Intangibles

Unfortunately showcases do not measure intangibles they measure performance - for one very brief period of time. Sometimes a player performs well and sometimes not. Frankly work ethic IMO is not an intangible, and is frankly very tangible. It is the most important thing for a player, because if he works hard then his preparation will give him the best opportunity for success. Best of luck to Juggler Jr and if he prepares himself than he can walk on the field and be loose and have fun and he will do just fine!

Good luck to your son at his first showcase. That is very exciting stuff.

My definition of intangible is someone who has the ability to make everyone around him better on the field or in the dugout. It can't be measured, but the coaches know it is there. By my definitiion, it could only be someone already on the team.

As BOF says, showcases are not the place to measure intangibles. Showcases are all about metrics of some form or another. Stopwatches, radar guns and many keen eyes. Some schools will even want to know GPA, SATs, etc. So it is a lot of numbers, and frankly you get used to it.

BTW there is a way that MLB teams can measure fielding range. I saw them talking about it on MLB network. It is a computerized visual rendering system but I can't remember the acronym.

Good luck at have fun at your showcase!

Intangibles to me are a measure of Heart, Desire, and an ability to seem to have an understanding of the game that is hard to explain. Knowing where the play is without thinking about it...

A play develops from a multitude of variables, where a ball is hit, how hard, where the runners are, where your fellow defenders are...to view all this as it is developing and unfolding and make the correct play in a split second to me is an intangible.

you cannot measure intangibles they only become known and rewarded after a coach watches a player over and over again.

Tell you player to have FUN and when he walks on that field after Christmas tell him to carry himself at all times as if he KNOWS he BELONGS.

GL

quote:

Originally posted by bothsportsdad:
you cannot measure intangibles they only become known and rewarded after a coach watches a player over and over again.

Players are not awarded scholarships because of their intangibles. These may be secondary things that are considered, after the players talent, skill and GPA. However, these are also things that once a coach really gets to know a player, allows him to get his scholarship renewed yearly.

In pro ball intangibles may be a consideration if someone is going to give you a nice bonus check. They usually don't care about your mojo, or if you bring chemistry and you better hit when you get the opportunity. I don't consider work ethic an intangible either, intangibles are something you can't see, those that work hard have that hard work pay off, it's seen in one's performance.

Don't worry about this stuff, just go out and let your son do his thing, work hard and have fun and everything will fall into place when the time is right.

quote:

Originally posted by Juggler:
My son is preparing for his first showcase, just after Christmas. He's excited! We've given him the reality check, however. He's young, he's short, hits line drives, not bombs; and right now he might break a 7.0 60 if he gets a good warm up. He'e been very successful, but now comes the reality of baseball. There's no way to measure the intangibles. Even some skills, like range, aren't measurable.
Here's the challenge - if you could measure them, what would be your top intangibles, and how would you prioritize them?
Mine:
work ethic
mojo
lifts the team
situational hitter
instincts - can take advantage of opponents mental errors

Please jump in!

Juggler you basically hit "intangibles" on the head, imho.

"Makeup" is a very strong intangible to have IMO. David Eckstein never had great physical tools, but he certainly shows the makeup in HS, college and MLB.

At a showcase your looking for tools. The measureables if you will.
Speed.
Arm strength.
Ability to hit.
Ability to hit for power.
Athletic ability.
Fielding actions, arm actions while fielding.

You can have all the intangibles that are needed but without showing the tools above it wont matter. You can have a 4.0 and be the All American kid but without the ability to display the tools needed or required to play the game at the level the coach that is watching you needs it wont matter.

Once you have displayed the tools or a tool that get the coached interested he will bore in on the intangibles. If not he will never look that far.

Some kids are fringe tools players but the intangibles are off the charts and that can many times make the difference.

Showcase events are for iding tools. Then those players that display those tools are followed by actually watching them play and "Can he take those tools to a game with him and actually use them?" And then "Does he have the intangibles."

Good luck to your son.

David Eckstein can flat out play the game. He may not have eye popping physical tools but the fact is he can flat out play. And he has all the intangibles you would want in a player.

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:
Players are not awarded scholarships because of their intangibles.

With all due respect, I disagree. If I had a dollar for every Recruiting Coordinator or HC that talked about a particular player who, "somehow, gets the job done" or "he just barrels it up, somehow" or any number of other combinations of the same thing, I'd be rich.

Usually, these intangibles = production! Good Luck to your son.

GED10DaD

Gun I agree with your statement because I have seen it as well. But that player has "just enough" talent for those intangibles to come into play. There is a level of ability that has to be there outside of those intangibles before the intangibles come into play. I think you will agree with that.

All of this comes into play, can be evaluated, and will impact your VALUE to a particular program.

GED10DaD

quote:

Usually, these intangibles = production!

BINGO!

Work ethic is great but without talent work ethic can be futile. One can have the desire to reach the top but desire alone won't get you there. Do coaches and recruiters look at the intangibles --- I'm sure they do but it's talent and production that drew their attention. It's impossible to make chicken salad out of chicken .........

On the other hand we all love to hear of the underdog that worked and worked until one day it all fell into place.... but those stories are few and far between..... they do happen but they're one in a thousand. I've told the story many times of my son's HS teammate, Drew Sutton (Astros, Cincinnati, Cleveland and now Boston) that would not quit. No D-1 offers out of HS so he went the JUCO route. I knew in high school that someday he would play MLB. From JUCO to Baylor, from Baylor to the pros. Talented? Yes, but not extremely talented. I would call him more capable than talented....but absolutely consumed with baseball.
We need to be careful of expecting great things to happen based on intangibles.
Fungo

While intangibles can't be quantified with a tape measure of radar gun, they are noticed. Coaches notice who's focused. They notice who's fundamentally sound even if they don't excel. They notice how a player reacts to success and failure. The player still needs to be talented. But intangibles may get him the offer over another equally talented player.

#1 David Eckstein had/has ++ hands and ++ speed so can we all (baseball fans) stop talking like he doesn't have any tools just because he plays hard. You DO NOT get the opportunity to play at Florida (invited walk-on or scholarship player) unless you have major tools as a HS player adn you do not get a chance to play professionally unless you have major tools. Those are the facts.

#2
Coach May is dead-on right, Coaches won't worry about character, intagibles, etc until they've measured everything that they can measure (speed, hands, arm, etc, etc, etc).

#3
Coaches who constantly talk about the players intagibles do their players a disservice if they have "tangibles" that is what college coaches need to see 1st.

#4
Similar to #1....let's get away from the mindset that the incredibly talented players do not have the intagibles. You will find as you get older in baseball, the better players are generally the harder workers. There is a reason they are better!

Juggler...Don't get caught up in sons height. We worried about that for my son for a few years. We even had several of his Coaches tell us that he was D1 material, but would never see it because he was too short for a pitcher. Much to their shock he has commited to a highly ranked D1 program. Infact, he was being recruited by Bama and Kyle Bunn stated that his go to man was only 5'6. My son being 5'10 seems tall now. Both the players that won MVP in Ft. Myers were only 5'9 and 5'10. You can tell in T-ball which kid has it naturally and who doesn't. It is all about what they do with it as they continue down the path. Some of the players that dominated early because of size and strength are bench warmers in high school. It was just not in their heart and soul to keep digging and want it! You must have talent and all the tangibles to make it with alot of hunger to get it. Another poster mentioned grades....funny not one school that offerred my son ever asked for grades nor transcripts. They never even asked if he had taken the ACT. Thank goodness he is a qualifier, but this really confused us since all we have been told is that would be a deciding factor in recruiting. Good Luck to your son at the showcase and do not blink an eye at his height. Only focus on what he can control and improve.

Showcases are about ability and does your son have a skill or two that really stands out. If a coaches sees something they will contact you. I think one thing to remember is that all coaches are looking for different holes to fill in their rosters. The intangibles are great, but if he does not have the ability the door will close.

If I had to select an intangible it would be Leadership! No doubt...

Lastly, your son must have the grades!


Good luck
Lefty

This is great! Thanks for the encouragement, everyone.
We'll see where Juggler Jr. ends up. He knows this showcase will give him a great experience at the very least. No pressure.
I just know my kid. No one would notice him standing in line. But somehow, when he plays, he becomes bigger than himself in every way. Size becomes irrelevant...because he produces! Being an mif, however, you never know when you're going to get that ball hit near you where you can really show your range, or if you'll get the steal sign so you can show baserunning speed - not just "clocked speed." I'm into the "Moneyball" type of stats - production stats; not the ones that separate the "haves" from the "have-nots." I'm guessing that Eckstein, Pedroia, Kinsler - none of them would have garnered much attention until they had a chance to play over a period of time - IMHO. This is what talented "have nots" have to face - they may never get that opportunity. And if they do, they better make the most of it.
I don't know, I still stand by "work ethic" as an intangible. It rubs off on your teammates - especially when combined with talent. They want to know why you're beating them in every stat. Pretty soon, they develop a work ethic too. Anything that causes the team to rise above its individual components, to me, is an intangible.
Thanks for a great intro to hs baseball web. This is going to be fun. I've found some people that speak my language!

quote:

Originally posted by Fungo:
I knew in high school that someday he would play MLB. From JUCO to Baylor, from Baylor to the pros. Talented? Yes, but not extremely talented. I would call him more capable than talented....but absolutely consumed with baseball.
We need to be careful of expecting great things to happen based on intangibles.

Fungo - perhaps we can jazz this thread up a bit. I'll ask in advance that you provide a more detailed response because there appears to be some contradiction or ambiguity here.

Is someone like Drew Sutton Ken Griffey Jr. or Josh Hamilton talented? Of course not, but then again nobody else is either. Billy Ripken told the story about how fans used to heckle him. They used to tell him he wasn't close to being as good as his brother. He said he would retort back by saying "That is no insult - nobody else is as good as him either!"

What's my point here...

I think we need to be careful saying people like Sutton (e.g., grinders, blue-collar types, dirt eaters, hard-nosed players, low rounders, etc.) aren't as talented. In order to ever appear in a big league lineup, a player has to be scouted by hundreds if not thousands of eyes. A plethora of people need to sign-off in other words. They would never sign-off imho unless that player warranted it and that defacto makes them "very" talented imho. Perhaps I misunderstood your point which I am eminently capable of doing

Seen a lot of players get into MLB by luck and then remain due to intangibles, not because they were necessarily more talented than anyone else.

I think what Fungo is saying is that intangibles are important, but don't rely on these things soley as being the key to success.

Totally agree with TPM....hear me out on this one.

This might sound crazy, but it seems to me like the media really goes out of their way to promote the small white player as "s******" and overachieving and calls similar players of other races as "talented"...happens in all major sports, if you think about it nearly every small white-guy who tries hard is labled as an "over-achiever" I think it is offensive to their ability.

Someone earlier mentioned Ian Kinsler and Dustin Pedroia...both of these guys signed and played at Arizona State, they do not sign players who are low on the talent scale. In fact when Kinsler got moved to 2B, he transferred to Texas. It's hard to say those guys who played on two of the top d1 programs aren't major talent guys...

A guy with talent can get a boost from the intagibles, a guy wihtout it can't. HOWEVER, those intagibles will lead to a very succesful life.

Full disclosure: I am a white guy who had very little talent so I guess I always wanted to believe that I could overcome that with intagibles, but talent comes 1st (why my career ended early!!!)

not sure why s-c-r-a-p-p-y is a bad word.

Most important intangible is that he makes everyone better around him. some players are good, but their teammates could care less. others when they take the mound or come up to bat give their team a real chance.

Work on speed for your son with a local track coach or fitness guru. little things can increase his speed. I hope you have him using cords for arm strength and he is on a throwing program. Short but fast with a good arm (and a good work ethic) will work in any program.

quote:

Originally posted by Juggler:
My son is preparing for his first showcase, just after Christmas. He's excited! We've given him the reality check, however. He's young, he's short, hits line drives, not bombs; and right now he might break a 7.0 60 if he gets a good warm up. He'e been very successful, but now comes the reality of baseball. There's no way to measure the intangibles. Even some skills, like range, aren't measurable.
Here's the challenge - if you could measure them, what would be your top intangibles, and how would you prioritize them?
Mine:
work ethic
mojo
lifts the team
situational hitter
instincts - can take advantage of opponents mental errors

Please jump in!

As others have said, showcases cannot measure intangibles, nor will scholarship offers be made based on them.
That said, his preparation before a game, and even before pitching/hitting can be noticed by coaches. So if he is the type who puts in extra effort, some coaches might notice. Let me give you a couple examples.
An outfielder who takes a ball in warm ups and throws it against the wall/fence to see how it bounces off. Him measuring how many steps he has after hitting the warning track before he reaches the wall. A pitcher who independently goes through an extensive pregame warm up without a ball prior to his start.

As to some of the things you mentioned, if he is a hoo-rah type of kid who tries to motivate his teammates or lift them up if they faltered, a coach will notice. Again that alone will not equate into an offer if the talent is not there, but it could make a difference if there are two guys and one spot. Just as coaches look to see if a kid hits the water cooler after striking out, they also see positive attributes outside the lines as well.

My son is a 6' 180lb lefty with a mid 80's fb, slurve & cu. Not a large presence on the mound in stature and we were unsure of what schools would recruit him a year ago but he ended up being recruited by several med size D-1's and a couple SEC schools. The one word that I heard from every single coach was "competitor". He competes from the first pitch to the last no matter what, good or bad. Positive attitude even when he's in trouble. Doesn't let hits, walks, errors, bad calls,etc.affect his next pitch. Even if he does get frustrated, he does not let it show.

While competitiveness is a hard thing to demonstrate at a showcase it counts for a ton in games. Where he got recruited from was HS games and travel ball. We spent a lot of money in a few showcases but if we had to do it over we would ditch most showcases put on by private groups and attend more larger college camps where a lot of coaches from other schools work it as well. Earlier on as a freshman and sophmore he got a lot of attention by paying a couple hundred to attend Carolina's(SC)2 day pitching/catching camp with half the college coaches in the state working it. Got a lot more mileage out of doing that then being limited to 10 pitches, two rounds of bp and a 60.

quote:

Originally posted by bsballfan:
not sure why s-c-r-a-p-p-y is a bad word.

Well for one, your just one letter away from being...... My limited experience with s****** has been this. A player,typically a coaches son who gets to play over another who has more skills. Under the pretense that scrappinest combined with opportunity will eventually evolve into talent to the detriment of another player(s)

quote:

Originally posted by bsballfan:
not sure why s-c-r-a-p-p-y is a bad word.

The man who started this great website wanted to limit certain words from appearing and I think that was a good idea. The automated word censor is not perfect - obviously. The word he tried to prevent was cr-ap which unfortunately appears within the word scr-ap. Now that you know of this particular anomoly, please use the hyphenated form for scr-ap in the future. Thanks!

Relatively speaking, the lower the level of play the more "pure" talent carries a player. Some very talented players are tolerated, regardless of their character, (lack of) hustle, teamwork, work ethic, etc..etc. As the level of play increases, talent is less important, all the players have talent!

What separates, or elevates, a certain player over the other? The intangibles.

Just sayin'. GED10DaD

quote:

Originally posted by WinBuc44:
My son is a 6' 180lb lefty with a mid 80's fb, slurve & cu. Not a large presence on the mound in stature and we were unsure of what schools would recruit him a year ago but he ended up being recruited by several med size D-1's and a couple SEC schools. The one word that I heard from every single coach was "competitor". He competes from the first pitch to the last no matter what, good or bad. Positive attitude even when he's in trouble. Doesn't let hits, walks, errors, bad calls,etc.affect his next pitch. Even if he does get frustrated, he does not let it show.

While competitiveness is a hard thing to demonstrate at a showcase it counts for a ton in games. Where he got recruited from was HS games and travel ball. We spent a lot of money in a few showcases but if we had to do it over we would ditch most showcases put on by private groups and attend more larger college camps where a lot of coaches from other schools work it as well. Earlier on as a freshman and sophmore he got a lot of attention by paying a couple hundred to attend Carolina's(SC)2 day pitching/catching camp with half the college coaches in the state working it. Got a lot more mileage out of doing that then being limited to 10 pitches, two rounds of bp and a 60.

This is a great example....if they like your talent they will LOVE your competitivenss....if you lack talent they'll move on.

Similar to a Dr. with great bed-side manner....it's great and all but I want to be sure he can perform the surgery before I worry about that.