Is something wrong with my son? I feel like I'm missing something

@Dadbelly2023 posted:

I read through this young man's PG profile.  They graded him as 6.5 and 7.5 x 2  just a few years ago when he was 5ft10-6ft/180lbs.  I have no doubt that he's worked very hard to get to where he is now.  His dad was a former high level college player so I'm sure he had good instruction as a youth when these grades were given.  Now all of a sudden PG has an epiphany that he is a 9.5?  If they are so good as a scouting service, shouldn't they have been able to tell when he was a freshman how good he would become?

I know a 16 yo kid who did a PG showcase as a 14u.  They graded him a 6.5.  He now runs a 6.5  60  and is a heck of a player.   Come on... 6.5.  I could even tell back then that was preposterous.   He was a minimum 8.

I almost think they do this on purpose to make you feel you have to come back and do it again. errr...  I'm sorry.... pay it again.

Seriously? Perhaps you should spend some time analyzing data. It's all there for you. Take a look at the metrics of 14 yo players and compare them to metrics collected at the PG National. Do you see a difference? Grades aren't given based on what the eyes see--they are based purely on data points. Big differences in the body and abilities of a 14 yo and a player entering adulthood.

What was the 60 time for that 16 yo kid who did a PG Showcase as a 14 yo?

When you collect data points for 20+ years it's really easy to assign grades.

When you attend a PG Showcase at age 14 you cannot expect to receive high grades unless your metrics match those of older players. As others have pointed out repeatedly, it's pretty easy to get you own pocket radar and stopwatch and get those metrics on your own. You would then have an idea of what grade you'll end up with if you still want to attend.

But for those that have the means and the desire, there are many intangibles to be gained by attending--learning how to deal with pressure, feeling comfortable with showcase formats, seeing your peers and understanding where your current skillset fits and what you need to improve, etc..

Believe it or not, the remainder of that 14 yo's baseball career is one big showcase; it never stops.

Or the PG grades are completely meaningless and irrelevant. The sole purpose of those grades is to get people to come back (pay) to improve them.

There is zero value in their grading system. It is entirely useless.

@RJM posted:

This is where my philosophy of the best recruiting method is have a travel coach who has credibility and contacts and can presell the player. Once past the top one hundred players at a major PG event the next 900 can blend in. On any given day you can’t tell 200 from 1000 in three or four at bats.

My son never did a PG showcase. But from attending PG tournaments and his travel coach selling him he had a 9.5 score. I felt it was high. But hundreds of players receive 9.5. Keep in mind PG scores is how they see potential not reality.

Not sure how is was 10 years ago but you don't get assigned a grade without having at least one metric. Unless you are a pitcher who gets gunned at a PG tourney, you will not have a grade without having attended a showcase.

Of course you can be ranked, but you will not have a grade.

And there are not hundreds who get graded 9.5.

As an example, there are currently 152 players in the 2024 class graded 9.5 and above:

RHP - 30

LHP - 11

C - 22

1B - 4

3B -15

MI - 39

OF -31

@PABaseball posted:

Or the PG grades are completely meaningless and irrelevant. The sole purpose of those grades is to get people to come back (pay) to improve them.

There is zero value in their grading system. It is entirely useless.

Crazy talk on this board! I guess those MLB grades are useless as well? They are based on "tools" and those "tools" are based on data points.

PG's grades are based on data they collect.

Rankings are not the same as grades. Neither are rankings leading up to the MLB Draft. And every baseball media outlet has their own ranking.

But of course metrics aren't what make great players. We all know that already. But if you don't have the metrics (tools) it doesn't really matter what a "great" player you may be...

When I coached Little League I drafted players, not tools. And it worked pretty well. That's because my draft pool was pretty small (local community) and the players were age 12 or younger. If my draft pool consisted of the entire country I would have been able to draft "players" who also possessed "tools".

@PABaseball posted:

Or the PG grades are completely meaningless and irrelevant. The sole purpose of those grades is to get people to come back (pay) to improve them.

There is zero value in their grading system. It is entirely useless.

100% correct.

The PG grade definitely matters...to the players and sometimes the parents, especially the crazy baseball obsessed ones. I would overhear the kids in the backseat during my uber baseball dad days and it was a hoot hearing who deserved it or why they didn't based on their past tourney performance and comps to other players with said PG grades, much more engaging than the BB HOF discussions I had growing up. I can admit now since the it is past the statues of limitations, there was a time during the lull in the drinking with the parents at the tourney hotel I would bring it up to stir the pot and get the party going again. 

@absorber: "Seriously? Perhaps you should spend some time analyzing data. It's all there for you. Take a look at the metrics of 14 yo players and compare them to metrics collected at the PG National. Do you see a difference? Grades aren't given based on what the eyes see--they are based purely on data points."

Respectfully... and you know what I really mean because of how you started off your spiel...  It says right on their website that the grade is a projection of where they see the kid in the future.  And that write up of the player's performance seems an awful lot like it is based on what the PG scout's "eyes see".   

2022NYC.  "I can admit now since the it is past the statues of limitations, there was a time during the lull in the drinking with the parents at the tourney hotel I would bring it up to stir the pot and get the party going again".

Now that is funny.  Just a wee bit pathological perhaps... naw.  sheer awesome

@ABSORBER posted:

Crazy talk on this board! I guess those MLB grades are useless as well? They are based on "tools" and those "tools" are based on data points.

PG's grades are based on data they collect.

Rankings are not the same as grades. Neither are rankings leading up to the MLB Draft. And every baseball media outlet has their own ranking.

But of course metrics aren't what make great players. We all know that already. But if you don't have the metrics (tools) it doesn't really matter what a "great" player you may be...

When I coached Little League I drafted players, not tools. And it worked pretty well. That's because my draft pool was pretty small (local community) and the players were age 12 or younger. If my draft pool consisted of the entire country I would have been able to draft "players" who also possessed "tools".

I was hoping this was some sort of sarcastic troll post but it does not appear that way.

If you think the guys at PG are on the same playing field as MLB scouts you are sorely mistaken. But you also compared your local little draft to the MLB draft so I don't know how much I can help to begin with.

@PABaseball posted:

I was hoping this was some sort of sarcastic troll post but it does not appear that way.

If you think the guys at PG are on the same playing field as MLB scouts you are sorely mistaken. But you also compared your local little draft to the MLB draft so I don't know how much I can help to begin with.

Posting to web forums is really a waster of time and I can only blame myself.

Lotta PG bashers here which is why PG himself quit wasting his time on this forum. Even though he was really helpful and would bend-over backwards to help a parent out.

I guess we can disagree on whether PG data collection and grading over the last 20+ years is any good. I'll just compare the PG grades (and ranking for top 250) to the last few MLB drafts and see where they differ. On the surface they seem pretty close to me (for prep players).

I was obsessed too.  In the end I realized that the top ranked 200 players or so are ranked carefully, for the draft (those players have grades of 9.5-10). PGstaff himself, when he still posted here, admitted that.

Everyone else's rank seems to be determined by an algorithm based on the data they have on the player - FB, performance at tournaments, where committed, etc, and is completely meaningless.

@ABSORBER posted:

But for those that have the means and the desire, there are many intangibles to be gained by attending--learning how to deal with pressure, feeling comfortable with showcase formats, seeing your peers and understanding where your current skillset fits and what you need to improve, etc..

I agree with much of what Absorber is saying.  But not this; paying $800 to learn how to deal with the showcase format is not justified.  There are many other places you can do that for much less money.

@2022NYC posted:

The PG grade definitely matters...to the players and sometimes the parents, especially the crazy baseball obsessed ones. I would overhear the kids in the backseat during my uber baseball dad days and it was a hoot hearing who deserved it or why they didn't based on their past tourney performance and comps to other players with said PG grades, much more engaging than the BB HOF discussions I had growing up. I can admit now since the it is past the statues of limitations, there was a time during the lull in the drinking with the parents at the tourney hotel I would bring it up to stir the pot and get the party going again.

As a baseball dad, you should have let the kids know grades aren't based on tourney performance. And then asked the kids how their metrics compared to the "graded" player in question.

Both players and parents are just as ill-informed.

@Dadbelly2023 posted:

@absorber: "Seriously? Perhaps you should spend some time analyzing data. It's all there for you. Take a look at the metrics of 14 yo players and compare them to metrics collected at the PG National. Do you see a difference? Grades aren't given based on what the eyes see--they are based purely on data points."

Respectfully... and you know what I really mean because of how you started off your spiel...  It says right on their website that the grade is a projection of where they see the kid in the future.  And that write up of the player's performance seems an awful lot like it is based on what the PG scout's "eyes see".   

My apologies. I should not have started my reply that way.

@anotherparent posted:

I was obsessed too.  In the end I realized that the top ranked 200 players or so are ranked carefully, for the draft (those players have grades of 9.5-10). PGstaff himself, when he still posted here, admitted that.

Everyone else's rank seems to be determined by an algorithm based on the data they have on the player - FB, performance at tournaments, where committed, etc, and is completely meaningless.

I agree with much of what Absorber is saying.  But not this; paying $800 to learn how to deal with the showcase format is not justified.  There are many other places you can do that for much less money.

Everyone's journey is different and I added that for emphasis. People are going to do what they want to do so whether they pay $800 or not is completely up to them. Mileage varies!

@anotherparent posted:

Everyone else's rank seems to be determined by an algorithm based on the data they have on the player - FB, performance at tournaments, where committed, etc, and is completely meaningless.

I just want to point out again just for parents who see this in the future, I am NOT talking about rank!

Grading and ranking are two separate things.

@ABSORBER posted:

Not sure how is was 10 years ago but you don't get assigned a grade without having at least one metric. Unless you are a pitcher who gets gunned at a PG tourney, you will not have a grade without having attended a showcase.

Of course you can be ranked, but you will not have a grade.

And there are not hundreds who get graded 9.5.

As an example, there are currently 152 players in the 2024 class graded 9.5 and above:

RHP - 30

LHP - 11

C - 22

1B - 4

3B -15

MI - 39

OF -31

I asked someone high up at PG how my son got a PG score without doing a PG showcase. It was explained what he showed at PG East Cobb was noticeable enough (did everything well except hit one over the fence) that they went looking for information on him. He had a score and a rank. He had metrics from a couple of well respected, regional showcases that required scout recommendations.

But, I agree with PABaseball. The scores and rankings are meaningless. It’s about what the recruiting colleges see.

I know of a 2024 that currently has a 9 PG Grade.  He has done quite a few PG showcases.  He currently is sitting on zero D1 offers.  ZERO.

I'm not sure what that means, but it means something.

There is no doubt that in the past PG participation has helped some players. But they are in the vast minority. It’s also true that in the past Jerry Ford personally helped some players and some people on this board. That’s an even smaller minority and it is ancient history. When I joined HSBBW it was my opinion that the board was being used as a focus group by PG in order to shape public opinion and maximize profits. Personally, I thought that was disingenuous and it rubbed me the wrong way. Since Ford sold PG a couple of years ago the money grubbing has become shameful. Ranking 9u teams and players?!? Let’s see someone try to justify that! PG is a for profit business model. It is not a baseball development model. Those are facts. Once you realize that it’s much easier to figure out what part of PG, if any, will help you on your baseball journey.

Master P,

maybe that is the GPA. Did he attend the AC tryout. What is his 6th Tool?
Bob

@ABSORBER posted:

Posting to web forums is really a waster of time and I can only blame myself.

Lotta PG bashers here which is why PG himself quit wasting his time on this forum. Even though he was really helpful and would bend-over backwards to help a parent out.

I guess we can disagree on whether PG data collection and grading over the last 20+ years is any good. I'll just compare the PG grades (and ranking for top 250) to the last few MLB drafts and see where they differ. On the surface they seem pretty close to me (for prep players).

You're trying to convince a bunch of people who have been through the process, sat with coaches, have been coaches having those conversations with parents, are currently coaches, etc, that PG grades matter. They don't. There is more than enough (anecdotal of course) evidence on this board where people have asked coaches how much stock they put into rankings, ratings, etc and the answer every time is zero. In the rare cases where they do, the same coaches go and vet the kids themselves before doing anything with that information.

Coaches are not heading over to PGs site and sorting by showcase grades to see who they're going to target. They don't cross kids off their list because PG only has them as an 8 and not an 8.5. Does PG get the top of the heap right? Of course, they all play for Evoshield, Five Star, Dulins, 643, Team Elite etc. It's pretty easy to see who the top guys are when they all get together and play against each other in the playoffs, in Jupiter, etc. My guess would be the top 200 players are probably spread out across 20 or so teams - who run into each other fairly regularly.

As far as the PG bashing - this comes up every so often where people feel PG is owed a debt of gratitude. It costs money - it is not being done out of the kindness of their hearts. Is Jerry a good guy? Probably. From what I've seen around here it appears that way. Are people allowed to criticize something they feel was a bad purchase - yes. When I go to a restaurant and the food sucks, I talk about it. That's why I don't think anybody ever has the right to complain about Area Code - it's completely free.

I'm pretty pro PG. Their events have been helpful and I thought the competition was pretty good at their events. I've seen multiple #1 overall picks taking the field against us - that's pretty rare. That being said I'd never spend $800+ on a showcase to receive a number nobody cares about. If that makes me a PG basher I can live with that.