Travel Baseball: 10 More Lessons for Parents

As a follow-up to the earlier post about baseball lessons for parents, I’ve added ten more lessons you should know about travel baseball.

More AND and Less BUT

Overall, you want to maximize a players ANDs and minimize BUTs for anyone evaluating him. You want coaches to say, “He hits for power AND he runs well” not “He hits for power, BUT has a swing and miss problem. The first is Max Clark who was drafted fourth and the second is Vance Honeycutt later in the first round.

Learn where to Focus Development Time and Money

Pitchers should maximize strengths. Hitters should minimize weaknesses. Youth pitchers can be great with one pitch, but a hitter is going to struggle with a big issue like not being able to hit breaking balls.

Accept that Failure is Part of the Game

Baseball is really, really, really hard. The best athletes in the world have failed – Deon, Bo, Michael. The game will choose the player more than you can force it if the ability isn’t there. Don’t get frustrated and over coach from the stands. Read the Sports Gene for more information about finding the right sport for your child

Resist coach’s negativity

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard a coach tell a player that he can’t do something. The player can’t try switch hitting because the team needs to win or because we’re winning by so much that we can’t embarrass the other team. A pitcher can’t throw a knuckleball or from a low arm slot because that’s now what or how real pitchers throw. A catcher shouldn’t catch off one knee because catchers squat on two. Someone can’t play shortstop because he’s too tall. A good player can’t play up at a more competitive level because we want to keep kids of the same grade together. Each baseball player is unique and that uniqueness creates value (think of submarine pitchers). Find a coach that will support the uniqueness and coach it rather than trying to confirm a player to tradition

Compete with Better Players

If your son is the best player on the team, find another team. It might make you and him feel good, but it’s not going to make him better. There’s something magical about competing with better players and learning from them. There’s a kind of osmosis that seems to happen. This is one of the reasons little brothers tend to be better athletes than big brothers – they have someone to chase and imitate. Read more about this in How Elite Athletes are Made. This doesn’t mean you need to play travel ball; you can fight to move the player up an age group. If you want to really test them, try USA Baseball’s NTIS program, which put players up against the best in their state, then region and finally at the national level.

Set Clear Boundaries with Coaches

Watch out for coaches playing for plastic rings and trophies. The challenge of travel baseball is that winning earns another chance to play, which is what everyone wants. How do you win? You play the best players of course and stretch the best pitchers past what’s safe for them. This hurts both the strongest and weakest on the roster in different ways. As a parent, you should be clear early in the season about your boundaries for pitch counts or participation with conflicts.

Take Your Own Path

Resist the urge to keep up with the Jones. In travel sports, there are always more events to go to and if you don’t attend you’ll feel behind. 95% of the events don’t matter and will be forgotten. Invest that same money in development. At a youth level, you can buy a pitching machine for the cost of one or two events. At the high school level, if you skip a few showcases, you could afford your own pitching machine or many hours of lessons. The years will fly by and you can’t get the time back. Take family vacations and enjoy the time rather than obsessing about what everyone else is doing.

Skip Spending Money on Showcases and Ignore Rankings

Rankings don’t matter (much). Players ranked high at 12 will fade by 15 and those at 15 will fade at 18. We know a player who won PG Player of the Year for 11u and 12u and then was dropped to a rank of ~250 by 14u. Compare the players on the 12u National Team to the same year of players for the 18u team and you’ll see little overlap as new players emerge and others catch up with late growth spurts. Perfect Game had Derek Curiel as their top ranked player for many years and he didn’t even include himself in the 2024 draft. Ranking only provide initial visibility to colleges if they’re looking for a quick check on your son before they begin their own assessment. Save the money and invest in a Junior Hack Attack.

Go Straight to College

If colleges like a player, they’ll send an invitation to a camp. Skip showcases and go straight to the source by going to campus. However, showing up unannounced an hoping to impress a coach is unusual. Find a connect to the coach through a travel or high school coach, hitting coach or family friend. Have them call ahead and provide a brief endorsement of your son, so that the school is aware of the interest and skill.

Learn from Others

The best thing you can do is to learn from others farther along the path than you and your son. One of the best ways to do this is through the mountains of podcasts available. I’ve selected some of the best baseball training podcasts for you to start with.