quote:
Originally posted by Pug:
It is still hard for me to understand why anyone would pay the money to have a bunch of people ( WHO MAY OR NOT BE QUALIFIED)look at you son and tell you what level he can play at. It just amazes me. The experience might be fine and fun for you son - but how does help your son get recruitered by a college. Am I missing the boat?
Yes ... to a degree.
The operative phrase in your statement was (WHO MAY NOT BE QUALIFIED). The people at PG, without a doubt are highly qualified. They are the best in the business.
Many colleges rely on PG and the information they give to Baseball America and furnish to colleges/universities through Prospects Plus. Since PG sees all of the top players, they have the best handle on ratings/depth of classes in each state.
The problem is the new changes to recruiting with the Quiet Periods and Dead Periods. These, for the first time, are hurting the traditional January Showcase events.
Without the changes in the recruiting rules, the Underclassman Showcase and the Ft. Myers event would have attracted almost half of the top underclassmen in the country to compete.
The nature of college recruiting has changed over the past decade. In the old days, college recruiters would drive to legion games and catch a player. Then drive to another the next night. They spent most of their time on the road and saw very few prospects. The costs were high and the effectiveness was low. Showcases were developed as a method of getting all of the players at a central location to control costs. It's attractive to colleges as a cost savings.
As the number of showcases has "exploded", colleges are becoming very selective in which showcases to attend. In particular, the D1, Top-40 schools will only attend the big events. They are out in force at all of the PG events.
PG may have to reschedule some of their events based on the changes in the recruiting rules, but, the information that they gather is still available to colleges, even if they didn't attend.
Does PG do a better job evaluating players than the pro's? Most of PG's staff are ex-pro scouts. It's not that they do a better job. They do a good job and make the information available to colleges/universities. When a pro team scouts a player, they keep the information strictly to themselves. PG isn't about the draft only. It's about identifying the best HS players.