Hey all - we are at a crossroads. My son is a multiple-time rec all-star. We are about to move into 9U (kid pitch). We've been preparing.
But moving to travel has never been high on our list. The pace of schedule with a few months of all-star travel is trying. Yet almost all the top players and fellow all-stars are peeling off, making plans and lining up for travel team tryouts this July. If we opt-out and just play regular-old ball again - they'll all have a year head-start on us (with kid-pitch as well). They'll be playing competitive baseball this fall why my son is practicing privately and/or playing another sport. My fear is that if we don't keep this pace with baseball starting now, we never will again. We'll be left behind. A year later, how could I expect my boy to play at the level of his now-peers when they'd have a year of travel under their belt, and we were back in a league mixed with first-year players and no fall option?
On the other hand, are we all just lemmings? I hear that the 9U transition to kid pitch is a bit of a circus. 12 walks, 12 strike outs, and only a few hits per game. A 9U travel parent told me her boy plays 2B, and touched the ball during the game only a few times this season.
If that's the case - then a 9U travel team might be a whole heck of a lot of time in the car, getting at games an hour early...only to not really even be able to use any of that talent because of the 9U pace. So as long as my boy kept working on pitching and catcher privately, and supplemented it with a lower non-travel level experience as usual - he could in fact keep pace...or might even emerge stronger? Then we revisit in 10U once pitchers are better?
I guess the heart of this question is whether moving to 9U travel is more of that classic "keeping up with the Joneses" scenario, and so long as they individually keep up on their skills, it doesn't really matter where this transition happens - and 10U is really the age where boys would be left behind if they don't join their peers in travel?
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reality of 9U kid-pitch?
Posted - 06/13/2016 : 10:40:07
