Ok, I said we would go into the event with CABBAGEDAD's "tempered expectations" and follow-up after the event. This is a follow-up post for future parents and players to consider if they plan on going to this event in the future. (BTW...our son was written up and made a list that was very important to him. We were proud.)
1) To start off, PG sent an email to encourage early registration Friday evening and in doing so would allow players to come at their designated work-out time slot. Well, a lot of people spent time in traffic to register early and were told to disregard email and show up at 9am. Waste of a Friday evening since instead of waiting in line to register Sat 9am, early registrants had to wait around outside the line. Early registration only helped PG.
I missed this the first time, but was Baseball Factory actually there hosting a showcase as well? If so that is a pretty big problem. $700 for a showcase, you should not being sharing space with another set of prospects.
2) Arrived sat. 9am to find that PG only had access to ONE field with Baseball Factory hosting a premier showcase as well. Yep, this is not a joke. Baseball Factory had the Stadium complex with jumbo tron and Fields 5 & 6. They were playing games and then doing pro-style work-out and metric testing identical to PG for the Ryan Lemmon foundation. PG only had Field 7 for the workout with hundreds (a literal sea of players standing & sitting around on one field for hours). It was made worse by hearing the announcers from the Stadium introduce players, etc. PG staffers/proctors were even openly complaining about long waits, standing around, not getting breaks or food. Parents were pi$$ed as well watching one player at a time throw from the outfield or take a fungo at SS after the 60 was done. This also ate up valuable precious scout/recruiter time...they were obviously frustrated. To make matters worse was Baseball Factory was efficient and had players moving around fields and then getting breaks for the taco truck and bathroom. PG was overwhelmed...very long 14 hour day and many of the players were sore from having to warm-up so many times.
3) Diamond Kinetics exit velocity station had old balls and players were starting to talk about the balls being crappy. Then a staffer said he would get new balls and came back with new balls. Players used their own bats. In previous showcases, we have used a designated showcase bat and new balls so everyone was measured with same equipment. Ultimately, I think old balls mixed with new balls and different bats will produce skewed data. The numbers PG has are questionable IMO and I no longer trust the data as legit (meaning apples to apples.) One kid swings a 32" ash bat on an old ball and another kid swings a 33" maple bat on a pearl is not resulting in reliable exit velo ability...just my 2 cents.
4) Schedule was tough on some teams and cushy for others. Four teams had late 10 inning games at 6:15pm and early start games at 7:50am. Why does this matter? Well, there were no scouts at our game and the PG staffers behind the screen to the rear of home plate were toast. Just looking at them you could tell they just wanted to go home. I told my wife what a shame for some of the players who shined, especially a pitcher who was amazing. That kid had it all and showed mid-upper eighties (my estimation) and command of 3 pitches. Short 123 innings that deserved a write-up and especially scouts looks. Their write-up of game was very brief.
Early 7:50 am games started with some drizzle and scouts were scarce and did not start arriving in numbers until some time later before 9am. This gave the other teams a bump in exposure and write-ups...exposure is everything IMO because the metrics data only says so much.
5) Teams had coaches...ours was involved and cared, but some were babysitters literally. It was apparent to all that PG hired some local people who came for the cash only.
6) A dad (I think) went to the tournament director and asked how these teams got singled out for latest night games and earliest morning games and the director said he did not do the schedule and did not seem to care. I mean I saw it before the event. One would think the director would have scanned the initial schedule and made an adjustment. His name was Marcus and is apparently the western director. That was it.
7) THIS WAS NOT WORTH $700! Been to Florida to play BF as a select player and paid a lot, but got a lot. Great instruction, really cool coaches, and well run events and games. Been to AZ for USA and other events and same great experiences considering it all. PG was a bummer though...big time.
8) Friendly parents, umpires never became part of the game and made good calls and pretty accurate strike zone. (Better than typical SoCal HS where they many times see a 22" plate.) lol
9) All the players seemed down to earth and treated each other well. Talent wise there were a lot of really good pitchers & position players.
10) Batting in games was a flash here and there, but no raking. (That reminds me of the live BP station. 10 swings per player only. The pitching proctor was throwing poor live BP. Not dissing on him as he threw hundreds of pitches that I saw and certainly his arm may have been tired. Lots of the batters could not get inside the ball as many pitches were inside resulting in a lot of pull hitting. Saw some players hitting well, but when I saw the write up on batting practice, it was misleading. "feel for the barrel" "has a gap to gap approach" "uses his lower half" etc. Really? It got annoying like a Coach Obvious making stuff up.
In closing, I think if PG's director put a limit to the number of players, this even would have been better for the players, parents, proctors, and scouts who have limited time. PG director should have known they were second fiddle to a Baseball Factory premier event that on appearance, put shame on PG. Don't schedule next to your rival organization when they have half the players and 3 times the fields and grandstand.
