Where to play?

[brian920]

I am playing in a fall league, mainly to develop my skills. I am a middle infielder, but my coach who likes to put kids at different positions, put me in left field. While playing there, I made a great diving catch, where afterwards said he would put me in the outfield more often. I know it is good to be versatile, but in high school shouldn't I really concentrate on one position. I really feel like I am middle infielder, so in playing outfield would it hurt my infield skills?
Feedback?

[shake-n-bake]

Its not going to hurt your infield skills. Break the game down to its least common denominators for fall baseball. Make the most of your outfield play. You never know, Lou Whitaker and Allan Trammel's kids might transfer to your school and eat into your playing time at short and second.

Be the squeaky wheel a little though too. Lots of guys on your team probably want to play those positions. Plant the seed, with respect of course, that you want to get time in at those positions. I agree with you that it would be better for you to get more reps at SS or 2B, but you can only control what you can control. This probably isn't your first fall season, so you know the coaches have a tendency to move guys around a lot. Don't sweat it - have fun.

[TG Coach]

There are nine positions on the field. Anyone of them are better than any position on the bench. Last year when my son was the last cut from varsity he was told to focus on doing what's necessary on JV to start at short on varsity next year. Half way through the season he was switched to center. The centerfielder got hurt. The coach told my son he could stomach the second string shortstop making a few errors better than he could seeing balls that should be caught going up the gap to the wall. At the end of the season he was personally thanked by the coaching staff for being a team player and accepting the change. He never stopped practicing at short. He spent the summer playing short and third for 54 games on his travel team. While the switch didn't make sense to me at the time, he got some brownie points for being a team player.

It's important when you get to high school to be able to play multiple positions. You never know where the opportunities may lie. As an underclassman it's usually right and left field. My son is just fortunate the shortstop and third baseman graduated after his freshman year. Otherwise he would be competing to play left or right next season.

[azmatsfan]

I heard an anectdote from a parent of a HS players at one of the elite HS baseball programs. They had 5 kids tryout for catcher on the Freshmans team. The coach told them he was only going to keep 2 catchers, and wondered if any of them were interested in playing other positions. One boy said he was willing to play another position and made the team. Two of the boys that weren't willing to move were cut from the team. The parent's advice was to make sure my son was versatile and had experience at a variety of positions if he was interested in playing HS ball.