10U Travel Team Decision Help
I realize questions like this get asked so much on this sub but would appreciate any input/advice yall are willing to provide. My son is 10U, has been playing baseball since he was 5 and has two options for travel this coming spring. As his dad, I’m really struggling to figure out what’s best for him.
Team A: This is the team my son has played on since he started travel at 8U. It’s coached by three dads. It’s a AAA team that wins ~75% of their games and my son typically plays 3 innings at C and 3 innings in LF each game. He’ll also play 2B maybe 1-3 innings over the course of a weekend tournament, but he never plays any other positions besides those three. He typically bats anywhere between 5-7, and there are 11 kids on the team. They play 4 tournaments in the fall and 9 in the spring. My biggest concerns with this team are 1) my son doesn’t pitch at all (and he really wants to pitch - although admittedly he needs to improve at pitching and they don’t really work on this during practice), 2) they practice twice a week while in season but the practices are pretty poorly run from a development perspective - they mostly just scrimmage/do situational things in the positions each kid plays and no fundamentals. There’s really no stand out player on this team but the whole team top to bottom is very good and they play well together as a team because there has been almost no turnover since 8U. Also think it’s worth noting that our two primary MIFs are the coaches’ sons and they are, objectively, the two slowest/least athletic kids on the team, although they are good baseball players with very strong arms. Truthfully I always anticipated that my son would play on this team through 12U, at which time everyone would go their separate ways to paid-coach teams.
Team B: This will be a newly formed AA team being formed by the coach who my son takes hitting lessons from. This coach played MLB (albeit in a limited role) and runs a travel organization. My son’s hitting/swing mechanics have improved significantly since starting lessons with this coach last spring. Historically his org only had teams 12U and older but this spring they decided to have an 11U team and 10U team and he asked my son if he wants to be on the 10U team. My son genuinely loves this hitting coach and thinks very highly of him. While he wont be the coach of the 10U team, as the owner of the org, he sets the culture and team standards, which as explained to me, are heavily development focused and detailed (2 practices each week, with detailed, down to the minute, stations ranging from long toss, fielding ground balls at 1B, 2B, SS and 3B shot from a jugs machine, outfield drills, BP and conditioning). The team will have 11 players and two non-dad paid coaches. They will practice on the same field and at the same time as this organization’s 11U and 12U teams (although all teams have their own coaches). They will have a very similar tournament schedule to Team A, except they will be playing in AA tournaments rather than AAA. I anticipate (based on what I was told), that my son will play mostly C, 2B and CF on this team. He will also get to pitch. My biggest concerns with this team are 1) I’m very aware that I’m an easy “mark” for salesmen because I make very good money and I didn’t play baseball growing up and I’m figuring things out as I go. I’m therefore cautious with things like this because I don’t know what I don’t know. I also typically don’t believe coaches when they say very positive things about my son, because again, I have no context, but this coach does seem to think highly of my son and his track record with his older teams seems legitimate (the kids who played on his 17U team this past spring are going to lower level D1, D2, D3 and Juco schools to play ball when they graduate). As my son is getting older I’m also realizing that he is legitimately athletic, but his biggest issue as it pertains to baseball is that he is lacking a lot of the fundamental skills the other kids have (for context, my son also plays football (safety/WR), basketball and wrestles and does very well in all of these sports. His PE teacher at school also told me he is in the top 10 of the most athletic kids he has taught in his 15 years of teaching PE and his PE tests for his age are “exceptional” - 8 continuous pull ups, 40 continuous push ups, 100 continuous sit ups, 73 laps on the pacer test. 2) I’m worried about this being a step back in competition (going from AAA to AA) for my son, and if this doesn’t work, the bridge with Team A will be burned and he’s going to be stuck. Basically worried about this being a “grass isn’t greenier” type of deal.
Would love to know what yall think between these two options.