I have a son that is in his freshman year and wants to play in a summer league this summer. We didn't realize how early you have to get in on these leagues and most are full. Does anyone have any ideas? Is there any sort of central service or advisor that can help place him on a team? His college coach has been only somewhat helpful. He said my son can just do training in the summer but my son is hoping for some live reps.
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Usually the coaches find your guy a spot, but u can sure contact the teams and get on.
For u I would suggest the Northwest League.
Go to northwoodsleague.com
Find a team and contact them.
Battle Creek? Kalamazoo?
Thanks. Yes. The coaches as I said have only been moderately helpful. I think they said that it isn't vital after freshman year (which makes no sense to me). I will double check but I think he has contacted both of those and teams are telling him that they are full (and have been full since September, I guess?). But I will make sure he reaches out again.
There are lots of other leagues. I forget the name but a member here is a leader in the Appalachian League.
Is your son a position player or po? If hitter I'm surprised his coach doesn't want him getting reps. Maybe I'm just jaded and paranoid, but with the transfer portal being what it is, maybe your son's coach doesn't want him getting poached by another school.
Look into the leagues. The Northwoods league is good and competitive but also extremely demanding. They only get 2 or 3 days off all summer and there are some teams where travel gets them home at 2 or 3am. It’s a lot like the minors.
What division of college ball is he playing? How does the team rank in the division? Is he expected to get substantial playing time?
Northwoods is one of the top leagues that takes players from P5 schools, so yes, it fills up. A few years ago (and maybe still), they needed pitchers toward the end of the summer, though.
There are many other leagues, there's a pretty good list here, with links to the league homepages:
https://www.thebaseballobserve...r-collegiate-leagues
They run the gamut. Some of the leagues provide food and housing with host families, others provide dorms or apartments, some don't provide housing and are local-based. Some charge players a fee (like travel ball), some do not. Some provide local summer entertainment and are a popular local draw, others are purely playing games on high-school fields with hardly anyone watching.
Maybe @hokieone will add some advice, he is a summer league manager.
Sometimes "temp" spots are available early or late in the summer for 10 days or so, particularly if some previously committed players are busy with conference playoffs or the CWS in early June. Could your player ask for a temp spot somewhere? Where are his teammates going? Sometimes those temp spots stick if the coach is impressed or has a need.
Also, some leagues prefer players who are freshmen (e.g. some Futures League teams), others prefer older players, and others only take local players (or players with their own transportation), so I think you need to ask around. I do think his coach is going to need to refer him at some point; it is hard to imagine a summer coach accepting a player without input from the College coach.
This has all been so helpful. I cannot thank you all enough.
I feel your pain. My son is going to be graduating HS this spring and would like to play for a collegiate summer league as he is a position player. He signed to a juco program that is about 1k miles from home. His future coaches are neutral when it comes to playing for a collegiate league this summer, so my husband and I have mixed feelings about it. We know he would benefit from seeing more college level pitching, but we also greedily would like to have him around or at least within a half-day's drive.
Factors that have made it difficult in his hunt: Being a rising Freshman. Future coach connections are not in our area and with the distance they don't quite have a picture of who he is as a player quite yet. Needing housing (he has his own transportation), but some leagues don't provide housing. Time of when he committed (collegiate leagues need to know you are a collegiate ball player) and he just signed in December.
On top of all this our family might end up moving this summer, so we don't even know where we're going to be.
