My son has played on travel teams since age 8. He'll be 16 in December this year & made the sophomore HS team.

He's played a lot of positions, mostly 3rd, catcher, 1st, and pitcher. He's a pretty good player at all positions, and a little better pitcher than position player since he has a little more command & velocity than most of the other pitchers on his teams.

The HS coaches have designated a P O and he is having a really hard time making the change. I get it, there are other position players that have a better bat & that are better defensively. My kid still takes BP & does infield drills at 3rd w/ the team, as well as his pitching drills & practice.

He doesn't know what to do with himself on gamedays when he's lifted or not pitching that day. He's use to playing more. It's a hard adjustment for him.

Yesterday he was visibly frustrated. "We didn't have anyone that could play 3rd", so they moved a 2nd baseman to 3rd, who made 4 bona fide errors in less than 3 innings before they tried someone else. My son was not scheduled to pitch because of pitching previous games in the last 5 days. Our team was down ten-plus runs by the 4 inning,  so it was pretty much garbage time for the remainder of the game. He wasn't considered to play one inning at 3rd or take one AB.

I've tried to help him understand that the coaches know what they're doing & that he should concentrate on pitching since he's a PO now, & to look for ways to be a better teammate. He appears to take that advice, but gets upset easily over situations such as these.

He's having a really hard time making the change to P O. My wife said it best perhaps: "They're killing him slowly."

What encouragement or advise can you share that would possibly him?

Thank you.

I coached for years when my boys were growing up. First, just because the guy is a coach, doesn’t mean he knows what is best. And for most, just because you were a stud ball player growing up doesn’t mean you belong on the field coaching a team. When my oldest was in 8th grade, he stated he was done playing because he would not play for the current coach and I took that to heart because the guy sucked, as a person and a coach. I got some backing and took my (our) position all the way to the top. He was justifiably fired before the next season and a couple of my 8th grade players made varsity their freshman year even though they didn’t play every game. They grew more as players, and teammates by playing up.

My advice, is to focus on mechanics and strength for pitching and at bat.

Sounds like if he was going to be a super star he'd know it by now. I'd say let him figure it out maybe he's done?

I coached travel ball when my son was younger and then he transitioned to a paid coach team from 10u on.  The positions that you are describing usually go to the slower or heavier kids, I am not sure if that is the case for your son so do not take offense if I am guessing wrong.  Unless his bat is epic, he will probably not get to play a defensive position due to base running.  If he is heavy, lose some weight, if he is slow, you can train to get faster but it is hard to make a slow kid fast (at least in my case).

My advice no matter if the above is true or not is to hit as much as possible, every day if you can. My son was catcher and because he was a slow runner he could be replaced on first by the best base runner on the bench, so if he could reliably get there he was a huge asset to the team.  We worked so hard on his batting that the coaches could not ignore him as he usually had the highest average on the team.

I installed an indoor batting cage, bought a pitching machine, bought a shitload of the same balls used in the games (diamond were my favorites). Between 5 and 7 days a week when I would get home from work he would hit between 100 and 200 balls between tee work, soft toss, pitching machine and me pitching to him.  This was in addition to paid instruction and team batting practice.

We added hula hoops in the cage as targets and he was instructed which one to hit each ball into.  Eventually the coach could tell where hit the ball and he would get it there most of the time.  He was never a power hitter because of his smaller size but he was always 3rd or 4th hitter and almost never came off the field, either playing catcher or 3rd.

Also, if he loves the game, do not give up.  There are a lot of stories of pro players that worked through disappointing seasons in high school and the transition to college.

Talent finds a way. If he’s good enough, it will show in practice. Has he talked with the coach?

And at the end if the day, with all that time and dedication... what happened?

@snakesausage

during his 13u spring season he made a good AAA team but started a growth spurt which jacked up his knees.  Orthopedic sports Dr said he would have to miss the first half of the season.  He never got his grove back.  He played for the local rec ball team the next season and was an all star player. He made and played in his JV team and did pretty well but got a little burned out.  The next year we started cross country (hare scrambles) dirt bike racing and he likes that a lot better so he hasn't played since we started.  As a matter of fact, we are at the races as I type this.  I race too (slow old man class) and just finished my race, his race was this morning.