I just got down with the book "play their hearts out". I went onto the pbr website to check out a potential showcase for my son. They had a couple, one was for $250 and one was $290! What the heck? That's a ton of money.
IDK.
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@Dadof3 posted:I just got down with the book "play their hearts out". I went onto the pbr website to check out a potential showcase for my son. They had a couple, one was for $250 and one was $290! What the heck? That's a ton of money.
IDK.
PBR is actually one of the affordable showcases. PG upped the cost of their showcases over this past few months. I believe they are up to $769 now.
Baseball Factory is another affordable alternative. I believe their low tier offering is like $100.
I've never signed up my son for a PBR/PG Showcase. Deep down I'm hoping he will find a place at the next level just to tell people that it's possible without supporting the big huge industry that it has become. I plan to sign him up for a Gametime Showcase and directly to the camps of schools.
Seth used to go to these free if he agreed to catch. Yes he is a SS/ pitcher!
PBR-PA does a very good job with their Preseason ID events, adding tech and pushing out a lot on social media. These PBR-PA indoor winter events have attracted more and more players in the 8th-10th grades each year; that said they, they have raised their prices each year for the past three years. My son has attended a couple PBR-PA events - I recommend (if the player is prepared to show well). The good summer travel orgs will partner with PBR-PA to run their own in-house "scout day" for their players, less costly than the retail PBR pricing. PBR is still a fraction of the cost that a PG Showcase costs - my son has never attended a PG showcase.
The advertised point of PG and PBR showcases is to post measurable numbers online, verified by a reputable source. Rule of thumb is "don't showcase until you have something to show" meaning a number (fastball, 60 time, exit velo) that might attract the interest of a college coach, or to verify independently what the travel coach is telling them.
Don't get sucked into the trap of doing these showcases early to "document progress." All colleges care about is where you are when they are recruiting you. If you do them early, you then feel you have to keep doing them to improve the numbers. It's a total trap.
My son, who is at a D3, never did a PG showcase. He did do several PBR showcases, most of which were a waste of money and time. The only one that was useful was the one right after his junior HS season (early May) which had all the local college coaches, juco to D1, attending, which was very useful for 17U recruiting.
@Dadof3 posted:I just got down with the book "play their hearts out". I went onto the pbr website to check out a potential showcase for my son. They had a couple, one was for $250 and one was $290! What the heck? That's a ton of money.
IDK.
Under $300 for a showcase is extremely inexpensive. Thirteen years ago I paid $250 and $700 for two showcases. PG showcases were $700+.
@Momball11 posted:I've never signed up my son for a PBR/PG Showcase. Deep down I'm hoping he will find a place at the next level just to tell people that it's possible without supporting the big huge industry that it has become. I plan to sign him up for a Gametime Showcase and directly to the camps of schools.
What your son and any player needs who isn’t a top shelf, high draft pick stud out of high school needs is an advocate to presell him to college coaches heading into events.
I would credit PBR with a lot of my son’s recruitment. They were great for us. He did one fall of freshman year. The Futures games, and the Super 60. Well worth the money for us. The first one was small but still had multiple RCs. Futures had over 150 coaches on 2 fields, the 60 was full of scouts.
@RJM posted:What your son and any player needs who isn’t a top shelf, high draft pick stud out of high school needs is an advocate to presell him to college coaches heading into events.
Son has someone that is advocating on his behalf. I would imagine advocates are more effective if they've been in the business longer, as they've had more time to demonstrae their "eye" for quality ball players and also build up their network of contacts. Son's current advocate is on the younger side, so son is working to expand his advocates list without having to hire a professional service.
@Momball11 posted:I've never signed up my son for a PBR/PG Showcase. Deep down I'm hoping he will find a place at the next level just to tell people that it's possible without supporting the big huge industry that it has become. I plan to sign him up for a Gametime Showcase and directly to the camps of schools.
What coaches from which schools attend Gametime Showcases?
My son was a 2014, and PBR wasn't on my radar in Houston Texas, but if they were I might have bit at $250. For us it was all PG, we did tournaments so his metrics were captured but I thought the $500+ bucks for a showcase video was too much.
I've watched a lot of the PBR pushed media content selling uncommitted players and the quality has been excellent (the production, not always the content).
Being out of it so long, I'm not sure what the $250-$290 buys you - Is it this playing in front of invited college scouting with captured metrics or do you get some social media content to forward to schools and help with promoting?
I looked back and we did 5 PG tournaments over my kids HS years - the primary reason was that he liked playing in them and he liked seeing his metrics. I will say, I was late to the game in helping my son find a place to play after HS, but every coach I spoke to pulled up his PG page.
Good luck, and have fun!
Interesting. When I looked at the attendees from a year or two ago and where the commits are, I don't see many school names that I recognize. Lots of d3 commits maybe some d2s. Very few d1. Maybe just a fluke. This is PBR - PA
@baseballhs posted:I would credit PBR with a lot of my son’s recruitment. They were great for us. He did one fall of freshman year. The Futures games, and the Super 60. Well worth the money for us. The first one was small but still had multiple RCs. Futures had over 150 coaches on 2 fields, the 60 was full of scouts.
I also credit PBR Texas with getting some of the exposure my son got his freshman year. After doing pretty well at the PG 14u National over the summer before his freshman year, he went and did a PBR event shortly after in the fall They posted a bunch of video of him on their social media platforms. The head guy even started to communicate directly with my son and built a relationship with him. He received a couple of the "this coach wants you to call him" messages from the PBR team shortly after.
I think they have done a great job over the past 4 years of pushing kids and getting them some exposure. My son has also maintained a pretty good relationship with the PBR team.
@Dadof3 posted:Interesting. When I looked at the attendees from a year or two ago and where the commits are, I don't see many school names that I recognize. Lots of d3 commits maybe some d2s. Very few d1. Maybe just a fluke. This is PBR - PA
Attendees from the Futures will be tons of D1.
@ARCEKU21 posted:I also credit PBR Texas with getting some of the exposure my son got his freshman year. After doing pretty well at the PG 14u National over the summer before his freshman year, he went and did a PBR event shortly after in the fall They posted a bunch of video of him on their social media platforms. The head guy even started to communicate directly with my son and built a relationship with him. He received a couple of the "this coach wants you to call him" messages from the PBR team shortly after.
I think they have done a great job over the past 4 years of pushing kids and getting them some exposure. My son has also maintained a pretty good relationship with the PBR team.
good info, ty
@TPM posted:What coaches from which schools attend Gametime Showcases?
I can't speak from personal experience as son has yet to attend one. Reviews seem to be positive and the schools tend to be within range of the location it is held. You can view past locations and schools that attended on their twitter page @GameTimeRecruit
People get caught up in the social media presence PBR has. The more kids they are pushing on their twitter, the more coaches tune it out. If every Joe and John has their 82mph fastball on the twitter feed it essentially becomes another email in their inbox that they breeze past.
The coaches that liked and followed mine on twitter after PBR posted was because they had that tweet passed along to them. No different than a travel coach or a baseball guy advocating on your behalf.
In looking at the social media for PBR in my state, it's almost entirely commitments, rankings, and upcoming events.
If you want to do PBR do it because it's a good, mostly affordable way to get your velocity measured or get some swings on film. Don't do it expecting their tweet to get you an offer.
PBR is not much different than PG. They are just in the earlier stages, give it 4/5 years. Showcases will be in the $600 range.
I just talked to a guy who knows some coaches and he said that they mentioned they used to look at it but more and more coaches don't
When my son did his first PBR, the director introduced himself after. The camp we went to the next week, the coach came over and started talking to my son and told him the PBR director had told him about my son from the week before (not the same state). We got a tour, sat down with the coach, and started weekly calls. Well worth the $250.
BTW, 3 guys at that little PBR event are all at the same P5 school.
First, you need to distinguish between showcases vs. tournaments where numbers are recorded. Then you need to distinguish between players who are D1 no-doubters vs. players on the fringe. Some of the people who have posted here have P5 players, their experiences are very different from players who are throwing 80 mph as sophomores.
In our state (and I think many), PBR serves both as a data-collecting service through its showcases, and also as a regional scouting service. PBR identifies top players, whether or not they do their showcases; they also publish data about anyone who pays for a showcase. These are not necessarily the same thing! So, it's not surprising to me that you see many non-D1 showcase participants. On the other hand, PBR's Futures Games (with teams selected by the state PBR) are a high-level recruiting showcase tournament.
If you have high-level skills and show up at a random showcase, you will see results. If you don't, your showcase fees are paying for the scouting of others. See this post from the founder of PG, which includes, "If your son has talent you will be very happy you attended. If your son lacks talent, you will be throwing your money out the window.": https://community.hsbaseballwe...035#9740668003950035.
To get recruited, a college coach has to become interested. How does this happen? Could be the player sends an email with metrics (verified with PBR or PG) and link to video. Could be because summer/travel coach tells the college coach about you. Could be from seeing a player play, either in a tournament or at a showcase, or at their camp. If you go to a showcase with coaches present (e.g. Headfirst, some PBRs) then they will see you and get all your numbers. If you only play in a tournament, they may look your numbers up on PG or PBR. If you only do showcases with no coaches watching, your numbers will be available to verify what you or your travel coach says.
@Momball11 posted:Son has someone that is advocating on his behalf. I would imagine advocates are more effective if they've been in the business longer, as they've had more time to demonstrae their "eye" for quality ball players and also build up their network of contacts. Son's current advocate is on the younger side, so son is working to expand his advocates list without having to hire a professional service.
Professional services mostly throw spaghetti off the wall to see what sticks. It’s not the way to go.
My son did his first PBR this past October, as a Jr. He did well, ended up on PBR top performers lists with a write up, got ranked, and was posted all over social media by PBR. It was $250, the exposure was well worth it. They did Vizual Edge testing, vertical jump, the 60, hitting BP with exit velo & full HitTrax data, IF/OF with throwing velo, and provided a video with hitting/fielding/60.
My son wanted to improve his numbers, he'd played 2 games the day before the showcase & was sore when he did the showcase, so we started at looking at winter events. I got an email from PBR in November with a black friday 20% off code for any showcase, so we signed up for a local preseason ID event in Feb, which was $200 with the code. Shortly after, my son got an invite to the PBR All State invite-only showcase, based on his earlier numbers. This one was $300, but PBR let us switch events without charging extra.
The All State event has 6 D1 commits listed on the attendees roster, 5 of them are P5. I'm assuming those guys are looking for backup plans if their commitments fall through.
PBR has been very beneficial for my son and its MUCH cheaper than PG. My son's club hosts an event with PBR so they just include that in the yearly fees. My son thought the Futures game was a great experience, even if he pitched awful. lol
@baseballhs posted:When my son did his first PBR, the director introduced himself after. The camp we went to the next week, the coach came over and started talking to my son and told him the PBR director had told him about my son from the week before (not the same state). We got a tour, sat down with the coach, and started weekly calls. Well worth the $250.
BTW, 3 guys at that little PBR event are all at the same P5 school.
Toby Bicknell was the Texas PBR Director back then, right? He is not the norm. Bick was a former college coach at the time and is back in college coaching now. He has a ton of credibility and his word got the attention of college coaches. I would contend that he had something to do with what happened. It’s very unusual for any of the PBR/PG/V Tool guys to have that level of respect in the baseball community. In fact I couldn’t name any current scouting service person that does. Very few of them have the clout that parents/players perceive that they do. But your story does point out how things happen by word of mouth more than posting measurables.
Yes, it was Toby. Good guy. Coached him at the Futures as well. Phil Haig came in his senior year.
@baseballhs posted:Yes, it was Toby. Good guy. Coached him at the Futures as well. Phil Haig came in his senior year.
Agree. Great guy and really knowledgeable baseball person
Bicknell, also a former Driveline guy, is Robert Woodard's (Prepster's son) Associate Head Coach at UNC Charlotte.
Excellent coaches and program.
My son started PBR events as an 8th grader....more to just get out of small town NW Ohio and see some "big boys" than to get numbers/recruited (he was probably 5'4 and maybe 100 at the time). Did maybe a dozen of them over the next 3 years. Some were as little as $100 (winter indoor events). Made a lot of connections. Ended up meeting the head of one of the top travel orgs in the state when he was 12. That led to quite a few chances to sub on some of their teams if they needed someone last minute. Son was always happy to make a 3 hour trip...even if it was only for 1 game lol. Between PBR and the connections we made thru some of their events, is what ended up getting him offered, as the RC first saw him at one of their events.
We have been very happy with the PBR showcases we have been to, and as someone else mentioned, the local travel/club teams have started partnering with PBR to do a yearly discounted showcase. This is in the Kansas City area, and at this point, pretty much all of the big name clubs are doing their own PBR showcase. For us, it was a good chance to just see what was out there, just to see where he measured up. Son is signed up for the February preseason ID, opted to not do the club event in October, as he felt he wasnt in the best shape. Just cant justify the $760 for Perfect Game, when we seem to be getting the same data/video/metrics from PBR at a third of the price. What I like about both of these orgs is that they post the results of the events, and I would tell anyone, find a local coach with a pocket radar, and make an effort to get these results yourself. If you arent seeing numbers that put you in the top 20% or so, might want to consider spending that money on a trainer or gym membership.
I like the PBR showcase a lot more than PG (primarily bec of the price). However, we did the January pre season all state ID in LakePoint 2 years ago and regretted it. They do it outdoors and it's too cold plus you are also typically not in peak season form at that time. I feel like we wasted money and have to do another PBR showcase later on just to get better numbers that more accurately reflects my son's ability.
If you do PG showcase, opt for the WWBA workouts - much cheaper.
Thanks good info