Demarini Top96?

My son participated in both the Headfirst and DeMarini Academic (Hartford) showcases. He enjoyed both of them and had great response from both.

Both have coaches that are paid to be on the field coaching the players so they get one on one time with the coaches. Both had mini clinics for the players by position. Pitchers pitched to about 5-6 batters at Demarini and two innings in two games at Headfirst.

Demarini had fewer players and played all games on one field with all coaches viewing at same time. Headfirst had four fields in circle where coaches were either assigned to watch, rotated the fields or were the coaches of the teams.

IMO, I think we got more bang for our buck at the Headfirst Showcase. I would say if the school's your son are interested in are at the Demarini showcases then it is much cheaper and will be closer to home for you.

My son attended the Demarini Northeast last year at Tufts University. He felt he got a lot out of the clinic/ showcase. The first day was strictly clinic work, times and drills. The second day they had games. All the games took place on one field but it seemed to be a benefit with all the coaches being able to watch. It was a great beginning to showcases.
www.bristolcountyeagles.org

Well at Headfirst he will have a few schools he likes, while at Demarini only one or two. But the Demarini is about $200 cheaper, and close to home.

I have looked at doing one of these this summer but, cant decide. My son is a 2014 pitcher and although I see big lists of schools for both showcases, only about five really apply.

Further, go to the schools websites and take a look at which coaches will be attending. My problem is I dont see a lot of pitching coaches from the places we are interested in. I haven't finished the search yet but, we're leaning towards travelling to one of the Top 96's.

It could be that you could take instruction from a pitching coach for a school you are not interested in while you're there. Maybe the hitting coach for the school you are intersted in is there but, what real value is that going to be. If that was the case, you would be better off going directly to the schools themselves - you'd have a better feel for the coaches.

Notlong,
I think you are heading in the right direction with the TOP96 clinics. They are setup so well and are an excellent first Showcase/ camp. Keep in mind that since your son is a 2014 grad that you have several years of paying for these showcases and they do tend to more and more expensive the bigger they get. Also, as we found out, many of the coaches at the showcases talk to many other colleges to get your name out. Some of the college camps we went to last year ,Northeastern University is one, invited many other colleges to attend. The nice thing about the Northeastern one was that the colleges invited all had the same programs. I have found out that the more you do the more invites you get and have to be sorted through. We will get an abundance of camps that are questionable. Hope this helps.

www.bristolcountyeagles.org

In 2012, my son will join his travel program for good. As such, he will go through PG Showcases here and in Jupiter. Our travel program is comprehensive and knowing their schedules, it will be quite difficult to actually go out and attend some of these events at 16U through 18U. In a way, this summer is a chance for son to get to know a few schools.

My database contains links to 1400 schools now with tons of information. Of these, there are 30 schools that are fairly interesting and 15 that are hard to discern from one another. Factors for us focus around the abilities of their pitching coach to develop pitchers (I have bios of the pitching coaches for schools in the top 30); schools with a strong academic program; schools that are known to waive the Out of State; schools that will give strong academic $ for a GPA between 3.5 and 4.0; is the city a good location for my son?; are they known to over-recruit?; how many freshman pitchers are they carrying now?, how much time do those pitchers get? etc. Although I have been called a crazy man for doing this, it does give us the ability to look up information about coaches, etc. within seconds.

I think the Demarini Tops 96 local showcases can be a good value. We are trying to hit camps at three different schools this summer and do one showcase. My son has been exposed to somewhere between 15 and 20 pitching coaches since he started out. There have been between four and six in his off season development program for the past eight months. He has a good sense of what works for him from a coaching standpoint. They get a sense of him as well and maybe we learn that they are not interested – that’s good to know now. That’s why we sift through these showcases to determine which specific coaches will be there.

Crazy Man? I think not. It's great to see someone very interested in his sons education and further his baseball career. It sounds like you have quite a data base to research through. Well informed. Continue the good work!!