how do you pick your summer team?

You have to find the righ team for your son and your financial situation. Scout out the schedules for the various teams and whichever has the majority of schools your son is interested in, should go to the top of the list.

Our son played for a different team the last 2 summers (we left by choice), it is a learning process - unless you have a close personal relationship with an organization. One was small and one was a "national" team. This summers team is in between.

They each have pros and cons and what is a pro for us may be a con to your family.

Our biggest lesson, showcase teams are about exposure NOT winning, playing time is somewhat limited and you have to make the most of the opporunities presented.

Good Luck

The decision criteria is different for everybody. But with the end goal of playing at the next level the things we considered is playing time, exposure , convienence and cost. My son was wanting to play at the highest level with lots of playing time at various positions vs the best competition possible while getting exposure to schools he is interested in.

We gathered info together as a family and let him weigh out the pros and cons and let him make the decision. Then we had him call all of the coaches that were offering him a spot and tell them his decision. He is a 2013 and we felt it was time he get a feel for the communicating and decision making process since that is what it will be in the future. Hopefully we have showed him how to make an educated decision and it should help him when he has decisions to make in the future about colleges. Plus it helps him to identify who he is as a student and player by making and following through the whole process. The feeling your son can get from this activity can be pretty powerfull plus it helps us as parents to not feel so much pressure ourselves. Now we do not have a full circle experience with this because the summer has not happened for which the decisions were made so far so good thru winter training. Imagine the learning curve if the decision doesn't turn out the way he thinks. A lot can be learned from failure and he still has time for some lessons in that department. I think the hardest part for him is picking a group of colleges to target and hopefully this summer he will answer a lot of questions about where and what level he should be targeting.

This coming summer will be crucial to your son if it is his goal to earn some amount of baseball scholarship.

He should generally aim to play for the very best team that will provide him a decent amount of playing time.

You want to be on the best team possible because the games involving talent-laden teams draw the most scouts. Thus, it is very important that you NOT do the parent thing of trying to make your son the focus of the team. You are best served when your son plays an ample amount of time for a team that has talented players all over the diamond.

That has to be tempered by the fact that it does no good to be on a premier team if you're not getting to play.

I would rank your options based on the above. Then eliminate those you can't afford, those that are run by people you don't trust, and those that have special situations such as players you just don't think your son should be around. (For example, if a team has players who are known drug users, you don't want your son traveling with them.)

When you finish that analysis you'll have your answer.

That is an excellent analagy Midlo Dad. I have a more detailed question for you. I live close to you geographically and my son plays in the same district your son came from. Can you please email me so we can converse privately. I would greatly appriciate your opinion of a similar situation I find myself and my son in this year.
Regards, tr1plej@comcast.net

kv5137 - I sent you a PM.

thks for all the responses. those who pm i will reply to. $$$ is a big factor as I have spent a ton on winter work in preparation for this season! my next question is,is it better to play on a vastly talented team as he did last year on a team that won one of the PG tournaments therefore drew plenty of college and pro attention. this team is not located locally and is just a major tourney team as far as my son is concerned. this leads to other issues as far as any other team that he is on for the rest of the summer.

quote:

my next question is,is it better to play on a vastly talented team as he did last year on a team that won one of the PG tournaments therefore drew plenty of college and pro attention.

Yes. Exposure is the major goal for someone in your position. This is the purpose of travel teams. The only caveat is playing time as Midlo pointed out. Recruited = Passion + Skill + Exposure + Persistence + Luck

One thing I've told parents is it doesn't matter if the team plays in FL and GA if your kid is planning on playing in a different part of the country. These trips can be very expensive. Target schools and figure out how and where to get in front of them.

quote:

Originally posted by RJM:
One thing I've told parents is it doesn't matter if the team plays in FL and GA if your kid is planning on playing in a different part of the country. These trips can be very expensive. Target schools and figure out how and where to get in front of them.

Very good point. I feel this was the situation with my son. He wanted to go to school in the Northeast, and we choose to play on a team that did not go to East Cobb, but was run but someone who had contacts with Northeast schools (a Northeast scouting director for a MLB club). He was able to get my son in front of the schools that he was interested in attending, through regional showcases and tournaments, as well as speaking to some of the coaches directly. It worked well in our situation, but that's just it -- it was our situation. Each individual situation is going to be different. No cookie cutter approached here!

If you're going to a new team, I think you should have a frank discusssion with the coach about playing time. My experience was that the kids who had been in the program the longest got the best treatment. By that I mean playing time in games that had the most scouts. He's better off playing 3 innings in the first game of the tournament in front of lots of scouts versus 7 innings in the last game when there's nobody there. And if this is a program with more than one team in the age group, make sure he'll be on the 'A' team. You can tell the coach you don't want any special treatment, just the same opportunities as the others who paid the same amount to be on the team.