A statement I often hear from younger baseball kids is “I don’t want to get too big”, or from their parents, “I’m concerned about him getting too big”
This is however, a completely unnecessary worry
We know that F = MxA. Therefore a bigger version of you is going to produce more force, and be a better athlete, than a smaller, weaker version of you. It’s important to note that in sports like soccer, and positions in some sports, like WR in football, require that as an athlete gains size, their relative strength (their lb for lb strength) rises with it, as they have to overcome their own bodyweight sprinting and jumping. But in baseball, where performance centers around throwing a 5oz object, and swinging a 30-35oz bat, most players can gain mass even without raising their relative strength, and still see their performance greatly increase from it
This is backed up by the research and data that demonstrates that one of the greatest indicators of who rises through the levels, and who doesn’t, is size
This is of course reflected at the elite level, where there are many very big, very successful athletes, from Trout, to Harper, to Stanton, to Judge, etc etc
The truth is that gaining the size and strength to match a Mike Trout or an Aroldis Chapman is not the easy, overnight quick fix many think it to be. If you’re not the genetic freak, it takes years of hard work and dedication to come close to their levels of power, and the vast majority of kids need to start on this process now, not later
The concern shouldn’t be “I’m worried about getting too big”; the concern should be “what if I DON’T build the necessary size and strength”. Because very, very few are talented enough to still be successful without the quality that is the foundation of everything you do in sport: strength