Green Parent Question

The DM is likely a more creative generic invite as D1 coaches are prohibited from contacting individual players until August 1 of their junior year in high school (so August 1, 2024 for your son).  Your son can contact whoever he wants, but they can't respond with anything more than a generic response which usually informs the recruit of the rules, points them to the team website, and (likely) upcoming camps.

Thank you - this is how we read it.  So when a 15-y.o. gets a "are you interested?" direct message, perhaps a response really isn't expected, lol.  Tricky for someone that young to know how to navigate when he might some day actually wish to communicate with the sender. 

here is one data point I'll share ...

My son, now a 17 year old 2024 with plans to play in college, had a multi-year recruiting journey with significant social media activity.  The D1 college baseball recruiting coaches that had some level of interest in my son, would follow him on twitter (i.e., send a signal with a follow).  As a parent, I could see the colleges/coaches that followed my son on his social media, and then I could update the "list I kept" ... to help him target and plan for unofficial visits or future camp opportunities.   

Note ... the majority of his meaningful communications with college coaches (before the NCAA contact date) were facilitated though his travel team coaches.

Good luck to all the green parent(s) out there (I was one myself), keep asking questions ... try to enjoy the experience.

I don't think my son has a twitter account yet (2027).  When should he get one and what should he be posting?

Yes, he should get on  Twitter.

Keep his feed up to date with key highlights, stats, milestones.

Your son will know what to do once he's on X and sees what others post.

Don't be shy!

@25Dad posted:

The DM is likely a more creative generic invite as D1 coaches are prohibited from contacting individual players until August 1 of their junior year in high school (so August 1, 2024 for your son).  Your son can contact whoever he wants, but they can't respond with anything more than a generic response which usually informs the recruit of the rules, points them to the team website, and (likely) upcoming camps.

From our family experience.   A coach never reached out to my son via social media.   My son listed information such as his travel ball team on his twitter page.   Every coach that my son spoke with all called him directly after getting his contact information from his travel ball coach.   Maybe others had different experience, but all communication my son had was from direct phone calls and direct text messages.   Never a reach out via social media. 

My 2024 never had ANY social media.  We prohibited it.  All contact was in person, by email and then at the end text and phone calls.  We might take a different tactic with my 2027.  He is in a different situation. 

@SpeedDemon posted:

Yes, he should get on  Twitter.

Keep his feed up to date with key highlights, stats, milestones.

Your son will know what to do once he's on X and sees what others post.

Don't be shy!

I have a bit of a different take on this.

Yes, he should get on Twitter. And he should keep his feed current with appropriate content.

He should not take his cue from what most players post. Post only something that is significant. Videos of “me getting in some work” do more harm than good. You don’t want to come across as an attention seeker or someone that is constantly looking for validation. It can be a fine line to walk but you need to stay on the right side of it.

Adbono, any examples of something significant?

i imagine if he does a showcase that posts numbers and they are good he could post that, but what else?  Should he “tag” anyone?

I've watched a player on social media post to the point it's definitely harmed him reading the comments. Some of the things that were harmful (based on negative comments):

-Post too often. (Daily, repetitive stuff)

-Parent posting on the player's behalf excessively.

-Post measurements/times that aren't in the realm of possibility when compared to published 3rd party reported measurements/times.

-Posts that question why others haven't acknowledged the poster's ability (example: Why hasn't he gotten offers?)

-Posts of schools that have offered spots to you. Some will say this is debatable and/or needs to change. I think most will agree that posting offers to different schools in the same post is definitely a bad look.

-Posts to counter the negative comments/posts you've received.

-Posts that are staged for the sake of posting.

I'm sure there are more. These are just some examples that I saw from responses/comments to original posts.

@Dadof3 posted:

Adbono, any examples of something significant?

i imagine if he does a showcase that posts numbers and they are good he could post that, but what else?  Should he “tag” anyone?

It’s important to know what to post and what not to post. There are varying opinions among coaches on being tagged on Twitter posts. Some don’t like it and some don’t care one way or another. IMO it depends on the purpose of the tag. If a kid is already committed and tagging his future coach(es), that is fine IMO. But if a kid is uncommitted and tags more than one school, trying to create interest, I think it’s a bad look. I also think it’s a bad look to post things like this:

”I had a great time at the recent TCU camp. Thank you to Coach Sarloos and his staff for putting on such a great event”….. This is pandering

”I hit a PR of __ on a pulldown today”… This is meaningless

”After much prayer and discussion with my family I have decided to decommit from ____ and reopen my recruitment”…. What really happened was a scholarship was revoked or the player was cut.

“I am blessed to receive an offer from ___ University”…… While this is acceptable in football & basketball, it is not in baseball. In baseball it’s viewed as shopping the offer in hopes of receiving a better one. Kids have had offers rescinded for doing this.

Post good game video of something significant: a big hit, a great defensive play, a key strikeout, etc. Absolutely stay out of Twitter fights with anyone. Baseball Twitter is wild and features a lot of differing opinions that are thrown around without a lot of courtesy and/or respect. I see a lot of players chiming in on subjects that they should leave alone. The best thing kids can do is communicate directly with coaches thru DMs and build a real relationship - if possible. A lot of general post eyewash doesn’t accomplish anything and it annoys a lot of people.

All the above is just my opinion. But based on conversations I have had, or overheard, most coaches feel the same way. Like other social media platforms Twitter can help. But it can hurt your chances if not done the right way.

@Dadof3 posted:

Adbono, any examples of something significant?

i imagine if he does a showcase that posts numbers and they are good he could post that, but what else?  Should he “tag” anyone?

I also have a different take on twitter.   With my son's recruitment (2024 RHP), twitter had no impact on the process.  Also, I think that context matters with this issue.  My son was not a PG All World stud pitcher like everyone else on this message board.   None of the Power five school showed any interest whatsoever.   My son is "highly projectable" but wasn't blowing people away at showcases with 92 plus MPH fastballs.   My son did have two D1 offers and signed with a low D1 school, but he had to work for it.   Twitter offered no help in that regard.  What did help was getting some film of his game performances against quality opposition.  In our case, my son was invited by his travel team to pitch as a Jr. at the Perfect Game World Championships in Jupiter.  He performed very well, had good stats from that performance and was able to get some film of his outing.   Once he had some data and film, he selected a handful of school that he should be a viable candidate for.   My son is not a power five pitcher and he knew that so he didn't waste time sending his emails to colleges in the top 25.    When he sent emails to the addresses that were published he received no response.   We also purchased an NCSA account (lowest level) that had an email option through there service.   While none of the coaches responded to their public email, several coaches responded when he sent emails via the NCSA account.   From there conversations were had via text message and personal phone calls.     

I think that twitter is fine, but I don't believe that coaches are scouting twitter looking for prospects.  However, I could be wrong.  This is just our families experience. 

I don't know how much impact my son's social media impacted his recruitment, but I feel it had minimal to no impact. I know one of the schools that recruited him was purely his coach reaching out to them about him. The other two schools, one which he ultimately decided upon, was from him reaching out to them. (Keep in mind that he reached out to a lot and a lot of those emails were never acknowledged). We made sure to take plenty of video and created a website of the videos. We're pretty sure that's what was utilized for his recruitment because he was offered a scholarship without being seen in person. Since committing to a Juco, we have noticed that some coaches have started following him, so we imagine it's a way for them to keep an eye on him for down the road?

The other thing he did to get college coaches attention was attend a showcase where he did end up on the leaderboards for multiple things.

@adbono - I think you nailed it.  Even when my son was being recruited 14 years ago as twitter was becoming mainstream for recruitment it was a bigger mess than it is today, as people didn't fully understand how to best optimize social media and its implications.  Lots of guys on my son's travel team were heavy into it (and themselves) and got burned...it got very ugly for some.  No question in my mind that there is little it can do to benefit a recruit but it can absolutely sink them if they don't follow your advice above.

I had a long talk with my son about twitter and he was more against it than I was at the time.  His reasoning was that he wanted to keep his communications and relationships private between himself and any interested coaches.  He believed specific one on one communication (text, email, phone) plus word of mouth was more than adequate with coaches.  Looking back, it is really hard to argue with him.

Just my experience....

Really good advice, thanks all

Be aware of the pitfalls of social media when posting your info on X.

There are a lot of great organizations out there that can handle your players PR. Your son's travel organization should be helping your son to figure out how to market himself without any extra fees.

Reach out to @FlatgroundPitching@Flatground Hitting, @Flatground Bats.

This will give you ideas on what's appropriate.

I know of many coaches that do a run down daily on players listed.

Baseball04;

During the 17 years of Area Code Baseball and Goodwill Series Int'l, our Coaches {Pro Scouts] were concerned of players and parents who practiced self promotion. It was a "red flag".

Maybe the player can present a diary of "What he learned today from the game".

HOW THE LESSONS LEARNED IN BASEBALL CAN HELP HIS FUTURE LIFE GOALS.

Bob

@Consultant posted:

Baseball04;

During the 17 years of Area Code Baseball and Goodwill Series Int'l, our Coaches {Pro Scouts] were concerned of players and parents who practiced self promotion. It was a "red flag".

Maybe the player can present a diary of "What he learned today from the game".

HOW THE LESSONS LEARNED IN BASEBALL CAN HELP HIS FUTURE LIFE GOALS.

Bob

Bob is an old and, compared to most members of this board, I am too. That’s probably why I agree with him on most everything. Especially this topic. When we grew up in the game humility was taught. There was no lack of competitive edge but there was respect for the game and for your opponent. Self-promotion was not only discouraged, it was not acceptable. We all learned to let our play on the field do the talking. If there was any bragging to be done it was done by coaches and teammates. There were celebrations only during big moments and they were spontaneous and organic. The unwritten rules of baseball took care of the occasional behavioral problems. This is what the public wanted and baseball became America’s Pastime because of that. Baseball was a reflection of society. The problem with baseball today is that it’s still a reflection of society - a society that is under attack and is being destabilized. The current state of affairs (in baseball and in the world) makes me long for the good old days. I suspect that Bob feels the same way. A “look at me” society is not a good thing. Selfish, foolish, immature, and boastful behavior on the baseball field is not a good thing either. It’s bad for the game and sets the wrong example for anyone watching. Baseball has always been a gentleman’s game. That’s how it’s different from football & basketball. Historically baseball hasn’t had players that would sell out to become pawns for political parties and/or political agendas (ie; Travis Kelce & LeBron James). Baseball has historically been on the side of everyman. I would like to keep it that way. That’s why I fight against bat flips, sh$t talking, excessive celebrations, etc. All of which are forms of self-promotion btw. If things are going to get better it has to start somewhere. Why not here? Let’s start by reigning in the out of control self-promotion - especially by younger people who have accomplished little to nothing.

Neither of my kids used social media for recruiting. Their coaches were promoting them heading into events. They felt it was all they needed. Despite this my daughter was discovered and attended a softball program not on her list.

She over performed that weekend. She performed well enough the second tournament they checked her out. The program was a little bit of a reach. She was a fourth outfielder for four years. But she played at least two thirds of the games each season, enjoyed the environment and the college.  

@Consultant posted:

Baseball04;

During the 17 years of Area Code Baseball and Goodwill Series Int'l, our Coaches {Pro Scouts] were concerned of players and parents who practiced self promotion. It was a "red flag".

Maybe the player can present a diary of "What he learned today from the game".

HOW THE LESSONS LEARNED IN BASEBALL CAN HELP HIS FUTURE LIFE GOALS.

Bob

When my son developed enough relationship with a college coach to get his cell phone number, he started texting him. His last year of high school baseball he rode home with us and sat in the back seat sending individual texts to more coaches than we really realized. They all centered around — here's my stats from the game, here's things I thought went well and here's some things I really want to work on. Coaches learned that he not only could pitch, but that he was interested in getting better and was insightful about his own performance. He NEVER said anything negative about another player, even to the coach who told him "every player on your team is worthy of being recruited, except that guy on third who allowed the winning run to score."

That was six years ago and things have changed. Now he posts videos of what he's working on in the gym on tik tok along with tips for younger players or occasional promos for brands that send him stuff that he likes and uses.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts.  I agree social media can have a downside, and son has very, very few posts (and I do check them periodically for reasons described here).  Actually, the only posts he has are reposts others made about him from a PG affiliate after he played in a tournament, PBR, a coach, and from his travel ball organization and his contact information.  Far fewer posts than most of his athlete friends and I have seen some of what I believe others are describing here on other accounts.    Most of the athletes his age seem to have social media accounts and some post much, more more than others.  Since he's so early in his high school career, I think he wanted to more or less have any account should he wish to communicate with anyone in the future.  But as to my question: does he need to respond?  And the answer is probably no response is necessarily expected. 

@adbono posted:

Bob is an old and, compared to most members of this board, I am too … Self-promotion was not only discouraged, it was not acceptable. We all learned to let our play on the field do the talking. If there was any bragging to be done it was done by coaches and teammates. ... That’s why I fight against bat flips, sh$t talking, excessive celebrations, etc. All of which are forms of self-promotion btw. If things are going to get better it has to start somewhere. Why not here? Let’s start by reigning in the out of control self-promotion - especially by younger people who have accomplished little to nothing.

My reply isn’t really helping the OPs question but… Showing respect for the game will be the most admired quality for any kid wanting to impress a coach at the next level.  Whether that’s sportsmanship, coach-ability, hustle, or any other trait that makes everyone think of the player as having class and love for the game and competing.  The self promotion stuff drives me nuts but nowadays a player needs to at least have that style of overconfidence, even if it’s a quiet confidence.  

If your youth program or, more importantly, HS program doesn’t stress these qualities and also how to correctly use social media, you need to ask them to formulate an opinion and relay it to your player or find a new program.  My son plays for a well known and respected organization.  They emphasize utilizing social media but also the importance of understanding that “someone is always watching.”  

I suppose these might not be examples of  ‘bad’ social media post, but they are real life examples that do correlate to what my son’s organization uses to emphasize the importance of respect for the game:  1) high level prospect hits a fly to deep gap but thought it would be caught, bangs his bat and starts walking up the line.  OF misplays it and he reaches on error (single but probably could’ve been a double on the error), but for more than one school recruiting him, that was it.  They were no longer interested.  2) (less of a specific example but more of a cautionary tale) Someone is always watching if you’re recruitable.  A player gets out of his car with parents wearing slides, dad pulls his gear out of the back, hands it to him, mom scurries to get his water jug, and he tridges into the stadium, probably with his shirt untucked, all the while a secondary coach is observing the parking lot and takes note.  Respect the game, show you want to be there and you’re prepared to be there, and not daddy or mommy handling what you are there for.

Anyway, find a program that has a social media policy and respects the process required for recruiting.  

Social media is for better or worse a significant part of recruitment.  Baseball was a step behind other sports but I expect it will be the norm for prospects to post/share all of their offers like they do in football and basketball. When my younger knucklehead starts to post content on meal prep and eating it,  that will be the sign for me to delete all my SM apps

@2022NYC posted:

Social media is for better or worse a significant part of recruitment.  Baseball was a step behind other sports but I expect it will be the norm for prospects to post/share all of their offers like they do in football and basketball. When my younger knucklehead starts to post content on meal prep and eating it,  that will be the sign for me to delete all my SM apps

I imagine you know all this but I’m using your post as a way to put this out there for others that may not know . Kids and parents should understand the difference between head count sports and equivalency sports as it relates to recruiting. Football and basketball are head count sports. They produce revenue and they offer full scholarships to their athletes. In those sports postings about offers is accepted by coaches because it isn’t viewed as a player angling for a better offer. That is not the case in baseball. Baseball is still treated as an equivalently sport (although some SEC programs definitely make money), which by definition means that they are funded by football & basketball. In baseball, full athletic scholarships are virtually unheard of - scholarship players are on partials and there are a limited number of those. So when a HS baseball player makes a SM post about an offer it’s interpreted by the baseball world as that player shopping his offer. No matter what his intent, coaches will think the player is trying to leverage a better deal. At our JuCo we have pulled offers from players that have posted about offers. So I would strongly advise against doing it.

@adbono posted:

I imagine you know all this but I’m using your post as a way to put this out there for others that may not know . Kids and parents should understand the difference between head count sports and equivalency sports as it relates to recruiting. Football and basketball are head count sports. They produce revenue and they offer full scholarships to their athletes. In those sports postings about offers is accepted by coaches because it isn’t viewed as a player angling for a better offer. That is not the case in baseball. Baseball is still treated as an equivalently sport (although some SEC programs definitely make money), which by definition means that they are funded by football & basketball. In baseball, full athletic scholarships are virtually unheard of - scholarship players are on partials and there are a limited number of those. So when a HS baseball player makes a SM post about an offer it’s interpreted by the baseball world as that player shopping his offer. No matter what his intent, coaches will think the player is trying to leverage a better deal. At our JuCo we have pulled offers from players that have posted about offers. So I would strongly advise against doing it.

Another phrase to live by is "act like you've been there."

Posting offers feels like the action of someone who hasn't had a lot of offers and isn't treating them with respect, or like they've been before.

@Iowamom23 posted:

Another phrase to live by is "act like you've been there."

Posting offers feels like the action of someone who hasn't had a lot of offers and isn't treating them with respect, or like they've been before.

“Acting like you have been there” is sadly lacking in baseball, other sports, and life in general. Remember when humility was a quality that was admired and respected? I do.

@adbono posted:

I imagine you know all this but I’m using your post as a way to put this out there for others that may not know . Kids and parents should understand the difference between head count sports and equivalency sports as it relates to recruiting. Football and basketball are head count sports. They produce revenue and they offer full scholarships to their athletes. In those sports postings about offers is accepted by coaches because it isn’t viewed as a player angling for a better offer. That is not the case in baseball. Baseball is still treated as an equivalently sport (although some SEC programs definitely make money), which by definition means that they are funded by football & basketball. In baseball, full athletic scholarships are virtually unheard of - scholarship players are on partials and there are a limited number of those. So when a HS baseball player makes a SM post about an offer it’s interpreted by the baseball world as that player shopping his offer. No matter what his intent, coaches will think the player is trying to leverage a better deal. At our JuCo we have pulled offers from players that have posted about offers. So I would strongly advise against doing it.

Good responses but as usual adbono is right on the money with his advice.