New PG rankings

Congratulations on your son's strong summer. IMHO I don't think rankings of any kind are a good way to lead with college coaches. It's much better to lead with his abilities and quantifiable improvements (how did he get better, bigger, faster, stronger this spring/summer?). 

@PTWood posted:

Congratulations on your son's strong summer. IMHO I don't think rankings of any kind are a good way to lead with college coaches. It's much better to lead with his abilities and quantifiable improvements (how did he get better, bigger, faster, stronger this spring/summer?). 

I am in agreement with PTWood.  I don't think that this matters much to coaches, no matter which division.  

College coaches are looking at measurables and intangibles, not rankings. Rankings are subjective.

Agree with all of the above. Rankings are nice but that’s all they are. And they are less important in D3 baseball than anywhere else. 

Grain of salt. 

It’s a list.

Scouts use lists. One list to check against another list. That’s checked against some other list. That’s then parsed by something, broken down into pieces, Joined with other data,  then put back into another list. Then the scout goes and watches those on the list. Some get crossed off the list, others moved to another list. Phone calls are made. The scout writes a report off of the players on one of the lists. The report gets submitted with other reports and a new list is formed. More phone calls are made. A guy flies in and finds the scout. “Let me see your list” he’ll say. Then he’ll compare it against his own list. Or another scout with a different colored shirt might say  “Where is he on your list?” And the scout would lie and say “He’s not on my list.” The scout with a different color shirt might smile and lie back and say “I didn’t have him on my list either.”  Or sometimes tell the truth and smile the same way “He’s on my list.”

One day, the scout will have to take his list and sit with other scouts with the same color shirt on. He will have to defend his list while other scouts defend their list. Usually a wise scout listens to all the scouts, and makes a new list. The wise scout must now take his list and travel to Jupiter for a week.

Because when a young player Inna different color shirt hits three home runs and and the scouts phone rings, he can’t say “He wasn’t on my list, Mr. GM.” Because if he does, he will no longer be involved with lists. 

2024 son did his first ever showcase in the spring. We had a good idea that he would put up some good numbers and PG gave him a good grade. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when PG updated their 2024 rankings. He was ranked by PG near the back end of the top 100. Within a week a few power 5 coaches have reached out to his HS coach and he has had a couple of calls. As much as I have mixed feelings on showcases and don't have any intentions of paying for another one, in this instance I firmly believe the top 100 PG rank and the metrics PG provides were instrumental in putting my son of these schools radar. 

@bruins11 posted:

2024 son did his first ever showcase in the spring. We had a good idea that he would put up some good numbers and PG gave him a good grade. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when PG updated their 2024 rankings. He was ranked by PG near the back end of the top 100. Within a week a few power 5 coaches have reached out to his HS coach and he has had a couple of calls. As much as I have mixed feelings on showcases and don't have any intentions of paying for another one, in this instance I firmly believe the top 100 PG rank and the metrics PG provides were instrumental in putting my son of these schools radar. 

That’s awesome for you and your son. That means you are in the % of people that benefit from the PG showcase model. Your player showed good ability, your expenses generated results, and the experience is worth every penny. That’s exactly what you hope for. But you are in the minority. Doesn’t work like this for most people. 

Congratulations @bruins11son. Super exciting times and good luck with your search. I would still say that I would not lead a communication with a college coach with a ranking. According to PG, Aaron Judge was ranked 147 coming out of HS. At one point there was literally a 200 person difference between PTWoodson's ranking with PBR and PG. Rankings are great but what you do on (and off) the field and what you do for your team is what is going to get you offers and ultimately playing time beyond high school.  

Thanks adbono and PTWood. He is excited and to be honest a little overwhelmed. This board and the great feedback from members like you guys has been extremely helpful in giving us an idea of what the recruiting process is all about and what to expect. Totally agree that one should never mention ranking when talking to a college coach. Even with all the flaws and issues with the rankings, I just wanted to highlight our experience to date and that the PG machine can be used to ones advantage in certain instances. Like you said, it all comes down to performing on the field and ultimately adding value and helping your team win.

Tell please me (someone) who has done the monthly or yearly Perfect Game Premium membership thing what the value is. I can only see that it allows you to see beyond the top 10 ranked prospects and allows you to see high follows, top players in each state (according to somebody). What else is there other than seeing game/tourney results? Thank you!

@used2lurk I don’t have it either but a friend does and sends us stuff sometimes. It gives you more access to full articles and you can do things like click on the recruiting class and see everyone’s ranking without having to drill into the player’s page (you can see someone’s ranking without it by going to their page and clicking on “awards”). I’m not sure what else...

Hi, I think the most value is if you enjoy following all this stuff, almost like a Baseball America subscription. Other than that, from a recruit standpoint, I think investing in websites like Field Level are a better recruiting bang for your buck.

I don’t think college coaches care about PG Rankings

My son became ranked by PG the day after he committed to a college.

@BaseballDad72 posted:

Hi, I think the most value is if you enjoy following all this stuff, almost like a Baseball America subscription. Other than that, from a recruit standpoint, I think investing in websites like Field Level are a better recruiting bang for your buck.

There is zero value to Field Level IMO

Thank you for the comments. Dont care a ton about the rankings other than making it a little easier to compare him to kids (as much as one can from a data/measurable pov). Son is a 2022 so time is of the essence.

1. As a fan I do enjoy these things...not knowing if its worth $250/yr but feel like a month for $30 a couple of times a year might be worthwhile.

2. Are there any sort features for measurables and other stuff? Any usable features or sorts when looking at commitments to specific schools? Wondering for research purposes as the list of schools (he skews higher academic with a 33 ACT) for my son. Figuring I would combo with college insights to potentially expand his marketing reach.

3. My kid's strongest tool at this point is his hit tool...I am biased but have also heard from people a lot smarter than me that is his ticket at this point to the next level. He is slightly above average in the field but way a way above average hitter. He is 6'4"/190 with pop and does not strike out a lot. He loves catching but also plays the corner IF spots and is probably not fast enough to play corner OF (yet?) as he only has a 7.19 60 at this point. I imagine by the time he is in college he could be sub 7.0 but will probably never be a sub 6.6 human.

All the above has made me try to figure out if there are schools we may not have considered or if there are some that we might need to eliminate. All we have during the blackout period is eat, lift, train, sleep, repeat with some reaching out to schools to simply be on there list to check out later this spring/summer.

Thanks for everyones help!  

Hi:

I used PG often to track high academic schools past commits to see how my sons measurable stacked up. He is a pitcher. PG is more useful and has value from that perspective as it has a lot of info in one place.

Sounds like your son and mine are similar academically. The advice I would give you is keep an open mind. WE targeted Ivies first but as RHP you need to be cruising upper 80s minimum or a sidearm/unique guy to get a sniff mostly so we pivoted to DIIIs with great academics.

My son wound up getting an Early decision slot at a top 15 academic DIII in Iowa with great facilities. It’s the perfect fit and was never on our radar until later this past summer. Also received merit money.

Unless your kid is a stud, be open to DIII. Make sure he’s in a travel program with connections. Do a Showball showcase or two. I even saw several kids in our state that almost certainly had DI offers go high academic DIII instead.

But most of all be open minded especially in this weird situation. DI is awesome-I pitched at a DI a million years ago-but its not so awesome for kids that never play and can’t explore anything else because baseball is all consuming.

Good luck. PM me if you have questions about specific schools. My kid just went through the process as a 2021 during the dead period and I’m shocked it worked out for him given the circumstances.

Unfortunately, I think the pandemic has temporarily made PG, PBR, and PW more important.  College coaches trying to recruit have not been able to see players in person for about a year now.  They’ve had to recruit solely based on video, rankings and reports from these organizations, and conversations with HS and travel ball coaches.  

Under normal circumstances, College coaches trust their eyes and not another organization’s ranking.  But these are weird times.

For the same reasons, a case can be made for some kids to do a showcase or two this year to give those coaches another data point. Especially if the travel ball coach is unable or unwilling to give a strong recommendation to the kid’s target schools.

I often wonder what my son would have scored on a PG showcase. I’m betting fairly low or whatever they give for the lesser projectable participants. I can only go by the way they covered him during HS and the words they used/ didn’t use the few times he got any press. I’ve said it previously, as an uneducated Dad at the time I received my son’s invite or my invite to pay and I scoffed at it. $600 what, huh?!?!? Anyway, I saw plenty of friends and Dads taking their sons to them and I was blown away with some of the scoring and I couldn’t comport the correlations. Some were studs and obvious 10s and MLB bound.

I believe they can be helpful for annual benchmarks and personal goals.  I guess it could get you connected. It felt like “the thing to do” back then. We (since the cost of college was our part & son’s education was basically free) got lucky without any PG grade.

Then again, my son’s “bio” in college wasn’t littered with every accolade from “becoming a webelos” to “helping an old lady cross the street” either. Those amuse me.

Sorry, I’ve got to run and go yell at these kids to get off my lawn!