Travel ball coach: High school season offers more practice time

The high school baseball season offers a unique opportunity for more practice time. (Kyle Prudhomme/NEBJ)

One of my favorite sayings is, “It’s better to be lucky than good, but you better be good once you get lucky.”

Nothing is more true of the current baseball development landscape. So much of our focus is on finding the greatest, most acclaimed end destination or college baseball program to join, with a total disregard for when it comes down to it, you need to be able to perform at a high level when you get there.

High school baseball players spend more time fine-tuning their resumes than honing the skills that it will take to succeed once they get the job. Don’t get me wrong, the resume is a critical component, but it becomes less significant when it’s time to do the job.

The high school season is special from a developmental perspective for one major reason. There is no time in a baseball career when a player gets a 12-week season with a maximum of 25 games.

When you break it down, high school baseball has games-to-practices ratio of 1:3. Travel baseball experiences don’t come close to this during the heavily game-dominant months of June and July.

As players move up the ranks, it is not uncommon for high school-aged prospects to play 50 or 60 games per baseball season, the equivalent of a college baseball season. That’s a 1:1 ratio of games to practices.

Factor in collegiate travel requirements, and even the college season isn’t the most development-friendly environment. Summer collegiate league teams typically play strictly games without practices. One step further, a minor league season is 90 percent games and 10 percent practices. A minor league player will log 140 games in 155 days, level-dependent.

Another advantage for the high school experience: The benefits that can come from practicing and playing on the same field. It creates a form of consistency in the same development environment. 

Further, the 25 games played over 12 weeks allows players to receive feedback and have the practice time to actually address and correct those areas. When you get into game-heavy environments, there is little time to go back to a developmental mindset. The high school baseball season is one of the few baseball experiences that allows this to happen.

An anonymous Navy seal might have said it best: “Under pressure, you don’t rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. That’s why we train so hard.” 

Best of luck to all the high school players giving everything to develop their craft knowing that these 12 weeks are a huge opportunity to lay the foundation for wherever their baseball career may lead.