Small town, no private schools with baseball, closest travel organizations an hour or more away. And yet all varsity starters played some sort of summer travel, except for the D1 football recruit who hit the ball a mile. Not all the same travel team, though; it ranged from high-level organization travel to dad-ball teams and all in between. Kids who only played rec were way behind as freshmen.
Before HS, most played in dad-coached travel, fairly locally. In fact, our team was sold to us as the way to prepare for HS ball. HS coach had summer workouts that middle schoolers could attend, and fall and winter workouts - all optional but really not unless you played a fall or winter sport.
Coach did not cut many players, but there were Freshman, JV and V teams and by no mean everyone made it to varsity - he put the best 9 on the varsity team no matter their year.
I agree make it developmental and fun- but do keep an ear to the ground, if there's a feede team and it's good, why not?