Great post guys!
While in the chat room the other day, someone asked me about son's recruiting experience.
I can go along with Fungo regarding being on the BA list. He received many letters just because he was on that list, for no other reason, most of the letters were from schools who had never seen him play.
And in the end, despite being a highly ranked player, the invites and offers only came from those who had actually SEEN him play, not because of any rankings they read about. He concentrated on being seen by the schools from the geographical area he wanted to attend and conferences. Yes, living in Flordia had it's advantages, but no one would have offered anything if we kept him limited to his HS playing.
As far as getting on elite summer teams, I know that this is a goal for many players. However, do know that playing on one of them may not be to a player's advantage. An example, USA baseball tournament. My son played for a local travel team, passing up invites to lots of teams familiar to you all. Our coach made it his business to make sure the scouts saw each and every one of his players, while some of his players went to play on the better well known teams thinking they would get more exposure, not true. This also was true for PG woodbat his junior year. Our goal was to get him seen, not necessarily be on the "winning" team, and that worked out well for him. Instead of jocking for position amoung the best pitchers in the state or country, he felt his best advantage was being the BEST pitcher on a not so well known team. That was our philosophy for the first three years in HS. Senior summer he joined a summer team that was a top travel team in Florida, but more importantly a coach who made it his business to get college coaches to come to smaller tournaments or tournaments on college campuses. For us, his relationship with many, many college coaches was more important than winning. Things have changed since then, with bigger tournaments and showcases, more scouts watching every game therefore creating more letters going out than ever before. But in the end, again, no one will offer your son a scholarahip if they have not seen him play. There are so many options to use for the recruiting process, it's confusing, and not one particular path is the best for each player. I am not saying what we did was the best route, but it worked for him.
If you are a player that is from an area of the country and you need exposure, don't despair if there are not many travel teams in your area. There are many options for attending camps to the college you wish to attend, showcases, but be realistic in where your best options may be. I don't beleive that you have to be on the BEST team in an area to get a scholarhsip or drafted one day.
For some college recruiters it is just like scouting for the draft. They will seek out the best they can find, all over the country to put the best program together that they can. For others it's pretty obvious, they recruit the local talent, no matter where they are located.
By the end of sophomore, beginning of junior year, it's important to sit down with your son to try to sort out what he is looking for in the college experience. Since we are all baseball parents pretty much in tune to our kids, that may be easy. But for those new parents who may be reading this, MOST HS players are just looking to get to college to play the game, most are NOT looking to be future MLB players. If you are in question as to where his talent lies, so you know which direction to take, have your son evaluated by a professional, someone who will give you a very realistice professional opinion after seeing your son play.
Even for those parents whose son's have been offered really nice scholarships to big schools now facing the draft. This can be more frustrating than the recruiting process, because your son's talents have been recognized by getting an offer to every school on the top 25. If you are getting home visits from scouts, you need to really find out what it is about your son that sets him apart from the others, because just know that scout has been to every other players house that also has talent and most of what your son has as well. I remember the Phillies scout telling us something that stuck in my mind, he sees TONS of pitchers from our area AND south america. In the end there has to be ONE thing that the player has that others don't. This can range from lots of things, signability to his make up, velocity, to movement on the fastball to changing speeds on the change up, GPA, to innings pitched over HS career (many pitchers here in 2004 had all of those things). When looking back at the draft, I understand why some got drafted and others did not, same way as it was apparent why the top HS pitcher in teh country was chosen over everyone else.
It's all so confusing, but if you approach every process honestly, it'll work out in the end.
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