular baseball workout routine sooner rather than later.

However, if anyone reading this has experience with players in this category, I would appreciate if you would leave comments/advice for parents below.

Depending on Size, How Should You Advise your Baseball-loving Son?

Size is not the only variable or the most important variable when figuring out how to best support your child’s baseball experience. In my view, a more important variable is the player’s level of interest.

I know a player with big parents who was always one of the biggest and strongest players. But he wanted baseball to be just a fun activity and never had an interest in being on the too-serious all-star or travel ball teams, where he might have to work at his game. After playing 8 years of recreation baseball, he just joined the league’s select team for the first time at the age of 14. For him, that’s fine, baseball was clearly just a form of recreation. Had he had more than a recreational interest, though, he would have been much better off putting himself in situations where he was challenged more, and forced to develop better mechanics, better work habits, and better baseball smarts to keep up with his peers. The reality is that he has always been able to coast his way through rec league without focused practice as one of the top players on account of his size, and it may be too late at this point to reverse many unfortunate habits he’s picked up along the way.

My own son has been interested in going as far as possible with baseball since the age of 2. This comes from him. Neither me nor my wife were too serious about athletics growing up. However, we want to support his passions as best we can, and it just so happens that he has consistently had a passion for baseball.

Our son is a small player with above-average athleticism but clearly not an “elite” athlete. He could already throw, hit and catch by the age of 3 and he could throw strikes as a pitcher by the age of 5. We had no idea that his small size would matter much until we first encountered all-star teams at the age of 8. It quickly became apparent that the path for a small late developer is not an easy one, but we have found many ways to support him to continue enjoying baseball until his physical development catches up to many of his baseball peers.

My son is now in 7^th grade and while we don’t know when and how it will end, he still loves baseball and wants to keep playing as long as he can. He’s in his 9^th year of organized baseball, still loving the game, and looking forward to joining his high school baseball team despite some discouraging moments. Baseball has already been a great part of his life, regardless of the ultimate outcome. So what have we done to support him?

Mostly, we have just let him take the lead. Each year we present options for him—he can stop playing baseball, he can take a season off, he can continue with rec ball, or he can join a travel ball team. He consistently chooses rec ball, as he likes the level of play our well-organized league offers, and he greatly values being with his friends. We’ve also encouraged him to try other sports and develop a regular workout routine, in order to physically develop in a more balanced way. Whatever he chooses, we’ll support him. Only occasionally have we strongly tried to sway him in one direction or another.

I have a recent example of when we did try to steer him in a certain direction. He recently tried out and made a select team for our PONY league but they didn’t have enough players for separate 13u and 14u teams. So he joined the combined team. He is one of the only two players who are below 5′ 4″ tall (both he and the other guy are just below 5′ 0″), and he is by far the lightest at only 88 pounds, as compared with most players weighing between 140 to 180 pounds. He did not make the main roster, so he is an “alternate,” which means he may get called up to play in a tournament if a regular roster player can’t make it. All that may have been fine, but the big issue is that they are participating in 14u tournaments that require BBCOR drop 3 bats. He’s simply not yet big, strong, or skilled enough to swing a drop 3 bat. Not even close. My wife and I suggested he stay away from an experience where he would have been on the bench most of the time if he was even invited to a game, and then he would not have fared well at the plate with a too-heavy bat. He agreed with our reasoning. The end result is that he attending practices for a nominal fee, but joined a 13u-only summer travel team that worked out well for him.

Despite not being able to swing a heavy bat, my son’s confidence in his baseball ability is the highest it’s been in years, thanks to flawless fielding and pitching on this year’s rec team. His hitting is not keeping up with players 40-80 pounds heavier than him, but this has motivated him to resume working out after lapsing for several months, and a round of hitting balls off a tee with a heavy bat is now part of his calisthenics routine.

I mention these two stories to illustrate how making choices over the course of many years playing baseball will be different depending on size, and the opportunities that present themselves. If you assess your player’s current and future prospects with a realistic perspective that includes factors such as size, athletic talent, and perhaps most importantly motivation/interest, it may help your family make better choices when various opportunities present themselves.

Can you predict with precision how big your player will get, and how much interest they will continue to have in baseball? No you can’t, at least not with any precision. But you may be able to piece together a reasonable approximation of your child’s level of interest, athletic talent, and expected size progression. This may help you figure out where your player fits in, and how best you can support them getting there.

I’ve undoubtedly missed some issues, especially when it comes to players who are unusually large before puberty. So feel free to share any personal experiences or words of wisdom in the comments.

The post Does Player Size Matter in Youth Baseball? first appeared on FilterJoe.

So how are the early USAbat models actually doing in the hands of young baseball players?

My son has only personally tested one bat model, but reports are coming in from other parents testing various models, including one parent who spent over $3000 of his own money to test many of the new bats. In this post I share some of these early takes, including some personal observations I have from visiting my local Big 5 and weighing a few bats. Quite a bit of the information for this article comes from a USAbat thread at Baseball Fever, where coaches and other avid youth baseball parents honestly share information.

tldr version:  Most of the expensive composite USAbat models disappoint, while a few of the more affordable single-piece aluminum bats stand out as good values.

Read on for details, including recommendations for a couple specific models that seem like early standouts.

Before I go on, please understand that we’ll have much better information by April of next year, after we’ve seen these bats used in a few games. It’s one thing to test bats with a batting tee, at the cages, or off coach pitch. It’s another thing entirely to see how well kids can control their bats when experiencing the pressure of actual games, especially if kids pitch.

I’ll be sure to write a more comprehensive and reliable bat buying advice guide after the spring 2018 baseball season similar to my previous guide. I’ll also write a comprehensive review of the bat my son will be swinging in 2018, similar to the review I wrote on his 2017 Axe Bat.

This article assumes you know all the technology and vocabulary related to youth baseball bats. If you don’t, be sure to read my deep dive into bat technology.

So let’s start with the heavier bats:

Drop 5 and Drop 8 bats

If a player is big and strong enough to swing it, a heavier and longer bat will provide plenty of pop just from the weight of the bat. This makes it easier to make a heavy bat that meets the new standard and seems to perform well. There’s a reasonable selection of drop 5 and Drop 8 USAbat models to start with. For the most part, these bats will be appropriate for the ages of 12 and up, though a big 100+ pound 10-year-old can also find success with a drop 8 bat.

I have so far seen few reviews of drop 5 and drop 8 bats from parents of kids who use them. However, I have experience with one of them:

My son will be turning 13 in early 2018, so I got him his first drop 8, the Element Axe Bat model, in a 31″ length. We took it out for 30 minutes and he compared it to two other bats he owns, the MB50 that he used last year, and the Anderson Techzilla XP which had previously been too heavy for him but is comparable in swing weight to the Element. I threw him easy-to-hit daddy pitches.

Being used to last year’s 30″ drop 10 model, he hit best with that one. The new model is both heavier and longer. His swing was slower and he couldn’t control it as well, so hit quality was less consistently good with the new Element. However, when he did manage to hit it solidly, he could hit it just as far as with his lighter Axe Bat. And he was able to control it considerably better than the Anderson Techzilla.

Overall he and I were both pleased with the new bat, as the pop seemed, at worst, only slightly less than his previous bat despite the tougher new standard. We are confident that he’ll do much better with it a few months from now when he’s a little bigger and heavier. At the time of testing, my son was 4′ 10″ tall and weighed 86 pounds. I expect that he’ll be over 100 pounds and over 5′ 0″ tall for most of the time he uses this bat, which will mean a higher swing speed, better bat control, and a return to the consistent hit quality he had with the lighter drop 10 Axe bat he used throughout 2017.

My son and I are not the only ones who appreciate the Element USAbat Axe bat model. A number of other comments and reviews from early adopters are positive about this Axe bat model, including a few comments left on my site from kids who are a couple years younger than my son, using a shorter Element. The Element is looking to be one of the best USAbat models so far.

If you decide to buy the Element direct from the manufacturer, you can use the coupon code JGOL10 to get a 10% discount at checkout.

What about the other drop 5 and drop 8 bats? I have yet to hear anyone praise another model of bat besides this one. However, I simply haven’t seen much commentary on other drop 5 and drop 8 bats, so it could be that a few more good ones will emerge early next year as baseball seasons begin in areas of the U.S. with good weather.

Lighter USAbat Models Between Drop 9 and Drop 12

I have seen much more review and discussion of the lighter bats. There is a growing consensus that it’s a waste of money to buy a light, expensive composite USAbat model. “Dead Logs” is an expression I’m seeing a lot.

Given the new standards, composite bats aren’t going to have any more pop than aluminum. It’s possible though that some composite bats will have a bigger sweet spot and/or a faster, more balanced swing.

So far, the one and only composite bat model that I’ve seen get consistent praise is:

Rawlings 2 5/8″ 2018 Quatro drop 10

Update: There are many reports of barrels cracking on the the 30″ size of the Quatro after little use. Given all these reports, I suggest avoiding this particular size of Quatro. There is not a high volume of cracking complaints on the other sizes.

Easton had great success with the Mako and XL1 over the past few years so many people were hoping Easton would figure out how to bring some of that composite goodness to USAbat models. Apparently not. Mostly negative experiences are being reported for Easton’s Ghost X and Beast X models. Easton spends a lot on R&D so I wouldn’t be surprised if Easton’s 2019 USAbat models greatly improve.

Some of the lighter one-piece aluminum bats are getting good praise. The two models which I have seen receive more praise than any other are:

Rawlings 2 5/8″ 5150 drop 11

Louisville 2 5/8″ Slugger 618 Solo drop 11

The 618 Solo costs nearly double the 5150 and weighs nearly 2 ounces more than advertised, so the 5150 seems like a better value. JAN UPDATE: As of end of January 2018, the 618 Solo is out of stock at many bat selling sites, which lends support to the idea that it is one of the best of the single piece aluminum USAbat models.

FEB UPDATE: In the two months since I wrote this article, I’ve seen much praise for De Marini’s 2 1/2″ model, specifically for use by 7- and 8-year-olds (but not recommended for use with older players and kid pitch as it may be too prone to denting at higher speeds):

2018 DeMarini Uprising (drop 10), 2 1/2″, USAbat

There aren’t many low cost 2 1/4″ models available yet, but these two from Easton are getting some early praise as reasonable options for a slimmer 2 1/4″ barrel:

Easton 2 1/4″ S450 drop 12

Easton 2 1/4″ S350 drop 11

Do note, however, that many models are significantly heavier than what is stated on the bat. For example, the S450 drop 12 sounds very appealing given that it’s both light and inexpensive. However, reported weights for several sizes of the bat are 2.5 ounces more than what is advertised, so it may be more realistic to consider the S450 a drop 10.

In recent years, a new norm among bat makers has them printing bat weights which are a bit under what the bat actually weighs. I guess it would be okay if every bat maker printed exactly one ounce under, because at least then bat weights could be compared easily across models and manufacturers. But unfortunately, actual bat weights are off from printed bat weights anywhere from 0 to 3 ounces.

In my visit to a Big 5 store earlier this month, I weighed 5 different USAbat models. All weighed at least an ounce over what was printed on the bat. The worst offenders were the Easton S150 (over by 2.5 ounces), and the Easton S550 (over by 2 ounces).

I expect the Easton S150 will be a frequent purchase due to the $29.99 price point but I also expect a lot of disappointment because it claims to be a drop 10 and will therefore be purchased for many kids in the 10-12 age range weighing 70-90 pounds. I would imagine most kids swinging an S150 won’t realize they’re actually swinging a heavy drop 8 bat and will just think they are not very good at hitting.

I think there will be much better USAbat options coming out next year for baseball players between the ages of 7 to 12. I am especially excited to see what the lighter Axe bat models are like when they finally come out, because the axe-like knob allows for modifications to the end-cap design that will allow for more balanced swings than other single-piece aluminum designs.

Summary

As I mentioned at the start of this article, 2018 is not the season to expect much benefit to buying expensive, composite USAbat models. Bat makers are still struggling to get some of their models to comply with the new USAbat standard, so the only way many of them can do it is to make bats that are little better than last year’s $30 models.

This is not to say that all bats are the same. Axe bats look to have some advantages over the competition, at least among single-piece aluminum bats. With no light USAbat Axe models yet existing, early indications are pointing to the Rawlings 5150 as being the best of the single-piece aluminum offerings for younger players. And if your player absolutely insists on going composite, Rawlings Quatro is looking like it may be the best of the bunch so far, according to early adopters. For older, bigger kids, the drop 8 Axe Bat Element is a very good choice.

Some parents and coaches are disappointed by the quality of the new USAbat models, especially considering that they’re a little more expensive than last year’s models. I think some of this disappointment is related to the transition. The year a new model comes out will be the most expensive because you can’t get closeout models at discounts.

By August of 2018, parents will have a lot more choice. They will be able to save money by buying 2018 models on sale for closeout prices. Or they can wait a couple months for the 2019 models to come out, which I’m guessing will improve significantly from the 2018 models as bat makers continue to learn how to better make bats that meet the USAbat standard.

In the end, the batter matters far more than the bat. BBCOR made this truer than ever for the high school and college level, and the USAbat standard is now doing the same for youth baseball. The performance gap between the best and worst bats is simply not going to be as wide as it was before. Whether or not you think this is a good or bad thing will depend on your perspective.

The post USAbat Recommendations and Observations from Early Adopters first appeared on FilterJoe.

Each person in our family of three takes turns saying a few things he or she is grateful for as part of a regular dinner ritual. Quite often, one of us says something related to baseball such as gratitude for a particular baseball coach, an inspiring MLB story, being part of a fun team, or support for my son’s biggest passion in life. Of course, we also express gratitude related to many other areas of life.

Scientists have studied gratitude and the impact it can have on peoples’ lives. I know because my wife researched gratitude quite a bit before publishing her book My Amazing Day, a board book which helps toddlers and their families develop habits of gratitude. The toddler featured in My Amazing Day revels in everyday wonders, as any 2-year-old might do. It’s a great toddler gift, as the gift of gratitude is one that keeps on giving.

I’d like to share what I’m thankful for as it relates to this site. I’ll start with my readers, including some traffic stats:

I’m thrilled with the kinds of readers who visit FilterJoe. Thank you! Readers ask insightful questions, leave thoughtful comments, give me helpful feedback, and let other people know about my blog. I’m especially grateful when they come back for more. In round numbers, here are some stats:

• Date of FilterJoe’s first post: March 20, 2009
• Date of FilterJoe’s first baseball post: July 21, 2014
• Page views since inception: 1.3 million
• Visitors since inception: 600,000
• Number of approved comments: 1,030
• Page views for past 3 years:
  • 2015: 255,000
  • 2016: 356,000
  • 2017: 300,000 – 320,000 (projected)
• Email subscribers: 90

I don’t fill my blog with ads or popups with calls to action like most successful income-earning sites because I want to make it easy for readers to focus on content and read long, in-depth articles.

However, without colorful ads, popups, or other common (but intrusive) calls to action, many readers don’t realize how easy it is to subscribe to FilterJoe by email, RSS, or Twitter (by category, if desired). The result is that I have few subscribers, just 50-100 each via email, RSS, and Twitter. Many people also don’t seem to realize how easy it is to browse by category. Simply select from among the categories listed on the blog’s menu (upper right).

I would love to lessen my dependence on Google search, so if you want to read FilterJoe on a regular basis, please join my email list.

Maintaining and adding content to a high quality blog is no small task. I couldn’t have done it without many forms of help. So . . .

I’ll end this holiday note with a list of the many people and technologies that I am thankful for contributing to this site:

People

• My wife, Karin Fisher-Golton. Karin is a professional editor. In the early years she edited many of my posts, and she still does occasionally. Karin also guest wrote a post about filtering air, gives me feedback on site design, and helps me in many other ways to keep up quality. But most of all, she has supported my efforts to turn blogging into a living.
• My son. He has given me feedback on many of my youth baseball posts, tested several bats extensively, and is fine with being mentioned in various baseball posts. His love of baseball is what inspired me to learn more and start writing about youth baseball, which now accounts for over 2/3 of FilterJoe traffic.
• My other guest writers this year, Karr Fager and Jim Hyman. I loved Karr’s article about multi-sport athletes, based on his own experiences as a multi-sport athlete all the way through college. Jim is more than just the author of the budget battery chargers article. He actively answers battery-related comments and will post more content soon.
• My friend and fellow baseball fanatic, Grady Carson. Grady freely shares his wisdom garnered from playing baseball in college, coaching youth baseball for 10 years, and his expertise as an educator. He provides feedback on roughly half of FilterJoe’s baseball articles, offering an alternative viewpoint and occasionally pointing out a baseball detail I get wrong.
• Leo’s grandfather. He gave his blessing for me to write an 11-part story about Leo’s baseball career since the age of 10, based on his lengthy, detailed forum thread.
• Matt Peterson of Baden Sports (Axe Bat). He has been generous with his time, provided bat samples, and arranged interviews with bat experts.
• Everyone else who has ever contributed a cool comment to the site, contacted me privately by email, responded to my request for information as I conducted research, or let someone know about FilterJoe.

Technologies

• WordPress. It’s free, it’s easy, and it’s amazing. It’s not an accident that in 2017, 29% of web sites are powered by WordPress. Edit: And still growing fast years later (WordPress powers nearly 40% of sites in January 2021 according to FirstSiteGuide and other sources).
• WordPress plug-in authors.
• Everyone who contributed to making the awesome Twenty Sixteen WordPress theme.
• Lightning Base, the reliable and speedy host for this site.
• The whole infrastructure that makes up the Internet and therefore makes possible information sites like this one.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

The post Thanksgiving is a Time to be Grateful first appeared on FilterJoe.

But that’s not all.

Ballplayers who improve their sprinting also develop muscles used in hitting and pitching. Improving sprinting also improves explosiveness, by recruiting the right types of muscle fibers (type II) and generating energy more efficiently with the body’s fastest system for replenishing ATP, Creatine Phosphate.

It turns out science has a lot to say about how to train for sprinting, and I learned some of that science recently by completing a Coursera course, The Science of Training Young Athletes.

My son has been trying to improve his sprinting speed in the off season. After taking this course, I suggested he change his routine. He did.

The improvement was swift and dramatic.

In this post I share both the details of how his sprinting training improved, and the science behind why it works. I’ll start by describing how we started without me knowing what I was doing . . . and how that didn’t work at all.

First Try at Sprinting: 1 Mile Runs

My son is 12 1/2. While he has certainly done some sprinting in baseball and basketball practices over the years, it wasn’t until the last few months that he’s purposely wanted to do some off season workouts to improve his fitness. One area he wanted to get better at was running, and especially sprinting.

My son looks to me for advice on what to work on, and I’m learning on the fly. At first, without a whole lot of thought, I suggested he run 1-2 miles, twice a week. I told him speed was important and that it was not ever going to be worth his while as a baseball player to run more than 2 miles at a time, as that would just train him to jog, not run.

He did this for a couple months, and occasionally sprinted as well. He gradually got faster at 1 mile runs.

About two months ago I started timing his 50-yard sprints on a sidewalk in front of our house. The time was not that great and it didn’t seem like his sprinting had improved any. I’ve since learned that my timing method was imprecise, and flat-out incorrect on the finish line, but I’ve recently greatly improved how I time him. Piecing together various bits of timing data, I think he was probably around 8.3 seconds for the 50-yard dash, which is okay for a normal 12 1/2 year-old but not that great for an aspiring athlete.

Running 1 or 2 miles a couple times per week did not improve sprinting times, and was not helpful preparartion for baseball.

I’ll explain the science behind this later on in this post but the very short explanation is that training to run 1 mile fast causes your body to adapt to that kind of a run. It will not help develop maximum speed that lasts just a few seconds, because the body adapts to sprinting much differently than it does to 1 mile runs.

Second Try at Sprinting: Plyometrics

At this point my son started doing a workout based on the book Progressive Plyometrics for Kids. It included some sprinting and agility exercises, but it also included some exercises called plyometrics that basically helps develop muscle power (explosiveness), especially in the legs. Some of those very same leg muscles are used in sprints.

He only made it half way through the program before he got bored. I think this program would have better kept his interest if he were part of a group of 3-5 kids. He completed the first two weeks at Bronze level and then the next week at Silver level. After 3 1/2 weeks he stopped.

Result? His 50-yard sprints dramatically improved, by nearly half a second, from 8.3 seconds down to 7.8 seconds. And he didn’t even complete the program! See my in-depth review of this plyometrics program for further detail.

We don’t know what would have happened if he had completed the program, but perhaps his sprinting time could have dropped another couple tenths of a second. He is now doing a vaguely similar once/week program organized by one of his summer baseball coaches. This is probably not frequent enough to move the needle, especially because he’s had to miss some of them.

However . . .

Third Time’s a Charm: 30-yard Sprints Followed by 90 Seconds of Rest

Plyometrics was really helpful. But then I took The Science of Training Young Athletes course and learned that he could do even better.

A 50-yard dash can be done in 7.0 seconds by the fastest 12-year old athletes. It’s more like 8 seconds for a more typical athlete, or a little better than that with training. However, if you study the science you’ll find out that the typical human in non-life-threatening situations can run all out for at most 6 seconds.

There are several reasons people can run all out for only 6 seconds. The main one has to do with how the body uses and replenishes energy. ATP is the immediate energy store that can be tapped instantly to supply power but the brain does not permit drawing down ATP when it is below 60% of maximum capacity. So when the body expends energy, ATP must be replenished to stay above 60% of ATP maximum capacity before more ATP can be converted into energy. There are 3 energy systems that replenish ATP:

• CP (Creatine Phosphate, also known as Phosphocreatine)
• Anaerobic Glycolysis (stored glycogen is broken down into glucose)
• Aerobic Glycolysis (respiration)

All 3 energy systems can operate to replenish ATP simultaneously, but for sprinting, aerobic energy is irrelevant because it takes too long to ramp up and operates at a rate too low to have any impact. Glycolysis ramps up faster and supplies ATP at a faster rate, so it does contribute some. But by far the most important energy system for sprinting is the CP system. It ramps up extremely quickly and supplies energy at a much higher rate than even anaerobic glycolysis. Sprinting at maximum speed requires maximum energy, with CP being the biggest contributor.

The rate of ATP replenishment provided by the CP system starts to rapidly decline somewhere between the 5 and 6 second mark, so by the time an athlete has been sprinting for over 6 seconds, he is no longer being provided with maximum energy replenishment and can therefore no longer run with maximum speed.

So why the big digression into energy systems? Because the most effective way to get faster at sprinting is to train at maximum speed. The science is clear that you can’t exert maximum energy for more than 6 seconds, and most people’s rate of CP production starts to slow down somewhere in the 5 to 6 second range.

To practice at maximum speed, you therefore want the time of the sprint to last no longer than approximately 5 seconds. For my son, that turned out to be a 30-yard sprint.

Furthermore, the CP system takes around 90 seconds to recharge to about 80% to 90% of it’s maximum capacity. So we also know that maximum speed will only be possible in the next sprint if the rest period is at least 90 seconds.

So the new protocol is 30-yard sprints, followed by at least 90 seconds of rest. He does 4 of these, then ends on a 50-yard sprint to see if he got faster on the longer, slightly slower run. He then does another 5 sprint set later in the day (waiting at least half an hour).

So how did this work?

Amazingly, the improvement was immediate. The very first time he tried this, his 30-yard dashes got gradually better, improving by around 0.2 seconds altogether after several sprints. This may sound small, but when the time is around 5 seconds total, a 0.2 second improvement is a lot.

What was especially interesting though was that his 50-yard dashes got better by about 0.2 seconds as well.

Frankly, I was stunned by the immediate improvement. My timing methods were imprecise so it’s possible the recorded results were inaccurate and not quite that good. But visually, he looked to me like he was running faster—the fastest I’ve ever seen him sprint.

This all happened late October. He has since continued to sprint using exactly the same system, and is improving both his 30-yard dash and 50-yard dash times at a rate of about .1 seconds every 2 weeks. Eventually the rate of improvement will necessarily slow down and then stop altogether, but we’re hoping he can get down to 7.0 seconds on the 50-yard dash before that happens. I’ll add a comment or two below with updates over the next few months to report the latest recorded times. At the moment, his personal highs (using the more accurate timing system described below) are:

• 30-yard dash: 4.84 seconds
• 50-yard dash: 7.63 seconds

While these times are not blazing fast, the 7.63 second 50-yard dash time is so much better than his best time of (approximately) 8.3 seconds recorded a couple months earlier.

Getting More Accurate Sprint Time

It is unfortunate that the earlier results I recorded were suspect. I did not realize how difficult it is to accurately time sprints. Using the built-in iPhone stopwatch introduces perhaps a tenth of a second of uncertainly at both the start and the stop because of button press imprecision. Furthermore, knowing when my son was crossing the finish line turned out to be difficult to eyeball, and it turned out I wasn’t even doing it right according to foot racing standards.

I wanted to improve timing accuracy without spending hundreds of dollars on equipment. So I spent $3 to get the iOS SprintTimer app for my iPhone. It has really helped.

SprintTimer takes more than a couple minutes to figure out how to use but it has good help screens and documentation. Once you get the hang of it, you can remove all button presses, which gets rid of most of the inaccuracy of stop-watch timing. The only uncertainty that will remain is the runner starting too early or late.

In brief:

• Use the Photo Finish
• Start Set Up should be changed to Self Start which means that the phone will say the commands out loud “On Your Marks” then “Set” then a gun sound (or you can choose a beep).
• Finish Set Up should be set up with the right direction.
• Then hold the phone up to point the camera at the finish line and click “Play Commands,” saying the words along with the phone if the runner(s) can’t hear the phone.

The phone automatically records a photo finish, which is where you can find the precise ending time.

After a race, you go to the photo and slide the line back and forth until you see a tiny part of the front of the runner’s torso touching the line. The time will be displayed and that’s the time. You can then Mark it and Save it if you like. If you save many results, you’ll have a record over time to track progress. To keep the number of data points manageable, we typically just keep the best sprint time of the day (one each for 30-yards and 50-yards).

It was when using this procedure that I found out how inaccurate my prior times were. Using information from the accurate times obtained from this app, I adjusted the older times reported earlier in the article to be my best approximation of what they really were.

What Next for Sprinting?

Now that I understand the science behind energy systems and different types of muscle, we’re just going to keep using the same protocol for sprint practice: 30-yard sprints followed by 90 seconds of rest. Do this 4 times and then the last run is a 50-yard sprint.

In a year or two, we’ll almost certainly switch the 50-yard sprint to a 60-yard sprint, because that is a commonly timed sprint for high school baseball players.

I’ll also continue to learn more about sprint training. His (currently too-brief) warmup and recovery routines need improvement. At some point he’ll need to learn better starting and finish technique. And there are undoubtedly adjustments to running mechanics that could help. For some of this we’ll need the help of a track coach.

However, the main point right now is to get faster, develop more power, and train up his type II muscle fibers and CP energy system. So long as he continues to drop 0.2 seconds/month off his sprint times, we’re good with that!

The post Training to Sprint Faster first appeared on FilterJoe.

Though I already briefly mentioned plyometrics as part of my Strength and Conditioning guide, I’m ready to fully review the program now that he’s done as much of it as he’s going to do.

To summarize: On the one hand, the book is very well done. When followed with good faith effort the program produces impressive, measurable results. On the other hand my son was unable to stay motivated enough to complete all 6 weeks of the program.

In detail:

What is Plyometrics?

Exercises designed to link strength and speed of movement to produce power is at the heart of what plyometrics is all about. Though many people associate plyometrics with various types of jumping to develop leg power, a plyometrics approach can be applied to any kind of explosive movement. Hopscotch, jumping off a swing, and difficult climbing are examples of plyometrics that naturally occur as part of ordinary play.

Running maximum speed (sprinting) is another maximum power output activity. A well-designed plyometrics program will improve that maximum speed.

Some forms of plyometrics training for adult athletes are intense to an extreme which can lead to injury for children or unfit adults. This has incorrectly caused some professional trainers to believe that no form of plyometrics is safe for kids. As the book repeatedly (and convincingly) argues, kids simply need to follow a program that is appropriate, safe, and effective for kids. That is exactly what the authors of the book set out to do. The three co-authors Donald A. Chu, Avery D. Faigenbaum, and Jeff E. Falkel have decades of experience, both academic and practical, so chances are pretty good that this program is appropriately designed.

The Book and Included DVD

The book is very clearly written, with introductory material related to youth athlete conditioning, and a very detailed and precise explanation for how to implement the program. For those who don’t care for philosophy and introductory remarks, the first 2 chapters can be skipped and half of chapter 3 can be skimmed. On page 42 of chapter 3 is where you need to start reading carefully as that is where the warm-ups are explained, followed by an overview of the heart of the program, and then the recovery.

Chapter 4 explains how to implement the program, including the all-important chart of exercises, while chapter 5 explains in great detail how to do each exercise. The included DVD does a very good job of explaining all the exercises very clearly and if you are not able to easily demo the exercises, I strongly recommend having the kids watch the videos first before doing the program (before week 1, just watch the Bronze level exercises).

Before my son started, I watched the videos but unfortunately he did not. He got bored and restless as I kept referring to the book in the first session. But after that he watched the videos, resulting in a very smooth second session.

My only minor nitpick with the DVD is that the bronze level exercises were performed by the least experienced of the three youth athletes. Several exercises were modeled slightly off. The two older youth athletes that modeled the silver and gold level exercises did a terrific job.

Overall the book and DVD were very well done.

The Program

On page 56 of Progressive Plyometrics for Kids, the program progression is outlined. The first two weeks of the chart are reproduced below:

Twice per week is the workout frequency recommended by the authors, making sure to allow at least one rest day between sessions. As is typical for workout programs, sets and reps (repetitions) are clearly defined. In week 1, there is just one set with 15 exercises, each repeated 10 times. In week 2, there are 2 sets of the exact same exercises.

All workouts include warm-up exercises and recovery exercises. Including warm-up and recovery, even number weeks take a little over an hour, while the odd numbered weeks take about 45 minutes. This is because the first week of each level calls for one set, while the second week calls for two sets.

Weeks 1-2 are the bronze level, weeks 3-4 are silver, and weeks 5-6 are gold. As the exercises get more challenging, the number of reps drops to 8 for silver, and 6 for gold. So the workouts actually take a little less time to complete with advancement to the next level, though they are just as tiring.

Notice that of the 15 exercises in each set, the first 3 are strength-related, the next 10 are plyometrics related, and the last 2 are speed/agility. Furthermore, some of the plyometrics exercises are simply variations on strength-building calisthenics that require a little more power, so I tend to think of them as half way between strength and plyometrics exercises.

In other words, the program does not emphasize plyometrics alone. It is a general workout program applicable to most young athletes, which aims to develop a strong base level of fitness. It just has more of an emphasis on power and explosiveness than the typical youth fitness program. This makes it a very good fit for kids who play baseball.

So Did it Work for my Son?

My son thought the name “plyometrics” was hilarious. He started calling it “hydropedrics” with a couple of his friends, because that sounded even funnier.

It’s hard to tell looking at the sheet what it’s actually like for the athlete doing it. My son had already been doing squats, jumping, pushups, crunches, etc. for several months, so he found the Bronze level exercises 1 through 13 easy to master and even easier to perform.

However, exercises 14 and 15 are agility drills with sprinting and rapid changes of direction. I insisted that he needed to do these at maximum effort level for full benefit. The agility drills were far more difficult and exhausting than any of the other exercises. Doing 10 reps of each agility drill at maximum intensity with little rest between repetitions was simply not feasible. At first he opted to do the agility drills slowly in order to conserve energy for all the repetitions. But I explained to him that less than full effort would train him to be slow, so he switched to doing far fewer reps at close to maximum effort.

My son’s difficulty with the agility drills could simply indicate a lack of endurance. I’m not really sure. But I was in communication with another parent, a FilterJoe reader who had also just started doing this program with his son and they had a similar experience. Perhaps someone who had recently played competitive soccer, basketball, or ultimate would have an easier time of it, but . . . I have seen basketball players do suicide drills. They did not typically do 10 suicide drills in a row with 10-15 seconds of rest in between repetitions. And they never did 20 in a row.

After a couple of sessions of going back and forth between the idea of doing fewer reps or not doing them with full effort, my son finally decided to spread them out, one or two reps at a time. So after the first couple exercises in the set, he would do 2 reps of an agility drill. Then another exercise or two, then another 1-2 reps of agility drill, and so on. This was much more manageable, though he never did do 20 reps each of the bronze level exercise 14 and 15 in one session, which the second week called for.

Apart from the agility drills, my son had no significant issues with any of the drills, though some took a few tries to get proper form. My son found the silver-level exercises more interesting than the bronze.

All was going well with the actual exercises, but he gradually lost interest. Shortly before completing the silver level, he said he no longer wanted to do plyometrics. Given that getting better at sprinting was the main point, he told me he’d rather just do sprints. He knew from many conversations we had that sprinting is really critical for baseball players, and not just to get faster at sprinting. It also helps strengthen leg muscles used in hitting and pitching. So he wanted to dispense with the time-consuming (and for him) boring plyometrics and instead just do timed sprints, perhaps twice per week.

I thought his idea seemed reasonable, and there was no point trying to make him continue a program he was no longer motivated to follow. So he started sprinting.

His first day sprinting is when we found out how effective the program was for him, despite doing only 3 1/2 weeks out of the full 6 weeks.

I had timed him running 50-yard dashes many times over the course of a few weeks before starting the program. Turned out there were issues with how I was doing the timing but I did use the same method every time so at least I could see how much he improved.

He improved by approximately 0.5 seconds. My subpar timing methods introduced measurement error, so the actual improvement was perhaps between 0.4 and 0.6 seconds. But even if it was only 0.4 seconds, that is a huge increase after doing the program for less than a month.

Before the plyometrics program, his best time was on the order of 8.3 seconds. After 3 1/2 weeks of plyometrics, his best time was approximately 7.8 seconds. He lopped 6% off his time after just 7 sessions of following the program. Wow.

Even understanding how much the program benefited him, he still did not want to finish it off. He continues to do sprints about twice/week, and we’ve learned how he can continue to improve sprint times even beyond what plyometrics can offer.

What I Could Have Done Better

I am just a dad who is happy to support his (one and only) son’s passions. I was never a professional athlete, professional trainer or really anything associated with a professionally run sports program. I was not even into baseball that much before my son was born. I’m just trying to support my son’s biggest passion in life, which happens to be baseball. So with everything I do, I’m learning as I go. Therefore . . .

I made a few mistakes in helping my son get started with this program.

Here’s a few things I would change if I were to do it again.

• Watch videos. Make sure that both the trainer and the athletes watch the exercises demonstrated in the video before the first session, perhaps even more than once.
• Do agility exercises differently. As mentioned above, the sprinting exercises (14 and 15) were too many repetitions in a row at the bronze and silver level. To get maximum effort, it’s helpful to either reduce the number of reps or spread them out throughout the session so there’s time to recover. I sent an email to one of the authors (Dr. Chu) to find out if this would harm the effectiveness of the program, but never heard back.
• Do it with a group. My son lost his motivation. He has since started doing a different but vaguely similar group program with one of his summer baseball coaches, and he’s fine with it. While many specific exercises are different, I think the main thing that makes it more appealing for him is that he gets to do it as part of group, and that group is his baseball team.
• Foster competition. Many of the exercises are a lot more exciting if timed individually or better yet as a competition with one or more friends. So even if you can’t get together a whole group, at least make sure to measure results and provide feedback to the athlete. This could involve timing, or perhaps measuring length/height of jump. It helps if the participating athletes are all at roughly the same level of starting fitness and ability.
• Start with energy. Lots of energy is needed to do these workouts. Scheduling multiple, physically demanding activities is always tricky with kids, so make sure the scheduling works out so that participants aren’t tired before starting.
• Don’t do it during the rainy season. While not a factor for us, the other parent I know doing this with his kid had most October sessions rained out, so they decided to stop doing it until spring. The program could be done in an indoor gym but for most families, access to a large, empty gym isn’t so easy to come by.

One Final Comment

Progressive Plyometrics for Kids and the included DVD were great, and the program was effective. But I suspect it would be an unusual kid who would do this program (or any comparable outdoor speed/agility/pylometrics program) alone for 6 weeks.

This book’s program is great for a coach to use in the off-season with his baseball team. Any player who has a coach that runs programs for his players in the off season like this should be very grateful.

The post Review of Progressive Plyometrics for Kids: The Ultimate Off-Season Workout? first appeared on FilterJoe.

But what will probably be remembered most about this World Series were the record 25 home runs, 15 hit by the Astros, and 10 hit by the Dodgers. The MVP was awarded to George Springer on account of his 5 Springer Dingers.

Curiously, I never heard any of the World Series broadcasters discuss Springer’s bat.

It’s an Axe bat.

The fact that his bat was never discussed suggests to me that Axe bats are no longer curiosities used by some college teams and a few well known major league players (Dustin Pedroia, Mookie Betts, etc.). Axe bats, while not quite mainstream, are common enough to no longer merit special mention.

And yet, I’m still not seeing too many Axe bats used in youth baseball. I think that’s going to change over the next few years, and not just because of Springer’s Dingers. Here’s why:

The Axe Handle Offers Benefits Beyond the Wrist

Baden Sports has been making Axe bats since 2010. The most obvious difference is the Axe-like knob which is ergonomically more comfortable and helps better position the wrists correctly when contacting the ball. But that’s just the beginning of the benefits.

I went into technical detail about all the other benefits in prior articles on this site, especially the first one:

Axe Bat Review: In the Hands of a 10-year old

Axe Bat Origin 2016 Review: A sub $100 bat for youth baseball that is awesome

Axe Bat Review: MB50 Big Barrel in the Hands of an 11-year old

To briefly summarize:

• Hitters can practice much longer before experiencing hand and wrist fatigue
• While no bat can magically turn an average hitter into a great hitter, the knob does force some aspects of hitting mechanics to improve, especially related to positioning of the wrists. There is even science to back up this claim.
• Bats can be designed to be stronger and/or more durable on the surfaces where the ball is going to hit. Baden calls this one-sided hitting though really it’s two sides, because the bat can be used by right-handed or left-handed hitters. But regardless of handedness, no hitter will hit the ball on the bottom of the bat.
• One-sided hitting provides an opportunity to remove an unnecessary portion of the end of the bat. Baden introduced this asymmetric barrel as a high-end bat feature in 2016 and rolled it out to the complete line in 2017.

If you read through the Axe bat articles on this site you’ll see that youth Axe bats have steadily improved over the past 3 years. While the first Axe bats my son tested were pretty good, the MB50 he used this past season is by far the best bat he’s ever used. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to claim that, since 2017, the best single-piece aluminum bats in baseball are Axe bats.

But what about composite and 2-piece bats?

My son’s only experience with a two-piece Axe bat was the 2015 Axe Bat Elite. While he occasionally hit the ball hard with it, he had trouble controlling it and eventually stopped using it in favor of one-piece aluminum Axe bats. He’s happy with one-piece Axe bats because he gets consistent results which improve when he spends time working on his hitting. He has never tested a pure composite bat from Baden, nor have I ever seen any other player use one.

From what I’ve been able to observe on the youth baseball field, Easton has the best performing composite bat models, while DeMarini generally gets top honors for two-piece bats. Occasionally another company such as Combat comes out with a high-end bat that does really well. I don’t fully know the reasons why, but these companies have invested heavily in R&D for years in perfecting the use of composite material in bats, connecting pieces between the handle and barrel, and high-tech end-cap materials and technology. They recoup R&D investment by charging $250 – $400 for the premium bat models that incorporate all this tech.

But there’s another factor in high tech bat success that just disappeared: a subpar methodology for bat testing.

USAbat

Composite bats were first used in softball in the 1980’s and within a decade spread to youth baseball and began to be regulated. In recent years, a standard called BPF 1.15 was used. The original intention was for bat barrels to have an approximately wood-like performance but due to flaws in the testing methodology, bat makers learned how to design around the testing procedure to produce bats with much more pop than wood bats. Aluminum alloy bats could do this to some extent, but composite bats even more.

This began to change in 2011 when bats used by college and high school players had to follow a new, stricter standard, called BBCOR. The improved testing procedure caused the performance of high-end bats (and therefore home run rates) to decrease, while the performance gap narrowed between the most and least expensive bats.

A standard similar to BBCOR for youth baseball called USAbat is going into effect for most recreation baseball leagues in 2018, which you can read about in New USABat Standard Coming in 2018 for Youth Baseball Bats.

So what does all this have to do with the Axe bat brand?

I’m expecting that, as with BBCOR, the USAbat performance difference between the most and least expensive bats will narrow, as manufacturers will no longer be able to work around the BPF 1.15 standard to produce barrels with much more pop than wood (actually they will still be able to do this for USSSA travel ball for the time being, but that’s a separate story).

This USAbat standard does not hinder the use of the knob on Axe bats, one-sided hitting design, or the asymmetric end-cap. In other words, some of the advantage of high-tech barrels has been taken away, but none of Baden’s advantages have been removed. My guess is that the high-end Easton and DeMarini USAbat models are not going to be anywhere near as good as the BPF 1.15 models, which provides an opening for Baden Sports to develop high-end composite or two-piece models that perform as well or possibly even better than those from Easton or DeMarini.

Baden is definitely investing in USAbat models. Axe was one of the only four brands to have USAbat models ready when USAbat models first rolled out on September 1 of this year. More USAbat Axe models are coming in December, so clearly Baden is attempting to compete for the hearts and minds of recreation league baseball players buying bats with the new USAbat standard.

So Will Axe Bats Become Super Popular?

USAbat models are only starting to get into the hands of ball players so it’s still too early to tell if any of my speculations about Axe bat will prove out. I’ll have more to say next spring when I see many players swinging the new models. I’ll also have more to say about the new Axe USAbat model my 12 1/2 year old son has recently started swinging, a 31″, 23 oz 2018 Element USAbat.

Of course, I could be missing the forest for the trees. Maybe nobody cares about all these technical details, and it will be all the home runs Springer hit in the World Series that inspires young ballplayers to try using an Axe bat.

Congratulations to Springer and the Astros, as well as the runner up Dodgers. Both teams played very well in the regular season, the playoffs, and the World Series. It was fun to watch two really terrific teams battle in an exciting 7-game series. Despite Verlander starting game 6, I was so sure the Dodgers were going to force a game 7, because it was just that kind of a series.

The post Astros Win 2017 World Series: Springer Dingers and the Axe Bat first appeared on FilterJoe.

This is the first such profile, the Easton S450.

When I first heard about the new USAbat standard last year, the biggest question I had was:

What options are there going to be for kids between the ages of 7 and 10? Specifically, will there be any light, 2 1/4″ models suitable for smaller players?

If you look at the bats on the USAbat list, you’ll notice that most bats are between drop 5 and drop 10 (see What Does Drop Mean?). A drop 10 bat such as a 29″, 19oz bat in the hands of a 7-year-old or even a small and light 10-year-old can be a frustrating experience, with many strikeouts and very few solid hits. My own smaller-than-average son did not begin to use a drop 10 bat until a couple months before his 12^th birthday (30″ length).

A drop 10 bat is not so heavy if the bat is shorter. But while small players or beginners may be able to swing a 27″ or 28″ drop 10 bat well in practice, it doesn’t cover the outside part of the strike zone well. When kid pitch begins, typically at age 9, the tendency of many recreation league umpires is to call a strike zone that extends an inch or two beyond the outside edge of the plate. A small hitter with a 27″ bat can struggle to hit pitches that find the outside edge of the plate. I’ve seen it.

While there are a number of very light USAbat options for 5- and 6-year old T-ball, there currently aren’t many light bat options for 7- to 10-year-old players. But there are some. Here’s a list (if you see a blank screen below, hit the refresh button on your browser):

Download (XLSX, 12KB)

After eliminating all bats for T-ball and bats with drop between 5 and 10, there are 12 bats remaining. Of the 12 bats remaining, 6 of them are 2 5/8″ drop 11 bats. In my opinion, 2 5/8″ bats are difficult for many kids below the age of 11 to swing, especially the smaller and lighter kids, unless these bats are 28″ or shorter. So let’s eliminate the 2 5/8″ bats.

This leaves six 2 1/4″ bats that are drop 11 or 12 (or possibly four, as Easton has three different model numbers for Beast X Hyperlite that are identical, so far as I can tell).

The only two 2 1/4″ bats with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price under $150 are:

Easton S350 (drop 11)

Easton S450 (drop 12)

They are both at $70 or below. I think both of these are going to be very popular bats. Many parents don’t think twice about spending $50 or even $70 on a bat. However, $150 or more for a bat is too much for many families unless their player is an all-star or select team player.

I think the S450 is likely to be worth an extra $20 over the S350 if it turns out to truly weigh an ounce less. Bat weights from Easton and other bat makers are often inaccurate so I’ll want to weigh a few S450 and S350 bats as they come into our league.

Assuming the weights are as stated, a drop 12 S450 means that some 9-year-olds will be able to swing a 30″, 18 oz bat, and most 9-year-olds will be able to swing a 29″, 17 oz bat. Swinging a longer bat is very helpful when facing kid pitch for the first time, especially with strike zones that are often wider than the plate.

Bats that adhere to the USAbat standard are so new that I haven’t seen anyone in our league swing one yet. I greatly look forward to seeing both the S350 and the S450 in action, as I think these will be the two most popular bats for kids between the ages of 7 and 10. There’s a good chance I’ll test one or both of these and then publish a review on this site.

In my comprehensive bat guide, I mentioned the Easton S500 as being an ideal entry-level bat through the age of 11 or so. It’s looking to me like the S450 is going to be the USAbat to fill this same role. I could be proved wrong as other bats come to market, as the S450 could be superseded by better competition.

For the moment, however, the Easton S450 is going to be an obvious choice for many families with a 7- to 10-year old playing baseball in a recreation league.

The post USAbat Profile: Easton S450 (drop 12) first appeared on FilterJoe.

Below is a complete list of youth baseball bats with the USABat stamp printed on them (last updated June 15, 2018).

All bats on this list are approved for play in leagues which require this new standard, which goes into effect January 1, 2018 for most recreation leagues in the U.S. In addition to bat name, model number, width, drop, and length range, the list also includes MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price).

The stated goal of the USAbat standard is for bats to perform at a wood-like level that will provide for the long-term integrity of the game. For details about the USAbat standard, read New USABat Standard Coming in 2018 elsewhere on this site.

Note that the USA Baseball organization has its own approved bat listing, with fewer columns of information.

The FilterJoe list will be maintained for at least a few months, and possibly much longer if people are willing to help. It will be easier to maintain if anyone who spots an inaccuracy or omission communicates that information to me in the comments below, or via this site’s contact submission form.

If you choose to communicate a correction, please include a link to the source of your information. If I can verify the correction/addition, I will attempt to have a revised version of the database up within 48 hours. Each version of the database will include the revision date as part of the title.

Whenever possible, the information below comes from manufacturer sites. However, not all models are listed on manufacture sites. For example, as of September 8, 2017, Easton’s USAbat list includes the S550 and s650 but not the S150, S250, s350, or s450. With no MSRP for these 4 bat models, I used the first price I found from an online merchant, which may be below MSRP. There may also be more sizes available for these models than what I observed.

I will add to the database any USAbat with a name and model number. This includes both currently available bats and bats for which there is some information about an upcoming release. Some bats will be temporarily out of stock at times, but I will not attempt to track whether a bat is currently in stock. A bat is marked as “available” if it has ever been in stock.

I am open to suggestions for improving formatting or information content. Feel free to leave comments below.

Here’s the list, best viewed using a desktop browser. Click the upper right corner to pop it out onto a separate tab, where you’ll be able to zoom in by hitting the “+” symbol at the bottom. If you see a blank screen below, hit the refresh button on your browser and it will appear.

Download (XLSX, 20KB)

Feel free to download the spreadsheet but please don’t post elsewhere on the web. I think it will be more useful for all if I keep one spreadsheet up-to-date rather than have many versions on many sites, most of which are older versions that are no longer accurate.

Again, I welcome help. Please leave comments below with any inaccuracy you find, including a link to a reputable source of information.

The post Complete USAbat List first appeared on FilterJoe.

As a multiple sport athlete, I have long wondered how much the other sports I played affected my baseball play, if at all. Baseball was my main sport from a young age, but I thoroughly enjoyed pickup games of football, basketball, volleyball, and really any other sport I could get my hands on.

I finally joined my school’s basketball team in 8th grade and played through high school. I even played soccer, which, according to my family, was the most boring sport on the planet. I played soccer for the last two years of high school. This led to my body being introduced to a wide variety of sporting types and physical excursions.

Reading from some of FilterJoe’s articles, mainly Key Youth Baseball Decisions for Parents: Money, Time, and Beyond, he believes that kids playing multiple sports from a young age is healthy for baseball players. He says that it keeps players’ bodies in good condition and promotes a more balanced physical development.

I would think that a lot of professional baseball players agree with this, given that a lot of them were multi-sport athletes. Let’s look at a few of them who were.

Tom Glavine: He won over 300 games in his MLB career. But before he proved himself in the Majors, he was drafted by the Los Angeles Kings (NHL team) ahead of other NHL hall of famers.

Carl Crawford: He was a career .290 hitter over 15 years in the Majors. Before reaching the MLB, he was a high school standout in football and basketball. He was even recruited by UCLA and Nebraska in those sports.

Tony Gwynn: The former San Diego Padres great posted a remarkable .338 career batting average during his career. However, he had the option to play basketball for the Aztecs team. He was even drafted by the San Diego (now Los Angeles) Clippers before choosing his path in baseball.

Dave Winfield: This guy was one talented man. He was drafted by four teams in three different sports. He played baseball, basketball, and football in high school, and was drafted professionally in all three of those sports. Oddly enough, he didn’t even play football in college. That just shows how talented he was.

Other famous athletes who were multi-sport athletes: J.J. Watt (NFL), Chad Johnson (NFL), Allen Iverson (NBA), Herschel Walker (NFL), Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (wrestling, NCAAF), Pat Riley (NBA), Michael Vick (NFL), and the list goes on.

We can see from that list that it is definitely possible to play multiple sports and still excel at one of them.

The question we are left with is whether playing multiple sports helped them become better at baseball, or if they were just naturally gifted with abilities to excel at all sports. Let’s see what one of them has to say on the matter.

J.J. Watt (pro football player) says, “Single-sport specialization amongst youth today is troubling. Let kids be kids. They’ll become better all-around athletes and have more fun.” Also, “If someone encourages your child to specialize in a single sport, that person generally does not have your child’s best interests in mind.” So in Watt’s opinion, it is not just the fact that some kids have naturally good athletic abilities, but also that playing multiple sports will help kids become better all-around athletes.

I think that, when talking about professional athletes, most of them just had naturally good athletic abilities. Not all, but most. This is what allows them to perform well in multiple sports. I also believe, like J.J. Watt said, that whether you are incredibly gifted athletically or not, playing multiple sports can help you improve your abilities, either way.

So rather than just saying how each individual sport affected my baseball play, I wanted to see which attributes were increased and which were decreased from my multi-sport participation. I especially wanted to see if I was a better baseball player because of my multi-sport participation or if I was a worse baseball player. I will start with physical conditioning and then move onto the mental aspect, which I believe is just as important as the physical part.

Physical Conditioning

Endurance

I like to think of endurance as perseverance and being able to push through and excel until the end. I am talking physical endurance here, not mental. I will get to the mental aspect later. The truth is baseball players need endurance. This isn’t necessarily the endurance that we need to run long distances or to last long in the gym, but it is more the endurance to last the season injury-free. Endurance also helps with brain cognitive abilities.

What I did a lot of in basketball and soccer was running, something rarely done in baseball. I always wondered why. I realize that baseball is not a sport where we are continuously running. It is more a game of sprints. But let’s say you sprint for a ball 100 feet away. Or maybe you hit a triple and had to dash around the base pads. After the sprint, you are panting and gasping for air rather than focusing on the next play and communicating with your teammates. If we are out of shape, our mental capacity is shrunken because all of our energy is focused on recovering from the sprint.

Studies were done (with mice. I know we are not mice, but we react similarly to them in some ways) trying to test how cardiovascular exercise affects brainpower. The scientists found that cardiovascular exercise can actually create new brain cells. This is called neurogenesis. This, in return, can improve overall brain performance. And that is not all. “Tough” workouts (loosely defined) increase a brain-deprived protein (BDNF), which is believed to help with thinking, learning, and decision making.

So that is saying that the harder we workout, the better we will be able to think in game situations. That is, the better our endurance and perseverance, the better our performance.

Being a soccer and basketball player, we ran all practice and all game. According to reports by SportVU, soccer players have been tracked running 9.5 miles in a single game. They say it is not uncommon for players to run seven miles per game. Talk about endurance! A lot of this running for me was sprints. Playing soccer in the fall prepared me for the basketball season in the winter, and the basketball season prepared me for baseball in the spring.

Agility

Agility is the ability to move quickly and easily. When talking about baseball players, agility wasn’t brought up much when I played. I believe it should be. For infielders and outfielders, the first step is very crucial.

The MLB has a system, called Statcast, which analyzes player movements and athletics abilities. That is where the announcers on TV get a lot of the crazy statistics they mention. The cameras track the movements of players, analyze them, and then produce them as statistics. “First step” is one of the statistics they measure. If you have time to check it out, there is a short article on MLB.com talking about the defensive first step. This is what I am talking about:

This is where agility comes into play. If players are agile, they will have a quick first step to the ball. Think about a third baseman who has to charge on a bunt. The quicker he takes that first step in, the quicker he will reach the ball and the quicker the ball will reach the first baseman’s glove. For an outfielder, the quicker he reacts to the ball, the quicker he will be able to catch it. Simple enough, right?

This can even apply to pitchers and catchers. A quick first step for pitchers is helpful for bunts or ground balls up the middle. The same goes for catchers on bunts and passed balls. And agility is important for anybody who gets on the base pads.

How is agility gained? Looking around to what others are saying, it seems that a mix between plyometrics (jumping exercises to increase speed and power), balance exercises, and quick foot drills is the best option. It turns out that some of those we already do in other sports. Basketball incorporates some plyometrics and quick foot drills. Football has a lot of quick foot drills and movements. Soccer can increase quick feet as well.

It seems to me, from these sports and most others, that the physical conditioning aspect that is missing is balance. That leads us into our next segment.

Balance

This is huge in baseball. Giancarlo Stanton, one of the MLB’s most predominant players, is currently on pace to hit over 60 home runs this season. He attributes a lot of his success to yoga. Yes, yoga.

Stanton first tried yoga right after high school. He explains it like this. “I was looking for ways to maximize my strength, conditioning and flexibility,” Stanton said. “Yoga helps strengthen your core, which is a key component of the swing—and all aspects of baseball, really. It also stretches and strengthens the other muscles in your arms and legs.”

Stanton works with his instructor Kent Katich, based in Los Angeles. Katich says, “He’s gifted with that power, so we just wanted to work on unlocking it.”

The way I see this is that a lot of players are currently not using the abilities they were given to their full potential. Katich goes on to explain that his goal was to help Stanton loosen and condition any tight areas in his hips and hamstrings. Not only that, but Katich understands that baseball is not only physical, but mental as well. He wanted to help Stanton sharpen his focus, something yoga does wonderfully if taken seriously. “You see guys who aren’t necessarily powerful, but who can rotate their hips the right way at the right time, and they hit the ball hard,” Katich said. “When you can get a guy like Giancarlo, who has so much sheer mass and power, to rotate his hips properly, the results are amazing.”

Jake Arrieta agrees. He says that “Hamstring flexibility and hip mobility for me are the two most important factors on the field. Obviously we need to have a strong shoulder, strong scap, strong lats and a durable elbow to have longevity as a pitcher, but being durable and being mobile in the hips and flexible in the hamstrings take so much pressure and stress off of my arm. My flexibility is a huge asset.” Arrieta trains with Pilates, which is similar to yoga, in-season and in the off-season. I’ll talk about the flexibility Arrieta was talking about in just a bit.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe being a multi-sport athlete, playing the specific sports that I did, helped me in this area, nor could I find anyone who thought that it did. There are, however, some sports which do incorporate balance. This would include dance, gymnastics, surfing, boxing, and others. Outside of sports, yoga is the main way athletes can find balance. It also helps with breathing control, simple meditation, and adopting specific bodily postures, so we generally won’t find these types of movements participating in sports alone. Stanton explains it perfectly when he says “Yoga teaches you all about controlling your breath and your mental patience, which translates to hitting very well.”

Strength/Power

This is the big one that I hear people talking about most frequently. I cannot count the number of times that I heard my teammates talking about the “gains” they were making in the weight room. I would ask them, “Okay, but what else are you doing to get your body in shape?” Their answer went usually something like this, “What . . . What do you mean? What else is there other than weightlifting?”

Believe it or not, my college baseball coach was also the physical trainer for all sports at the school. He did not include one exercise in our training program that didn’t include weights. I simply could not understand how a physical trainer at a university can overlook endurance, agility, speed, flexibility, and balance as important parts of a training program.

Anyways, now that my mini rant is over, let’s talk about strength and power in multi-sport athletes. I would say that two or three sport athletes do tend to be a bit stronger than single sport athletes. I wouldn’t say that there is a noticeable difference in physical appearance, but more in overall strength and power.

Generally, in baseball, power is transferred by using fast twitch muscle fibers. Now, if you have no clue what fast twitch muscle fibers are, that’s totally okay, I’ll explain. In fact, I didn’t know what they were either until I hit college.

The body has two different kinds of muscle fibers; some classify them into three categories:

Type I: (Slow twitch, oxidative)

• Fatigue slowly
• Small diameter
• Contract slowly
• High number of mitochondria (power cells in our muscles)
• High oxidative capacity (uses fat stores as energy)
• Used for low intensity and prolonged excursions (posture or running)

Type IIa (Fast twitch, oxidative-glycolytic)

• Decent number of mitochondria
• Can use either glycogen or fat stores as energy
• Recovery is quick
• Resists fatigue
• Used for fast, low-intensity, repetitive motion

Type IIx (Fast twitch, non-oxidative)

• Low number of mitochondria
• Diameter is large
• Fatigues quickly
• Used for high-intensity, large-power output

Stack.com explains this very well.

To be clear, powerful fast twitch muscle fibers are good. The reason for this is because fast twitch muscle fibers can contract ten times faster than slow twitch muscle fibers.

Now, because fast twitch muscle fibers are not gained until heavy fatigue hits in, generally single sport baseball players will have a harder time building them. When do you see baseball players exhausted up at the plate? Not very often, except from dehydration.

So the question then is, does being a multiple sport athlete give you a better chance of having more fast twitch muscle fibers? I would, and others would agree, yes. Josh Williams, a certified strength and conditioning specialist through the NSCA, mentions four ways to build Type IIx muscle fibers-speed training, heavy strength training, Olympic lift training, and plyometric training.

Two out of the four are used in most sports outside of baseball. Speed training (quickness and agility work) is used in most sports like basketball, soccer, and football. And plyometrics (jump training) is incorporated by a few sports as well. Williams says that the two main ways to build fast twitch muscle fibers are heavy weights and fast acceleration, not necessarily together. I mentioned earlier that agility is gained with most other sports, which is perfect for building these fibers. Speed is the other one gained through other sports. With that in mind…

Speed

Training for speed is critical for baseball players. As I briefly talked about in the last section, we want quick sprints rather than long, slow runs. Playing other sports can also help baseball players keep any extra weight off, which makes for less baggage to carry around on the field.

The idea of speed training is to create a quicker stride frequency. The quicker the frequency, the quicker our feet are going to hit the ground, and the more often will we get to our destination faster. And like I explained, those fast twitch muscle fibers will be increased, helping players out with hip speed and power, which will give our bats more pop. It will also give players the ability to throw harder.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that only one in three children are active every day. That can lead to large obesity issues, as we are currently seeing. What better way to combat obesity than sports (and eating healthy)? I don’t think there is a better way. Single sport athletes may grow obese in the off-season, as some sport seasons last only 2-3 months. This leaves 9-10 months of inactivity. This is one of the most basic reasons why I believe getting kids into multiple sports from a young age is so important, or at least letting them have an active childhood.

Flexibility

It is my opinion that flexibility is the second most overlooked aspect of baseball, the most overlooked being mental toughness.

I will also add that working with weights can actually hurt your baseball performance if you don’t add in flexibility training. This won’t be true in all cases, but if you go out on the field stiff and inflexible, you won’t be able to use that strength you’ve gained in your training. Like Giancarlo Stanton and his instructor explained, yoga and flexibility training helped to unlock Stanton’s strength and power.

A quick example of this is the baseball swing.

For athletes in multiple sports, this can be a good thing, and it can also be a bad thing. Let me explain.

During soccer practices and games, we would almost always stretch beforehand. Our stretching consisted of dynamic warm-up for pregame and static stretching post-game. Most everybody participated in the dynamic warm-up. However, most guys skipped out on the static stretching after the game. The dynamic warm-up was to get the muscles warm and ready to perform, and the static stretching was to lessen soreness the next day and to maintain flexibility.

The athletes who skipped out on the post-game stretching were usually the athletes who were coming up injured during the basketball and baseball seasons. Their muscles were tight, leaving them prone to muscle pulls and extreme soreness.

The athletes who did participate in the post-game static stretching were usually the ones who could last through a three game tournament and still be ready to go again the next day. They were also the ones who continued to maintain their flexibility through the baseball season, making them hard to injure.

Mentality

Like I mentioned a bit earlier, I am very big into mental toughness for baseball players. I truly believe that to unlock a baseball player’s full potential, you must first create mental toughness in the athlete. As Yogi Berra, baseball great, once said, “Baseball is 90 percent mental, and the other half is physical.” So without further ado, here is how being a multi-sport athlete can impact a baseball player’s mental toughness.

Tough Times

In all sports, players go through bad streaks. Sometimes they even go through bad seasons. It can definitely take a toll on a player’s love for the game, not to mention their performance. When I was roughly ten years old, I played baseball for the Red Wings. We were one of the best teams in the 11-and-under league, and we had a blast game in and game out. We finished 2nd overall, if I remember correctly.

The next year, however, was a different story. I played for a different team and things went downhill really quickly. Five losses turned into ten, and ten losses turned into 15. Soon enough, we had lost 23 games out of a 23 game season. Not a single win. How about that for a bad streak? Now, for a very competitive kid, as I was, that is emotionally draining. Little did I know that the 23 game losing season I just had would prepare me for so much in the future.

Because I had gone through such a rough time that season, I was prepared for losses in the future. I wasn’t expecting losses, but I was prepared to handle them. This is why being a multi-sport athlete helps ballplayers. No matter what game you play, there is always a winner and a loser, unless you’re playing soccer. Winning is great to be a part of because kids learn how to work together as teammates. And losing is great to be a part of because kids learn how to fix their mistakes for the future. Again, I am not condoning that kids should want to be on teams that are losing. I am simply saying that the more experience kids have at competing in general, the more chances they will have at improving in future competitions.

Nerves

If you have played a sport before, you probably know what it feels like to take the field or court for the first time. It is like going in front of a big crowd to give a speech. Some people describe it as “butterflies” or “jitters”. Usually it is only pregame, and once the game starts, they go away.

Ed Latimore, a successful heavyweight boxer, gives an outline of 7 ways to be less nervous before competition. The very first point that he accounts his success to is experience through the years. It took years for Latimore to understand how to lower his pre-competition nerves.

Let’s say Timmy plays baseball and baseball alone from ages 6-15.

Let’s say Billy plays baseball, soccer, and hockey from ages 6-15.

At the end of those ten years (let’s say they played the same amount of games per sport season), Timmy will have about 150 games under his belt. Billy, on the other hand, will have played about 450 games. They aren’t necessarily the same sport, but they are still competition. And that is how playing more than one sport can improve young athletes.

Like Latimore said, it took him years to figure out how to bring his nerves down. Billy will have 300 more opportunities to learn how to bring his nerves down and just play. Chances are, kids won’t be thinking about learning opportunities, but the more they compete, the better chances the nerves will go down naturally through repetition.

Chess Match

This one, again, probably won’t be on kids’ minds as they compete. It will just happen naturally. Sports are, in a way, chess matches. Players have to think about what the opposing teams are thinking. They have to try to predict how their competitors will react to certain actions. The more players experience and record these reactions in their minds, the better they will adapt to them in the future. Being a multiple sport athlete gives kids the opportunity to see three times, if not four times, as many reactions to their actions in sports competitions.

Downsides

Throughout this entire article, I have given mostly positives of being a multiple sport athlete. The reality is that we must also look at the negatives before making a decision to become multiple sport athletes or to put our kids through more than one sport.

Time Commitment

There is no doubt about it, sports are time consuming. My dad can attest to this. I have seven siblings, all of whom played several sports each. The sports ranged from bowling to baseball. In fact, to give you a better idea, here’s a list of sports my dad has let us kids participate and compete in:

• bowling
• football
• basketball
• soccer
• rock climbing
• track
• tennis
• gymnastics
• dance
• wake boarding
• skiing
• motocross racing
• drag racing
• baseball

If I were to throw out a rough estimate, I would say that the average time each of us kids spent on sports per week was about 10-15 hours. That can really add up, especially if the sports go all year around. I calculated it up, and this equals over 75 8-hour days spent on sports in a year. I do not condemn this type of commitment. I am simply helping you realize the downsides of playing more than one sport.

It is really up to personal preference and goals. If you have something different in mind as an athlete or parent of an athlete, than maybe stick to one or two sports. Also, if multiple sports are getting in the way of physical conditioning (other than what they are already getting from those sports), this can be dangerous and lead to injuries, as Jeff Miller from Absolute Fitness explains.

Drainage/Worn Out

Sometimes a constant schedule of sporting events can take its toll on the mind as well as the body. I already talked about pre-event nerves and anxiety, which is one of the tests that Psychology Today used to find out if youth sports were too stressful for kids.

They found that the most common times when anxiety was present was before and after games, especially losses. The verdict was that sports in youth today are not overly stressful.

However, if the sports become too much and we let them overcome healthy habits, it can lead to mental and emotional issues. (Healthy habits being eating nutritious food, sleep, rest, and other necessities in youth).

Training Program for All

Going a little off track, my high school baseball coach gave us a training program before our senior year. This was the first training program any high school coach of mine had given the team. I had to find workouts to do on my own before this. This is a screenshot of the exact workout program:

That was just a quick sneak peak, but my point is that we were given weight lifting exercises, and that was it. It is my strong opinion that baseball players need more than just weight lifting exercises to excel at the sport. We may have been growing and strengthening our muscles, but we really weren’t in that great of shape at all for baseball.

Now, I realize that I just told you all of the benefits of being a multi-sport athlete, but simply being a multi-sport athlete isn’t enough. I soon realized, in the middle of my senior year of high school, that I hadn’t prepared well enough to compete to my full potential. Even after running and working my butt off for two full sports seasons, there was still something missing.

Ever since the end of my senior high school season, I have poured hours, days, months, and years into researching how baseball players can get into tip-top shape. I don’t know all of the secrets, but I sure have found some.

Here is my suggestion to you. Being that I played soccer and basketball right before the baseball season and still did not feel prepared enough for the baseball season, I suggest that all baseball players (whether they are multi-sport athletes or not) should incorporate physical conditioning into their routines on a regular basis. FilterJoe discusses this at length in this site’s Strength and Conditioning Guide for Pre-High School Athletes, and I will just give you a quick peak into what I would recommend if I were your baseball trainer:

• Weightlifting
• Body weight exercises
• Shoulder specific exercises (scapula and rotator cuff)
• Yoga
• Stretching (dynamic as a warm up to workouts and static as a cool down or flexibility training)
• Foam rolling or lacrosse ball rolling (Amazon has many foam roller options and even some lacrosse balls specifically designed for rolling, such as this pair from Kieba).
• Rest

What STACK Says About Multi-Sport Participation

• Chad Johnson (NFL) explains the importance of being a multi-sport athlete. A group from STACK studied sports specialization in youth sports. They found that the average age high school athletes started specializing in a sport was 12.7 years old. College was 14.8 years old. And professional was 14.1 years old. They also found that only 22.3% of professional athletes that were interviewed would want their child to specialize in one sport.
• In the next article, they found that being a multiple sport athlete has four main benefits:

1. Sport skills are learned faster
2. Higher sport IQ’s
3. Suffer less burnout
4. Learn to compete

• They also gathered three college sport coaches to find out their opinion on the matter. It turns out that the coaches believe displaying athletic gifts on more than one field is a positive. They say that doubling your time on the field will evolve your game and make it more multi-dimensional.

Summary

As I stated, there are both positives and negatives to being a multiple sport athlete. These are generalizations and not true in all circumstances.

Positives:

• Opportunity for agility, endurance, power and speed to be increased
• More chances to make friends
• Body is overall healthier and in better shape
• Mental capacity is increased
• Opportunity to be a better baseball player

Negatives:

• Failure to stretch regularly throughout the extra sports seasons will lead to muscle imbalances and overall body tightness
• More opportunities for injury (I didn’t talk about this much, but it is kind of a given)
• Overall body and mental drainage
• Leaves less time for other activities and commitments
• Personal life can be negatively affected, but it can also be empowered through sports

One last note I will leave you with is that I do not regret one second that I spent practicing and competing in all my years of sports through high school. I learned how to stay physically healthy, made lifelong friends, became mentally stronger, experienced great leadership role models to follow after, and found better ways to compete and persevere through hardships.

Being a multi-sport athlete does not automatically make you better than athletes who specialize in only one sport. But it can often help.

The post The Value of Being a Multiple Sport Athlete for Baseball Players first appeared on FilterJoe.

The question is not whether strength and conditioning is appropriate for young athletes, but rather which specific strength and training activities are appropriate for pre-high school athletes, and how to tailor these activities specifically to an athlete and his or her sport(s).

I’ve spent months trying to get my mind around the general concepts and specific implementation of physical conditioning routines, because my 12-year-old son loves to play baseball, loves to pitch, and has the motivation to do what is needed to keep his arm healthy and maximize his long-range potential.

What can he do to minimize his chances for injury while increasing his chances to realize his full velocity potential 5 years from now?

Before getting answers specific for my son’s situation, I had to learn more general concepts about strength and conditioning for young athletes. My learning would have been much faster if I had had access to a general guide that explained many of the basic concepts for someone starting with little knowledge about youth fitness, strength, and conditioning. I was unable to find a comprehensive online resource for this, so I had to learn it in bits and pieces from many different articles, as well as conversations with coaches and fitness professionals.

As usual for FilterJoe, I’m creating the comprehensive guide I wish had been available for me when learning about a topic. This time it’s strength and conditioning for pre-high school athletes. This guide answers the following question:

What do I need to know as a parent when getting my young athlete started with strength and conditioning?

Contents

• Why Bother with Strength and Conditioning Before High School?
• What Do Athletes Hope to Improve with Strength and Conditioning?
• What Does a Good Workout Routine Look Like?
• How Should the Strength Portion of a Workout Routine Be Structured?
• What Does a Good Strength and Conditioning Program Look Like?
• What Types, Amounts, and Intensity Levels of Strength and Conditioning Is Appropriate for Kids?
• What about Sleep and Nutrition
• Example: Strength and Conditioning for a Baseball Pitcher
• Final Words

Why Bother with Strength and Conditioning Before High School?

In general, physical conditioning reduces the chances for injury and enhances the performance of athletes. It’s true for adults. It’s true of high school athletes. It’s true for younger athletes as well. It’s that simple.

To elaborate:

The U.S. cultural norm around strength and conditioning is that you don’t start before high school and that you don’t need it if you play multiple sports and engage in a wide variety of physical activities. There is some truth to the second part of that statement. Playing multiple sports is great. The more kids play outside, vary their physical activity, and rotate between different sports, the more a wider variety of muscles get used. On average, this will lessen the need for a formal physical strength and conditioning program.

But how often do kids actually engage in a wide variety of physical activities?

National trends are going in the opposite direction of multiple sports and varied physical activity. What I see in my area is that many kids specialize in a single sport, a few do 2 sports, and pretty much nobody does 3 sports.

Actually, most kids don’t do any sports. I see kids, even serious athletes, spending much of their time playing video games, watching YouTube, or otherwise staring at screens more often than going out to play.

Worst of all, outdoor neighborhood play is almost non-existent in my area, a big difference from my own childhood. Formal playdates are the only way most kids get together to play, and it will often be just 2 or 3 kids that play mostly indoors, not a group that plays outside all day. There may be a few kids these days who play 3 or more sports each year and/or play outside a lot when they’re not playing sports, but I don’t know any.

Given the trends in the direction of less varied physical activity over the past couple decades, combined with sports specialization at an early age, kids who love athletics will often play one sport and get strong in certain muscles and physical activities while other muscles remain weak.

Let’s take my 12-year-old son for example. He loves baseball and he loves to pitch. He has always played sports in school at recess, and he goes to an informal sports camp in the summer. He played one season of basketball last year, did some climbing for a few months 2 years ago, and took a couple years of dancing lessons when he was very young. From what I can see, he engages in more varied and more voluminous physical activity than most kids.

However, for the most part, he specializes in baseball. Furthermore, he does not play as much outside as I did as a kid. I never thought of myself as an athlete, yet I played outside with neighborhood kids for hours each day during the summer and quite a bit even during the school year.

One by one, his peers are experiencing sore arms when pitching. We know of some kids a couple years older than him who have had to sit out an entire year after developing elbow or shoulder issues, and we know many kids in his peer group who have had to stop pitching for a few weeks with milder symptoms. Some kids we know pitch 1500 or more pitches in games per year. Most of these players are not throwing enough or doing any physical conditioning outside of games to support such a high pitching volume. These high volume pitchers typically attend 1-2 practices/week, where arms are warmed up for 10-15 minutes at the start of practice. That is not a lot of throwing.

Negligible physical conditioning, 1500+ pitches per year, less than 30 minutes of throwing per week, and the mediocre mechanics typical of youth pitchers—this is an all-too-common recipe for arm troubles.

At the same time we ramped up our discussions about what it takes to avoid injury to pitcher arms, my son got a pull-up bar for his birthday. As he started doing pull-ups he quickly got frustrated that he could never do more than 4 pull-ups in a row—so he asked for advice on what he needed to do to get past 4. The combination of wanting to increase his pull-ups and preserve his pitching arm for the future motivated him to start working out in a formal way, and me to figure out how to help him do that. And me being FilterJoe, I saw this as another opportunity to research a baseball-related topic and eventually write about it.

When he started doing strength and conditioning a couple months ago, his arms and legs were pretty strong from baseball and other physical activities. But his core muscles were much weaker in comparison with his arms and legs. It was easy to tell from his numbers with push-ups, pull-ups, squats, crunches, and how long he could hold a plank. Even 2 months later with considerable progress, it is still hard for him to do over 20 crunches, despite having moderately impressive numbers in the other categories (maximums so far are 15 pull-ups, 52 push-ups, and squats are so easy for him that we’ve added a 4 lb. medicine ball).

So what has happened with my son’s pitching since he started doing calisthenics 3 times/week?

• His weight climbed from 79 to 89 pounds in 2 months. He grew from 4′ 9″ to 4′ 9.5″ during that time, so it wasn’t primarily from a growth spurt. It wasn’t fat either.
• He never feels tired or sore when pitching (to be fair—he has good mechanics and didn’t much feel tired or sore before starting calisthenics, but occasionally he did get a little tired or sore. So he went from just a little to not at all).
• His coaches have noticed that his velocity is creeping up week by week. According to a radar gun that I purchased just when he started his workout routine, his velocity is 5 MPH faster than it was 2 months ago, as he went from 53 to 58 MPH off the mound. There may be other reasons for his velocity gains, as he’s now half an inch taller and he’s been doing a bullpen once a week at baseball practice with a coach who is fine tuning his mechanics. But I’m guessing that his workout routine is at least partly responsible for the gains, particularly all the crunches and planks addressing his weak point, his core muscles.

I didn’t expect a rapid increase in pitching velocity after just 2 months of calisthenics, and I’m skeptical as to whether such rapid gains can be replicated in other kids. It’s by no means a scientific test, and there are many other variables in play that may be contributing to the pitching velocity gains.

But a couple months of calisthenics is just the tip of the iceberg with regards to the possibilities offered by strength and conditioning. What happens when you start formal strength and conditioning at a much earlier age? What happens if it’s designed especially for a single sport? Turns out some amazing things happen when kids start very early. For an extreme example from Russia that has produced many tennis stars, try reading this New York Times article on “How to Grow a Super-Athlete.” Under this system, kids starting out at the age of 5 are not permitted to play in any tennis tournaments for 3 years. The entire focus is on physical conditioning and technique for swinging a tennis racket.

I’m not advocating that potential athletes need to start a formal physical conditioning program at the age of 5. There’s a lot to be said for keeping it fun. What I am suggesting is:

Athletes who focus on a single sport seriously and don’t do a wide variety and substantial volume of other physical activity should start a formal physical conditioning program before high school, both to prevent injury and enhance performance.

What Do Athletes Hope to Improve with Strength and Conditioning?

When people think of strength and conditioning, the first image that may come to mind is weight lifting. While strength training with weights can be (and often is) a part of an overall strength and conditioning program, athletes typically aim to improve much more than just their strength. The following list, adapted from page 18 of Progressive Plyometrics for Kids, covers the specific attributes that help an athlete’s performance and resistance to injury as they improve:

• Speed – getting faster at sprinting
• Agility – more quickly accelerating, decelerating, and changing directions
• Strength – applying more force to an external load with muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments
• Power – becoming more explosive, generating as much force as fast as possible (the product of force and velocity)
• Flexibility – increasing elasticity and range of movement in joints or muscles
• Reaction – responding faster to a stimulus
• Coordination – controlling 2 or more body parts together more effectively and efficiently to produce desired outcomes
• Balance – better maintaining body position and coordination under varied conditions
• Endurance – increasing the amount of time muscles can be used without fatigue

Note: I learned a few months after writing this guide of another performance attribute called mobility, and functional range conditioning which can increase mobility. While flexibility is purely about soft muscle tissue lengthening, mobility is about an ability to move actively through a range of motion, requiring coordination among restricted muscle tissue, joints, joint capsules, motor control, as well as soft muscle tissue. When I learned this, I learned and then taught my son some knee mobility drills and he has had no knee issues since.

According to the authors of Progressive Plyometrics for Kids:

Children and teenage athletes need to work on their weaknesses and enhance their fundamental fitness abilities to build a solid foundation for success in any sport. Ask successful college or professional athletes what they did when there were 12 years old. Most likely they will say that they played outside every day after school (developing fundamental fitness abilities) and competed on 2 or 3 different sports teams (developing a variety of sport-specific skills).

What Does a Good Workout Routine Look Like?

A specific workout routine works best when tailored to an individual’s specific needs. However, there are up to 5 parts of every good workout routine:

• Warmup/Mobility (mandatory)
• Skill/Technique (optional)
• Strength (optional)
• Endurance (optional)
• Cooldown/Flexibility/Recovery (mandatory)

It’s fine to have a workout that consists of warmup, cooldown and just 1 of the other 3 parts. For example, Monday could be a strength workout, Tuesday endurance, and Wednesday working on a new exercise or sport-specific skills, and so forth. A workout can have 3, 4, or 5 of the above parts to it.

All workouts should have at least a few minutes of warmup and cooldowns.

The purpose of the warmup portion of the workout is to get muscles soft and stretchy. There are many ways to do this well—all include getting muscles and the entire body warmer with dynamic activities. Jogging half a mile, perhaps speeding up a little towards the end, is a fine way to get started for an outdoor workout. It can then be followed by some dynamic stretches. Indoors, the running can be replaced by vigorous movement such as jump rope, jumping jacks, running in place with high knees, butt kicks, etc. Depending on athlete-specific needs or which muscles will be worked later in the workout, there may be some additional muscle-specific stretches to help loosen up at the beginning.

It’s neither necessary nor desirable to exert 100% effort during warmup. It’s better to have controlled movement that’s fast enough to warm up muscles, but not so fast as to lead to exhaustion or gasping for breath before the workout gets going in earnest.

Warmup stretches need to be dynamic, not static. A static stretch is when the body is held in a still pose in order to stretch (lengthen) one or more muscles. But later during a workout, strength exercises contract muscles, which is exactly the opposite. There is ample evidence that static stretching before strength training (or any other physical activity that strongly exerts muscles) decreases performance and increases the chances of injury. If the goal is to get specific muscles warm, then simply use dynamic stretches. For example, arm rotations and various swinging arm routines are safe and helpful, while holding arms in static poses (such as the pulling-arms-behind-the-neck stretch so common to baseball) are not as safe and won’t help throwing performance.

Skill or Technique work may be related to refining how specific exercises are done such as learning how to do elbow levers. They could be various gymnastic skills such as handstands. Or they may be related to sport-specific training such as a baseball pitcher learning to throw with more pronation. It’s generally easier to correctly learn new skills before strength or endurance portions of a workout while at full energy. Some skills will be impossible to do correctly until weeks or even months of training subsidiary skills or strengthening specific muscles.

Strength training is often the most difficult part of a workout, which may be why so many people associate strength training with working out. How to structure strength training will differ for every athlete depending on goals and the sport(s) involved. The next section explores concepts related to strength exercise selection, intensity, duration, and number of repetitions.

Endurance training typically involves doing a whole body activity such as running, swimming, or bicycling for a long period of time. Baseball is an example of a sport where the endurance portion of training should be a smaller part of the overall mix, because too much endurance training interferes with the development of muscle power/explosiveness which is much more relevant to the sport. Pitching, hitting, and base running all require explosive power, not endurance.

The purpose of Cooldown/Flexibility/Recovery is to bring your body’s heart rate and breathing back to normal, remove lactic acid, and reduce muscle soreness and stiffness that may develop during the next few hours or days. The overall effect is to aid recovery during the 2-3 days of rest to follow. Common types of activities during cooldown include light exercise, static stretches, and soft tissue massage (including self-administered myofascial release). This is the part of the workout when static stretches can be helpful, as there will be no strength training or other vigorous use of muscles to follow. Static stretches when muscles are already warm will lengthen muscles, ligaments, and tendons, which helps maintain flexibility.

How Should the Strength Portion of a Workout Routine Be Structured?

How to structure strength training seems arbitrary and confusing if you jump online and start reading random advice. But it all becomes easy to comprehend once you understand the answer to the following biology question: What causes muscles in humans or other animals get stronger?

The answer is surprisingly simple:

1. Use a muscle a little bit, and it will not get stronger.
2. Stress muscles enough and they will tear. The body adapts by repairing these “micro-tears” and strengthening muscle to better handle the type of stimulus that caused the tears. The formal name for this process is hypertrophy.
3. The more a specific muscle is stressed beyond its present limits, the more time it will take to repair the damage.
4. Stress the muscle too much and it may suffer injury beyond just micro-tears, and take much longer to heal.

Make sure to understand the above concepts of hypertrophy and micro-tears. All strength training logically follows from this understanding. You don’t want to stress muscles too little or too much. You want just the right amount.

Training is not the only way muscles get stronger. Other factors that cause muscles to grow larger include hormone signaling, developmental factors, and disease. One form of cheating for athletes is to use steroids to amplify hypertrophy. But this article is about strength and conditioning so the focus will continue to be on what an individual can control through strength training, rest, and nutrition.

The above description of what causes muscles to build (or not) implies a few other useful concepts:

• As a specific muscle adapts to stress (#2 above), it becomes stronger. Continuing to stress the muscle in the exact same way for weeks will not lead to continued gains, because it becomes too easy (#1 above). Therefore a progression is needed. The way a muscle is worked needs to get harder over time, typically some combination of increased repetitions, increased resistance/weight, or greater difficulty. This concept is often called progressive overload. To sum up this point: When an exercise becomes easy, it’s time to change by increasing repetitions, resistance, and/or difficulty.
• As stated in #3 above, it takes time to repair the damage from micro-tears. This means that rest and recovery from strength training is as important as the training which breaks down muscle. For many people 48 hours is an adequate period of time to rest after a typical workout, though optimal length of time will vary by individual and the intensity of a given workout. It is during this rest period that muscles get stronger as the body repairs the micro-tears.
• Working out the same muscle groups every day in an increasing progression with no rest days is often less effective than working out every other day, as the body does not have enough time to repair micro-tears in muscles. It can cause exhaustion, fatigue, irritability, decreased performance, and even injury. However, it’s okay to work out every day if rotating between muscle groups, or rotating between strength and endurance training. For example, strength training M/W/F while running 5 miles on the other days for endurance training is fine.

An example that puts all of these concepts together is a program designed to increase the number of pull-ups an individual can perform. Obviously this is not a strength and conditioning plan for the whole body, but by focusing on this one exercise, you can see a sample progression as the number of repetitions and sets increases over time. Someone who follows this plan will first take a test in order to find their starting level. A progression gradually increases the number of pull-ups done within each of 5 sets over the course of many weeks.

For someone who initially tests in the 6-8 pull-ups range, for example, here is a page that explains how many pull-ups to do on each set on Day 1:

http://www.50pullups.com/50-pullups-programme/6-8-pullups

Note how a day of rest is required after Day 1. Then there is a different set of numbers for Day 2. Then another day of rest is required. And so on. If you’re unfamiliar with what a typical day-to-day and week-to-week progression looks like, I encourage you to examine this page and other pages on the 50-pull-ups site to get a sense of what a structured program looks like.

My son increased the maximum number of pull-ups he could do from 4 to 15 in 2 months by approximately following the plan from the pull-ups site. He was able to see how he could get stronger week after week with this one specific exercise, which helped motivate him to devote himself to other calisthenics in a similar, formal progression. He now includes pull-ups, push-ups, squats, crunches, and planks in the strength portion of his workout routine.

Note how the pull-ups-specific site focuses on sets and repetitions. This is typical, though most workouts will have more than one exercise in a particular set. For example, after warming up, the first set might look like this:

• 9 pull-ups (or more formally, 9 repetitions of the pull-up exercise)
• 8 jumping squats (with 4 pound medicine ball)
• 60 second plank (or 18 crunches)
• 29 push-ups
• 30 feet of walking lunges

He then rests for 2-3 minutes before starting on the next set. His workouts are structured with sets 1, 3, and 4 having fewer repetitions, while sets 2 and 5 have the most repetitions. Set 5 on that same day was:

• 11 or more pull-ups
• 60 second weighted wall sit (4 pound medicine ball)
• 23 or more crunches
• 40 or more push-ups
• 5 superman reps held for at least 3 seconds each

Note that it is only the last few, very difficult repetitions that will cause the micro-tearing. So if 40 push-ups seems easy, it is really important to do a few more until they start to feel very difficult.

These numbers for my son were from the first week of August, and were higher than his July numbers. Between the warmup, 5 sets, 2-3 minutes rest between sets, and recovery, it was taking over 80 minutes to complete these workouts. I began to wonder if it made sense to do such long workouts for a 12-year old. Sure they might be helping some with endurance. But does a baseball player need so much endurance?

We met with professional trainer Joe Ruiz of X-Fit Training to answer this and other questions we had, as well as assess my son’s form. His form for most exercises turned out to be pretty good (learning form from YouTube videos proved effective), but Joe confirmed with me that you don’t need a workout for a 12-year-old to go over an hour.

When repetitions get high, it’s time to consider adding resistance/weight or making exercises more difficult. While he did start using a 4-pound medicine ball for his various squat exercises, the answer for push-ups and crunches was to increase difficulty.

So now he is doing some clapping push-ups and diamond push-ups. These are much more tiring so he counts clapping push-ups as equal to 6 regular push-ups and diamond push-ups as equal to 3 regular push-ups. If the day’s routine calls for 32 push-ups in set 3, he might instead do 5 clapping push-ups followed by 2 regular push-ups.

The specific details for every individual will differ, but this particular example illustrates how the exercises need to change over time in response to an athlete’s growing strength. If everything stays the same from week to week, the athlete will stop growing stronger.

What Does a Good Strength and Conditioning Program Look Like?

The way a workout should be structured was described in the previous section. If you already read and understood that section, then you already understand some of what you need to know about structuring an overall program. In short:

• The program needs to be relevant to what the athlete is trying to accomplish. A baseball player will be more concerned with strength and power, while a cross country runner will be more concerned with endurance and cardiovascular fitness.
• At the same time a program is tailored to an individual’s goals, it also needs to be comprehensive, addressing every major muscle group in the upper body, core area, and lower body.
• The sets, repetitions, resistance, and exercise difficulty need to start at a level that makes sense for the athlete’s current fitness level, and then get progressively more difficult over time. There may be a plateau or even regression because an athlete is forced to skip a few workouts or some other reason. But over a long period of time, difficulty has to gradually increase. One possible way to manage this is to try to keep reps at a similar number (say, 10-15) and if that gets too easy, change up the routine by adding resistance or increasing difficulty.
• Kids are not going to have the attention span of adults, so boredom can be a real issue. Find ways to mix up the routine to keep it interesting. While 5 sets may work for highly motivated kids, 1 or 2 sets is going to be better for most kids when getting started. When I managed a PONY Mustang team of 9- and 10-year olds, I asked the players to do 5 minutes of calisthenics per day at home—a 30 second wall sit, jumping jacks, 5 side planks from each side, and leg lifts. It was such a small thing to ask, that most of them did it.
• Training frequency is important. Working out once every 2 weeks is not enough to gain or even maintain muscle strength, while working the same muscle groups every day does not allow adequate recovery time. 2 to 3 workouts per week for each muscle group tends to be effective for most people, but it’s important to listen to one’s body. If 3 big exercise routines per week lead to excessive fatigue, then maybe 2 is a better number. Also, while 3 long workouts each week is one way to do it, short daily workouts is an option if one is careful to rotate between muscle groups. For example, upper body and core work could be M/W/F, while lower body could be on a different 3 days.
• In-season and out-of-season training frequency and program design differ. During game season, too much training will cause athletes to be tired for games. So generally the training frequency and intensity is much higher in the off season than it is when games are being played.
• If at any time an athlete suffers (or is recovering from) an injury, the program must immediately be adjusted to promote a healthy recovery.

If you want further ideas and detail, see the International Youth Conditioning Association’s helpful article How to Create a Strength Training Program for Young Athletes.

What Types, Amounts, and Intensity Levels of Strength and Conditioning Is Appropriate for Kids?

Most experts agree that body weight strength training (push-ups, pull-ups, etc.) is fine starting at approximately the age of 8. The reason for age 8 is that learning proper form is very important but is difficult for many kids younger than 8.

Exercises that have little or no added weight for pre-pubescent kids are generally considered safe. Pretty much everyone agrees that the fitness attained from simply playing outside in the neighborhood, at playgrounds, and at recess is fine for kids, and that formal speed and agility training is fine.

Beyond these few areas of agreement, there is considerable debate, with questions, such as:

• Is weight lifting safe? If so, how much weight?
• Is plyometrics (training explosive movement) safe?
• Exactly how much repetition, intensity, and difficulty of exercises is reasonable? How much total time per week?

I don’t believe that I or anyone else has all the answers for these types of questions. But I can at least describe what is being debated in recent years.

Before the turn of the century, most fitness professionals believed that prepubescent kids should never do any exercises requiring more than their own body weight. In the past decade, though, this has shifted somewhat. Many fitness professionals now believe weight lifting is safe so long as proper form is used and weights are kept low. The trainer we consulted, Joe Ruiz, recommends that my 12-year-old son add no more than 10% of his body weight in any exercise. This approach is on the conservative end of the spectrum, so far as I’ve been able to tell.

However, even if you end up choosing to urge your son or daughter to use weights conservatively, there are plenty of strength gains to be made without the weight. As mentioned early in this article, in just 2 months of mostly doing pushups, pull-ups, squats, crunches, and planks for 3-4 hours a week (M/W/F), my 12-year-old son increased his weight from 79 to 89 pounds while seeing an increase of 5 MPH on his pitching velocity.

Some people believe that a focus on body weight exercises has some advantages over weights at any age. Many times, the purpose of pushing extra weight is to isolate and strengthen a specific muscle group (i.e. bench press). While this achieves the intended purpose, it does not help one become more athletic in terms of improving control over one’s body. Some types of added weights (i.e. weighted vests) allow more natural body movement but even those weights are not an entirely natural use of the body. Focusing on body weight exercises alone allows an athlete to gradually gain ever more mastery over his or her body.

Even were my son to lift weights, he would not be able to reap the benefits of bulking up his muscles anywhere near as much as post-puberty high school kids. At this point, there is such a wide variety of exercises available to him to learn that I would prefer he continue to explore gradually more difficult body weight exercises rather than fruitlessly attempt to bulk up. He can bulk up in high school. WebMD pretty much agrees.

Plyometrics is a type of exercise that links strength and speed of movement to produce power. It used to be known simply as “jump training,” which involved repeatedly jumping up and down boxes at certain heights, or other types of jumps, in order to develop more explosive leg strength and higher vertical jump capability. However, plyometrics can refer to any type of explosive moment. Children naturally incorporate plyometrics in many forms of play, such as jumping off a swing, playing hopscotch, or running an obstacle course.

Box jumping is considered by some to be dangerous for kids, so therefore some people have discounted all of plyometrics as being unsafe for kids. There is no scientific evidence to back up the idea that all explosive movement is bad for kids. Professors Donald A. Chu and Avery D. Faigenbaum have studied plyometrics extensively, learning which types of plyometrics are safe and which aren’t. I’ve purchased their book, Progressive Plyometrics for Kids. My son is going to begin doing the program outlined in that book after his baseball season is over in early September. The program emphasizes development of speed, agility, and power and is specifically designed to be interesting for kids.  Update: My son did go through this book’s program. You can read how that worked out with my review of Progressive Plyometrics for Kids.

Speed and agility training for pre-high-school kids has long been considered safe, and should be encouraged. Some sports or physical activities such as soccer and martial arts may naturally incorporate many aspects of speed and agility training anyway, but many kids (such as my son) don’t do such activities so would therefore benefit from some form of guided instruction.

So what about the quantity question? Exactly how much repetition, intensity, and difficulty of exercises is reasonable? How much total time per week?

My take on this is that it’s going to depend on the individual’s starting point, talents, interest level, and many other factors. I don’t know if there are any scientific answers for this. I encourage my own son to listen to his body and react accordingly.

For example, a couple weeks ago his knees started to hurt a little. He has had some issues with his knees in the past so I encouraged him to immediately stop all forms of squats, lunges, and anything else that used his knees for a couple sessions. He’s back to doing squats, but paying attention closely to make sure his knees are feeling okay. He’s also been doing some physical therapy exercises for his knees during the recovery portion of the workout. He learned these exercises a few years ago after his left knee experienced a mild ACL strain.

After consulting with trainer Joe Ruiz, I encouraged my son to limit his tri-weekly workouts to about an hour. Because the repetitions were getting so high, he starting mixing in some more difficult exercises with fewer reps. It takes less time and is probably a logical next step anyway for the progression of his strength training.

Every individual is going to be different, so the only lesson to draw from the examples in this section is that it’s helpful to monitor what’s happening and make adjustments as needed to suit what makes sense for the individual. Even if an athlete is largely training on his own, it’s a good idea to check in occasionally with a professional trainer to make adjustments to the training program.

What about Sleep and Nutrition

Sleep and Nutrition are critical parts of any strength and conditioning program. Each of these merits an in-depth article of its own, but in this guide I’m only going to briefly discuss each.

As already mentioned, muscles grow while resting, as they recover from micro-tears inflicted during workouts. Kids require more sleep than adults, for both their body and mind. The less sleep a kid gets, the less time his or her body has to recuperate from workouts and build muscle.

Nutrients from food are the fuel the body needs to rebuild muscles. Through Internet searching you can find thousands of articles on proper nutrition to compliment a strength and conditioning program. Several general principles that most fitness experts agree on for both kids and adults:

• You need to eat enough. Building muscle necessarily means gaining weight. Therefore, you need to consume more calories than you burn, as discussed in many books and articles. An online calorie calculator can be a helpful tool.
• In addition to usual good eating habits that limit sugar and include a wide variety of foods, it’s important to insure adequate amounts of the right kinds of protein and carbohydrates.
• Timing matters. If you haven’t eaten for many hours, it’s good to have at least a snack before doing a workout. It’s also a good idea to eat something within an hour or 2 after doing a workout.

There is much much more that can be said about sleep and nutrition. Another FilterJoe article or two, perhaps?

Example: Strength and Conditioning for a Baseball Pitcher

Despite all this blog’s material about youth baseball, this lengthy primer hasn’t entirely focused on baseball. Strength and conditioning principles are the same regardless of athlete. Only the details of program design differ. This section gets more specific about baseball.

Baseball is a sport that requires huge bursts of power that happen infrequently. With the exception of starting pitchers and catchers, endurance isn’t much needed. So programs designed specifically for baseball emphasize power over endurance.

Running is a good example of how to make a program design decision. Running 5-10 miles per day trains an athlete to run at a steady pace, which is great for endurance and cardiovascular fitness. However, this is not good training for baseball. Sprints of 30 or 60 yards on the other hand are very helpful, as are any exercises which train legs for explosive power that sprints require. An athlete devoted to baseball needs to do lots of lots of sprints, while keeping long-distance running to a minimum. See Training to Sprint Faster for how to do this.

What types of running to do is just one of many decisions that needs to be made when designing a fitness program specific to baseball. Throwing is a big part of the game for all players, but especially pitchers. So there needs to be more exercises specific to muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the arm than if the player were playing a different sport. Agility is needed for fielding. And there are other undoubtedly other subtleties related to baseball-specific training that also need to be incorporated. However, like every athlete, it’s important to work all muscles to some extent so that imbalances don’t develop.

At the high school level and beyond, many coaches have their own ideas about the optimal training regimen. A coach may provide a structured strength and conditioning system for the players, typically with different programs for pitchers, hitters, and position players (position players are non-pitchers). In the Leo series on this site that details the true life story of a Little Leaguer from the age of 10 until college, the role of strength and conditioning in Leo’s senior year was partly responsible for transforming a historically poor team into one of the best in the state (see Leo’s Journey from Little League to College Baseball, HS Senior: A New Hope). Leo’s senior-year coach went far beyond most strength and conditioning programs, and that was likely a key reason for his unusually successful career as a high school baseball coach.

Many high schools don’t have extensive strength and conditioning programs. However, players with a strong desire to excel handle the lack of structure by purchasing a program with testing and science behind it that provides the needed structure. There are many such programs on the market for the high school level and beyond, but there are only 2 programs I’m aware of for youth baseball players, and they are both for pitchers. I don’t have experience with either one of these programs but they both have good reputations:

Driveline Baseball’s Hacking the Kinetic Chain (Ages 9-14)

TUFFCUFF (Junior Edition) Youth Pitching Program

Another youth pitching program is aiming to come out some time in 2019:

Tread Athletics

Driveline also has a free resource for in-season arm maintenance. My son has already begun using the warmup and recovery portions of this guide. Though intended for before and after pitching, bullpens, and long toss, my son incorporates some of the recovery routines as part of his regular workout:

Driveline Baseball’s Free Youth Arm Care Program

Yet another resource I like is the Oakland Children’s hospital Sports Medicine Resource Page which includes a warmup exercise handout for baseball as well as for other sports.

The reason youth programs differ from high school and beyond is that some forms of strength training are recognized as not safe until after an athlete has completed puberty. For example, weighted baseballs are commonly included for programs aimed at older baseball players, but are considered physiologically unsafe for athletes below high school age.

Final Words

There is an enormous amount of information available about strength and conditioning topics for young athletes and baseball in specific. The principals involved are consistent across all sports. If you read this article in its entirety, you now know these principles and have enough of a vocabulary to ask good questions when assessing local training options for your young athlete.

If you want to drill down into strength and conditioning for baseball more specifically, Driveline Baseball has a blog with many in-depth articles about baseball training topics. There are many YouTube videos from Driveline and many other individuals and organizations describing baseball specific drills. You can also learn a lot by having a local fitness trainer meet with you and your son or daughter. The more baseball-specific expertise that fitness trainer has, the better.

Feel free to leave comments or ask questions in the comments section below. Given how big this topic is, there’s always more to learn.

The post Strength and Conditioning Guide for Pre-High School Athletes (Especially Baseball) first appeared on FilterJoe.

Use pre-charged, low self-discharge (LSD) batteries for AA and AAA battery needs. When used with a quality charger, LSD batteries offer the best combination of long-term cost-effectiveness, quality, durability, and environmental sustainability. Once you’ve tried LSD batteries with a good charger and realize how good they are, you’ll end up using them for the vast majority of devices that require AA or AAA batteries.

If you prefer to skip the details, click to the Just Tell Me What to Buy section of this article. If you prefer to understand what you’re buying, read on.

This guide is a 2017-2018 update on AA and AAA rechargeable batteries and chargers. It will be maintained and updated to stay current through early 2019. The technology and products associated with AA batteries and charges change slowly, so this will be easy.

In addition to this guide written by me, Jim Hyman will continue to test batteries and write articles for FilterJoe. Jim has been supplied with a few chargers to test by DC Workshop. When Jim’s testing reveals new information, appropriate changes will be made to this guide.

As you can see from the following table of contents, I cover LSD batteries, budget chargers, premium chargers, storage, and other AAA and AA-battery-related topics. I recommend specific products for different budgets and needs. I also provide a Just Tell Me What to Buy section for those who just want to cut to the chase.

Contents

• Introduction
• Just Tell Me What to Buy
• Why LSD Batteries Blow Away the Competition
• History of LSD Batteries Since 2005
• The LSD trade-off: Higher capacity means fewer recharges
• Recommended LSD Battery Brands (and Country of Choice: Japan)
• What to Look for in a Budget Charger
• Extra Features to Look for in Premium Chargers
• Recommended Budget AA/AAA Chargers
• Recommended Premium AA/AAA Chargers
• Storing AA and AAA batteries
• When to Use Alkaline or Lithium Batteries (hint: rarely)
• Concluding Remarks

Introduction

Do you own a cast iron skillet? If so, how often have you had to replace it? If you treat it well, the answer is never.

Well, low self-discharge (LSD) batteries are the cast-iron skillet of the battery world . . . but even better because there aren’t any drawbacks other than the higher up-front cost.

There are so many headlines about breakthrough battery technologies that will be the wave of the future for autos, smart phones, or storing electricity generated by solar power. But U.S. consumers still spend over $4 billion annually on mundane AA and AAA batteries to power remote controls, flashlights, digital cameras (and DLSR flash attachments), book lights, toys for kids, and many other devices. Despite this sizable market, Sanyo’s Eneloop breakthrough that occurred in 2005 continues to receive scant attention.

Toys are what inspired me to start learning about AA batteries. Something just seemed wrong about buying dozens of Alkaline batteries per year to power my toddler’s toys. Something seemed even more wrong when my rechargeable (high discharge) NiMH batteries could not power toys after 3 or 4 months despite not being used. Thankfully, I discovered Eneloop batteries when my son was 5 years old. I soon switched our family to using exclusively LSD batteries such as Eneloop, along with a good battery charger.

A year, and a bunch of research later, I wrote my first article on LSD batteries:

Best AA Batteries That You Never Heard Of

Since then I’ve written many more articles that have been collectively viewed by over 100,000 visitors. Though much has stayed the same since that article was written, numerous battery chargers have come and gone, and Eneloop has spawned many competitors for LSD batteries. Are these LSD competitors as good as Eneloop?

Some have tried to answer this question by extensively testing many different brands of batteries. They have generally found that LSD batteries produced in Japan don’t differ all that much from each other (with the exception of the capacity/longevity trade-off). And that’s the key: Japan.

The original Eneloop batteries were designed and developed by a battery factory in Takasaki, Japan. That factory and the Eneloop brand were both owned by Sanyo through 2009 but since then, Panasonic has owned the Eneloop brand name, while Fujitsu has owned the factory and all the intellectual property associated with the manufacture of LSD batteries, as part of its FDK subsidiary. In other words:

The leader in the AA/AAA battery field is not Eneloop or any other brand, but the Fujitsu NiMH battery factory located in Takasaki which makes batteries for many brands.

I discussed this at length in a section of last year’s battery update so I won’t repeat all that information here. All you need to know as a consumer when purchasing LSD batteries is to look for the following words:

Made in Japan

LSD batteries made in China are generally less expensive than those made in Japan. However, given that these batteries last for decades, I recommend purchasing only the highest quality Japan-sourced LSD batteries from reputable U.S. retailers such as Amazon, NewEgg, and Costco. There are surely other reliable retailers but these are three that I’m confident will sell batteries that are genuinely from Japan, if that is what is claimed on the packaging (note: by Amazon I mean direct from Amazon. Buying from a third-party merchant is not going to guarantee that you actually receive LSD batteries made in Japan).

Fujitsu is a brand that you can count on to always come from Japan. So far, Eneloops in North America, Europe, and Japan also come from that same Takasaki factory. Many other brands source LSD batteries from Japan, but some brands also source LSD batteries from China. If you do buy one of these other brands, be sure to inspect the packaging and the batteries themselves to be sure they are sourced from Japan.

Just Tell Me What to Buy

Determining which LSD brands to buy and how to properly take care of AA or AAA batteries does not change much from year to year. Generally, I suggest products to match a given set of criteria, not recommend a one-size-fits-all category winner. But in this section I do try to simplify as much as possible.

If you are new to LSD batteries, I strongly recommend buying a combination pack to get started. I suggest the following inexpensive package, which includes 8 AA and 2 AAA Eneloop batteries, as well as a compact yet capable charger:

Panasonic KJ17MCC82A Eneloop Power Pack for 8AA, 2AAA, 2 C Spacers, 2 D Spacers, Advanced Individual Battery Charger

If you already have a good charger, then you only need to buy batteries. Given that Fujitsu owns the factory in Japan that makes the best LSD factory in the world, you can always count on them for high quality AA batteries:

Fujitsu Ready-to-use 8 AA rechargeable NiMH batteries HR3UTC 2000mAh

The Eneloop AAA batteries seem to be much more readily available than the Fujitsu AAA:

Panasonic BK-4MCCA8BA eneloop 8 Pack (AAA) 2100 Cycle NiMH Cell

You can get a higher capacity for a higher price and reduced number of recharges:

Panasonic BK-3HCCA8BA Eneloop Pro AA High Capacity Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries, 8-Pack

Panasonic BK-4HCCA8BA Eneloop Pro AAA New High Capacity 950mAh Typical Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries, Pack of 8

For those who want it, the rest of this article has much more detail on various brands of batteries and features of different chargers. For example, there are batteries on the market with higher capacity at the expense of longevity. There are also more expensive chargers for those who want additional features beyond simply charging their batteries.

Why LSD Batteries Blow Away the Competition

Different battery chemistries have been explained on this site several times, most thoroughly in the original article: Best AA Batteries You Never Heard of.

To review:

The two classifications of AA/AAA batteries are single use (dispose after one use), and rechargeable (reusable many times by recharging after the battery is depleted).

Single-use batteries battery chemistries over the last few decades have varied. However, over the last 5 years, by far the most popular chemistries for AA/AAA batteries have been Alkaline and Lithium.

Alkaline batteries are popular due to low cost, simplicity, higher initial voltage (when close to fully charged), and long shelf life (retains nearly full charge for many years). Alkaline AA batteries can be had for as little as 25 cents each when purchased in bulk, though that cost can be over $1.00/battery when purchased in small quantities.

However, the cost of Alkaline batteries is not so low considering how often they need to be replaced, even at 25 cents per battery. For example:

Digital cameras are a common use for AA batteries. A frequent picture taker may go through 4 batteries per month, which means 48 batteries per year and $11.50 if purchased in bulk 48-packs. Sounds like a great deal, right?

However, you can purchase a battery/charger pack that includes 4 low self-discharge rechargeable Eneloop AA NiMH batteries and a decent charger for around $16. After just two years, the Eneloop bundle comes out ahead. Rechargeable batteries do cost about 10-15 cents of electricity per year to charge, so figure about $16.25 total spent after 2 years, versus $23 for bulk-purchased Alkaline batteries. As you continue to use the Eneloop LSD batteries, the savings pile up over the years. Eneloop batteries recharge 2100 times before they can no longer hold much charge, according to Panasonic. I strongly suspect that ideal storage and usage conditions are required to achieve 2100 recharges, but even if it’s only 1000 recharges, that would last over 80 years for the digital camera that fully uses 4 batteries each month.

But that’s not the whole story. Alkaline batteries do not provide power efficiently in digital cameras, for reasons too technical to get into here (for technical detail, see Loading Characteristics on Primary and Secondary Batteries). They drain much faster when used in “high drain” devices such as cameras than NiMH or Lithium chemistries, so therefore you’ll need to change LSD batteries less frequently than you would with single-use Alkaline batteries.

Alkaline batteries are well suited to low-drain devices such as remote controls or game controls, which do use the Alkaline batteries efficiently. However, I still avoid using Alkaline. In most applications, LSD batteries perform the same or better, at a lower cost over time.

Lithium batteries don’t suffer from either high drain or low voltage issues. They hold charge for longer and operate in a wider range of temperatures than other battery chemistries. Lithium batteries are therefore ideal for devices that require a voltage higher than 1.2V or which operate at temperature extremes. They also come in higher capacities than other battery chemistries, which makes them an attractive option for travelers that have no access to electricity for a long period of time. For example, a backpacker who wants to take many pictures with his AA-battery-powered digital camera might find long-lasting lithium batteries very convenient. However, lithium batteries are the most expensive type of battery, costing more than LSD batteries and approximately 10x as much as Alkaline batteries and can only be used once. It therefore makes economic sense to use Lithium batteries sparingly.

Rechargeable batteries come in many different chemistries, but over the past decade NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) is by far the most efficient, cost-effective and popular chemistry for use in AA or AAA batteries. The first NiMH batteries to come out a couple decades ago were all of the high self-discharge variety. It wasn’t until 2005 that low self-discharge NiMH batteries became available.

High self-discharge NiMH AA or AAA batteries have low internal resistance and can be produced with high maximum capacities. Therefore, historically, they have been a popular alternative for use in high-drain devices, most especially digital cameras.

Unfortunately, two issues cause many people to be give up on high self-discharge NiMH batteries, in favor of Alkaline:

• They are often bundled with poor chargers. Low quality chargers typically undercharge or overcharge AA batteries. Undercharged batteries don’t last as long in the device, while overcharging harms batteries and can greatly decrease the number of potential recharges.
• The name “high self-discharge” refers to the fact that NiMH batteries discharge at a high rate when not being used. Such batteries have the temporary advantage of starting with a higher amount of charge, but most of this advantage is lost just 24 hours after being fully charged, and after 4 or 5 months they will have no charge left at all. Nobody wants to frequently change batteries for devices that are rarely used.

Such batteries can be useful in digital cameras or other high drain devices when paired with a high quality charger, especially if charged just before use. However, there’s no particular reason to use them anymore. This is because superior LSD NiMH battery options are now widely available, including high capacity options.

Low self-discharge NiMH (LSD) batteries are currently the best option for most applications requiring AA or AAA batteries. Unlike high self-discharge batteries, the rate of discharge is low, comparable to Alkaline batteries. Typically, 85% to 90% of charge is retained after a year of non-use, and 70% after 5 years. These NiMH batteries are approximately 70% charged at the factory so are typically labeled “pre-charged” or “ready-to-use.” This type of battery also typically lasts for over 1000 recharges, as compared with 100-500 for the high self-discharge variety. A rechargeable battery is considered at the end of its useful life when it can no longer charge to at least 80% of its original capacity.

The bottom line is that low self-discharge batteries are more expensive than high self-discharge, but they last decades, retain charge, and really have no drawbacks other than the initially higher price.

A low self-discharge battery paired with a poor charger can still lead to a poor user experience. But there are several great chargers on the market, which I discuss later in this post. Before doing that, here’s some more detail on the different generations of low self-discharge batteries.

History of LSD Batteries Since 2005

Rather than rehash Eneloop history and the different generations of batteries previously discussed on this site, this year I provide only a brief summary.

Sanyo invented the LSD (low self-discharge) battery and began selling Eneloop LSD batteries in 2005. A few years later, many other LSD brands came to market.

At first, all LSD batteries were produced in Sanyo’s factory in Takasaki, Japan. But within a few years, factories in China learned how to produce LSD batteries, though at a lower quality level. Sanyo was sold in 2009, resulting in the Eneloop brand going to Panasonic, while the Takasaki factory went to Fujitsu.

The Takasaki factory achieved numerous minor process and technology improvements from the original 2005 version over the years. These improvements resulted in higher capacity options, a longer life time for the battery (more recharges), and a lower discharge rate. The improvements over the first 5 years were rapid, but since 2010 the improvements have been very gradual. This is reflected in Eneloop marketing claims, which have changed by very small increments since 2010, by which time the so-called 2^nd generation Eneloop batteries had completely replaced the first generation in the marketplace.

Given the very gradual improvement since 2010 and the high quality of batteries coming from the Takasaki factory, anyone who purchases two packs of Takasaki-sourced Eneloop batteries produced months apart from each other will find that they perform almost identically. On the other hand, a pack of Eneloops produced in 2017 will have better performance characteristics than Eneloops produced in 2011, particularly with regards to battery lifetime and charge retention.

A number of battery enthusiasts who have tested low cost Amazon Basics LSD batteries have claimed that they perform similarly to 2^nd generation Eneloops from 2010 and lag behind batteries produced in the last few years on a number of performance characteristics. It’s also unclear which Amazon Basics LSD batteries are currently sourced from Japan, if any. I therefore no longer recommend purchasing Amazon Basics LSD batteries. Paying more up front for moderately better batteries makes sense, given that you’ll be using your LSD batteries for many years.

High capacity Eneloop batteries first came out in 2011. These batteries are more expensive and start with a higher capacity, but the trade-off is fewer recharges, approximately 1/4 as many. High capacity batteries produced in Japan rapidly improved over the following 2-3 years, so it’s a good idea to purchase high capacity LSD batteries that were produced after 2013.

Another style of LSD battery is the Lite version, which is slightly slimmer and will be more suitable for devices that have slightly narrower than usual battery compartments. They are also the LSD battery type most recommended for use DECT phones, because they can better handle a constant stream of trickle charge. The Lite style has been produced since 2010.

See the Eneloop101 site for a detailed compilation of LSD product releases over time, as reflected in the Eneloop product line.

The LSD capacity/longevity trade-off: Higher capacity means fewer recharges

Though Fujitsu’s Takasaki, Japan NiMH plant has produced high quality LSD batteries for Eneloop, Fujitsu, and many other brands, this does not mean that all LSD batteries produced there are identical. For starters, Eneloop, the original LSD battery brand, has produced several different capacities of both AA and AAA batteries since 2011.

Panasonic labeled the first high capacity AA batteries as having a capacity of at least 2400 mAh and more typically 2500 mAh, which was 500 mAh higher than the standard Eneloop batteries. They also labeled these batteries as being able to recharge 500 times, as opposed to the 1500 recharges claimed by standard Eneloops (the 1500 claim for standard Eneloops has since increased to 2100 with 4^th generation batteries sold since 2013).

In addition to a higher capacity for the Eneloop brand, by 2011 many other brands were competing with Eneloop with a variety of mAh capacity claims. Some of these claims were accurate, and some were not. Some were coming from Japan, and some were coming from China.

Battery enthusiasts have put many of these competing batteries to the test over the years, and you can see results of such testing at forums such as the “batteries included” section of candlepowerforums or review sites such as wirecutter.

What I found from wading through all these reviews is consistent with what I learned from my contact at Fujitsu:

• The higher the specified maximum capacity of the battery (mAh), the lower the number of times that battery can be recharged. Each battery brand produced at the Takasaki plant will have a specified capacity, understanding that higher capacity necessarily means lower number of recharges.
• The higher the battery capacity, the more it costs, with the mAh/cost ratio between standard and high capacity staying about the same for a given brand.
• The number of recharges stated in marketing claims may be true in ideal use and storage conditions but actual number of recharges in everyday use tends to be less than what is stated on the package. Furthermore, batteries degrade gradually in terms of maximum storage capacity. The maximum storage capacity degrades more slowly for batteries that have smaller initial capacity. Higher initial capacity batteries typically have higher capacity for at least a year or two of typical use. However, after a few years, maximum capacity decreases, often falling below the maximum capacity of batteries that initially started with moderately lower capacity. Of course, all these calculations are complicated by the fact that the higher capacity batteries don’t need to be recharged as often, as they do have the higher capacity to last a bit longer between charges. It’s difficult to test real, everyday use to confirm how all the various different capacities of battery perform, because everyday use varies so much between households. However, many anecdotal reviews and individual tests on battery enthusiast sites seem to back up the idea that higher capacity batteries degrade more quickly than lower capacity batteries.
• The number of times an LSD battery can be recharged while still usefully holding charge is so high that many people don’t really care about that number, and focus on the maximum capacity at time of purchase. Such buyers may be disappointed 2-3 years later when the maximum capacity is significantly smaller.
• Japanese-made LSD batteries last for more recharging cycles than LSD batteries sourced from China, when comparing same-capacity batteries.
• Japanese-made LSDs self-discharge at a slower rate than LSD batteries from China, when comparing same-capacity batteries.
• LSD batteries from both Japan and China improve gradually every year. For example, a never-used 2017 LSD battery made in China may actually perform better than a never-used 2010 LSD battery made in Japan.

Personally, I prefer to buy standard Fujitsu or Eneloop batteries which are likely to last for decades, rather than higher capacity batteries with a shorter lifespan and faster self-discharge rate. Others may prefer the higher capacity/shorter lifetime trade-off. Just understand that it is, indeed, a trade-off.

Recommended LSD Battery Brands

Perhaps this section should be Factory Recommendation, because my main piece of advice is to buy LSD NiMH batteries from Japan, which means the factory in Takasaki, Japan. Many battery brands are produced at this factory. With the exception of the Amazon Basics brand (some of which may have been produced in Japan), the performance of various battery brands sourced from this factory are all good, though they vary in initial capacity and number of recharges (see prior section).

The tricky part for consumers is that not all brands consistently source all their batteries from Japan. Duracell is an example of a brand that at one point sourced some batteries from this factory in Japan, and others from a factory in a China. I don’t know if Duracell still does this, but the fact that they used to do it is enough for me to steer away from buying Duracell pre-charged batteries, because I don’t want to spend the time to figure out if they’re coming from Japan or China.

If you want to keep your life simple, buy brands that are always sourced from Japan. There are likely many LSD battery brands that are only sourced from Japan. Here are three that I’m aware of:

Fujitsu

Eneloop (if buying, in Japan, Europe, or North America)

Energizer Recharge

Another tip is to make sure you buy from a reputable retailer such as Costco, NewEgg, or Amazon. When buying online from NewEgg or Amazon, be sure to buy direct, not from a third party merchant whose reputation is unknown. There have been instances of third-party merchants repackaging and falsely relabeling inexpensive batteries.

I used to recommend Amazon Basics as a budget alternative. However, Amazon Basics batteries appear to be using LSD battery technology that is over 5 years old. Each year, other brands get slightly better as the batteries from Japan continue to improve, while Amazon Basics batteries stays the same. It’s also unclear which if any of these Amazon Basics batteries come from Japan.

You can save a few dollars buying Amazon Basics LSD batteries, but my opinion is that it’s worth spending a few extra dollars for better batteries that you’ll be likely be using for the rest of your life.

Rather than provide links to dozens of possible battery configurations, you can decide for yourself what number of batteries to get with these four general brand searches on Amazon:

Fujitsu

Eneloop (if buying, in Japan, Europe, or North America)

Energizer Recharge

You can often get a better deal buying batteries as part of a bundle that includes a charger, AA batteries, and AAA batteries such as this Eneloop bundle:

Panasonic KJ17MCC82A Eneloop Power Pack for 8AA, 2AAA, 2 C Spacers, 2 D Spacers, Advanced Individual Battery Charger

What to Look for in a Budget Charger

I’ve written about chargers several times before, so with this post I’ll just briefly summarize the “smart charger” features every quality charger must have in order to earn my recommendation:

• Must reliably cut off charging just when the battery is full. Not earlier. Not later. Negative Delta V is the most reliable method.
• Must have independent charging channels for each charging bay. Most low cost chargers have “paired bays”, which means 2 pairs of bays in a typical 4-bay charger. The pair of batteries stop charging, or charge at a much reduced rate, when the first battery of the pair is full. The inevitable result of paired bays is that at least one of the batteries will end up undercharged or overcharged. Undercharged will mean the batteries run out quicker in devices, overcharged is going to reduce the lifetime of the battery, and in some cases lead to a battery being destroyed from overheating.
• Chargers capable of charging rapidly must be able to detect excessively high temperatures and automatically stop charging.

Note that the term “smart charger” is a marketing phrase which can and has been abused to have many meanings. The more specific features to look for are proper circuitry to detect when a battery is full (negative Delta V) and independent charging channels.

Every model that I’ve come across with the first two features also tends to have two additional helpful features:

• an LED light or LCD display that is independent for each bay.
• The ability to mix and match different sizes and capacities of batteries.

That’s the essentials, but I go into more detail about what makes for a good charger here.

Extra Features to Look for in Premium Chargers

Budget chargers typically cost under $25, and can effectively cost a bit less when purchased in combination with batteries. Premium chargers typically cost between $35 to $100. Good places to buy premium AA/AAA battery chargers include Amazon, Newegg, and DC Workshop.

I will not consider recommending any charger, budget or premium, unless it has the features described in the prior section. The premium chargers recommended below all have these required features and many more.

Here’s a list of the most important other features to look for in premium chargers beyond the minimum already described:

• Higher charging rates (a feature one of this year’s budget chargers also offers)
• Safety feature(s) to cutoff charging if batteries get too hot when charging at a high rate
• Automatically switching to a “trickle charge” when batteries are full
• The option to control each bay independently for rate of charge and discharge
• An LCD display (independent, for each bay) providing additional information beyond charging/done
• The ability to “refresh” a battery by discharging all the way and recharging to full, which is particularly helpful with brand new batteries
• Testing functions

All the premium chargers I recommend offer these features. They differ in the degree to which they offer these features, how difficult they are to use, and whether there is something awkward about using the charger.

In addition to the required features listed above, there are a few optional features that some users may find helpful:

• Handle more battery chemistries beyond NiMH. Rechargeable Li-Ion batteries in particular have been growing in popularity.
• A fan which turns on at higher temperatures, to allow charging to continue at safe temperatures.
• Make it very easy to pick out which batteries should be discarded. All premium battery chargers test capacity, which can be useful for this purpose. However, even more useful is measuring internal resistance.

Recommended Budget AA/AAA Chargers

Most inexpensive AA/AAA battery chargers are terrible. But at any given time, there are typically 1-3 models available in the U.S. for under $25 that fit all the criteria for a good budget charger. This year, I recommend 2 models. If you want to read about these two chargers in great detail, read Best of the Budget Chargers: BQ-CC55 vs FCT344 vs BQ-CC17. Here’s the very brief summary:

The Panasonic BQ-CC17SBA has been this site’s top pick since I first wrote about it three years ago. In addition to having all of the required features listed in the What to Look for in a Budget Charger section, it is compact, and it is included with several different economical Eneloop bundles. It is simple to use and difficult to abuse. It has a slow charging rate but this enables it to work with a wider variety of NiMH batteries than other budget chargers that attempt to charge at a faster rate. It even works well with older, lower quality high self-discharge NiMH batteries that some budget chargers struggle with.

You can buy it alone for about $20 but that makes no sense as you can also get it with 4 AA Eneloops for a couple dollars less:

BQ-CC17 Charger with 4 AA Eneloop batteries

Or as part of a bigger bundle:

Panasonic KJ17MCC82A Eneloop Power Pack for 8AA, 2AAA, 2 C Spacers, 2 D Spacers, Advanced Individual Battery Charger

If you want your budget charger to charge at a faster rate than 300 mA, the Fujitsu FCT344 and Panasonic BQ-CC55 chargers are the two obvious options to consider. These two were discussed alongside the BQ-CC17SBA elsewhere on this site. We do not recommend the BQ-CC55 because we were not impressed with its thermal management.

We tested all three models under many different scenarios with a variety of old and new batteries of both high and low self-discharge batteries. The BQ-CC55 had the highest charging rate of the three, which under some scenarios caused batteries to get too hot to touch. In one instance, batteries in the BQ-CC55 reached 53° C (127° F), at which point the test was halted for fear of causing the battery to melt.

The FCT344 also got pretty warm to the touch, especially with older, high self-discharge batteries. However, battery temperatures in the FCT344 were much lower than the BQ-CC55 during testing of all LSD batteries. When using older, low quality, high self-discharge batteries with the FCT344, the temperatures did begin to rapidly rise, but then the thermal protection circuitry triggered, shutting down the charger. The FCT344 is therefore unsuitable for use with older, high self-discharge batteries.

We do recommend the FCT344 as a good charger for use with LSD batteries. In the U.S., it can only be purchased as part of a bundle with Fujitsu batteries:

Fujitsu FCT344AUFX(CL) AA / AAA Ni-MH Battery Quick Charger with 4-pack 2000 mAh AA Rechargeable Batteries

Recommended Premium AA/AAA Chargers

In the past, this site recommended a number of different charger brands from La Crosse, Maha, and Opus. In 2017, FilterJoe researcher Jim Hyman extensively tested several models from these different brands. Detailed write-ups for Jim’s testing results are forthcoming. Jim’s testing has caused some changes in this site’s premium charger recommendations.

The most important change is that we now believe that one charger brand beats out the others as the best combination of features, cost, and ease of use. That brand is the Powerfocus Opus.

I have been recommending user friendly La Crosse models for years and I continue to use a La Crosse model for my everyday charging needs. But if I were to buy my first premium charger today, it wouldn’t be La Crosse. It would be Opus.

The La Crosse charger’s biggest selling point compared with other premium chargers is ease of use. Jim found the Opus just as easy to use, and in some ways easier. While Opus and La Crosse are roughly tied in terms of ease of use, the Opus costs less, has greater flexibility, and packs more features, including a feature useful for weeding out worn-out batteries (internal resistance testing). Top-of-the-line Opus models also have a fan that starts up whenever battery temperature exceeds 40° (C). There are only 2 downsides to the Opus Charger that I can think of:

• Opus firmware in models produced prior to 2014 had issues which led to overheating. It is still possible to buy older models, and these should be avoided. The issue was solved with a firmware upgrade to 2.1, which you can see briefly displayed on the leftmost column when turning on any Opus charger. When using a new Opus, be sure it flashes a number that is at least 2.1 when first turning it on.
• The manufacturer of the Opus brand has no web site or technical support. Note that DC Workshop does provide technical support and a one year warranty on Opus charger models they sell, and is the only vendor that sells the BT-C3400 with 3.1 firmware.

Many Opus models have a maximum charging rate of 1400 mA with 2 batteries inserted, or 1000 mA with 4 batteries, which is lower than the top models from La Crosse and Maha. However, the two most expensive Opus models do charge at a maximum rate of 2000 mA with 2 batteries inserted: BT-C3100 and BT-C3400.

There are many Opus models, most of which differ by which accessories are included (C and D adaptors, auto adapters, etc.). The basic model is this one:

Opus BT-C2000 Battery Charger Tester Analyzer NiMH NiCd AA AAA C D Cells, Wall Adapter

You can see the different Opus models on Amazon with this link, each of which comes with different combinations of car adapters and C and D battery adapters as well as options for additional battery chemistries:

Opus Chargers at Amazon

The top of the line Opus model has a fan, has higher charging rates, and is able to charge Lithium Ion and NiCd batteries in addition to NiMH. It is typically $10-$20 higher than the base model:

Opus BT-C3100 Charger

Note that the BT-C3100 is physically identical to the BT-C3400 model, so purchase whichever is available at the best price. An advantage of buying the BT-C3400 over the BT-C3100 is that you are guaranteed to be getting firmware version 3.1 with the BT-C3400, which so far as we know is equivalent to version 2.2 on the BT-C3100. Also, it comes from DC-Workshop, which offers technical support. Both versions 2.2 in the BT-C3100 and 3.1 in the BT-C3400 have improved fan support for these identical models, as well as other minor improvements.

To reiterate about firmware version numbers: be careful buying a bargain-priced Opus charger from a third-party merchant on Amazon, as it may be a several-year old model with firmware 2.0 or lower. When using an Opus charger for the first time, be sure it flashes a number that is 2.1 or higher when turning it on.

Lithium Ion batteries, by the way, are not AA batteries operating at the usual 1.2 Volts or so, even though they have a similar shape. They operate at 3.7 Volts, and they are not compatible in most equipment that uses AA or AAA batteries. This being a guide about AA and AAA batteries, there’s no reason to discuss here Lithium Ion batteries and their primary use case (tactical flashlights). For more information, you can read a guide to tactical flashlight battery options here or here. You can read about Lithium Ion battery safety here.

While the Opus has quite a few features related to testing, a more popular model for those who desire a greater degree of flexibility and testing possibilities is the venerable Maha MH-C9000. This model has a higher learning curve and requires many more button presses for simple operations such as charging 4 batteries at 500 mA instead of the 1000 mA default rate.

The most popular of the Maha models is:

Maha PowerEx MH-C9000 Maha WizardOne Charger-Analyzer for 4 AA/AAA Batteries

But they offer several other models as well:

Maha Chargers on Amazon

I’ve recommended two La Crosse models many times in the past, the BC-700 and the BC1000. If you own either of these two models, there’s no reason to stop using them. They’re fine chargers. But if you’re shopping for a new charger, here are a few reasons I think you’re better off buying an Opus model:

• La Crosse models do not charge heavily discharged batteries with very low voltage. In fact, these models identify such batteries with a cryptic “null” message which the manual claims means that the battery is no longer usable. Most “null” batteries are simply low in voltage and need to have their voltage raised before a La Crosse charger will charge them normally. All prior La Crosse discussions on this site have explained workarounds for this issue.
• Comparable La Crosse chargers cost a bit more than Opus chargers. The BC-700 model is not very expensive but costs more than the comparable Opus model, the BT-C700 (both of these models have a 700 mA maximum charge rate). The high end La Crosse BC-1000 model costs more than any Opus model, including the much more capable Opus BT-C3400 (and the identical BT-C3100).
• La Crosse does provide customer support, but there are many reports of customers not so happy with their support.
• According to our tests, La Crosse discharge and testing functions consistently over-reports battery capacity by 6% to 8%, as compared with other charger brands that have testing functionality built in to their chargers.
• La Crosse is one of many brands that license this China-sourced product. Other brands representing the exact same product include Technoline (Germany) and Voltcraft. There may be more. While this is not in and of itself a bad thing, understand that the engineers who designed and truly understand the technology behind this product do not work for La Crosse. La Crosse is a marketing company that purchases their chargers from China, along with Technoline and Voltcraft. Though I’ve been unable to confirm it, it’s also possible that Youshiko and Dayshop are two other brands for this product.

Given all these points, and Jim’s extensive testing of the Opus, we no longer see compelling reasons to purchase a La Crosse charger (or any of its other names) over an Opus charger at this time.

Storing AA and AAA batteries

Using or storing batteries in a hot environment is bad for battery performance, both short and long term. The best way to store batteries is in a cool, dry place. Avoiding hot places like an enclosed car in the summer or the hottest part of your house will go a long way. Some people seem to believe that storing batteries in a refrigerator is helpful, but I haven’t tested this. Also note that Panasonic recommends against storing Eneloops in a refrigerator.

If you have many devices using AA and AAA batteries, you’ll likely want to always have a few spare AA and AAA batteries charged and ready to go. That way, you can swap the batteries and keep using the device, while the depleted batteries go into the charger.

How to store and organize all the extra batteries? Personally, I’ve been using the following for the last 5 years:

Range Kleen 82 Battery Storage Organizer Rack Holder/Tester

If you need cases to carry sets of 4 AA batteries for your camera or other portable equipment:

Whizzotech AA/AAA Cell Battery Storage Case/Holder with Charge Reminder Markings Clear Color Pack of 6

Some people store batteries in their charger. That’s fine for a few days if it’s one of the smart chargers recommended here. But do understand that in most models, there will be a trickle charge going into the batteries, which is not good for battery longevity if you leave batteries in the charger for months.

Under no circumstances do you want to store your batteries in a dumb charger or low quality charger. You will gradually ruin your batteries.

When to Use Alkaline or Lithium Batteries (hint: rarely)

Some devices require more than 1.2V to operate correctly (or in some cases, at all). NiMH batteries can in many cases briefly provide higher than 1.2 Voltage, but only for a minuscule fraction of their stored capacity (In other words, they might work for a few minutes and then quit when the voltage drops to the usual 1.2V).

Alkaline batteries can operate at 1.5V for at most 1/3 of their stored capacity, while lithium batteries last much longer at the 1.5V level.

Note that a device that requires 1.5V batteries means that your Alkaline batteries will quit working with 2/3 of the stored energy still remaining. This has always struck me as a big waste, which is why I try to avoid devices that require 1.5V, whenever possible. But if you do have such devices, you’ll need to use either Alkaline or Lithium AA/AAA batteries. Lithium will last longer, both because there is more stored energy, and because most of this storage energy can be used while still operating at close to 1.5V.

Another rare use case for Alkaline batteries is in devices that have slightly smaller than standard-sized AA battery compartments. The LSD batteries are very slightly thicker than Alkaline batteries and therefore won’t fit in such compartments, while Alkaline batteries can (barely) fit.

With the vast majority of devices that require 1.2V batteries and have standard sized battery compartments, the only advantages to using Alkaline batteries are low initial cost and that you don’t have to recharge them when done. As previously discussed, disadvantages include higher cost in the long term, adding to the landfill, and not functioning well in high drain devices.

Concluding Remarks

FilterJoe’s first version of this AA/AAA battery guide from 6 years ago isn’t dramatically different from this latest version. That’s because the rate of change is slow in the relatively mature industry of AA/AAA batteries.

While the technology is the same, there have been some improvements in battery chargers in both the budget and premium categories, which caused specific recommended models to change. While low self-discharge (LSD) batteries are still the most economical purchase, Eneloop is now just one among many brands. LSD batteries manufactured in Japan are all reliable and trustworthy, because they all come from the same factory in Takasaki, Japan.

Despite being available for over a decade, most consumers are still not aware of how much better LSD AA and AAA batteries are compared with the alternatives. It’s somewhat puzzling to me how long it is taking for this type of battery to dominate the market. This site will continue to write about LSD batteries for many years to come, until such time as it gets replaced with better technology, or becomes so common that HSD NiMH and Alkaline batteries are being phased out. I don’t expect that to happen any time soon, despite the overwhelming benefits of LSD batteries with regards to cost, performance and environmental impact.

The post Best AA Rechargeable Batteries and Chargers: 2018 Update first appeared on FilterJoe.

It will be a long time before another part is written after this one. This is a true story, which as of the end of part 11 is up-to-date (June 2017). It will be at least a year before there is enough new material available to write out the next part.

This last post (for now) is long enough that I broke it up into sections to make it a little easier on the reader.

Leo overcame many obstacles and setbacks during his years as a young baseball player, made all the harder by rarely being proactive on his own behalf, not taking his studies seriously, and sometimes simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The old adage, “if you’re good enough, they will find you” may apply to the very best few thousand high school ball players in the nation each year. But it does not apply to most players, and it certainly did not apply to Leo. Except . . .

They did find him. Well, sort of . . .

Pitch Well and Maybe they will Find You

In mid-September, just a couple months shy of his 20^th birthday, Leo got a call from a college coach who asked him to visit and pitch 3 innings in a practice game. He faced 11 batters, struck out 7 and walked one, while the others grounded out. At the end of the game, the coach asked a player to show Leo his new dorm.

Leo was about get his second chance at college baseball!

It took a few days for Wayne to fully understand the details of what kind of school this was, what they were offering Leo, and what needed to happen next.

Given that the school was a two-year state community college, full baseball scholarships were awarded to 24 players. The coach of this two-year NJCAA Division I school wanted Leo to be on the team and to have a full scholarship as soon as possible. But it wasn’t going to be quick and easy, as there were many rules to navigate.

Leo was very fortunate that the head coach was willing to do so much to get him on the team. In Wayne’s words (post 1746),

[Leo] and [my wife] are down at the school today signing him up for the class. The coach met my wife and him in the parking lot. He told my wife that [Leo] will stay in the dorm and WILL keep his grades up! He also told my wife that [Leo] has a serious arm and throws damn hard with control.

Leo needed to have 12 hours of credits this semester in order to be eligible to play with the team in the following semester. But the semester had already started. After exploring several alternatives, the coach managed to get Leo signed up for 4 online courses for the current semester. Wayne was relieved at the way it worked out and in mid-October reported (post 1749):

Coach gave my boy 4 classes. His grades from his former college were so low that he cannot legally give him a scholarship.

So the coach personally got him 4 courses to take this semester. To help my wife and I out he gave him 4 online classes [which he could complete at home].

He told my boy if he doesn’t make all A’s in these classes there will be no scholarship and he will not be allowed on the team.

I know nothing about this coach but…. I love him.

It’s all up to [Leo] now.

Leo successfully completed the online courses with straight A’s. In January, he moved to his new school, 6 hours away from home. He roomed with the catcher in a dormitory and was required by his baseball coach to cut his hair short. He devoted himself to his studies and within a few weeks had his first practice game. In Wayne’s words (post 1763):

[Leo] called. They had their first practice games today. I wasn’t able to go. The coach has made him the team closer. He pitched two innings, struck out two and didn’t allow a hit.

He was excited when he called and it was great to hear.

So far he has all “A’s” in his classes but it is early. It sounds like he is giving 100% effort and is having a positive attitude. He loves his coach and talks highly about him.

The season starts next week and with the distance it’s going to be difficult [for me] to see him play. I am very very pleased so far.

And one week later, Leo pitched in his first actual game (post 1769):

[Leo] had his first college game that was not a practice game.

Let me say I saw some really good talent on both teams. Amazing talent.

He didn’t play the first game but he was the closer for the second game. Let me say both teams had great pitchers but neither team in either game had a pitcher strike out the side.

[Leo] came in to close the last inning and struck out the side in 12 pitches!! It was a great night.

That’s not all… He has all “A’s” in his classes so far!! All “A’s”!!!!!!

So so so proud of him.

Who would have thought when I started this thread so many years ago that I would someday post [Leo] is a college pitcher. What a wonderful journey this has been.

It got even better (post 1777):

Just got a call from [Leo]. He pitched 4 innings struck out 2 gave up 1 hit and no runs!!!

From what I’m told this was against one of the best teams in the country as they were ranked 4th in the nation preseason.

Awesome!!!!

A couple weeks later, Wayne finally got his first chance to see Leo pitch (post 1782):

Update: got to go see him play this weekend.

Gave up his first run. Gave up 2 runs in total one was earned.

He is keeping his grades up so things are going well.

I will say this…. I’m shocked at the high level of play that is in D3 [school is actually NJCAA Division I]. I had no idea. All the players are very good. Lots of fun.

Leo continued to perform well both on the field and off the field. By the end of March, Wayne reported (post 1789):

[Leo] has truly impressed. Every change I hoped college/baseball would offer him has happened and far far more.

He’s has turned his life completely around. He has bought into his coach hook line and sinker. He has all A’s in his classes and most important has made a new set of friends (teammates) instead of the kids he hung around with the past few years.

I can’t begin to post here the positive changes in his life but I am very very proud of him.

His goal is to improve and go to a [NCAA] D1 school. I think he’ll make it.

NCAA Division I baseball was still an unlikely outcome for Leo, as Wayne was promptly told in the forum thread. 87-89 MPH is good for a right-handed pitcher (especially when, like Leo, he also has a curveball, changeup, and reasonably good control) but that kind of velocity, combined with Leo’s school history, was not enough to earn a transfer to an NCAA Division I school with a baseball scholarship. Also, it was not particularly important for him to be on a prestigious NCAA Division I team where the competition for spots was so intense that any stumble could cause him to lose his place on the team.

What was important was that Leo was where he needed to be right now, and doing very well with it. He was valued by his coach and teammates, making great friends, and getting straight A’s in school.

Being the team’s closer, Leo sometimes went for a few weeks without pitching, as his coach typically only brought him in near the end of the game when the score was close. But he continued to do well when called on to finish a game. He was even drawing some interest from Division I NCAA college coaches, though the interest never turned into substantial conversations.

Athletic Scholarship

Great as the year had been so far, nothing came close to the excitement Wayne felt, when, in early May, Wayne reported (post 1818):

[Leo] called and said he got a full scholarship today.

Very proud of him.

Ten days later the official scholarship papers arrived. Tuition, room, and board were all to be covered.

Leo didn’t play any summer baseball but a couple months shy of his 20^th birthday he started his second year of college, this time with a full scholarship. It started off very well. According to Wayne (post 1853):

Played his first fall game today. Pitched the last 4 outs. Came in with bases loaded in the 8th with 2 outs. Struck out that batter.

Struck out 3 gave up one hit.

They had a gun on the scoreboard. He said his fastball was sitting on 87 and 88 consistently.

Very good first game of the year. Sad I had to miss it but work you know….

Several days later, Leo did very well at a showcase. According to Wayne (post 1854):

Got a text from little [Leo]. He’s crazy happy.

His school sent a few of the sophomore players to a showcase. Well here is the text from [Leo].

Sorry for my language but you can let it slide this one time! IM PUMPED AS A #%#%.,?%# Threw every pitch for a strike! Curveball was crazy nasty! I sat 87-90!!!!! . . . .

He hit 90mph . . . reports say he is working very hard.

Yet Another Coaching Disaster?

After this great start in September, Wayne didn’t say anything else until two months later, when he reported the first bad news in over a year (post 1865):

Sorry haven’t posted in a while.

It’s been a mess at [Leo’s] school. The head baseball coach got suspended pending termination for most of the fall season. Last week he came walking back on the field, he got his job back.

The result is they played almost no off season games. It was a mess.

All I know is they had a big tournament. According to the newspaper there were 25 D1 scouts and 15 pro scouts at the event. Once the head coach saw who was umpiring he told the players to get back on the bus. It’s crazy. A few days later he was pretty much fired.

It was all a mess.

As with many other setbacks over the years, this one came as a big surprise. After coaching this school for 30 years, leading the team to 9 division championships, 3 regional championships, and roughly 1000 wins, this storied coach was placed on paid administrative leave.

This coach had served a 10-day suspension the prior year after being ejected for two games, but it was unclear whether this had anything to do with the administrative leave. The only thing the school said publicly was that it was investigating a personnel matter.

Over the next few months, things did not go well under the new head coach, and Leo was not so excited to be on the team anymore. It all came to a head in March, when Wayne reported (post 1885):

It’s a mess at the school. From what I’m hearing the [new] head coach has gone nuts. They are still early in the season playing against what I call “warm up teams”. They are getting beat left and right.

[Leo] has played one inning. He was suspended for this past weekend’s games. He said he missed a team breakfast.

Last year the head coach was fired. All I hear is rumors and don’t really know why. A few months later 32 of the players went to the school athletic director and said they were leaving if the head coach didn’t get his job back.

Important: [Leo] did not go.

Out of the blue the [old] head coach came walking onto the practice field and said he was back. He turned to his pitching coach and told him to sit on the stands he wasn’t coaching anymore.

So the pitching coach left and so did several players.

So far the season is a disaster. Not to mention the head coach recruited his own son to play SS. Not only is his son playing he is playing every pitch of every game (even double headers).

[Leo] is stuck. You can only play 2 years at Juco and no 4 year school will consider a player who doesn’t play.

With all this said a lot of fault goes to [Leo]. Instead of complaining he should get better and do everything the coach demands. Like it or not it’s the coach’s team. Not his!

We’ll see how it all plays out.

Leo had been especially upset that he got very little playing time, but he finally got some and it revived his spirits (post 1895):

He finally got to play again.

Pitched one inning. 3 up 3 down one strikeout. He said all his teammates started yelling words of encouragement and cheering him on. He was excited his teammates showed so much support for him.

When he got in the dugout his coach told him he was sure all of his fastballs were in the low 90’s. Said he looked great.

He seemed excited.

We’ll see how the rest of the season goes.

Many forum participants over the years had reminded Wayne that baseball has its ups and downs. Leo’s experience of baseball over the years seem to have ups and downs even more extreme than most, and Wayne had a tendency to experience mania with the ups, and depression with the downs. Yet again, JettSixty reminded Wayne (post 1897):

This is why it’s important not to get too excited when things are going well and not too down when things aren’t going well. It’s not always easy. But it makes the journey easier to deal with.

Yet Another Injury?

Unfortunately, a couple weeks later, Wayne reported yet another downturn (post 1902):

Sorry I haven’t posted. Just not a lot to update.

[Leo] has had some arm problems for a few months. He’s been going to therapy but it’s not improving. It’s some kind of muscle in the back shoulder blade or something.

I think they are shutting him down till he gets an MRI.

I will update when anything changes.

Followed by (post 1905):

[Leo] has to have surgery.

He has a torn labrum. 3 weeks in a sling than 3 or 4 months to recover.

His baseball might be over. Don’t know how we could get a 4 year school interested.

Followed in mid-April by (post 1910):

[Leo] had his surgery yesterday. Doc said it went well.

From what I read on Google a torn labrum is a worse injury than I thought.

One bit of good news his coach filed the papers to let him redshirt this year.

Wayne reported how the coach handled injured Leo when the playoffs came in early May (post 1914):

[Leo] is on his way home.

His coach did something I’ve never heard a coach do. Maybe it’s how college is, I don’t know, but it’s one of the worst things I’ve heard a coach do.

The season is over today and they made the playoffs.

The coach sent all the players on the injured list home as well as all the red shirts. Because of the rules in the dorm all of the players were forced to move out and leave school.

The coach pretty much kicked 20 players off the team while they go to the playoffs.

[Leo] is very upset and frankly feels sh*t on.

What a crappy thing to do to the players who have been part of the team because they are injured and can’t be part of the team.

Several forum participants quickly piped in that this is standard procedure. Players with no hope of getting any playing time will not accompany the team to the playoffs and such players have no need to stay in their dorm beyond the end of the school year. Saves money. Furthermore, any injured player is susceptible to being completely ignored by the coach after injury. For example, Forum_jedi noted (post 1918):

My Freshman year I played at a JUCO in Texas. I broke my wrist in the second game of the season. The coach never spoke to me again.

It came as no surprise when Wayne reported in early June (post 1921):

[Leo] is going through the long slow rehab.

He got a letter from his coach today… he is not offered a scholarship for next year.

Brutal, gets hurt playing for the team and well…. I guess this is just how things are.

In June 2017, Leo’s baseball career is once again on hold. Arm injuries are the end of many a pitcher’s baseball career, but not always. For example, “Tommy John” is a popular name for a surgical procedure which has a very good success rate for reconstructing Ulnar collateral ligaments. Jeff Passan’s The Arm is a book published in 2016 that describes this procedure, the rehabilitation process, and many other aspects of wear and tear on pitcher arms.

Leo’s injury was not an elbow injury like Tommy John. It was a torn labrum, a piece of fibrocartilage (rubbery tissue) attached to the rim of the shoulder socket which can be repaired surgically and usable within a few months after rehabilitation. Unfortunately for pitchers, only a small percentage are able to pitch again after labrum surgery and rehabilitation.

Time will tell whether Leo will be able to pitch again. The odds are not good.

Update February 2019: Wayne was absent from the forums for over a year after this part of the story was written. Then, August 2018 Wayne finally came back to say that Leo rehabilitated his arm, worked a job during that time, and finally got admitted to another college with a baseball program to start in the fall semester of 2018. It’s a 4-year program, part of  NAIA.  Had had no scholarship to start.

Both the grades and the baseball went well, but unfortunately Wayne reported in February of 2019 that there was some kind of mix up having to do with Leo falling short on the number of class hours. He became ineligible to play on the team in actual games, but he remained with the team as a practice player because the coach liked him as a player.

The journey continues to be difficult . . . but it’s not yet over.

1923 Forum Messages from Start to Finish

Leo’s story cannot be told further until he lives more of his life, and Wayne chronicles more of Leo’s story. However, enough of the story has been told that it’s possible to look at the nearly 2000 forum posts as a whole. Several forum posters have done just that. My favorite was this post written by Roothog66 (post 1353) in early 2013:

I want to say that I have had an experience that very few of you have probably been lucky enough to have. I’ve been aware of this thread over the past few years, but only once came into it. In that instance, without having read the thread, I simply jumped in on the argument of the day which happened to be radar guns. After that, I never came back because, frankly, when I figured out what it was, it really didn’t interest me.

Over the past three days, I have read this thread from beginning to end. This, of course, took more time than reading a lengthy novel. I could not stop. My eyes are shot and I ignored work, but the read was a very compelling one. I agree that this should be the springboard for a book once the journey is over, [Wayne]. In fact, it would be even better if this thread didn’t have to end for another decade. I really feel that I got something out of it I would not have gotten if I had been following it post-to-post over the years. I have literally laughed, cried, been surprised and overjoyed, angered and depressed. Wow! Additionally, it isn’t hard, by the way to figure out exactly who the kid is and verify that [Wayne] has been downright honest about everything. It took very little research to locate everything needed to figure out this is in no ways a fictional account.

The beauty of this thread has been [Wayne’s] absolute devotion to baring himself to a sometimes hostile crowd. We have to admit that we’ve all seen a little of ourselves in [Wayne]. [Wayne] has just voiced all the things many of us have been afraid to say. Further, [Wayne] never backed down when it turned to personal attacks. It would have been easy for him to just abandon this, but he never did. It was interesting to see his naive opinions early in the thread and educational to see some of the things he has struggled with. This is more than the story of a youth baseball player or even an account of father/son or grandfather/son relationships. [Wayne] has allowed us into his mind. To see ourselves through him. This is a psychological look that we have been blessed to be able to interact with. [Wayne] opened my eyes to my own relationship with my own son in ways that I could have gone my entire life without understanding.

It goes so far beyond baseball. We even get glimpses of [Wayne’s] own struggles beyond that relationship. I know, for example, that [Wayne] has struggled with having to give up his own dreams for what he perceives as reality. I can tell he wants to give “his boy” every opportunity he can, but that he is limited and further feels that he cannot pursue his own dreams.

I want to share something with you [Wayne]. I used to feel the same way and have gone through many of the same things. I’m just a few years younger than you, but thought long ago that I had to give up the idea of what I one day wanted to do with my life.

I had a job that always paid enough to make things comfortable. Just enough to not make it worth it to go after what I always wanted to do. Then that all came tumbling down. It was an opportunity disguised. I returned to college, completed my degree in three years with a 3.98 GPA (damned Roman History professor gave me a B) and earned a full scholarship to a top 40 law school at the age of 42. Now I make other decisions to balance my life.

I’ve been working the past few years as a law clerk. If you don’t know what that is, it’s very prestigious work for a judge, but it doesn’t pay much. I’ve had plenty of offers in the private sector which pay three to four times what I make now. I do it because it is a 9-5 (well, 8-4, but you know what I mean) job that allows me to continue to coach and to enjoy the ride. I also live in a world that doesn’t have many 50yo law clerks. I’ve been all the way through this journey with two daughters, but this one has been special and I won’t miss a minute of it.

I see you are starting a new career, but don’t give up that dream. Your writing can reach a lot of people. Let it. I will be ordering your novels because I want to help and I want to learn more of what you have to teach. I’ll also pass the info along to others and encourage them to do the same. Keep on trekking, [Wayne].

Roothog66 followed up with a summary version a year later (post 1519):

I just wanted to put this little word in. If you are new to the website and have a younger player, stop reading now (or rather in a sentence or two) and start this thread from page #1. It is a daunting task and might take you several days, but if you want a primer on what is coming your way over the next few years, this thread is by far the best look through the looking glass you will ever get.

Wayne summarized the thread as well, quite a few times. Here are two of my favorites (post 606):

Down through the years I’ve posted my thoughts on this thread regarding [Leo’s] sports (mostly baseball). I realize there have been many ups and downs. As I look back I realize I’m a very lucky person, very lucky indeed.

I’ve been lucky enough to see my boy hit a homerun in the state playoffs. I’ve been lucky enough to see him be the ace pitcher on the best middle school team our school has ever had.

I’ve also been lucky enough to see him fail and to see him grow.

I’ve seen him lose to our cross town rivals but I also reminded him that day that he should feel honored that his coach had enough faith in him to give him the ball on the team’s biggest game.

Yes there have been many many ups and downs but I wouldn’t trade either for anything. Baseball is more than just a game…..it’s more of a chance of sharing with your kids. I think baseball helps kids grow and to learn about life. I don’t think my boy would be the boy he is today if he hadn’t played baseball. It’s not only influenced his life but the lives of our entire family. In short it has been a joy. As he moves on to junior high and then high school I will always remember the days when I watched him grow. It has been a joy and I’m the most blessed person alive.

And then (post 1834):

This thread has [taken on] its own life.

I think it’s more about the journey now than the destination.

It is my hope that others can read through these many years and learn from my mistakes, there are many. Lots I would do different but it’s all been a joy.

This is the greatest game in the world. Baseball has the ability to teach us all about life. I’m not talking about just the kids but the parents as well.

I don’t know where or when this journey will end. The day he plays his last game I will close the thread. Maybe [site moderator] Jake can leave it up for others to read but in the end it is about baseball. As it turned out it’s about baseball “and” how it effects our lives.

Maybe there is a book here but I doubt I’ll write it unless an agent works with me.

This amazing thread actually started as a question, which I never quoted because it became such a minor detail to the overall story. I’ll end this with that original question from Wayne which started it all (post 1):

I have a question. I am coaching Little League again this year and I am wondering about my boy.

He has what I think is an amazing arm and I recently clocked him throwing 50mph. He is ten years old.

Does anyone know what is very good (speed) for a ten year old? Is 50mph just average, better than average, good, or great?

Oh and BTW: Yes I do stress strikes. This is just something I am wondering about.

Thanks

This question launched a lengthy and controversial discussion regarding radar guns. Is it appropriate to use radar guns on youth pitchers?

So why did I not discuss the question which started out this whole thread? And what is the answer to the Ultimate question of life, the universe, and radar guns? Simply put, I didn’t think it was important to Leo’s story, nor do I think it’s of major importance to developing young ballplayers in general. It’s a tool. As I already stated in the first post to this series:

While use of radar guns before high school age is controversial, Wayne noticed that the gun inspired Leo to improve his mechanics.

While asking this question on the Baseball Fever Baseball 101 forum inspired a lot of debate and controversy, Wayne soon became inspired to share the details of Leo’s baseball career for over a decade thereafter.

Wayne shared his thoughts and shared them well. Readers of that thread and this retelling of it have benefited tremendously.

Thank you Wayne, a.k.a. Sparksdale!

There may or may not ever be a Part 12, depending on how much Wayne adds to the story. The story you just finished reading brings you up-to-date as of June 2017 (and then a brief update to February 2019). If you want to follow the actual thread instead of waiting for another “part” to be written, this link (post 1921) will get you started where the story left off in June 2017. There are very few posts after that date. If the Baseball Fever site is down when you visit, try again a couple days later and it will probably again be accessible.

The post Leo’s Journey from Little League to College Baseball (Second Chance at College) first appeared on FilterJoe.

Leo performed very well on the baseball field in little league, travel ball, middle school, and high school. But his grades, work ethic, and various other behaviors hampered any aspirations he may have had to attend college as a student/athlete playing baseball.

A couple months after high school, Wayne enrolled Leo in a two-year junior college located a couple hours away. He was invited onto the baseball team there, but as a walk-on, with no baseball scholarship funds available to support him during his first year as a student. Wayne helped Leo move into his apartment mid-August.

A few days later, Leo attended his first college baseball practice. Wayne was excited to hear that Leo was finally practicing with a baseball team, but also uncertain whether Leo would ever get to play.

As described here and here, invited walk-ons do have more interest from coaches and opportunities than uninvited walk-ons. However, walk-ons have to perform at a higher level than players with scholarships if they hope to get any playing time. With no roster size limits, some junior colleges have over 40 players. Typically, just the 24 players with scholarships will travel with the team, or perhaps just 1 or 2 walk-ons beyond these 24 for players that the coach believes can contribute to team success. Typically, walk-ons are not invited to play with the team in the fall scrimmages either.

Leo received some encouraging early signs, though, as he tried to prove his worth as a pitcher. By the end of August, Wayne reported (post 1634):

Looks like my boy is in for a fight to get any playing time.

I will say this he told me the head coach pulled him aside last week and just gave him some words of encouragement and let him know that he sees him and is happy with his work.

Also, (and this will give you an idea of how much I’m grasping at straws for news……lol) my boy told me a couple of days ago he threw the best bullpen he’s ever thrown. I said, “out of the thousands of bullpens that was your best ever?” he said “by far”.

He said he didn’t know how hard he was throwing but he said he’s never thrown harder….. I know one college coach got him at 86mph so he must have been throwing at least that hard.

Anyway, while my boy was throwing the bullpen the pitching coach stopped him to talk. The coach asked him was he a scholarship player or a walk-on? My boy said “walk-on.” The coach came right out and asked him “why didn’t anyone pick you up?” My boy just said “I don’t know.”

Anyway, they’ve only been in camp for a couple of weeks but at least my boy is getting some kind of notice.

On the downside he made a bad grade on a test but on the upside he is panicked over it. In the past if he made a bad grade he really didn’t care (high school). So at least he is starting to put forth effort on his grades.

I’m told they are going to have a practice game next week. I’ll update if [Leo] gets any playing time.

And the news turned much better a week later. According to Wayne (post 1635):

Pitched his first college game today (practice game). Everyone played and [Leo] pitched one inning. Allowed one hit no runs scored.

After the game the coach told him he hit 87 mph (they gunned everyone) and told him he was going to let him travel with the team.

Wayne was still a bit uncertain about the traveling but confirmed it a few days later (post 1641):

Pretty big news today… My boy wasn’t sure until today but…..

The coach informed him that he made the traveling squad and will travel with the team during the fall schedule.

Doesn’t sound like much but it’s pretty big news to us.

The team was told only scholarship players could travel so it’s pretty good that [Leo] has made the team.

!!!!!!!!

This was a very positive development. The coach clearly believed that Leo could contribute with his pitching. Then, a week later Wayne reported (post 1646):

Pitched his first real game today. 2 innings gave up 1 run, walked 2, struck out 2.

He got his first win!

Leo continued to get more pitching appearances. Leo was invited to a special tournament with at least one game against a Division II school. In Wayne’s words (post 1660):

His jr college team is going to play against a top d2 school. Coach said only last year [sophomore] students and a couple of scholarship players would make the trip.

About a week ago my boy went to the coach and asked “coach what have I got to do to make the trip and play against the D2 school?”

After practice yesterday the coach pulled my boy aside. He said he had never had a Freshman ask to pitch against one of the top schools before. Most players are scared of getting knocked around.

My boy will be making the trip as the only non-scholarship player.

Chances he will play are slim but it is very positive to earn his coaches respect.

He did pitch two innings in the tournament (though it turned out not to be D2 schools after all) and it looked like he had earned a spot as a regular pitcher for the team.

And then, abrupt news from Wayne, out of the blue . . . (post 1663):

Bad news… Long story.

Coach called my boy in his office said you’re off the team. No discussion [get your equipment] and leave.

A few days ago a girl on the softball team rolled [toilet paper on] my boy’s car. The next day [after] her car was rolled, someone poured oil on her car. My boy didn’t do it as he was home visiting me 3 hours away. Well the girl went to his coach and said my boy must have poured the oil on her car in retaliation of her rolling his truck. She said she didn’t see him do it but it had to be him.

Coach calls my boy into his office and kicks him off the team.

A few hours later the girl learns that another girl on her softball [team] poured the oil on her car and she confessed. They are friends she did it as a joke.

Meanwhile my boy is off the team.

Coach would not even listen to my boy or consider his side.

It appeared as though Leo had finally made it onto a college team for real, not just as part of the practice squad. And then he was off the team. No notice. No recourse. The reason he was given was not even accurate. Leo was very upset, and so was Wayne. A few hours later, Wayne learns more details (post 1670):

She said she didn’t see him do it but it must be my boy because she rolled his truck the day before. The coach took that and would not even listen to my boy.

Later in the day the girl who did it found out my boy got kicked off the team and confessed. She is supposed to go talk to the coach but as of yet she hasn’t.

It’s a mess and I’m sick over. I honestly think my heart is about to give out.

And one day later . . . (post 1686):

Just heard from my boy. Both girls went and told the head coach that it was a mistake and they were sorry. All I know is the coach simply said he was not letting my boy back on the team. That is all I know if I knew anything else I would post it.

Coach will not return my email nor will he talk to [Leo].

I do know before this happened my boy was one of only 2 non-scholarship players traveling with the team and was playing. He had the best stats on the pitching staff.

I just don’t know. My heart is broke.

Experienced coaches and other forum participants shared their points of view about this episode. Like Wayne, they did not have access to all the facts of the situation. Yet their comments were informative. First from Ursa Major (post 1683):

Presumably the school has (a) some sort of Honor Code that can penalize students for lying, including for raising demonstrably false charges against others, and (b) a student conduct office by which students can report wrongdoing done to them by others. Usually schools want these matters initiated at the outset by the students themselves, so it would behoove [Leo] to go into the student conduct office and find out how such a report could be made if he chooses to do so. Then, he can contact the girl and explain what has happened and explain to her that – if she and the others who apparently did the deed to her car don’t go to the coach and/or the AD, [Leo] will be forced to initiate a student misconduct proceeding to clear his name. He can explain that he has no desire to get others in trouble, but if the misconduct of others will essentially end a baseball career that he’s struggled to keep alive over the past ten years unless the matter is straightened out, he will have no choice.

With this said, let’s step back a bit. First, it’s October, so give the baseball coach a couple of days to hear what’s happening and then see if [Leo] can go and talk to him again. Maybe a quick note or email can break the ice – something like, “I would like to talk to you about your decision to dismiss me from the team based on unsupported allegations that I damaged someone else’s property. As I explained to you, I was not even in town when it happened, and I understand that it was the teammates of the complaining student who have since confessed to the act. Please let me know if there are some issues or facts that I’m not aware of that are impacting this situation, so I can address them. Please understand that the opportunity to play baseball for this team is one of the most important things in my college life, and I trust that you would not want that opportunity to be lost based on a misunderstanding that is easily straightened out.” If the coach doesn’t respond, you have a pretty good argument to get higher-ups involved, albeit as a last resort.

Stepping even further back: it doesn’t make sense that the coach would stick to the dismissal if someone else confessed. Either there’s something else going on, or you’re not getting the full story from your boy. He’s made mistakes before and has been slow to own up to them. So has my son – it’s part of sending them off to college. So, let him know that if you go to bat for him and there’s something important that he’s not telling you, he not only reduces your effectiveness as an advocate, there will be severe repercussions.

Then from mudvnine (post 1687):

I was sitting on the sidelines on this one, because I was having a hard time finding the appropriate words to voice what Ursa said so diplomatically [in that last paragraph].

Unfortunately at the HS over the years, I had the unpleasant job on several occasions, of removing a player from the squad for code of conduct violations.

All I can tell you is that during the player/parent meeting that happens in roughly 25% of the cases, it’s amazing at the “information” that the parent comes to the meeting with, compared to the information/facts they leave with.

Not once did a parent meeting ever get the student reinstated on the team, and for the most part, I don’t believe a single parent thought the player should have been, after learning the real reason(s) for the dismissal.

Now I’m not trying to implicate [Leo] of any wrongdoing, or trying to play judge and jury in this case…only stating that sometimes, what is told to a parent or loved one as the reason for dismissal, is not always 100% the case of the real happenings in the event(s).

I wish the best for [Leo] and hope that in this case, it truly is just one big misunderstanding.

Then ralanprod (post 1688):

If I take everything as written as being true, then the coach probably doesn’t want to reverse the dismissal because it is an admission that he probably overreacted in the first place.

At the same time there is also the possibility that he just doesn’t want to have to deal with drama, and right or wrong – drama was dumped on his desk in relation to your son.

We can sit outside of the situation and say that the coach is being unreasonable, but we might feel differently if it was us that had to deal with it as it unfolded.

And finally, JettSixty (post 1689):

He probably wasn’t going to make the team. Stats in fall ball aren’t a big deal. Some players are working on something and sticking with it regardless of the result. This situation just made him an easy cut. Had he worked himself up to where he would have been a factor in the spring he might have received a hard slap on the wrists. Unfortunately it means he’s not on the team to have a shot at being a factor the second year. The other possibility is there’s more to this story than you’re being told. But coaches don’t have any patience with marginal players. A walk on is considered marginal until proven otherwise.

What your grandson learned is baseball will live on long after his baseball days are done. No one is that important. Coaches don’t like hassles. Coaches really don’t like exposure to the college administration over problems with their athletes.

This doesn’t mean your grandson is done playing baseball. He should be looking now for the most competitive summer team environment he can find. I don’t know JuCo transfer rules. If he transfers in January I don’t know if he’s eligible for the spring. While it may not be possible to make another school’s team in the spring maybe he could work a deal where he keeps score or is an equipment manager in exchange for getting in some practice time with the team. There’s also transferring after the first year. Another angle is to get into the right summer league and make JuCo coaches aware he’s pitching there.

He better come up with a good version of the truth about what happened at the current school. The tendency will be not to believe him.

The full details of this incident will never be known. However, the commentary from Wayne’s forum thread suggests that a walk-on’s position on a team is tenuous to begin with. If anything goes wrong, anything at all, the simplest action for a coach is to cut that player from the team. It’s hard enough to coach a team even without the extra drama. Sounds brutal, but that’s how it works. So grades, behavior, health, etc. have to be very good. Always.

Leo may have also learned to pick his friends carefully, especially given that something he loved was at least partly contingent on (the perception of) good behavior.

A couple days later, Wayne provided an update (post 1694):

My boy was waiting to tell me till he came home to visit but a couple of weeks ago he was informed he was getting an 80 percent scholarship starting next semester.

Of course this was before everything happened.

We have found out through other sources that my boy was telling the truth and everything happened while he was at my house 3 hours away.

Today my boy went one last time to talk to the coach to explain he wasn’t involved and wanted to be on the team.

The coach said no.

My boy asked why?

Coach said he did not believe the girls when they apologized and basically said they were lying to protect him.

My boy has gotten calls of support from his high school coaches and teammates. It helps that they are supporting him.

Life isn’t fair sometimes it kicks you in the gut. To be honest I don’t want him to play for a coach that doesn’t support him so we will move on.

I’m not sure how things work but these few weeks he’s proven he is at least a D3 college player. So I’m going to see what I can do to find him another school.

Forum members were sympathetic after seeing the latest from Wayne. For example, Forum_jedi wrote (post 1696):

The coach sounds like an *******. There are a lot of them out there. My first year of college was at a juco several states away from home. I broke my wrist the third game of the spring season crashing into a concrete outfield wall. I kept playing for a few more days, but it was really starting to hurt, so I went to the coach and told him I thought I hurt my wrist. He told me to go see a doctor. I had no car, but I had good teammates and one of them let me use his car.

I came back in a cast on my throwing hand and the coach said, I guess it’s broke; that was the last time he spoke to me until the season was over when he told me he was cutting my scholarship because I didn’t contribute (my wrist was still in a brace).

I moved home, got my release and went to a local juco the next year. It all worked out in the end as I got a scholarship to a good DII school after that. It was a good life lesson.

I hope it all works out for your son. Just tell him to stay positive.

Just a day later, a glimmer of hope returned as Leo’s high school coach went to bat for him. According to Wayne (post 1698):

Update;

My boy’s high school coach talked to another college coach. The last game my boy pitched a couple of weeks ago he pitched against this school and had a good outing.

Anyway the coach said he remembered my boy from that game and invited him to his team. He did say he was out of scholarships but if my boy played for him he guaranteed him a scholarship the next semester.

All this is happening fast and we have the rest of this semester to discuss it. To be honest it would be nice if he could get at least a partial scholarship to help us financially.

And then, there was silence. Five months later, Wayne finally reported in (post 1707):

I want to apologize to everyone for not posting updates. To be honest my heart wasn’t in it.

After he got removed from the team at his college his grades went south…..fast. The end result: he lost his grant to continue college so he was unable to attend the other college that he planned to attend. Besides…..I couldn’t get him to go and sign up.

It’s pretty much been a mess and [Leo] isn’t doing anything at all now….nothing.

My wife says he will be able to apply to attend college next fall and that is our plans at this point. Before you even ask is he working on his game to try and make the team? No nothing.

At this point it looks like his baseball life is over and we are just trying to get him to face life head on and move forward.

It’s such a shame…. it really is.

Thanks for all the support on this thread throughout the years. If by some chance he attends college and attempts to play again I will post an update.

In the summer, Leo at least joined a quality travel team. In Wayne’s words (post 1713):

[Leo] got a call from a 19 and under travel team. From what I gather they have a history of being a very good team. [Leo] tried out for the team and made the roster.

They played 3 games this weekend and he is the starting shortstop and pitched two innings. He said his arm isn’t ready to pitch just yet.

I can tell you I’ve never seen (in person) the talent I saw on the baseball field this weekend. Wow these boys (all of them) are very very good.

I can’t tell you how much of a joy it was to watch him play this weekend…..just pure heaven. I loved every hot 95 degree in the hot sun second of it.

[Leo] said he really really misses the game and he’s hoping to get noticed and maybe play again somewhere at the college level.

Few people in life get a second chance so maybe he can work hard and….. well who knows.

This baseball team didn’t last too long and Leo continued to basically do nothing at all. Wayne received several suggestions from forum members on how Leo could move on from baseball and go on with the rest of his life. A couple people also suggested that he find some way to coach baseball to stay involved. While Wayne appreciated the suggestions, he didn’t really know what to do with it because Leo was mired in a funk that made it hard for him to even get out of bed in the morning.

Leo’s baseball life was over, and he wasn’t coming to grips with it.

Except it wasn’t.

In mid-September, Wayne reported an incredible turn of events (post 1730):

Out of the blue [Leo] got a call from a college coach. Great school. Seems some boy that is on the team that my boy didn’t even know told the coach about my boy.

He asked [Leo] to come down. The day he got there they were having a practice game. [Leo] got in and pitched 3 innings. He faced 11 batters, struck out 7, walked one and grounded out the others.

They were gunning him and he topped out at 88mph. Coach said his average fb was 85-86.

Coach got one of the players on the team and said go show this boy his new dorm.

Things happened so fast we don’t know the details yet.

Big day!

The details were unclear, but Leo was being given a second chance to play baseball in college as a student/athlete.

Would Leo get a scholarship? Would Leo do a better job with grades this time around? Would he choose his friends more wisely?

Above all, would Leo mature, making better choices, so he could continue to pursue his passion for the game of baseball?

Part 11 of Leo’s story: Second Chance at College (Age 20-21, Two Years of Community College)

The post Leo’s Journey from Little League to College Baseball (College Walk-on) first appeared on FilterJoe.

Note: The only source material for prior parts was Wayne’s forum thread. This part sources some material from newspaper articles covering Leo’s well-known head coach. To help keep Leo and Wayne’s identity private, I do not name the coach or provide links to these sources.

Throughout Leo’s senior year, Wayne knew that Leo’s high school days were coming to an end. He also figured that Leo’s baseball days were coming to an end.

Leo had enough baseball talent to continue. But Leo had repeatedly demonstrated in high school that he wasn’t willing to work hard at baseball or his studies. He preferred hanging out, partying, and sharing cool moments to his public Myspace page. Leo’s Myspace page was not a particularly great way to present himself to potential college coaches.

Wayne expected Leo would probably quit baseball before the season even started, on account of the new coach and his extremely demanding preseason routine which began in August. In Wayne’s words (post 1482):

Our school has hired a new baseball coach. He was a surprise hire as he was highly sought after from many other schools. To be honest no one really knows why he chose our school but we are very proud to have him.

This new coach is tough and hard. I mean he is really tough. They have started workouts which are 5 days a week 4 hours a day. The coach flat out told the boys he’s trying to make most of them quit. He wants to see who has what it takes to play for him. I think about 6 kids have quit so far.

To say I love this coach is an understatement.

It’s a long story but I fully expected [Leo] to quit. We’ve been having some trouble with him and in my mind I had just given up on him playing baseball anymore. So I knew this coach and my boy would “clash” and I figured he would just quit.

Something triggered in my boy….. he has bought into this new coach and my boy would never say it but I think he really loves him.

The other day they were doing long toss, and this new coach came running across the field in a full sprint and asked [Leo] this……

“Where did you get that”?

“Get what?” [Leo] asked.

“That arm!” the coach replied.

Confused, [Leo] gave a smart ass answer “I got it on my shoulder….why?”

The coach looked at him and touched his shoulder “how fast do you throw?”

“85 or 86” [Leo] answered.

The coach looked confused….. “son when we clocked everyone a few weeks ago you were throwing 81 and 82….why?”

[Leo] told him his arm wasn’t feeling good that day…..I know the real answer…. [Leo] was in one of his pissy moods and he wasn’t about to show this new coach his arm. I was there that day and [Leo] was just lobbing the ball.

Anyway, the coach looked at my boy and said…. “if you listen to me and do everything I tell you I’ll have you at 90mph by Christmas. I think I can get you to 95 before baseball season.”

Regardless if this coach can get him to that speed all I care about is my boy has really bought into this coach and is doing everything he says. These workouts are really really tough and he’s coming in everyday about to fall from being tired and sore. But he’s sticking it out.

Wayne was very happy to see Leo on board with this coach and continuing to play baseball. As for the coach talking 95 MPH before baseball season, Wayne knew and so did his forum followers that an increase of 10 MPH was hyperbole. But with hard work, 90 MPH seemed like a possibility.

The new high school coach was demanding in many ways, not just with intense preseason conditioning routines. He insisted that those who wanted to bat or play a position had to follow the appropriate practice schedule. Leo was willing to do the work to pitch, but as for hitting or playing an infield position, Wayne noted (post 1487):

I think he had the talent to go to the next level but simply did not have the desire. He stopped working hard long ago . . . my boy has decided (against the wishes of his coaches) to do nothing but pitch. He could be the starting SS but just doesn’t want it anymore. He doesn’t even want to bat because batting practice takes away from his “fun” time.

Excited as Wayne was about the new coach, it’s natural for anyone to wonder how much a coach can do in just one year. The coach himself admitted in an interview that running a baseball program isn’t just about having a JV team with decent 10^th graders ready to step in when seniors leave. It’s about starting back in seventh grade and building from there. Maybe so, but his prior 5a team made the state semi-finals with a 43-9 record and was ranked 6^th in the state in his last year with them, then had a 2-30 record the year after he left. Much of that was due to many graduating high-performing seniors, 9 of whom went on to play college baseball with scholarships. But a swing from 43 to 2 wins is pretty incredible no matter how you try to spin it.

To put it mildly, this coach was dedicated to doing whatever it takes to get the most out of his players and win at baseball. To put it bluntly, this former minor league baseball player was a baseball fanatic. Anyone could tell by the way he raised his 4 sons.

At one point in his life, after selling a small piece of land, his wife figured they were going to use the proceeds as a down payment to buy a house so they could move out of their trailer home. Nope. He spent over $5,000 on a batting cage, pitching machine, and other equipment so his 4 sons could practice in the backyard.

People thought he was crazy to spend so much on baseball equipment instead of a home. Well, maybe only a little crazy when they saw him coach the team with his two oldest sons all the way to Williamsport, where they won the Little League World Series. The crazy talk stopped altogether when two of his sons made it the major leagues, with a 3^rd son in the minors. He was just as tough a coach with his own kids as he was with other players. Perhaps tougher.

True to form, this very same coach pushed Leo and his teammates hard to get better. In came the results . . .

The team started strong the first couple games, and then Leo pitched the game of his life. In Wayne’s words (post 1489):

Tonight is the night we’ve waited for since my boy was 9 years old……he did something tonight he has never done.

Tonight against the defending state champions my boy threw his first no hitter and struck out 13 while only walking 1.

It was quite literally the best game he has ever and I mean ever played.

So if it all ended tonight it was sheer joy to watch him perform at such a high level. Believe me….it wasn’t one of those nights where the pitcher got lucky…. he was unhittable. I have no idea how hard he’s throwing but he is simply throwing fire. It has to be somewhere around 90mph….

Thank you God for tonight….. it brought back memories of when he was 11 and 12 and dominated teams. It was simply joy…..

Leo and his team both continued to play strong, with Leo beginning to regret that he hadn’t put in the extra work to be a hitter earlier in the year. In Wayne’s words (post 1504):

My boy pitched his second start (he did save one game the first game of the year).

He had a good night.

He pitched a complete game gave up 1 run, walked 1, had 4 hits and 10k’s. (We won)

He has not batted this year and doesn’t look like he will. He’s changed his mind and wants to bat but it’s too late. The other players put in the time and effort in the off season so they’ve earned the right.

Don’t know how his numbers will stack up at the end of the year but I don’t think he could do much better than he has thus far. One no-hitter and tonight’s game was a gem because he didn’t’ have his fastball. He had to fight every batter and use his off speed pitches.

As team wins and Leo’s terrific pitching performances piled up, a scout occasionally appeared at games, taking notes on Leo. Forum members were wondering if any colleges followed up to contact Leo directly. No. In fact, by this time Wayne had just about given up on Leo’s college prospects. In Wayne’s words (post 1496):

No colleges no one has ever called us.

His size is a big drawback. They list him at 5′ 8″ and 185 pounds.

Besides his grades are terrible

And furthermore (post 1512):

His high school coach is almost an expert at getting kids scholarships.

He currently has 3 sons playing in the major leagues and one is a star player [actually 2 major, 1 minor].

So his coach knows what he is doing. We are very blessed with him.

To be frank, my boy’s grades are so bad his only option is junior college. I’ve done all I can do. It is up to him now and it’s my job to support him. In my opinion he could be a stud at second base and even a pretty good SS. But he doesn’t want it anymore.

He is 18 now so it is time for him to step up and be a man….in the end it’s his life.

I told him he should play college ball and try to be a coach. It’s a great life to be around the game and make a living at it.

Forum members encouraged Wayne to keep thinking about college and nudging Leo to be proactive. With 4-year college application deadlines passed, Leo’s options were now just a few local community colleges or junior colleges. But that was no reason to give up. It was always possible to do well (both academically and athletically) at a two-year institution and then transfer the following year to a 4-year institution.

After winning more than losing for another few weeks, the team entered the tougher March part of their baseball schedule where they played against other large 6a schools. They started off losing a few games but they also won a game here and there.

Leo had a few outings where he gave up a few runs, often from errors. Sometimes scouts were watching. Forum members reminded Wayne that scouts don’t care about errors and who wins when they’re watching pitchers. In fact, they like being able to see a pitcher’s composure under pressure. But mostly they want to see velocity, command, and movement. What the fielders do behind a pitcher is irrelevant.

Leo’s team started winning. A lot.

After winning 8 of the last 9 games, it boiled down to the most important game of the season. Leo got the start. Here’s what Wayne had to say about the big game (post 1543):

Biggest game ever today.

My boy got the ball to pitch in the deciding game of the year. Win we go to the playoffs, lose and we were out.

He went 6 innings with 8 k’s 2 runs 1 earned and walked 1.

We won in the 8th inning!!!!!!!!!!

Playoffs here we come!!!!!!!!

With help from the new coach Leo’s school varsity team made their first playoff appearance in school history with a record 25 wins. The team then promptly exited the playoff after losing 2 games. It was an emotional ending. In Wayne’s words (post 1562):

Boy last night was tough… Not just the loss. But the end of a lifetime of work.

He pitched a complete game, gave up 1 earned run, and lost. Wow that was a tough way to lose. When you give up 1 earned run against one of the top 6a schools in our state you’ve really done something.

In the bottom of the 7th we needed 3 runs to extend the game. I peeked in the dugout and my boy had lost it. I think it hit him all at once that this was the end. He was crying like a new born child.

After the game all the kids and parents were crying. We’ve been playing with these boys all their lives.

Baseball can teach kids so much about life and the parents too. If someone asked me for advice I would say this…. Tell your kids to respect their coach, respect their teammates, respect the game and love it. After all baseball is more than a game. It is a reflection of our American way of life and our family institution.

Love the game, love each other.

Leo’s stats were posted publicly to Maxpreps and Wayne periodically copied these great numbers to the forum. The final numbers were (post 1568):

ERA	1.67
Wins	5
Losses	3
Appearances	11
Innings Pitched	58.2
Saves	1
Strike Outs	67
Bases on Balls	16
Home Runs Against	0
Batters Faced	265
Wild Pitches	4
Pick Offs	2

Despite the playoff losses, it was a great varsity baseball season for Leo’s school.

How did the new coach achieve so much in one year with this historically lackluster school? Wayne provided little detail, other than to mention the preseason conditioning and his tough, no-nonsense coaching style.

What Wayne did indicate was the reward this new coach received for achieving a record performance:

He got fired (rather than force the administration to fire him, he resigned).

In an interview after the firing, the coach was pretty blunt about the reasons. The administration and parents preferred a gentler type of coach, he said. People complained that he scared and intimidated kids, and he admitted that he pushed hard, was rough, and used blunt language because he wanted them to be great. He was not willing to change who he was and how he operated. Why change a proven formula for success?

He ended up returning to coach the high school he had been with for many years prior to his year at Leo’s school.

The firing was bad news for Leo because the coach had just started reaching out to junior colleges where Leo could fit. Leo was left without a high school coach to introduce him to college coaches.

With Wayne’s help, Leo did check out a local military school and a junior college a few hours’ drive away. The military school liked Leo but military life didn’t interest him, especially the haircut. The junior college didn’t seem worth it because he wasn’t offered a scholarship. How could Leo’s family afford it? Also, he was invited to be a walk-on. Invited walk-ons may practice with the team, but in most cases are offered little or no playing time and will not be invited to travel with the team. Players with baseball scholarships are usually given more opportunities. No thanks.

That junior college possibility was the one school his coach had contacted on Leo’s behalf before he was fired.

Weeks went by. Leo’s name got in the paper in June for making honorable mention for all area in the 6A class of schools, demonstrating that coaches from other big schools thought highly of him. But still no plans for what he was going to do after high school.

Finally, at the end of July, Wayne and his wife decided to enroll Leo at the same junior college they had checked out earlier. It was more than 2 hours’ drive away. He was not getting scholarship money. He was an invited “walk-on” but Leo was unlikely to see much, if any, playing time. They could not even come close to affording it if not for a Pell Grant. But Leo was going to give it a go. In Wayne’s words (post 1619):

We have enrolled my boy in a jr college a couple of hours from where we live. He tried out for the team a while back and they only offered him to walk on. So he is going to try and walk on.

He will be getting a pell grant but we will be renting him a place to stay as well as all of the other expenses of college.

If any of you know of any other way to help pay for college I would appreciate your advice. Getting a school loan is out of the question. My wife is trying to pay hers and I only paid mine off a couple years ago. I will not put that burden on my family.

Some forum members didn’t think this was likely to result in much of a baseball future for Leo. For example, mudvnine wrote (post 1623):

I don’t want to burst any bubbles here, but unless your grandson is going to be starter on the team, or at least can be assured of some decent playing time….college baseball is a much greater toll on the student than I think most realize.

Being that your grandson has already tried out for the coach, and the coach only “offered him to walk on”, sadly, he is basically just telling your grandson that he’s welcome to try again, but his chances of making the team are highly unlikely….and if he does make the actual rostered team (and is not “redshirted” to the practice/concession stand squad), the chances of him getting any real game time are even slimmer.

I’m sure JettSixty can explain what his son is dealing with right now academically and athletic schedule wise. Baseball is a BIG time consumer at the college level. It’s nothing like that of HS ball, and many student/athletes struggle with the time management end of it……especially those who are housing on or near campus, and don’t have a set of parental eyes checking in on them here or there.

I only say this, because my oldest played a year of ball at a local JUCO…..and somehow forgot about the doing the school work that went along with it.

So he didn’t get a second year of baseball, simply because his mom and I pulled the plug on it, as he was there for an education, and not a “baseball career”.

We moved right after our youngest graduated from HS, so he too was like your grandson, as the local JUCO coach in our new area “offered him to walk on” if he liked…..

Unfortunately (or fortunately as far as his mom and I were concerned), he didn’t make the roster. Coach offered a “redshirt” spot, but know that that is just as big a time consumer, but with no game time…..he (with our encouragement) turned it down.

Now he’s continued to work out five to six days a week in the gym, followed by a couple hours in the local cages or on the field, with hopes of walking on again….but secretly, I hope that the same thing happens, and that he doesn’t make the team.

While he’s a better student than my oldest, there’s no way he’s going to fit in five or six hours of baseball a day, with school, and with his job at the local supermarket…..yes, he will have to continue to work if he wants a car, and the extra money for dating (he sure as hell ain’t getting it from me or mom).

Anyway, I took the long route to get to saying…..depending on your priorities, there is always the option of your grandson finding a job on campus to help supplement your finances in helping pay for his education. While it might not be a lot….at least he could make $8 to $10 an hour for those five to six hours he’d be getting nothing out on the baseball field.

Couple hundred dollars a week, would sure go a long way in help with his food costs, or part of his boarding, or books, or gas, or dating, or whatever it is….it’s a lot more than he’s gonna get from the baseball coach, and the time spent out on the field if he’s not playing on a regular basis (or even if he happens to be).

It’s all about priorities….and eventually, baseball can’t or won’t be the first one.

Just a thought, best of luck,

This was soon followed up by an incredibly informative response from JettSixty who went into much more detail about what it takes to play college baseball (post 1625):

I could start this post with “so you want to play college baseball” with an exclamation point. Or I could end it with “do you really want to play college ball?” Most high school kids can’t grasp the level of commitment unless they’ve been exposed to it by others. I played. But the commitment has increased since I played. My son got his exposure from his sister and friends of mine with sons older than he.

First off Mud is right. Your son already had a tryout with the coach. An offer wasn’t made. What he’s looking for this fall is significant improvement from the tryout. He’s going to be looking for a more bulked up pitcher throwing harder. I hope your son has been working hard on physical and velocity improvement and not just playing. The problem is it typically takes an entire off season for improvement.

I’ll assume since there was a tryout this is at least a middle of the road, competitive program that recruits. The coach has probably already found the guys he’s looking for. Some will become good players for him. Some won’t work out. Some will flunk out. But he probably has at least thirty or forty players in his head already for his roster. Only twenty to twenty two of them will get enough playing time to be happy.

The good news about JuCos is there aren’t roster limits. If the coach likes your son he’ll add him to the roster. The bad news about JuCos is there aren’t roster limits. How much mound time do you think your grandson will get as the twentieth to twenty-fifth pitcher on the team? If he makes the team his future could come down to how he does against one opposing hitter assuming he gets the opportunity.

Now for the time commitment. Here’s my son’s. My daughter’s was very similar for softball ….

Fall semester:

First off baseball players need to take all their classes before 12:30 so they can be on the field for practice by 1:30. My son shoots for three consecutive classes MWF from 9-12 rather than getting stuck with one at 8am. The reason being he has swimming for upper body strength M-F for an hour before class. So …

7:15-8:15 swimming

8:15-9:00 shower, eat, get to class

9:00-12:00 classes

12:00-1:00 lunch

1:00-1:30 locker room

1:30-4:30 or 5:00 practice

5:00-5:30 shower, locker room

5:30 to 6:30 dinner

6:30-7:00 locker room

7:00-8:30 weights, or agility (yep, after eating … have to eat sometime)

9:00 to midnight homework

up at 7am, repeat

Saturdays aren’t so bad. They have three or four hours of practice from 8-noon so they can go support the football team. Saturday afternoon and evening is the only social life he has.

Sundays are free. He sleeps until noon because he’s tired from not getting eight hours any night all week. Then watches the Eagles play. The late afternoon and evening is for catching up on homework except for dinner.

Practice ends mid-November. But they are expected to keep doing all the physical training. The NCAA allows athletes to participate twenty hours per week in their sport. If you add up the hours you will see it’s much more than twenty. It’s more like thirty-five hours. All physical training is optional. Try not going and keeping your roster spot.

Spring semester:

Spring is easier. A JuCo (junior college) game schedule may differ. I’m not familiar with it. But I’ll bet the hours are about the same.

Thursday after classes: Leave for game destination, if away. Practice three hours and weights if home.

Friday am: Study, you’re missing classes. Class if you’re home.

Friday pm: Game

Saturday: Afternoon or evening game.

Sunday: Afternoon game. Bus ride home, if away. Homework on the bus, if away.

Monday: Practice for three hours after class, light weights for an hour after practice.

Tuesday and/or Wednesday: Non-conference games or one game and one practice and weights. It’s hard on homework and sleep if these are two or three hours away.

Thursday: Repeat.

The spring is a lot easier due to less physical training. But having finals before the season ends isn’t exactly a treat.

My son’s coach requires players to provide proof (professor’s signature) they attended class on Monday mornings after road trips. Sometimes these are eight to ten hour bus rides arriving back on campus in the middle of the night. On one ten hour bus trip Saturday was rained out. They played two on Sunday. By the time the bus left Burger King (great dinner after playing two) it was 8pm. They arrived back on campus at 6am. Monday morning classes required. Ever slept on a bus? I’m betting a Texas JuCo league has some significant bus trips.

So you want to play college baseball? You better be real committed to the game and getting passing grades. Another thing is most coaches don’t give a damn about your academics as long as you pass, stay eligible and help the team pass NCAA APR standards so they don’t lose scholarships. They don’t get paid for your grades. They get paid for wins and titles.

Unless you’re a stud for the team the coach is always looking to replace you. There are new recruits every year. My son’s roommate started his freshman and sophomore year. He came back junior year to find out he had been replaced by a JuCo transfer. My son returned sophomore season to discover a position he thought he could win full time was given to a JuCo transfer. You’re guaranteed nothing from year to year. Not even the scholarship.

My son has been a utility player for two years. He starts more than he doesn’t. When he doesn’t start he often pinch hits, pinch runs and sometimes goes in defensively after someone has been pinch hit for. He loves baseball. He can’t imagine not playing at college. But he sometimes calls and complains the game owns him and he feels trapped. I understand him because his sister felt the same way about softball. I felt the same way when I played college baseball.

Another thing is all eyes are on your behavior. You can’t mess up. My son was busted for underage drinking in the parking lot at a football game freshman year. He was fortunate by red shirting (injury) there wasn’t a headline, “Baseball player arrested for underage drinking” on the front page of the local newspaper in a college dominated town. He wasn’t known then.

Many baseball programs don’t require swimming, and the exact scheduling details will differ from school to school. But as JettSixty and mudvnine pointed out, college is much more difficult for athletes. Those who attend college as a student/athlete must develop very good time management skills if they don’t already have them. They must approach both their studies and their chosen sport very seriously.

Leo had never shown himself to be a very disciplined student, and it had been years since he had worked hard at baseball without a lot of prodding.

Wayne knew that forum posters had legitimate points. But he didn’t see any other reasonable options. In Wayne’s words (post 1626):

I would only respond by saying what else can he do? Personally I’m glad he is going to at least try. It would be easy to sit back and give up so at least he’s going to give it a shot.

I do know many many other boys his age who are good players and none of them got even a partial scholarship. From what I gather baseball scholarships, even partial, are hard to get.

I will say this. My boy is in the shock of his life. He thinks it’s going to be easy to make the team. He doesn’t realize there are many pitchers that throw in the mid 80’s.

Could Leo develop the work ethic he needed to succeed academically?

Leo would get to practice with the baseball team. But would he ever get an opportunity to play?

Part 10 of Leo’s story: College walk-on (Age 19, first year of Junior College)

The post Leo’s Journey from Little League to College Baseball (HS Senior): A New Hope first appeared on FilterJoe.

Wayne’s feelings were conflicted as Leo entered his first year with varsity.

Even though Leo had enjoyed dominating at the JV level, Wayne was disappointed with Leo’s lack of desire to play with the varsity team as a sophomore.

On the other hand, Wayne had reasons to be guardedly optimistic this year. After coming off a stellar year playing for JV, the head coach praised Leo and signaled good things to come at a pre-season baseball banquet that took place mid-February.

In Wayne’s words (post 1257):

Season is about to begin….

My boy was told today he will be the opening day [varsity] starting pitcher.

They had a team banquet with a guest speaker the other night. The coach introduced each player and when my boy came up he said he would be the #1 pitcher on our team and starting catcher. He even said my boy has the ability to play after HS if he keeps his grades up.

College is such a big dream . . .

The pitcher/catcher bit, if true, was concerning. Wayne knew, as did everyone on the forum, that anyone who routinely pitches and catches has a significantly higher risk of arm injury. It remained to be seen how much care the coach would take with Leo’s arm. But at least the coach appeared to be expressing his confidence in Leo’s ability to contribute to the team.

What about College?

Wayne was still thinking of college as a dream . . . a distant dream. From Wayne’s comments on the board, it was clear that Leo was not doing much of what he needed to be doing in his Junior year to pave the way for a college baseball career. Far from it.

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Want to Play Baseball in College? Junior Year in High School is Key

If you're good enough, they will find you. Ever hear that baseball expression? Don't pay attention to it, as it only applies to a very small number of exceptional student/athletes.

Being proactive in 11th grade is required for the vast majority of high school students who hope to play baseball in college. Whether to get into the right baseball program or to (more importantly) find the best social and academic match, this is the year to put your best foot forward, both athletically and academically.

In terms of athletics, this would be the ideal year to get into top physical condition (with strength and agility training), put up peak numbers at showcase events, and impress the high school coach. That high school coach may be able and willing to facilitate introductions to college coaches.

Academically, kids who have prepared in the previous two years by researching universities, contacting coaches, and getting good grades will be much better positioned to garner a roster spot even if their baseball performance is borderline. Low grades during freshman year or sophomore year necessitate rapid improvement in the junior year.

Although a top sophomore prospect who gets very high numbers at national showcase tournaments will in most cases receive a verbal commitment before the start of his junior year, the vast majority of students entering their junior year are not talented and/or skilled enough to have garnered such strong interest from college baseball coaches. For these more typical students, the road to baseball at the college level is best thought of as a multi-year process starting in the 8th grade, as explained at the scholarshipstats site (scroll to bottom).

Most students will not follow the ideal set of steps described at scholarshipstats, but it's not yet too late to get started and catch up during junior year. Students who have good grades, baseball skill, athletic talent, and (most importantly) determination should still be able to find a place on a baseball team that also fits academically and socially. So . . .

It's good to start by making a list of a few dozen schools that meet academic and geographic criteria and then whittle down the list by studying what they have to offer more carefully. When the list is small enough, perhaps 10-20 schools, the next step is to visit most or all of them to get a better sense of the campus feel and the surrounding area. Potential baseball players will also want to set up interviews with coaches and see the baseball facilities, which is often facilitated by the player's high school coach. The list of schools will naturally shrink after the visits.

This is the proactive approach, for a student who has been steadily building up his high school resume with good grades, outside activities, etc. For a baseball player hoping to play at the college level, some additional steps may be helpful in getting the attention of college coaches:

* Video of baseball skills
* Showcases documenting running speed, pitching velocity, etc.

This all sounds great in theory, but it presupposes good SAT or ACT scores and good grades as well. The new minimum academic requirements mandated by NCAA rules have increased a bit as of 2016. However, many Division I or academically-oriented schools require grades and scores well above the NCAA-mandated minimum. Higher high school grades/scores mean more college options and that will often mean a better outcome for the high school student aspiring to become a college athlete.

Though Wayne had considered what it takes to get to the college level, he didn’t always act on all the advice (posts 989 through 1232) he received from his forum thread. Leo’s athletic talent, arm strength, and baseball skill were certainly good enough for him to be a reasonable candidate for an NCAA baseball scholarship at the Division II level. Wayne did bring Leo to occasional local showcase tournaments to document his numbers.

However, Leo did not have a proactive approach. Wayne could gather information and provide council, but ultimately it was up to Leo to be proactive and follow-up. Leo was not doing what he needed to do.

Leo did not have good grades. It was unclear whether Leo had any test scores, let alone good ones. Leo did not have a coach with many college ties. Leo’s behavior and attitude might not have been bad enough that potential college coaches would have heard about it, but it might have been bad enough to dissuade his coach from recommending him.

Nevertheless, given how good a ball player Leo was, Wayne was hopeful that Leo’s talent and skill would shine enough to transcend these nonathletic factors working against him. Or perhaps Leo’s love of baseball would provide the motivation Leo needed to turn around his grades and behavior and become more proactive on his own behalf.

Junior Season Begins

The games began in late February.

Leo pitched.

Leo did great his first game, striking out 10 batters and allowing 2 hits in 5 innings. If he hadn’t been pulled after 80 pitches, he might have beat the school record of 12 strikeouts in one game. Wayne was not upset by this as he knew that it’s prudent to go easy on pitcher arms at the beginning of a baseball season. However, Wayne was irritated that Leo didn’t get to bat.

A week later, Leo pitched the game of his life. In Wayne’s words (post 1332):

Tonight we played a game I have dreamed of since my boy was 12 years old.

In our area is maybe the best player in our state who signed with a major D1 school a few months ago . . . tonight my boy was assigned to pitch against him. I’ve waited on this game for years because something always happened and they never pitched against each other.

The game was incredible and was a duel between two pitchers and the crowd was into every pitch. When this boy batted against my boy every person was standing in the stands. In the end my boy struck him out twice and he got a clean single on an at bat.

In the end my boy pitched 5 innings with 11 strikeouts and gave up 2 hits and walked one. On a sad note we lost the game 2 to 0 as the other boy pitched 5 innings and gave up only 1 hit. Both pitchers had so many strikeouts in the game that they were forced out due to pitch count before the 6th inning.

A scout from a D1 school was at the game, no doubt watching this other kid that is so good and deservingly so…. After the game he pulled my boy’s high coach to the side and asked questions about my boy. My boy got a text from his coach when he got home telling him about this scout.

What an amazing night…. even though we lost it’s the kind of game that reminds you how great this game is.

As for the catcher position, Leo was neither the starting catcher nor a primary backup and in fact had little playing time in that position. So at least there was nothing to worry about in terms of arm safety.

But there was something else for Wayne to worry about.

The coach chose to always play a few really big players on the team who were good football players. These were guys who hadn’t played baseball in years and had forgotten much of their baseball skill, if they even had much to begin with. These football player transplants struck out nearly every at bat and made many fielding errors. Leo and several other of the top hitters weren’t given any at bats and watched glumly from the bench as the team lost most of its games.

While Wayne was thrilled at times with a great pitching performance by Leo, at other times he was beside himself with how the coach was running the team. If Wayne was emotional about Leo’s baseball the previous year, that was just a warm-up for the ups and downs of this crazy year where not only Leo, but several of the team’s best baseball players sat on the bench to make way for football players who didn’t know how to play the game. What was going on?

With Wayne reporting the ups and downs of both Leo’s experience and his own emotions, he got to hear some other horror stories from forum members. It is quite common for high school coaches to bench a highly skilled player for someone who is clearly not contributing anywhere near as much for the team, and for parents to be baffled when it happens. Despite reading these stories and understanding that he wasn’t alone, it was still very hard on Wayne to watch all this unfold (see how to deal with getting benched).

Sometimes it looked as if all might end well for Leo in spite of it all, because every once in a while a college scout would appear at a game in order to observe a star player on the opponent’s team and would notice Leo’s great pitching. Sometimes Leo would hear that such and such college scout noticed him and that a college coach might be in touch. Unfortunately, nothing ever seemed to come of it.

Accident

Hard as all these ups and downs were throughout February, they all paled to insignificance on one fateful day at the end of February. In Wayne’s words (post 1359):

Sad horrible day…. OMG I never want this to happen again!!!!

As I got off work today my cell phone rang. It was the call you hear in your nightmares but dare not mention out loud. The call every parent refuses to believe will happen.

The person on the other end told me to get to the baseball field as fast as I can. A helicopter has landed in center field and they are there to get my boy…….

Terror ripped through my very soul. I put on my flashers and ran every red light while laying down hard on my car horn.

I pull up to the field and a helicopter is setting in Center field with a fire truck several police cars and an ambulance. I speed through the school parking lot and slam on my brakes. I jump out of the car in a panic and I see my boys coach. He just shakes his head. I scream WHAT HAPPENED? IS HE ALRIGHT??

He is lying on a stretcher and they have him laced into the stretcher so tight that he can’t even move his lips. I ask everyone WHAT HAPPENED?????? I get 10 different stories and the policeman refuses to let me in the ambulance where they are tending him. All I can think is why is this guy being an ass while my boy lies tied in a stretcher?

The Nurse or doctor or whoever finally opens the door and says come in. I’ve lost it and I’m pretty much out of my mind. Grown men don’t cry……. I cried like a new born baby. Finally they tell me a freak accident happened and he fell and hit his head on an iron bar. When he came too he couldn’t feel his fingers or toes. They tell me they’ve called for the helicopter to get him to a specialist as soon as possible. Then they make me sign papers and tell me I can’t fly with him. I have to drive to the hospital which is 90 minutes away.

Watching that helicopter take off was like watching Death as it approached my soul and invited me in. My life, as sad as my life is, was flying away strapped to a stretcher. I guess I’m not normal in some ways but it’s like this…. he isn’t just my grandson. He’s the air I breathe and the light in my life. He’s everything I love in this God forsaken stupid world. He’s the only joy I’ve ever known.

At the hospital his coach comes in and the school principal. My cell phone is ringing off the hook and the battery is almost drained down. My wife is 800 miles away working and terrified.

Hours later the cat scan comes back and it’s good news. Only a concussion.

He will be ok. I’ve lost 10 years off my life . . . He’s lost at least 3 weeks of the season but at least he will be ok. When he was lying on the stretcher I didn’t think of baseball or how fast his fastball was….. all I saw was my joy in pain.

The accident was not related to playing baseball. Leo and a friend were horsing around in the batting cage, play wrestling or something similar. Leo accidentally fell backwards into the “L” screen bar, knocking the back of his neck onto the metal bar. Leo was knocked out. When he came to he could not move his arms or legs and felt tingling in his fingers and toes. At first, a trainer on the scene feared that Leo had broken his neck.

Wayne was hugely relieved that Leo would be okay after this scare—a mid-level concussion with several severe bruises. A week after the accident he was suiting up in his baseball gear, watching the game from the dugout. He could not play yet, but at least he could watch.

Leo did not enjoy watching his team play so poorly. After 15 games, the team was 5-10, but this was the easiest part of the schedule when they played schools much smaller than them. Wayne expected they’d lose by much more when they soon started playing the much tougher competition, the other big 6A schools.

A few days later, 6 players quit the team. 4 of them were starters.

It wasn’t just about the losing. It wasn’t just about the football players in the starting lineup. It was a lot of things, including things the coach was doing this year that seemed to be designed to humiliate players. What bothered Wayne most was when the coach pulled a player off the field just as he was running onto the field, something that happened many times.

The coach was losing the support of both parents and players. Nobody understood what was going on.

The Season Ends

By mid-March, Leo still had considerable neck pain and stiffness, but the coach asked if Leo could play. The doctor cleared him to play, as long as he could stand the pain.

Leo’s first game back, he played 2^nd base and batted for the first time in the season. He was 3 for 3 this first game. Each of the 4 football players who had started every game (over 60 plate appearances each) had fewer than 3 hits for the entire season. Leo passed their hit count after just three plate appearances.

In his second game back, Leo pitched. He didn’t do as well as usual, but that was understandable given all the pain and stiffness around his neck. He gave up 5 runs in 4 innings, with only 1 of those runs earned. As usual, there were numerous errors behind him.

Leo played more games through March as 2^nd baseman, shortstop, and pitcher, as he gradually recovered from his neck injury. Mostly he played well, though he wasn’t enjoying the game anywhere near as much as he used to. Seeing the coach humiliating players (including him once), losing so many games by lopsided scores, and seeing his friends one by one lose their love for the game . . . it affected Leo. He didn’t seem to care as much about baseball anymore.

With just 4 games left in the season, the team was 9-27, with all 9 wins coming early in the year against much smaller schools. The team did not win a single game against any team in their same 6a size class.

The season ended on a crazy note. If anything, the coach seemed to sit his better players even more for the last few games, including Leo. But the real head turner was what the coach did when they had a really good chance to win a game with Leo pitching . . .

The game was tied 5 to 5 (only one earned run). Leo’s team was batting, with 2 outs and runners on 2^nd and 3^rd in the top of the 6^th. The coach brought in a pinch hitter—the team manager.

A team manager (sometimes also called equipment manager) is a student who is an important administrative assistant to the team. He keeps score, makes sure there are enough balls, sets up the field, and may have other duties as well such as setting up the sound system. However, the team manager is not an actual player. Usually, the team manager does not work out with the team or keep his baseball skills sharp, though he usually understands the game, having played baseball at an earlier age.

That’s who the coach put in to bat: The team manager. As Wayne reported (post 1404):

Of course the pitcher blows three strikes by him to end the inning.

One boy on our team quit right then and there when that happened. He was one of our top 3 pitchers. He took his stuff and walked out and never came back.

This is the kind of year we’ve had to put up with.

A couple days later, the head coach was fired. He may have known it was coming, which would explain why he ratcheted up the craziness of his coaching behaviors to a whole new level for the last few days of the season.

When Players Quit

The coach left behind him a demoralized team, for those who had stuck it out. Not too many even liked playing baseball any more. Wayne referred to at least 7 players quitting, and several of those players were very good. It was a disaster of a year for Leo’s high school baseball program.

Wayne had looked into transferring Leo to another school district several times during sophomore and junior year. But he never did figure out a way around the restriction that said a player couldn’t play sports for a year after transferring. However, the school district where Leo’s father lived got wind of Leo’s discontent and arranged a meeting with Leo and his grandfather Wayne to see if Leo might want to move in with his father. That would be a way for Leo to play baseball next year in a different district that satisfied the rules.

At this meeting is when Wayne heard a story that, if true, explained why Leo’s coach threw away the season the way he did. In Wayne’s words (post 1443):

Word got around to a coach from another team that my boy will probably be changing schools next year. The coach invited my boy and his dad to have a meeting with them yesterday about playing for his school. The principal was also in on the meeting.

This coach was an assistant coach on my boy’s 8th grade football team. (they also want my boy to play QB for them).

Anyway, they were talking to my boy and trying to convince him to come play for them and the conversation ended up on what happened this season with our Varsity team. The coach talking to my boy shook his head and said he wasn’t surprised. My boy asked him what he meant by that?

The coach went into detail that our Varsity coach (the one that just got fired) would tell anyone who would listen that our school would never have a good baseball team because all they cared about was football. He was dead set on recruiting the football players to get an interest in baseball.

This of course explains this season. The coach put 5 players from the football team in the starting lineup…. just handed them the positions even though it was clear they were either not good players or not ready. He didn’t care about the schools record last year or this year or next year….. he was trying to get football players on the team.

My problem, and all of the other parents problem was this….. what about the boys who have spent their lives getting ready for High School/Varsity baseball? They only get to live this once. Let’s face it, probably none of them will play after high-school. This coach took it upon himself to do away with their high-school career. I mean he let these football players play every inning of every game and not a single one of them was hitting .100 and all of them were so bad on defense it was embarrassing to watch. This went on all year.

All of you can disagree with me if you want……that’s fine. Winning doesn’t matter and do what’s best for the team. Meanwhile kids who have worked for 10 plus years to play Highschool baseball were forced to watch this crap. Mind you, the coach would never explain anything…. he had this rule about never talk to him and his number one rule to parents was NEVER EVER EVER EVER AND I MEAN EVER TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR KID AND PLAYING TIME!

What we couldn’t understand was why didn’t he at least put them on the JV team and let them get some games in? Get the JV coach to teach them the game. You people have no idea how bad it was…… I could tell you countless stories.

Here is one: We were down one run in the last inning with two outs against a top 6A school….. one of these football players got hit by a pitch then stole second base. There are two outs in the last inning mind you. My boy comes up to bat and hits a bomb to the outfield for a stand-up double. What does this football player do? He stands on second base and watches the ball role all the way to the fence….everyone is screaming RUN RUN RUN! He finally runs and gets thrown out at 3rd base and ends the game. My boy is standing on second base shaking his head.

This is just one story of many that happened this year. But the gist of it is this…. none of these boys had the most basic idea how to play the game. Mind you we had good quality players sitting on the bench who have played all their lives and have shown they are good players.

I know the coach was trying to build a program but along the way he lost the team.

If this story were true, then the cause for the erratic coaching was political maneuvering in an attempt to elevate the school administration’s baseball priorities to be as high as football. At least 7 players quit the baseball team because of it. This post and others throughout the year sparked a lot of discussion among forum members about how bad it has to get before a high school player should consider quitting the team. There was also much discussion about how parents should treat the coaching relationship with both the player and the family. When, if ever, is it time to speak up about outrageous coach behavior? When is it okay to quit a team?

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To Quit or not to Quit, that is the Question

Discussions about quitting in response to an unhappy coach experience often get confused because there's often two questions bundled into one:

* Should you quit the sport?
* Should you quit the team?

The first of these is easier to answer. Most accomplished athletes will tell you that if you truly love your sport, desire to excel, and are willing to do whatever it takes, then you will not quit in response to a bad coach, or any other form of adversity. If you do quit a sport in response to a bad coach, then you didn't love the sport enough to overcome the setbacks. Nearly everyone's interests changes over the course of their life and there's no shame in shifting interests and coming to realize your passion level for a particular interest is less than you thought. But that's a decision for you to make, not your coach. If you have enough passion, a bad coach is no reason to quit.

The second question is tougher, and opinions are all over the map. Nearly everyone would agree that it's reasonable to quit a team that has a coach engaged in illegal activity or physical abuse. But what about verbal abuse? How do you even define verbal abuse? What if the coach is just doing a terrible job, or blatantly favoring certain kids to the detriment of the team?

Some people believe that sticking with a team until the end of a season is the same as following through on a commitment and should be done no matter how bad the team is run (barring physical abuse or illegal activity). And it's not just a commitment to the coach or organization. It's also a commitment to teammates. Tough situations happen in life such as a bad boss, a rough patch during a marriage, etc. Learning how to stay committed to a team despite a bad baseball coach for a season is helpful preparation for life.

Another reason to stick with a team is reputation. What kind of reputation does a player have when he quits 4 different teams mid-season in 3 years?

On the other hand, some people believe that commitment goes both ways, and that each situation is unique and should be evaluated on its own merits. Did the coach make promises in the preseason meeting that aren't being kept? Is the player being told why he's sitting on the bench when he asks his coach? Does the coach go way out of his way to verbally humiliate many players on the team? Are several top players on the team sitting on the bench while players of lesser ability routinely play? Does the coach make players play through pain or make other decisions that lead to increased chances for injury?

Pushing kids very hard to improve, making controversial game-time decisions or position assignments, or having criteria for decisions that differ from other coaches - it's up to the coach to decide these things. But quite a few people would argue that coaches should be held to a certain standard of communication and decency with their players. Perhaps it is time to quit a team when coaches don't even come close to meeting a reasonable standard, especially if they are making many decisions that seem bizarre.

Regardless of what a parent or player believes about quitting, the decision should never be taken lightly. You don't want to be that player who quits 4 different teams mid-season in 3 years.

Leo did stick with the team and Wayne encouraged him to do so, but he was filled with doubt about whether he had done the right thing. What was the point of it all when he was on the bench? Or course, forum members had something to say about parents complaining about how much time their players spent on the bench. For example, one forum member felt that it’s usually the player’s own doing (post 1326):

WOW – For all the knowledge on this board I am surprised by all the poor kid comments! Being a starting player in good programs requires more than just quality play on the field.

[Wayne] I have followed your posts. Enjoy reading most of them. Your grandson has been down this road before and it came out there was some off the field issues. Right???

[Wayne] and all others who find their kid is getting the short shaft on playing, it comes down to one or a combo of:

1. He is not as good as you think
2. He is maxed out and the lesser player can hold is own and will become better than your son with time
3. He has a bad attitude
4. He is a bad student – not just grades. Could have good grades but disrupts class
5. etc… but you get my point

It’s not and shouldn’t be just about performance at game time.

But another forum member pointed out that it’s sometimes the coach (post 1327):

That’s just a partial list. Other very key missing points include

6. The coach is incompetent and a jerk.
7. The lesser players parents are influential with the coach and/or booster club.
8. The lesser players mother is really good looking.
9. The coach likes football players on his team because he thinks that two sport athletes are better than baseball only players.

etc., etc. As others have pointed out, there could be a ton of reasons, not all of them are logical and not all the kids fault. I would say the majority of the time it’s your list (i.e., it’s the kids fault), I’ve seen a LOT of the others, and for reasons even worse than I listed.

But regardless of who was to blame for Leo’s disastrous high school junior year of baseball, it was done. It was time for Leo to figure out what to do next.

What Next?

Leo liked playing baseball and wanted to keep playing. He didn’t like playing baseball for the coach who was fired, and his desire to work hard at his game had been in decline for years. But he liked it enough to keep at it despite his bizarre junior year experience. Leo was hoping to take the summer off and do nothing, but Wayne convinced him he needed to do something, and he preferred to do baseball over anything else. So Leo played American Legion baseball in the summer.

In June, Wayne heard great news about his high school baseball program. In Wayne’s words (post 1463):

First, my boy has decided not to change schools for his senior year . . .

Now, our school has hired what people are calling a “GRAND SLAM HIRE” for a coach. Of course you never know but this coach is supposed to be special. He currently has two of his sons playing in the Major Leagues and another son in double A. He had many job offers but for some reason chose our school to come and coach. I know it’s not about money because everyone knows what he will be paid (which is almost nothing). He had been with the same high school for many years and decided to make a change.

I will say this about my boy…. I’m pretty disappointed in his work ethic. I’ve done all I can do at this point and at some point in his life he has to decide that if he wants something, he’s going to have to work hard to achieve his goals.

I just wish there was some way I could light a fire under my boy and get him to work at his game this summer…. I really don’t know what to do other than pray about it. It was always my hope that he could at least get a scholarship at a Jr college and get an education…. but he has to get a lot better before anything like that can ever happen.

In July, Wayne learned more about the new coach (post 1477):

We had our first meeting with the new high school coach that is coming to our school next year. I love love love this guy. He is very hard-nosed and tough. He’s won several state championships with his previous school and he currently has two sons playing Major League baseball and another in double A.

He told the players that most of them will not make it. He said he runs a very tough program and most of them will quit. He does not put up with anything and is hard core hard-nosed get in your face kind of a coach. I love love love this guy.

With that said I fear my boy will not make it. Instead of being excited when he got home he was complaining about all the rules and stuff. I just shook my head. It is my hope this coach can tear him down and build him back up. He’s a good kid and all but he has really gotten lazy.

Could this coach turn around the baseball program at Leo’s school? Would Leo even welcome such a change, if it required a lot of hard work?

Time would tell . . .

Part 9 of Leo’s story: HS Senior, A New Hope (Age 18, 12th grade)

The post Leo’s Journey from Little League to College Baseball (HS Junior) first appeared on FilterJoe.

Wayne had been looking forward to Leo’s sophomore year with great anticipation. This was the year he expected Leo would shine and move up to varsity.

As baseball pre-season practice began in early February, Leo was almost a different person. At 16, he was driving and dating. And while he still loved baseball and could still throw hard (clocked at 83 MPH to start his 10^th grade season), he didn’t have that burning passion to be the best that he used to have a few years back. As Wayne wrote (post 853):

He still loves the game but it doesn’t seem the same…..at least so far. Right now he’s so bent on driving and girls and stuff that that’s pretty much all he can see. Yeah he loves baseball but it seems to be at a different level than in the past. All he wants to do is go to practice….he doesn’t seem to have the desire inside himself to be the best (like he’s had all his life). I get the feeling that it’s just fine with him to be on the team. I can remember a time when he would not accept anything other than being the best player on the field.

Leo attended mandatory practices and workout sessions and did a reasonable job with them, but nothing more. Wayne wondered if Leo would follow the path of players who stop working out outside of team practices—such players rarely become impact varsity players, if they become varsity players at all.

At least Leo was still playing. Wayne was happy about that. Less than 1 in 5 of the ball players Leo had played with over the years were still even playing, and some of those former baseball peers were very, very good.

Wayne found out the reason Leo didn’t make varsity. He was being punished. The coach wanted him to earn his way back after doing something he disapproved of, even though it wasn’t related to baseball. Wayne did not describe the incident that caused the coach to make this decision. This wasn’t the first nor the last of Leo’s questionable behaviors or of his somehow being in the wrong place at the wrong time. While Leo clearly had enough baseball skill and talent to advance in the game, it was becoming clear that his character and grades might hold him back.

Having to earn his way back to varsity was by no means the worst possible consequence for an infraction. The opportunity to play varsity was still there.

With the new season came a new pitching coach. He had recently coached at the college level and seemed to be a very good coach. He worked his pitchers hard. Leo hated it. He didn’t want to work that hard. On the other hand, Wayne thought (post 860):

Personally, I freaking love the guy. They run 4 miles many days after practice and this guy is tough to boot. I’ve never spoken to him and never will (I always stay out of the way) but watching him at practice is a joy. Nothing gets by this guy.

There seems to come a time in the life of every baseball-obsessed parent when they project their own dreams and desires onto their kid in an unhealthy way. Perhaps this was that time for Wayne? After all, Leo was a sophomore . . .

click to skip explanation box and resume the story

Is it Better to Play JV or Varsity as a Sophomore?

Sophomore is the year that some stars get moved up to varsity, while others stay with JV. Parents may feel it's time for their player to be exposed to the tougher competition or to receive the honor or whatever. The player may or may not want what the parent wants. The player may want to stay down at JV, get lots of at bats, play 3-4 different positions, and dominate as a pitcher, as opposed to coming off the bench to pitch and not being permitted to hit at the varsity level. Or sometimes it's the opposite, and the kid wants to play up while the parent thinks it's best to stay down for the extra playing time.

In the end what happens in the sophomore year matters less than some parents imagine. While every part of a baseball player's high school career is important and builds incrementally, whether the player dominates at the JV level or comes off the bench occasionally with varsity as a sophomore is not going matter much in the grand scheme of a baseball player’s career.

It's the junior year that matters most, and where you hope everything goes as well as possible because that is when a player should be reaching out to college baseball coaches and figuring out what college to attend. Early part of the junior year is the ideal time for a player to be putting up peak numbers, especially at showcases.

As the season started, Wayne seemed obsessed with Leo’s lack of desire to play varsity. The coach indicated that he would very likely call Leo up to pitch one varsity game in the first week. Then, according to Leo, the coach texted him very late the night before the game. Leo said he didn’t see the text in time and therefore went to the JV game instead of the varsity game.

But what was worse, in Wayne’s eyes, was that Leo didn’t seem to care at all. Leo said he didn’t want to play varsity, and Wayne got the strong impression Leo was souring on baseball altogether.

Wayne was paying far more attention to his own idea of what was best for Leo than what Leo actually wanted. Leo wanted to play catcher and shortstop. He wanted to hit. And he wanted to completely dominate on the mound, not struggle against one of the top varsity teams in the state. Playing for JV, Leo got that. Wayne was not seeing it that way.

At times during the year, Wayne would step back and decide he was wrong to be so obsessed with Leo making the varsity team. For example, in late February, Wayne wrote (post 897):

Been doing a lot of thinking today and I’ve figured something out.

I’ve been wrong.

The one pushing my boy to be on Varsity is me and when I stop to think about it no one else is but me.

Last night he had the time of his life playing with the JV. It was like the old days when he was 10 and 11 years old where he was having fun playing.

So if he doesn’t want to play Varsity that is just fine by me. It was a complete joy to watch him have fun last night. I think along the way I was guilty of doing what many of us do….I forgot that this game is about fun.

I’ve said it before on this thread that I’ve made just about every mistake there is to make and this was a big mistake.

I’m going to enjoy this year and help him have fun and if the phone rings and the Varsity wants him I’ll ask my boy if he wants to play up or not. It’s up to him. I just want to see him have fun and enjoy the greatest game in the world.

Some dads get obsessed in the other direction. In response to this particular note, one dad wrote (post 899):

This “parenting” thing sure don’t come with any instruction manual, and we’ve all made plenty of mistakes along the way, so don’t feel too bad….cuz as they say, “been there, done that” myself.

Funny thing though…..this year, I was just the opposite of what you did. I did everything I could to convince my youngest to just stay down and play JV for one more season, as I didn’t/don’t see him getting much playing time on the varsity level, given the “senior” roster they have this season, and he would’ve been one of the “top kids” on the JV squad, with pretty much unlimited playing time.

He on the other hand, wanted to play on the varsity team, because most of the kids he played with when they were all 10 through 14 are seniors this season (he has one of those weird baseball vs. school birth dates), and he wanted to be there for them as their “last season together”.

Well, needless to say, he is on the varsity team (and doing well I’m happy to report)…..and having a great time with “all of the guys”. Still not sure how much actual playing time he’ll get once the regular season rolls around, but if there’s not that many innings for him…..I think it will be a great learning experience for him, as he learns the value of being a good teammate from the bench.

This will be the first time that he’ll really have had to “sit” in his short career, but there are lessons to be learned in baseball, whether you’re in the starting lineup or not….

And as you’re finding out, as long as they’re having fun, who are we to get in their way? Sit back, enjoy, and let your “son” find his own path…..I’m continually surprised how given just some guidance, yet the freedom to choose, that they make the correct choices that are best for them (and all concerned for that matter), more times than not.

So did Leo get to play all of his favorite positions in JV? Yes! He played as second baseman and pitcher for the first game, and was then the catcher in the next game.

That game he played catcher was eventful. He played the position very well, throwing out a couple of base stealers. But the most dramatic moment was when a runner coming home from 3^rd collided with Leo. The runner did not slide, but seemed to intentionally put down his head and ram Leo like a charging bull. Leo spurted blood just under the eye and was taken to the hospital for 4 stitches after the game. The opposing coach congratulated the scoring runner as he walked to the dugout, while Leo was covered in blood. Some coaches really really want to win . . . Wayne found out later that the collision resulted in a grade two concussion and a chipped tooth for the runner.

Though Leo quickly rebounded from this incident, Wayne still worried about his lack of desire for varsity. It all came to a head a week later. In Wayne’s words (post 904):

My boy got hurt sliding into second base . . . heard a pop and he couldn’t put weight on his ankle. We take him to the hospital. When we get there the doctor looks at [Leo’s ankle] and says he thinks it’s dislocated and fractured but will have to do x-rays to confirm.

We’re sitting in the room and I’m pissed. I tell my boy . . . “you know you wouldn’t be hurt like this if you were playing up on varsity instead of pissing around on this JV team.” [Wayne realized later that this made no sense—he said it out of anger]

He looked at me as honest as a prayer and said these simple words . . . “but I love playing on the JV team.”

I asked him why and he said “because it’s a lot of fun . . . I get to pitch, catch, play SS and bat third. If they move me to varsity they won’t let me bat and I’ll only pitch.

Talk about feeling small. I felt small.

Turns out Leo broke his ankle. That kept him out of baseball for the rest of March and the first week of April. Meanwhile, things started to get a little weird with high school baseball.

One weird thing was that the JV coach put Leo in as starting pitcher after he hadn’t thrown a pitch in a month, with an ankle that wasn’t yet 100%. You just don’t do that. You want someone recovering from injury to do some bullpen sessions for a week or two until they’re 100% again. Predictably, Leo wasn’t 100% and was pulled after walking a bunch of hitters in 1 1/3 innings of work.

But that was the least of the weird stuff going on. While Leo was still loving playing with JV, his friends on varsity were hating what was going on there. It was essentially the same team as last year as only 2 seniors had graduated. But the coach was not playing some of the better players and the team was losing most games, some by blowout scores. Only one player on the varsity was hitting above .240. How could this be happening? This was a team that made the playoffs last year!

Several of Leo’s friends on varsity said that this was probably their last year of baseball. They hated it now. It’s not that they hated baseball, but they hated baseball with this coach. Many people will tell you that someone who wants to quit based on an unhappy coach experience doesn’t want it bad enough. If you love the game enough, the setbacks and indignities you suffer won’t matter. Maybe so, but some players (who perhaps “don’t want it bad enough”) are going to respond to certain coaches by wanting to give up the game. And when a kid doesn’t want to play anymore, there’s not much anyone can do to reverse that. Some of those players who quit maybe were not super passionate about baseball at the time they quit, but perhaps they might have developed a burning passion for the game under a different coach.

From Leo’s point of view, staying with JV was the way to go. Except for that one bad pitching outing on his recovering ankle, Leo was having a stellar year, leading JV in every statistic, including hitting stats. He played all the infield positions except first base. As a pitcher, he was almost untouchable, throwing in the low to mid 80s with a decent curveball and a passable changeup. Yet he was still with JV. Wayne couldn’t understand and still felt frustrated by how the coach was doing things.

For years, Wayne had looked forward to the sophomore season in high school, a season when star players sometimes get the opportunity to shine at the varsity level. He got so frustrated that he even looked into transferring to a different school, but found out there were restrictions in his state that said you couldn’t play sports for a year after transferring. So that option was out.

Keep in mind that the source material for this story all comes from Wayne. At this part of the story, Wayne’s desire for his grandson to play varsity was so strong that it makes it hard to sort out what exactly was happening with Leo, because it’s being reported from the point of view of Wayne, the disappointed grandfather.

One father noted that most parents with a kid playing baseball in high school will experience anxiety of various sorts (post 952):

[Wayne] is not alone in this. All of us do the same thing. If anyone reading this hasn’t felt like this, you’re either a liar or a saint.

With 7 games left in the season, Leo was hitting .425 and had an ERA of .95, according to the stats handed out by the coach. He played even better for the last 7 games, and then the JV season was over. Some of Leo’s stats broke records for his school’s junior varsity baseball program. The team ended 24-12, which was a record season for this school’s JV team.

The varsity and freshman teams both lost most of their games. The few games the varsity did win came mostly against smaller, weaker, schools.

The season was totally maddening for Wayne. It made no sense. A coach who previously seemed to like his boy suddenly didn’t, even though it hurt the varsity team. Huh?

Then came the revelation.

After the season ended, Wayne talked to the coach. Turns out Leo had lied to Wayne.

The head-butting catcher-incident had occurred a couple days before Leo was to pitch for varsity. His face was a bloody mess and it had rattled him. Rather than talk to the coach about it, he had ignored a voicemail and two texts from the coach telling him he wanted him to pitch that varsity game. He had not mentioned receiving and ignoring all this communication to Wayne. Not long after the catching injury, he had his month-long ankle injury. So the combination of poor communication by Leo and time out from injury caused him to drop off the coach’s radar. Leo could not be relied on for the varsity team.

It might have been a mistake to approach the coach at all. At this age, it’s probably best for players to solve their own problems. But Wayne did get to find out what happened with Leo, which he might not have discovered otherwise. It gave Wayne a chance to talk to Leo about what happened, and explain how admitting to a mistake is almost always wiser than trying to cover up.

It was a learning experience for Wayne as well. In general, it’s rare for a coach to “not like” a player. Every coach will have their reasons for passing over certain players. You may not know what the reason is, and you may not like it, but it’s not likely to have anything to do with how much a coach likes or dislikes a player. And it may very well have nothing to do with reasons you might suspect, such as short-person bias, favoritism, or bad judgment. It may be that the coach saw or experienced something you don’t even know about. Wayne had considered many possible reasons why Leo was being held back, and all of them were wrong. Once he found out the real reason, he agreed with the coach.

But yes, Wayne was disappointed. At perhaps the peak of Leo’s post-puberty baseball career, Leo missed an opportunity to shine at varsity. As Wayne could see at travel ball tryouts shortly after the season ended (post 975):

I know my boy’s days are limited as his high school days come to a close. I think that’s partly why I was so upset over how things went with this year (his sophomore year). I knew without a doubt that my boy was going to be a great Sophomore player. Right now he’s ahead of most of the kids his age (talent wise). I knew his 10th grade year was going to be his year and it’s the year I’ve been waiting on for so very long. To have it all blow up like it did just sucks to be blunt.

I’m starting to see now….. I’m seeing kids who weren’t all that good and just hung around the game…they are getting bigger and better. There is one kid on our school team that shot up to 6 foot and his arm went with him. He’s never been a good player and mostly played the bench his entire life. Now he’s throwing fastballs at the speed of light and hitting balls to the moon. He’s only one of a few players I’ve noticed that are doing this.

My boy is still a very good player but it looks like he’s through growing. He might be 5′ 9″ tall and even though he’s throwing about 85mph now…. he may never throw harder. Maybe he’ll hit a little harder with age and muscle growth but he probably won’t run much faster either.

So next year, his Jr. year…. he may very well be just one of the players on the team instead of the standout he’s been all his life.

Reading between the lines of Wayne’s narrative, Leo actually had a fun year with JV. Not only did he put up good numbers, he was throwing pretty hard for a sophomore at 83-85 MPH.

Could Leo hit 90 MPH by senior year? It was not out of the question. 90 MPH is the magic number for a right-handed pitcher. Most varsity high school hitters struggle to hit 90 MPH fastballs. More importantly, 90 MPH is a surefire ticket onto a college baseball team for a right-handed pitcher (lefties can get away with 2-3 MPH less than that).

A pitcher throwing 85-88 MPH will usually be able to earn roster spot as a college pitcher as well, but only if he proactively contacts colleges and demonstrates good grades, a good work ethic, and exemplary character.

Over 200 messages (posts 989 through 1232) delved into Leo’s potential future. Showcases, baseball performance numbers, grades, character, work ethic, how to contact coaches, talent vs. hard work, etc. were discussed and debated in great detail in this part of Wayne’s forum thread, with a little bit of news of Leo’s performance on his summer travel team mixed in. But given that Leo wasn’t about to become a consistent honor roll student or incredibly hard worker, it probably boiled down to one simple question:

Would Leo throw 90 MPH in high school?

However, this wasn’t what Wayne was thinking about when Leo’s sophomore year came to a close. In Wayne’s mind, the sophomore year was supposed to be Leo’s year to shine, and he didn’t get to do so with the varsity team.

Disappointing as this season was for Wayne, the next season was worse. Far worse. And it wasn’t just worse for Leo or Wayne.

It was worse for everybody.

Part 8 of Leo’s story: HS Junior (Age 17, 11th grade)

The post Leo’s Journey from Little League to College Baseball (HS Sophomore) first appeared on FilterJoe.

I’m not new to describing my son’s experience with Axe bats. My first review covered two 2 1/4″ 2015 models, while the second review covered the 2 1/4″ 2016 Origin.

This review is for my son’s first big barrel bat, the 2017 MB50 2 5/8″ barrel (since replaced by 2018 Origin), 30″, 20 oz. (for 10% discount, use code JGOL10, though note that this code is usually disabled when Axe is having a sitewide sale, as often happens between Thanksgiving and Christmas), which Baden Sports provided to us for testing:

The $129.99 MB50 differs from the $99.99 L144E Origin big barrel only in appearance and the tape used for the handle, so any experience with the MB50 applies to the L144E as well.

How did the MB50 work out for my son?

The short answer:

My son recently turned 12, though you might think he just turned 11 given his size.

My son’s hitting performance with the MB50 is his best ever. In games, 75% of balls he puts into play make it to the outfield, as compared with a consistent rate of approximately 40% in prior years.

Despite being the smallest and lightest player in his age group, my son is for the first time hitting the ball harder and more consistently than all but a few players in his rec league.

Unsurprisingly, my son loves this bat far more than any other bat he has ever tried. He loves the knob. He loves the paint job. Most of all, he loves the performance. The combination of the axe-like knob and HyperWhip barrel design makes it easy to control despite having a big barrel.

Note: Before buying this or any other bat in 2017, consider that this bat may not be legal for your local rec league starting in January 2018. Please read about the new bat standard coming out in 2018 for details.

The MB50 can be purchased at the company web site. If you choose to buy this bat, be sure to type in the following code for a 10% discount:

JGOL10

2017 MB50 L145E (-10) 2 5/8″ Baseball Bat

2017 Origin L144E (-10) 2 5/8″ Baseball Bat

(Note: Both models are sold out, replaced by the 2018 Origin which is also available on Amazon.

The rest of this post is the long answer to how the MB50 worked out for my son.

What Kind of Hitter is my Son?

In my opinion, understanding the kind of player doing the testing helps understand the bat. My son received this bat as a sample from Baden Sports in November 2016. He turned 12 while testing the bat over the past few months.

My son is the smallest player in his rec league’s 12u age group at 4′ 9″, 77 Lbs. This is his 8^th year playing PONY baseball. He has also played summer baseball since he was 8, mostly with select/all-star teams. He took 7 hitting lessons when he was 10.

Before this season, my son didn’t strike out much, but was not able to hit the ball as hard as the top 10 hitters in his rec league. This season, he is consistently hitting the ball much harder than he has in the past, and harder than all but a handful of players.

If you are considering getting a bat for a small 12-year-old, average to slightly-below-average size 11-year old, or above-average size 9- to 10-year old, then this review would be especially relevant for you.

Methodology

This review is based on data collected over several months, just like prior reviews. My son used the MB50 in a wide variety of settings, including games. I have seen many players swinging bats well in practice settings such as tee, soft toss, front toss, and cage work, only to struggle during games using the same bat. So it’s important to me to observe how well the bat works in a wide variety of settings, especially games.

In prior reviews, I did some testing at the cages. Unfortunately, my son refused to test this bat at the cages. Why? Because he loves the MB50 so much. He didn’t want to risk harming the bat from harder cage balls, nor did he want to scuff up the paint.

What is Different about an Axe Bat?

Axe bats have an oval, angled, asymmetrical knob design, just like the knob of an axe. This design helps position wrists for optimal power, which for many youth hitters doesn’t come naturally or easily. The knob also has ergonomic benefits. Axe bat users are much less likely to injure their hamate bone. Axe bat users also last longer at batting practice before getting tired . . .

At a recent all-hitting baseball practice, the hitting coach told the players on my son’s team that they were going to swing their bats so much over the next 90 minutes that he expected everyone to come home with sore hands. So of course my son has to blurt out “not me, I’ve got an axe bat.” His hands were not the least bit tired after that practice.

Yet another benefit of the Axe bat design is that it can only be held in one of two ways (right-handed or left-handed), which means that only certain parts of the bat ever hit the ball. This allows Baden Sports to engineer bats with more durability or pop on certain parts of the barrel. This also makes it possible to design the end of the bat differently, which is something Baden Sports in fact did starting in 2016 with their most expensive BBCOR bats.

Axe Bat’s new HyperWhip Design

The different bat-end design is very relevant to this review. Baden Sports introduced the HyperWhip feature to high end bats in 2016 and incorporated this feature throughout most of the 2017 Axe bat lineup.

With the HyperWhip design, the last couple inches of the bat slope away from the contact side(s) of the barrel. This removes close to an ounce of weight from the part of the bat that adds most to the perceived swing weight. A side effect of shaving weight off the end (and also off the handle) is that the sweet spot is lengthened.

Some bats with the HyperWhip design have no end cap, but the MB50 has a white endcap. The following image shows examples of this HyperWhip design:

What does all this technical jargon mean in practice? It means you can design a big barrel bat with a big sweet spot that is also easy to swing. I find this especially interesting for single-piece aluminum bats. To clarify:

In recent years, big barrel bats with a composite barrel have become very popular. They are lighter than single-piece aluminum designs and can be designed with weight shifted away from the barrel. These types of bats do not require players to be nearly as strong or mechanically sound as they need to be with single-piece aluminum bats of the same weight.

Because of the reduction in barrel weight caused by the HyperWhip design, single-piece aluminum Axe barrels are now about as fast-swinging as composite barrels, while retaining the control advantage that many players experience with single-piece aluminum. For more detail on this, see Why You Never Again Have to Sacrifice Bat Speed for Barrel Control.

It works. My son said it hardly feels heavier to swing than the drop 12 Origin model he swung last year. His 2016 Drop 12 Origin model does not have the HyperWhip design so it feels nearly as heavy to swing for him as the MB50, which weighs nearly 3 oz more:

I always weigh bats because actual bat weight typically differs from what is stated on the bat. These two bats use the same aluminum alloy, and differ in weight by 2.75 ounces according to my scale. I can only conclude that the HyperWhip design explains why this bat is nearly as easy to swing as last year’s much lighter model.

How the MB50 Performs

My son has used the MB50 with a tee, soft toss, easy batting practice pitching, and during games.

I don’t have any devices for measuring ball exit speed so I just have to use the “eye test.” With tee and soft toss it is very clear that he hits balls harder with the MB50 than with his lighter bats. It looks like his swing speed is only very slightly slower than with his lighter Origin bat. He is just as consistent, if not more consistent, at hitting line drives and his mechanics appear unchanged. Though not a big kid, it is clear that 4′ 9″ and 77 lbs is plenty big enough to swing this bat.

With heavier, more end-weighted bats, my son’s swing speed is very noticeably slower, with an occasional hit that is harder than anything I’ve seen on the MB50. But he has much more difficultly consistently squaring up a heavier barrel to the ball. His hit quality is therefore much better, on average, with the MB50.

A couple days after receiving the MB50, we went to a small baseball diamond with fences located about 170′ away from home plate (the field used for ages 8 and below). I gave him some easy pitches to hit from about 45′ away. The results were stunning. With his 2 1/4″ Axe bat he could hit the ball pretty well, but typically 100′ to 120′ and only occasionally to the fence. With his MB50, most balls went past 120′, around 30% made it to the fence, and 1 in 15 went over the fence. Over 90% of swings resulted in the ball travelling at least 100′.

Note: 5 days after this was published, my son hit a batting practice home run over a 195′ fence with his MB50.

He also tried his Anderson Techzilla bat, which is heavier and more end-weighted. Just like with the tee, he could occasionally hit the ball harder than with the MB50, but the majority of hits were of low quality as he had difficulty controlling the Techzilla. Nearly all of his hits with the MB50 are of high quality when I pitch to him.

While tee, soft toss, and batting practice pitching are modestly useful, what we all care about most is how a bat actually does against live kid pitch during games, when the goal of the pitcher and defense is to get an out.

I don’t think batting average or OBP is the best way to measure how well a bat is working, because whether a ball hit into play results in a hit has a large random element. Strikeout rates and percentage of balls that make it to the outfield are less random. There’s also the “eye test.”

After 29 plate appearances, my son’s strikeout rate at just under 1 in 7 plate appearances is close to prior year rates. However, the number of balls in play that made it to the outfield increased to 75%, as compared with 40% in the prior 3 seasons. I could easily tell with my eyes that he is hitting the ball into play much harder this year. Two of the 25% that didn’t make it to the outfield were hard line drives that went right to a shortstop’s glove.

So Where Did the Hitting Improvement Come From?

I would love to fully understand where my son’s improvement comes from. To some extent he’s improving as a hitter, but I find it hard to believe he hit 40% to the outfield for several years and then suddenly jumped to 75% just from gradual improvement. He is finally big enough to handle a heavier 2 5/8″ barrel instead of a 2 1/4″ so some of the improvement is likely due to a bigger barrel with a bigger sweet spot.

However, the MB50 weighs nearly 3 ounces more than his prior bat. My son would not have been able to control this bat so well if there wasn’t something going on to make this less end-weighted. That something is HyperWhip, as already explained above.

There may also be a gradual improvement in Axe bat quality over the last few years, though that’s not something I can test.

I suspect there’s also a more subtle reason for the improvement. My son has used 2 1/4″ one-piece aluminum bats for most of the 8 years he’s played baseball. These bats generally have less pop than bats with composite barrels, and no “whip” that occurs with some two-piece or composite bats. Most importantly, one-piece aluminum bats tend to have smaller sweet spots. What these stiff aluminum bats do give you is better control.

Given the smaller sweet spots on the bats my son has used, he’s spent 8 years developing bat control. Many of the bigger all-star caliber players in our league started using big barrel bats around the age of 9 or 10. While many of them had higher strikeout rates, they also more often hit the ball very hard. Now that my son has finally made the switch to big barrel, he’s had 2-3 extra years of squaring up a small sweet spot. My theory is that the extra 2-3 years forced him to develop more precise mechanics. With a big barrel, you can be slightly off on squaring up and still get solid contact off the sweet spot. With the MB50, my so gets solid contact off the sweet spot on the majority of swings.

My son is sold on the idea that 2 1/4″ bats with small sweet spots force him to be more precise. He has enthusiastically started using the 2 1/4″ wood version (-5) of the Axe bat (which was unfortunately discontinued in June 2016), both to build up his muscles and to continue challenging himself to be more precise with his swing.

Final Thoughts

As I’ve mentioned a few times on this site, the batter matters more than the bat. The batter needs to be appropriately ready before each pitch, then see the ball, then hit the ball. The “readiness” and “seeing” have nothing to do with the bat. The “hit the ball” part is more influenced by body type/size and mechanics than bat technology. So despite all the hype about high-priced high-tech bats, the batter still matters far more than the bat.

Is my son hitting better than ever with the MB50? Yes.

Is my son’s improvement entirely or even mostly due to the MB50 or the switch from 2 1/4″ barrel to 2 5/8″ barrel? Probably not. But . . .

Wouldn’t it be great if certain types of bats could help a player develop better and more precise mechanics?

I had a conversation earlier this month with Axe Bat’s Product Marketing Director, Trevor Stocking. Trevor played Division I college baseball, ran a youth baseball academy for over a decade, and worked for several years at sports sensor company Zepp Labs (which sells training products and measurement devices for baseball and other sports). Our conversation revolved around what types of bats best promote player hitting development at what ages? Aluminum or Composite? 2 1/4″ or 2 5/8″? One piece or two piece? Are underweight/overweight bats helpful (and if they are, at what age do you start)? Tee work or live pitching?

As our conversation came to a close, Trevor told me that one of the main reasons he joined Baden Sports’ Axe Bat team was because he believed that Axe Bats have advantages over bats with regular knobs for aiding players’ hitting development. This belief comes from large amounts of data he gathered while working at Zepp Labs.

I too believe that the Axe bat helps long-term development of player mechanics. There is the obvious benefit of the knob of getting the hands into the right position at contact. But there is also the fact that there are now a few aluminum big barrel bats on the market—Axe bats with the HyperWhip barrel design—that are as easy to swing as composite bats. This matters because one-piece aluminum bats are stiff and therefore easier for most players to control. Players who prefer the stiff feel of one-piece aluminum no longer have to settle for an end-weighted barrel that is slower to come around than composite.

That’s what makes the MB50, the L144E, and presumably any other big barrel one-piece aluminum Axe Bat (with HyperWhip) such a unique and effective bat.

To say that my son is doing well with this bat would be an understatement. He’s doing very well with it, and he loves it.

This bat is an ideal bat for kids between the ages of 9 (very big kid) to 12 (small kid) who value contact and control and want a bat which well compliments efforts to improve mechanics.

I highly recommend Baden’s MB50 Axe bat, as well as the nearly identical L144E. I also have every reason to believe that future one-piece drop 10 Axe bat youth models will be just as good, if not better.

The post Axe Bat Review: MB50 Big Barrel in the Hands of an 11-year old first appeared on FilterJoe.