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Reply to "Anyone Else Ever Had a Kid Train Tirelessly, but Show No Results?"

  I don’t have the patience to unpack everything you said in that post. See Cabbagedad for that. But I will address some of it. First of all, I never said that measurables don’t matter. To a certain extent they do - but any kid that’s a good enough HS player to be recruited is gonna have pretty good measurables. My contention is that too much emphasis is being placed on metrics by players. parents, scouting services, advisors, etc. Notice I didn’t include college coaches. Pretty much the only metric that matters (absent the ridiculous examples of 7.8 sixty time and 78 mph FB) to almost every coach is FB velo - to a fault I might add. I believe, based on my own personal experience, that the better coaches recruit kids that are good players- not because they post impressive numbers. I have seen so many kids that think the way to D1 is to check the boxes : throw 90 across the diamond ✅, run a 6.8 sixty ✅, post 95 mph exit velo ✅. Hey, Twitter says I’m now a D1 prospect! Well, you can post all of the above and not be a productive player in game situations. Throwing 90 doesn’t make you a good SS or a good 3B. Running a 6.8 doesn’t mean you know how to run the bases. Posting 95 mph exit velocity doesn’t mean you can hit a 92 mph FB on the outside part of the plate to the opposite field with the game on the line. Players that get recruited to competitive D1 & D2 programs have good metrics AND they can do the things I mentioned. That’s what makes them good players. They know how to use the tools they have to make a positive impact in a GAME SITUATION. Good coaches see that right away. That’s why I say over and over that recruiting (at higher levels) is about more than metrics. Metrics mean nothing if they aren’t translated into productive play in games! That’s the part that inexperienced people seem to miss.
  It sounds like your son is in a much better situation than many of his past teammates - so good for him and good for you. Finding the right fit is the most important thing for a kid to have an overall positive experience- and it doesn’t matter if it’s D3, D1 or whatever. One of the biggest problems with recruiting is that most experienced coaches don’t want to do it. They especially don’t want to go to showcases. So the low man on the totem pole is usually who attends and many of them are very inexperienced. The ones that aren’t yet good at evaluating talent rely on numbers because it’s the easy way out for them. So now not only do you have PG, PBR, Travel Ball coaches (not the good ones), Private Instructors (not the good ones), other players, and other parents telling you that recruiting is all about posting numbers but you also have some coaches (not the good ones) telling you that too. So I guess I can see how an inexperienced parent could buy into that but I have done my best to explain to you why it isn’t so. I believe if you focus on the process of becoming the best player you can be the metrics will take care of itself as a byproduct of the process. Too many players (and parents) focus on improving metrics and ignore the part about improving as a player. The end result is a lot of kids with good numbers that aren’t really good players. I posted a quote some time ago from TCU HC Jim Schlossnagle which said “today’s players throw the ball harder, run faster, and hit the ball harder than ever before. But they don’t know how to do the things that help win games. We have to spend the entire first year with most of them teaching those things before we can put them on the field.” An exception to that comment would be current TCU freshman starting OF Elijah Nunez. I have never seen any metrics on Elijah but he attended a showcase that I scouted and I knew he could play after a saw one at bat - which was a routine ground ball to 2B that he beat out. That got my attention. Not his speed. His determination and his hustle and his attitude. I didn’t need a measurement on anything to know that he was different. I hope all that helps.

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