Thanks for the shout out Keewart!
Midwest - There has already been some good info provided here. Hopefully it will help.
One of your sons top assets at this point is TIME. He's still young enough that you will have plenty of time to communicate with coaches.
Here are a few things to consider...
- Think of the recruiting process like a job search. I know you want to stay on budget but sometimes splurging on a new suit for that big interview is not a bad idea. But that doesn't mean you have to buy a $3,000 suit if the 3 suits for $250 will do the trick!
- Be proactive. Or rather, support your son in his efforts to be proactive.
- FILM IS NOT MEANT TO GET YOUR SON SIGNED. It is meant to be a conversation starter and give coaches a chance to make an initial assessment and figure out if they want to drive 7 hours to come see you play. Just like your resume is not meant to get you hired. Problem is lots of people (even on this board) never hear the 2nd part of that thought process. They just hear "film doesn't get you signed".
- "NO" is not bad. You son is who he is. Period. Film captures a snapshot in time of his skills set right now. It is the job of the college coaches to predict the future (they call that "projectability"). So waiting until your son is "perfect" before filming could be naive. My rule of thumb with timing of being filmed is to wait until the kid is playing Varsity. If he's a at a competitive school and starting as a freshman he will probably project well. If he doesn't play until late in JR year he may project to be a D3 guy. Either way, you want to gather INFORMATION. YES, NO, MAYBE are all pieces of information. Many travel and high school coaches are VERY afraid of "NO" because they may have promised you a "YES" from some big school. Oh well. If the entire ACC & SEC is telling you "NO" you now have the INFORMATION to aim a little lower. If the entire ODAC or USA South is telling you "YES" you now have the information to aim a little hirer.
I don't know about you, but if I'm applying for a big job at a Fortune 50 and I'm not going to be offered I want to know today. Not 6 weeks or 6 months from now. If UCLA or UVA DOES NOT like me, I want to know NOW. This gives me time to move on and continue communicating with other programs.
- Why use a 3rd party for filming? TRUST. Colleges coaches across the country can trust the work I do to be genuine. Working with Play In School does not give a kid any sort of "stamp of approval" but it does mean that what you see is what you get. Any kid or parent with a cell phone & computer can make a video and website. But how can you prove that you didn't speed your bat up? How do you know that pitcher didn't speed that pitch up? Its easy. Its tempting. Say you have D3 bat speed. What if you put the video at 110% of normal speed? I cannot do that. I would be out of business in 2 seconds.
- All of the ratings everybody gives kids are wonderful. At the end of the day though, to be a college baseball player you need 1 college baseball coach to like you. Just 1.
- Here is an example of a simple video of a 3B. Note that we filmed him from SS. Ideally his videos would be embedded on a personal website instead just a YouTube link. Presentation is important. And limiting distractions is vital. There are a billion other videos on YouTube. You don't want to make it easy for a coach to click 1 button and be watching some cat video and now you are forgotten. 
FYI... This kid will be playing for Prepster's son.
- Final thought. Just because a girl likes you doesn't mean you have to marry her right? Just because a college coach from some school "likes you" doesn't mean that college is right for your son. Begin doing research into what is important (besides baseball) to your son's college experience. Jeesh, could you imagine if we all married the first girl that liked us?!
Rich
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