Many young athletes cringe in disgust when the prospect of playing a new or different position is proposed by a parent or coach. Playing multiple positions is far out of the mix in their minds, and few even entertain the idea.  They have their one or two positions and that's it, end of story. If you provide baseball instruction for, or happen to know an athlete with this type of thinking, the following information might be worth passing on.

When I was growing playing ball at the local baseball diamond, we played as many positions as we could in the field. When our team spent time working on defensive baseball drills during practice there were always many players who could play different positions all over the field. The willingness to try a new position only increased the perceived value for each of the athletes who were brave enough to try other spots on the field.

In case you are still of a mind to believe that you still only need to be good at one or maybe two positions, here are some simply observations I’ve made by watching baseball the last ten years.

1.      There are many more international players entering professional baseball today than even before.

2.      Right-handed players have a greater ability to work into new positions as compared to lefties.

3.      There are more baseball players playing baseball here in America now than ever before.

Assuming the points above are easily accepted as true statements, and also assuming most serious athletes want to play high school baseball, here is the mindset any serious athlete must have. 

Since there are more right-handed athletes playing the game of baseball than lefties, there is naturally going to be more competition defensively at every position. Because of the increased competition at every position, the chance an athlete has for being able to move on to higher levels of baseball decreases dramatically if he only knows one position. 

Both the population and the importance placed on athletics has been on a steady increase in America. I will just assume you will buy into this statement at face value without going deeper into demographics, etc. Therefore, by simply taking raw numbers, there is more competition for the same positions at the upper levels of the game.  Sure, there have been some expansion teams added not too long ago, but that is not keeping up at all with the rate of new players entering the game. 

Lastly, a brief examination of any Major League team shows a significant increase in the number of players coming from the international community. This is another reason when the sheer number of athletes competing for high level spots has increased in the past two decades. This also places a much lower perceived value on an athlete who only understands how to play one position very well.  But, it also raises the value significantly of an athlete who plays multiple positions. 

Having said all this, the importance placed on learning new positions and stretching your comfort zone cannot be any greater.  Use your time during baseball drills and baseball instruction wisely as you will need to diversify your talent to stay marketable in baseball today.