PO high academic camps

My son (2020 RHP) attended the Stanford camp but as a two-way player. It was a great experience and he loved it. It is an expensive camp and I'm not sure if I would spend the money to travel out there from the East Coast as a PO. There is some good instruction from the coaches working the camp (including pitching specific sessions), but your son may still find there is a lot of idle time. Showball has an "Academic Camp" (both East and West locations) and you may want to check that out. If your son is still uncommitted in the fall, I recommend the Senior Fall Classic in Arizona: https://azfallclassic.com/az-senior-fall-classic/. It is a highly scouted event and especially if your son can improve his velocity a touch, he should try out for the Academic Game. Please feel free to PM me if you have questions about this event.

BBMOMAZ knows what they're talking about.  To add to that post I think t it really depends on whether the specific schools your son's interested in are going to be at Stanford, and whether there will be other closer-to-home opportunities to be seen by those schools.  There is no shortage of events to be seen at, regardless of coast. The Stanford/Headfirst/Showball triad in Northern California all give good opportunities for west coast kids to be seen by east coast coaches.  I imagine that these same coaches would be at a lot of events in the east, too, like the Showball Head Coach Academic camp in July in Boston. Stanford has some bells and whistles that the other two don't have--Sunken Diamond, coaches leading drills, real umpires, and a big scoreboard that displays each player's face when they're hitting or pitching--but as far as coach participation and  player visibility I'd argue that it's not as strong an option as Headfirst and Showball.

Bottom line: It's critical to figure out which specific schools you're son is going after and go where those coaches will be.

leftymagic posted:

 As we look to summer plans for 2020, along with playing travel ball, the HeadFirst camp is definitely on the radar but my question is Stanford.   It seems like a long way to go from the East Coast as a PO.  Is this thinking correct?

IMO, you're thinking is correct. Best case, your son will have a short list of realistic schools this summer. He can be seen by those schools at HF, tournaments, and school camps during the summer, and fall if necessary.

I don't have a lot of experience with the HA, but I can say that as a PO at a camp, that's pretty much always the case.  We flew to Indiana and stayed in a hotel for 2 nights to get one inning day one and one inning day three at the futures games.  It was the best money we spent.  Then last year we flew to Phoenix to get two innings at the PG National, ended up being 6 batters and about 10 minutes ( a good thing), again, well worth it.  If you know he will be seen by the right people, I think its worth it. The adjustment to PO is a little difficult for parents and kids when you are used to being a two way,  but from now on, there is a lot of sitting and watching.

Couple of things to add:

- How is the travel coach/organization at contacting colleges and placing players?  do they have experience with HA?  that contact is likely going to be more valuable than any particular showcase.  Also, the travel coach, if honest, should be able to give you an idea of what level of schools to target.

- Your son should already have a list of schools of interest; if not, make one now.  He should email those coaches his info, coach contact, video, and especially his summer schedule NOW. He needs to do that before the summer travel season anyway, and sending it during the college baseball season is not the best time.  If they are interested, they will let him know if they will be able to see his travel team playing, or if not, what showcases they will attend; then you can decide about which showcases.  My son had some schools (D3s) say they were not attending any of the tournaments he was playing, so he had to get in front of them at camps or Headfirst; others did come see him at tournaments.  If some school of high interest says that they can only see him at Stanford, then you'll have your answer.

Traveling to Arizona or Northern Cal isn't going to be very useful given that you're from the Mid Atlantic. Sure there will be some east coast teams out there, but there are better ways to get seen by those schools than flying across the country. Ivys can recruit nationally given their academic reputations, smaller profile HA D3s really don't tend to do so. And even then, Ivy League schools will be attending events on the eastern seaboard so there really isn't a need to go that far unless you have a disposable income and want to travel. I would assume your son is looking for good schools a reasonable distance from home. Start looking up HA showcases in the surrounding states or even a further drive north, they're likely just as good anyway. 

If your son is set on HA schools, consider your travel organization as well.  Even though we are NYC area, my son played on a New England based travel team because we wanted to combine baseball trips with family visits.  He was seen/recruited by a number of HA schools because of the high concentration of them at the tournaments up there.