Taking to coaches depends what you’re talking about. Never talk to a high school coach about playing time and position. If a high school coach talks to you be civil in return. I ended up spending an afternoon at a showcase with my son’s coach. We talked for three hours. But it wasn’t about my son. It was about helping kids find the right level for exposure and how to go about it. We talked about kids playing Legion versus travel. He was new to being a high school head coach. For both of us, recruiting had changed since we went through the process.
Once the player is at the recruiting level of travel there could be conversations with the travel coach. My son’s travel coach wanted to know if he promoted him to a certain private university and he only got 25% could I afford to send him there. It’s when we had our first talk on his eligibility for both athletic and academic money. My son was an all conference shortstop. When the travel team assistant (also an associate pro scout) felt he was more promotable as a center fielder the coach spoke with me after my son. Some shortstop’s parents might have packed up and found a new team.
Keep in mind a lot of views on this board come from the bias of positive and negative experience. PM posters and ask questions. Most posters will respond
As for the D2 camps I would send my kid to any camp I can afford I felt might have a positive impact on his exposure and recruiting.
A positive aid to have in the recruiting experience is an advocate. An advocate is someone who has credibility and can presell the player before an event. For my son it was his travel coach. It could be a high school coach or a private instructor. But the best way to be recruited is walk on the field with someone knowing who you are and all you have to do is prove your talent.
Unless a kid is a jaw dropping stud (likely everyone knows about him anyway) the toughest way to get recruited is show up, throw spaghetti (your talent) off the wall as an unknown and see what sticks. Pitchers can get away with this somewhat due to the radar gun if they hit a high enough number. It doesn’t work for position players unless they’re noticeably slicker than everyone else on the field and hit the ball the hardest and farthest.
My son was presold by his travel coach. But I still asked him what he was going to do to standout between players 400 and 1000. On any given day you could pick these rankings out of a hat based on who’s solid fundamentally and who’s having a good day.