Behind the recruiting schedule?

You  behind, but there is still a little time.  I would not just rely upon the travel team coaches.  I would put together an aggressive plan to get him in front of as many recruiting coaches as possible at this point.   There is a lot of information on how to do this within these forms and on the first page of the website.

Look around for legit area showcases and get him there.  Good showcases are put on by Perfect Game and PBR.  Look on their website for showcases (not tourneys) in your area.

I think you are fine.  Just make sure he gets in front of the right people this summer and this fall. If he performs well, he will be in good shape.  No reason to panic.  Good luck!

If he has the grades, I would recommend attending Head First show case

First off AT, welcome to the site. You do have some catching up in the process. The search field above can help you research some past threads that will be helpful to your specific situation. While it is late in the process to start, it is not "too late", especially after reading that your son is a LHP.

From what my son experienced (and me indirectly) the college recruiting process is not a process you can take casually and be laid back. Your son needs to be ACTIVE. I had to nudge mine on occasion, to periodically send e-mails to coaches to give them updates on his schedule, academics, performance, etc. He was fortunate to have a coach on his summer team that believed in him, coached him since he was 13 and had coached at the D1 level. 

You did not mention anything about academics--it plays a key role. Does he need to retake SAT/ACT, etc? If he hasn't yet, your son should put a list of schools together that and have different columns--safety/reach/right level both academically and baseball wise. Some recruits fall through late if they are not up to school's academic standards. Has he always wanted to play ball in college, or has his interest recently increased?  My son's high school team had players land spots on D3 academic schools in the spring of their senior year. The high school guidance department can help as well. Video of him pitching and hitting (if he is also a position player) should happen soon too. 

I've thrown a lot your way and additional posters will follow I am sure. The biggest thing is to TAKE Action and come up with a plan. If your son is thinking of going to college nearby, there is probably a camp/showcase scheduled this summer that can give him a good assessment. Best of luck to you and your son. 

As others have said, you're a bit behind.  I would contact ANY and ALL of the coaches at the schools you're interested in and tell them where your son will be.  Include contact info for your son and your son's coaches.  If your son had a good junior year, let them know....at least his particulars...height, weight, FB velo, etc....but don't go crazy on his HS stats...they likely won't care much, unless they are ridiculously good (they will notice).  If you get ANY reply...make sure you follow up...even if it's not one of your son's top schools.  If you can, ask your son's coaches to come up with a pitching rotation as early as possible the week of each tourney and get that info to the coaches.  You can email them every week...they won't mind.  We never had one coach tell us "hey, quit sending me your info"....they may have ignored it...but that's their problem...not yours     Good luck

One thing that I don't think anyone has made clear is that your son needs to be the one doing the work. It will reflect poorly on him if you are the one sending the emails and contacting the coaches. All of this needs to come from him. 

Blake. ... May I advertise my business free on your site? Actually it takes a lot of fall to come on a competitor's site and advertise free via a post. You are extremely unprofessional. I would ask anyone here if they want to pay for a dishonest company to help you? Or get good advice here free?

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His coaches may understand the process. But do they have a lot of contacts? Are they known? Are their opinions on players respected? But most importantly, is the team playing in the right tournaments for your son to get the right exposure?

I'll assume since you've waited until post junior year your son isn't a gotta have top prospect. Do you have a good feel for where he potentially fits into college ball. It's an important part of getting in front of the right schools. I've seen kids waste a summer and money getting in front of the wrong schools.

Use the travel coaches as a resource. But do not rely on them. If your son doesn't find a college team it's his problem not the travel coaches. Be honest about his talent. Decide what conferences he could compete. Then decide which schools in that conference are an educational, social, cultural and baseball fit. He has to ask himself, "If baseball doesn't pan out, do I want to be there." Understand except for about five or six players everyone else is almost equally capable of being a starter. It starts being about mental toughness in college ball.

Has your son joined the NCAA Clearinghouse (called something else now?)? It's important if he's a D1 or D2 player eligible for athletic scholarship money. Email the head coach and the recruiting coach of the schools on your son's list. Express interest in the baseball program and the school's academics. Ask at what showcases he can get exposure. Any camps he attends should be limited to top prospect camps. He may want to attend some individual events in addition to playing for his team.

It's important to decide what the balance of academics and baseball will be. Chances are the future is about academics. For my kids we agreed the decision would be 70% academic and 30% baseball/softball. What this means is my kids weren't going to sacrifice a quality college education just to play baseball/softball. 

Given it's part way through June it's time to get moving and get things in place. Your son also has the fall. Good luck.

Thanks All for the good advice. There is a PBR showcase later this month that we'll look into, see how that goes and maybe add the PG one that is later in early fall. I'll also tell my son that it is recommended to contact coaches himself and point him in that direction.

Regarding academics, his grades and ACTs are not great. If baseball was not a factor he would go to juco, at least for a couple years. He also does not know what he wants to do career-wise. For those reasons, we've thought juco would be a good fit for both baseball and academics. The DII schools in our state would probably be further down his list.His grades aren't so bad that DI is out of the question, but for my money, I don't think it's the right fit.

He has always wanted to play baseball in college. He would like to get drafted. We know a few people who were drafted, some ex-minor league guys, and some ex-major league guys, and the more we have learned, the less appealing it is. For us, it's been a situation where if he wants to do it and take the initiative fine, but we're fine with him not doing it, too. This is about as far as I'm willing to go with helping him, but I will do a little because I want him out of my house someday. I can tell him here are the 5 things you need to do, and it's in his court to do it.

As for where he stands as a prospect, he hasn't had a lot of attention and had some bad luck. He had a great sophomore school season, and then hurt his non-throwing shoulder batting second week into summer season (17u) and was stuck as a PO. In fall, he moved up to the 18u travel team as a PO and got about 2 innings/weekend, so we joined a new time this summer. Things just did not go well for spring of jr. year. He ended up on JV. Our school has tons of good players, and they didn't think he had a strong bat (he does, but with 8 months off from batting he was rusty). This turned out to be a blessing because his pitching was rough. He figured it out in time for summer, but the HS stats aren't anything I'd want to pass on to recruiters.He's also only about 5'-9". I don't think he'll grow more, but he's got room for muscle development.We definitely want coaches who appreciate average size players. The fall team he was on had a coach who favored big guys, and his HS team is the same. 

Again, thanks for the advice & responses.

I have a question on this. . .He can play outfield fairly well. He was playing CF in HS, and has been in LF this summer. I know we have some pitchers who really can't do anything else, but since he can, is it typical to try to showcase this to recruiters, too? I was under the impression that he would be a PO in college.

From your more recent posts it does sound more like son is LHP PO. Many camps/showcases offer lower rates if player is PO. If "rusty" as you mentioned about his hitting when his role changed, I wouldn't think it would be worth it. Most showcases put all outfielders in Right Field for "showcasing" segment. Could he throw strikes to third?? To home?? Would being an outfielder (and perhaps adding video) showcase his arm? Another consideration. Also a number of POs at the events too opt not to run the 60 yard dash; if he runs well (Athletic) I wouldn't skip this part. Good luck!

PBR is very good....your profile says Midwest.....would you mind saying what state?  PBR is expanding...and some states are better than others with regard to how their showcases/events are run and how they are attended.  Send me a dialog if you'd rather not post it here

We were planning on the KS one at the end of June. I think we're stuck with that, so I hope it's not one of the bad ones. The upcoming IA & MO ones conflict with vacation schedule.(I know, baseball family taking a non-baseball vacation. . .blasphemy. Thought it would be nice to have one last family vacation before he graduates high school.)

He is doing better hitting now. The kinks are mostly worked out (batting in the top half of order on summer team), but he's not likely to "wow" anyone with his hitting so I suppose he can pick what he wants. He runs well. He's known for base running, but he made some bad decisions last weekend, so I'm not sure I want to brag about that right now. In general, he's one of the quicker guys (at 5'-9" you'd better be). 

I just read a tweet from a coach at a school my son my son has visited saying he wishes POs would stop doing them selves a disservice by batting at showcases. I guess you need to decide whether batting will add to his impression for coaches

Well, that's something to consider then. 

There's never really been anything dysfunctional about his batting. It's not like he's Kelvin Herrera up there, but he's not in stud-level territory either, just fairly average hitting and maybe above average base running.