You think sports is expensive, try music.
I agree with everything you say about travel organizations. My son is at a D3. The travel at 13U-16U was useless for recruiting. BUT... three things did, I think matter.
- First, he was playing with other kids who were focused on baseball, that inspired him and made him push himself. Wouldn't have happened if all he had was HS ball.
- Second, we knew nothing about baseball, and we learned a lot from coaches (who, admittedly, were not all very good) and especially from other parents. If you are a parent who knows baseball, maybe this doesn't matter.
- Third, the fact that he had played against high-level players (in big tournaments like PG) did seem to matter when he got to college, in the sense that he had that kind of experience and confidence from the start. Maybe that's just me justifying all the money we spent.
There were no decent options around us other than the big organizations (no legion, just daddy-ball with really bad coaching), so I think if we had to do it again, we would. We knew families whose kids stayed with daddy-ball until 17U and played in college, but their summer experience was kind of frustrating.