Your son is underweight.

Dear high school baseball parents,

One amazing thing about all of you is that you truly invest into your child. Baseball, and everything that comes with it can get very expensive. In my experience, this hasn't stopped you from supporting your child. Unfortunately, despite all of your hard work, I'm becoming aware of a big problem and I want to address it.

Imagine you had a 1,000 dollar budget to invest in your child's baseball development during the summer. Now, ask yourself the thousand dollar question: How can I invest this money so that I get the biggest return for my son? Please, take a step back and really think about this. What does your son need the most? Where is he lacking? If the money you're spending answers all of those questions, congratulations, you can exit now. If you want my humble opinion, keep reading.

The biggest areas where the kids in my part of the world are lacking are nutrition and training. To illustrate my point, I've put together some data that I hope is eye-opening for you. See the table below:

As you can see, if you're child isn't weighing in the 170+ range by his senior year, he is simply underweight for college baseball standards. The good news? A summer of proper nutrition and training can boost these numbers way up. By "proper," I mean professionally structured and implemented. Hire a professional. Focus on getting your son bigger, faster and stronger.

The summer is the only time a high school baseball player can truly commit to training and nutrition. It's much harder and less effective during the fall, when your child is at school for the first 8 hours of the day. My advice? Use your time and money wisely.

Now, back to the big problem that I wanted to address. I see that a significant amount of parents are spending their time and money in the wrong places. One concern that most parents share is about getting their son exposed, or seen by college recruiters. While it's a valid concern, it has taken the front seat in their list of priorities. If your 140 pound son has not gained much weight in the last 3 years, but he's playing ball most of the year, there's a chance your money is going down the drain.

Valued parent, if you are having trouble with letting go of the exposure obsession, I encourage you to take a step back and begin to target a school or two. All the sudden, showcases and tournaments that don't include your target school, won't look so appealing. I wrote more on the topic in a previous article.

Parents are amazing catalysts in their child's journey to success. Your contributions to your child's development are unmatched by anyone else in their lives. My hope for you is that you are pushing them in all the best ways.

Sincerely,

Caleb Mireles

Beeps Baseball LLC