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Leftypitcher
26 Posts |
 Posted - 04/02/2011 : 23:42:01
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Just heard that a friend of my son decided to drop out of baseball for good. He is and was a good player. He was on a known team. Kinda of sad to hear this news.
Does anyone have an opinion (on a rough estimate) of the number of boys that drop out during the high school years?
Is it normal to see the number of players drop substantial every year so that by the time they hit 18 years old that only 3 or 10 that started playing ball early in life are still playing?
Are the players remaining by age 18 the best of best, or just the ones that hang on when their peer players move on to other aspects of life?
Are the tryouts for varsity age 17 and 18 pretty much a foregone conclusion as to who will be playing on the varsity team, or is it still as competitive as Freshmen and JV tryouts?
Are the ones that are left playing ball by age 18 so few in numbers that the college recruiters are frustrated to the size of the pool they can chose from for recruiting, or are there sufficient players left at that age to make it still a dream to play college ball?
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AllStar
762 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2011 : 09:33:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Leftypitcher
Just heard that a friend of my son decided to drop out of baseball for good. He is and was a good player. He was on a known team. Kinda of sad to hear this news.
Does anyone have an opinion (on a rough estimate) of the number of boys that drop out during the high school years?
Is it normal to see the number of players drop substantial every year so that by the time they hit 18 years old that only 3 or 10 that started playing ball early in life are still playing?
Are the players remaining by age 18 the best of best, or just the ones that hang on when their peer players move on to other aspects of life?
Are the tryouts for varsity age 17 and 18 pretty much a foregone conclusion as to who will be playing on the varsity team, or is it still as competitive as Freshmen and JV tryouts?
Are the ones that are left playing ball by age 18 so few in numbers that the college recruiters are frustrated to the size of the pool they can chose from for recruiting, or are there sufficient players left at that age to make it still a dream to play college ball?
Kids find that there are other things important to them besides baseball. Probably no way that tryouts for the upperclassmen are as competitive for the Freshmen and Sophomores, but if a kid is new, or has dramatically improved and can help a team win, I can't imagine that he wouldn't make the team.
Going pro probably siphons off more of the talent that the colleges want than attrition. Are you aware of some college scouts that are bemoaning a shortage of talent? They probably all want more pitching.
So do the Yankees and Braves. :)
There are a couple of kids at my son's school that could probably be on the varsity that decided that they don't want to play anymore. They are pursuing other things. Nothing sad about that, it just is.
All that said, playing 50-60, or more, games at 10, 11, 12 is kind of ridiculous for all but the most die hard kids. Just because all we want to do is be at the park watching them play, doesn't mean it's what they want.
So what is your friend's son doing? Hanging out on the corner? Focusing on some other pursuit like a different sport or a musical instrument? |
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bmoser
1633 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2011 : 10:07:45
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By age 13, 75% will have already dropped out of any given youth sport. By Freshman baseball tryouts, I'm guessing 80+% have quit.
The "survivors" are not all the most highly skilled players, because some of the highly skilled players lost interest in baseball along the way and decided to move on to other endeavors. I know one of these cases too, and like yours, a very good player who was already selected to a 5A Freshman teams' infield, & likely 3-4-5 hitter. Sad.
For the most part though, the better players are the ones who will make it to Freshman tryouts. At our High School, 25 Freshman are taken, and I'd say they range from high AA to Major level players. I'm guessing 1/3rd of these original 25 taken as Freshman will play Varsity at some point before they quit. After Varsity, maybe 3 or 4 will play college.
I think the Coaches/Dad's of older boys who have gone through the whole T-Ball to High-School experience might be able to improve upon my response. My son is 11 years old, and my opinions were derived by following our local teams, talking to the older Dads, and reading all baseball related articles I come across. |
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bballman
1432 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2011 : 14:57:36
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bmoser, I would say your numbers are pretty accurate. If you take the number of players from a given area that are playing baseball at 8 or 9 years old and look at the number of seniors playing varsity on a highschool team from that area, the numbers are pretty small. I'll say from Roswell and Centennial HS area, there were probably close to 200 kids playing baseball at 8 and 9 years old at that time. Still playing from these two HS's, there are maybe 15 kids as juniors. There are around 15 that are seniors from the same pool of kids. All the rest have dropped out along the way. There are some of these that are the best players and some are just so-so, but like playing. Not of the Jr.s that I know of are even starting on varsity at this point. Some of the Sr.s are not starting on varsity.
Here is a chart from the HS Baseball web talking about how many players will make it from one level to the next. The numbers are pretty staggering:
Probability Of Playing
College and Professional Baseball
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Here's another "making it to college baseball and the pros" probability table that I found while going through some information from the NCAA. These make good food for thought when you have a student-athlete that is more interested in sports than in the classroom.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Baseball
Less than three in 50, or about 5.6 percent, of high school senior boys interscholastic baseball players will go on to play men's baseball at a NCAA member institution.
Less than eleven in 100, or about 10.5 percent, of NCAA senior male baseball players will get drafted by a Major League Baseball (MLB) team.
Approximately one in 200, or approximately 0.5 percent of high school senior boys playing interscholastic baseball will eventually be drafted by an MLB team.
Student-Athletes Basketball Football Baseball Ice Hockey "S" Word
High School Athletes 549,000 983,600 455,300 29,900 321,400
High School Senior Athletes 157,000 281,000 130,100 8,500 91,800
NCAA Athletes 15,700 56,500 25,700 3,700 18,200
NCAA Freshman Athletes 4,500 16,200 7,300 1,100 5,200
NCAA Senior Athletes 3,500 12,600 5,700 800 4,100
NCAA Athletes Drafted 44 250 600 33 76
High School to NCAA 2.90% 5.80% 5.60% 12.90% 5.70%
NCAA to Professional 1.30% 2.00% 10.50% 4.10% 1.90%
High School to Professional 0.03% 0.09% 0.50% 0.40% 0%
Hopefully, you can make sense of the table. It may be easier to go to the link - if it's OK with Stan. Here is the link to the page:
http://www.hsbaseballweb.com/probability.htm
It is not easy to move up in the ranks.
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Edited by - bballman on 04/03/2011 15:48:19 |
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11UFAN
149 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2011 : 18:37:08
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Interesting topic for those 14 and older (60-90 fields). But since mine is still playing 50-70 we are not anywhere near thinking about college or pro, it's high school that matters. So I would like to know if anyone has any stats that answer the following questions:
1) What is the percentage of kids that are playing on an 11U-12U travel ball team that make their high school team if they try out?
2)Is there a diffence in this percentage if they played on a major team, AAA, AA, A?
3)What percentage of kids currently on a high school team played travel ball when they were 11 or 12?
My guess is there will be a high correlation between playing travel ball and making the high school team and that kids that play Major and high AAA are more likely to 1) Want to tryout for high school & 2) Actually make the team.
I have no stats to back this up but am interested to hear everyone's thoughts. |
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jongamefan
218 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2011 : 19:02:49
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BBALL: this is great stuff - theirs nothing like real live numbers to make a statement
these numbers suggest too that getting through the minor leagues either after college or directly out of high school is where the rubber really meets the road cuz then there's only 750 guys left at the MLB level : 600 per year may be coming in from NCAA teams but dont forget to count the ones coming out of high school and then others who are already established in the minors.
i would guesstimate that kids who even make it as far as freshman high school ball still are a realistic 1 in 100,000 shot going forward to ever see the big leagues even for a cup of coffee - and that may be low !
quote:
Originally posted by bballman
bmoser, I would say your numbers are pretty accurate. If you take the number of players from a given area that are playing baseball at 8 or 9 years old and look at the number of seniors playing varsity on a highschool team from that area, the numbers are pretty small. I'll say from Roswell and Centennial HS area, there were probably close to 200 kids playing baseball at 8 and 9 years old at that time. Still playing from these two HS's, there are maybe 15 kids as juniors. There are around 15 that are seniors from the same pool of kids. All the rest have dropped out along the way. There are some of these that are the best players and some are just so-so, but like playing. Not of the Jr.s that I know of are even starting on varsity at this point. Some of the Sr.s are not starting on varsity.
Here is a chart from the HS Baseball web talking about how many players will make it from one level to the next. The numbers are pretty staggering:
Probability Of Playing
College and Professional Baseball
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's another "making it to college baseball and the pros" probability table that I found while going through some information from the NCAA. These make good food for thought when you have a student-athlete that is more interested in sports than in the classroom.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Baseball
Less than three in 50, or about 5.6 percent, of high school senior boys interscholastic baseball players will go on to play men's baseball at a NCAA member institution.
Less than eleven in 100, or about 10.5 percent, of NCAA senior male baseball players will get drafted by a Major League Baseball (MLB) team.
Approximately one in 200, or approximately 0.5 percent of high school senior boys playing interscholastic baseball will eventually be drafted by an MLB team.
Student-Athletes Basketball Football Baseball Ice Hockey "S" Word
High School Athletes 549,000 983,600 455,300 29,900 321,400
High School Senior Athletes 157,000 281,000 130,100 8,500 91,800
NCAA Athletes 15,700 56,500 25,700 3,700 18,200
NCAA Freshman Athletes 4,500 16,200 7,300 1,100 5,200
NCAA Senior Athletes 3,500 12,600 5,700 800 4,100
NCAA Athletes Drafted 44 250 600 33 76
High School to NCAA 2.90% 5.80% 5.60% 12.90% 5.70%
NCAA to Professional 1.30% 2.00% 10.50% 4.10% 1.90%
High School to Professional 0.03% 0.09% 0.50% 0.40% 0%
Hopefully, you can make sense of the table. It may be easier to go to the link - if it's OK with Stan. Here is the link to the page:
http://www.hsbaseballweb.com/probability.htm
It is not easy to move up in the ranks.
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AllStar
762 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2011 : 20:48:31
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quote:
Originally posted by 11UFAN
Interesting topic for those 14 and older (60-90 fields). But since mine is still playing 50-70 we are not anywhere near thinking about college or pro, it's high school that matters. So I would like to know if anyone has any stats that answer the following questions:
1) What is the percentage of kids that are playing on an 11U-12U travel ball team that make their high school team if they try out?
2)Is there a diffence in this percentage if they played on a major team, AAA, AA, A?
3)What percentage of kids currently on a high school team played travel ball when they were 11 or 12?
My guess is there will be a high correlation between playing travel ball and making the high school team and that kids that play Major and high AAA are more likely to 1) Want to tryout for high school & 2) Actually make the team.
I have no stats to back this up but am interested to hear everyone's thoughts.
I seriously doubt that anybody has done any kind of a reasonably scientific study of that to give you any kind of dependable stats.
I would say that the travel experience helps because that's where the competition is and that's how you get better. It becomes kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, though. Like I said earlier, if only the top 10% of the players had left rec at our park, you would have had great in-park competition and the other 90% of the players that stayed probably would have gotten well prepared for HS.
All of the Freshmen on my son's JV team have played travel since 11 if not younger. Only a couple played for Major teams in any of those years. None played Majors the whole time.
Also, he is not thinking about anything except the next game and doing the work in the off-season to make varsity as a sophomore. If College Baseball is in the cards, we'll know it in a couple of years.
Meanwhile, he is in the kitchen doing a Biology project...  |
Edited by - AllStar on 04/03/2011 21:22:15 |
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bmoser
1633 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2011 : 21:09:59
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| If my son sticks around until Freshman tryouts, I'm happy as a clam! |
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gobraves
10 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2011 : 22:00:20
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| What do you feel is the number one reason for dropping out? |
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11UFAN
149 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2011 : 22:31:45
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Allstar,
You said:
"All that said, playing 50-60, or more, games at 10, 11, 12 is kind of ridiculous for all but the most die hard kids. Just because all we want to do is be at the park watching them play, doesn't mean it's what they want."
I guess I don't get this point? Isn't this site focused on travel ball? Your comment above describes "travel ball" The most die hard kids playing 50 or 60 games a year against other die hard kids. That's travel baseball in a nutshell.
I totally disagree with the last sentence " Just because all we want to do is be at the park watching them play, doesn't mean it's what they want." Your kid has to love it to do it. Obviously there are exceptions but I would say that the vast majority of these kids wouldn't have it any other way. I know mine wouldnt.
Of course he hasn't gone through puberty yet and girls are not in the picture :))
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AllStar
762 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2011 : 23:21:08
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quote:
Originally posted by 11UFAN
Allstar,
You said:
"All that said, playing 50-60, or more, games at 10, 11, 12 is kind of ridiculous for all but the most die hard kids. Just because all we want to do is be at the park watching them play, doesn't mean it's what they want."
I totally disagree with the last sentence " Just because all we want to do is be at the park watching them play, doesn't mean it's what they want." Your kid has to love it to do it. Obviously there are exceptions but I would say that the vast majority of these kids wouldn't have it any other way. I know mine wouldnt.
If the goal is to play High School, there is no need for them to play 50-60 games a year. I think if you asked a kid "Do you want to be at your game until 9 PM on Friday, get up at 6 AM on Saturday to play an 8 AM game, then play two more games that day, maybe as late as 10 PM that night and then do it again on Sunday, if you keep winning. Then do that 3 of 4 weekends from early March until mid-July?" you might not get "vast majority" positive responses.
If we were employers, we'd get arrested...
We did it because it was the path to HS ball. My son is one of the die hards, but even he was ready for each travel season to be over when they were. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have started him until he was 12. If it wasn't for Cooperstown, I wouldn't start him until 13.
quote:
Originally posted by gobraves
What do you feel is the number one reason for dropping out?
I think the "burnout" problem is overstated. I think kids just find other interests and people call it burnout. Of the kids I know, just one flat out quit because he was over it. The rest are either playing other sports or pursuing a non-athletic hobby like playing musical instruments.
Which brings up another pet peeve-making kids pick a sport. |
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beanball
222 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2011 : 07:32:03
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11U Fan
I had a conversation with someone at our park about 6 years ago when my oldest was playing 10U. His comment was that most of the boys on our 10U travel team will not make the HS team. His point being many players loose interest, move out of the area, skills do not improve or other better players emerge.
I can say that of the 11 players on that 10U team at least 7 of them are on their HS teams. I don't know if this is the norm.
You really cannot project players skills @ 10 or 11. There's a growth spert that occurs betwen 13-14 that makes or breaks most of the players. It happens again @ 16-17. |
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christheump
351 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2011 : 09:44:32
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| My oldest son didnt turn into a real good ball player until he was 13. Then it was like a light bulb went off in his head. He has been starting on his HS team since 10th grade, with this year being his last. This past summer was his first summer of not playing summer ball. He said he didnt want to play because he just wanted a break from baseball for a while and wanted to enjoy his summer. I told him that was cool and never brought it up again. |
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Mets69
70 Posts |
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bmoser
1633 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2011 : 18:47:09
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http://www.csosports.org/baseball-in-decline-for-children-and-youth
I cant get the link to respond now, maybe you can. I'll summarize.
From 2000 to 2009 youth baseball participation is down 24%. During the same period travel baseball is up 7%. This suggests more kids are specializing in a single sport. Football and Lacrosse are both up.
If your local Rec league hasn't seen this drop, its most likely due to population growth in your area. Atlanta being a MLB city with a successful MLB team likely has ATL metro fairing a bit better than these National stats.
I read another study that drilled down on the causes, and it was lack of fields near population centers, and boredom from standing around in practice, and sitting on the bench during games. |
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allbaseball
45 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2011 : 08:34:14
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Christheump, my son was the same ,he didnt turn into a good ball player until middle school. He has played travel ball now since turning 14 and is now 17 due to his size only 5-9 165lbs he has been overlooked even after his abilities show to be better than most,now very frustrated in high school ball he has made the varsity team AT A 4 AAAA school his 10th and 11th grade yrs and his coach keeps him from playing. He is a pitcher who in travel ball is very effective and was chosen this past fall to go to the perfect game showcase in Jupiter Fla. ,from a team that he doesnt even play for, and has a GPA of 3.89 out of a 4 in all honors and AP classes. oh and the perfect game october showcase is made up of ,i think, 85% seniors,so i feel that this was a very high honor for this to happen for him.
Back to his frustrations , his high school coach told him , AS HE WAS GOING OUT IN THE 5TH INNING TO THE MOUND,if you dont throw all strikes you wont see the mound for a long time and wow this screwed up his head. our team was losing by 2 runs and i guess the coach took it out on him.
during his winter workouts and accuracy drills , the coach told him that he was the most accurate out all pitchers and would see the mound alot this season, and due to him being a submarine pitcher he only relieves and closes, well hes only pitched well 5 innings, and the coach continues to pitch others who are struggling alot.
after the jupiter showcase my son has had a lot (over 30) colleges of all divisions send letters to him showing intrest and as a junior hes waying all of his options, as he really wants to go to college first to get a great education and to play ball, but the coach continues to let the wind out of his sails by not using him.
Has this happened to others and if so how do you as a parent help your son or daughter keep focused until travel ball starts back up.
oh and another thing we were playing a divison game this week and Vanderbilt was there we were winning 10-1 and in the 6th inning our coach decides to not use him and pitched a kid whos GPA is a 2.0, do you think he would ever be considered by a College of this caliaber.
So,i really wouldnt want to be a coach who was responsible for destroying a very bright kids future of playing at the next level.
HELP, FRUSTRATED PARENT
FRUSTRATED PARENT !! |
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Players dropping out of baseball
