GaryMe posted:Here's a little perspective. My son had a former major leaguer at his high school team practice yesterday. I won't say the name of the player, but they don't come any bigger. The message this guy sent to the kids was interesting. My son said he told the team he actually felt bad for them, because for their college recruiting, it's now tougher because there is so much emphasis on statistics and measurable like velocity, exit velo, etc. He said there is so much emphasis on that stuff, and not enough on seeing if a guy can really play baseball. He said he played football and basketball at his high school as well, didn't pick up a baseball until spring. In the pros, he said some guys were late bloomers and really didn't show what they really could do until they were 25-26 years old. Today, they would not be in the game any longer. Basically, he told them getting recruited for a chance to play in college is much HARDER now, as opposed to when he came up. Interesting, we think kids have more opportunities, but here is a guy who is saying all this stuff makes it harder.
That said, I remember a couple years ago my son went to a local D1 college camp, and the head coach addressed the players and parents at the start of the camp. He mentioned he would be letting a few guys that he did not recruit go because they were "showcase" players and their skills did not show up in game situations.
Yes, it's important to know what pond to fish in, but you don't really need to go to a showcase or spend a ton of money traveling to the largest tournaments to see where that may be. Get a local coach with good credentials who will give you an objective assessment of your kid's talent.
That was well thought out Gary. I have to throw a caveat in there that I think you were talking about D1 schools. The funny thing is, players were drafted from D1, D2, D3, NAIA, and Juco last year.....so there are options other than D1, just not sure the kids remember that when they list Power 5 on their PG profile.