Richmond Braves 2012 First Verbal

Wow, you must be really good. What high school do you play for? Congratulations!

A verbal for a player who hasn't even played a game as a Sophomore yet. Wow.

......apparently this is getting more and more like Basketball. The kid is going to have a 2 year engagement before he can even sign that letter of intent.

In any event - Congratulations Joe!!

Not me Longtoss, it's a player for the team my son is on. He's from Pennsylvania. From what I understand, he started at 2B for his HS tam and had six homeruns. I know he is on the Perfect Game High Follow List for 2012's.

JMO - You are right ! I'm starting to see more and more 2012's with verbals and they are all D1 Big Schools.

Bucktail,

Is this a kid the Braves just picked up at tryouts this fall?

Congrats, Joe. He played for Allstar Baseball Academy last year, out of PA.

I've never been one to criticize early commits, but wow, I never thought I'd see kids committing in the fall of their SOPHOMORE years!

Especially to UGA. Someone should tell that kid to run a search on UGA threads on this site. There is some "must reading" here about UGA.

Sorry if that is rain on the parade, but there are some worrisome points about this that I pray he has considered and was fully aware of before he committed.

He hasn't really committed yet. He doesn't have to go to UGA. He still has plenty of time to change his mind especially because he is only a sophomore

I'm sorry, we go through a thread like this every other month. If a "verbal commitment" in baseball for a sophmore doesn't constitute a real, especially honest commitment, then why even bring it up? With the proliferation of these "commitments" that I have seen over the last couple of years from underclassmen, I would love to see the end game of whether or not they actually wound up at their committed institutions.

Redbird - Evidently he is because when I got the alert on my phone from the Braves Site, I thought, "who is Joe Decarlo" ? My son Tyler has played for Coach Roberts for the last two years and I had never heard of Joe. Happy to have him join the Braves for the upcoming season though.

Midlo - I agree. I'm thinking that when a school's name shows up next to your name on the PG Crosschecker or any other site, you will not hear from some schools that would have been interested in you. I know I'm seeng more and more of them on the PG site in the 2012's. As for Tyler, we will wait. He has heard from about two dozen schools and we have filled out and returned the questionnaires along with his Bio and Video. I feel we have plenty of time to make decisions.

Grasscutter - You bring up a good point about the "verbal commitment" topic. I do think it is worth posting though. I would love togo back and ry to figure out where the players actually ended up. That would be an interesting and very informative set of data to look at.

Commitment changes are very, very rare, though they do happen. For a sophomore, it might happen if, e.g., his grades or SAT's never materialized. But it can also happen if his performance on the field the next two years doesn't measure up, and UGA has a well earned reputation for being one of the more ruthless in that department, even to the point of asking incoming frosh to go JuCo within a week or so of their planned arrivals on campus.

I have never heard of one program "snaking" a commit away from another school. There's nothing to keep it from happening other than an unspoken code of honor, so I'm sure it does happen but again, it must be very very rare because I've never actually known of it happening.

In the case of someone good enough to get an SEC commitment this early on, I would think the real question is more likely to come with the pro draft. I suspect that if you really research it, you'll find that the issue isn't whether a commitment is kept or switched elsewhere, it's whether it's forgotten in favor of a pro contract.

I have seen colleges pull commitments over behavior issues, in fact Wake pulled a signed NLI on a kid last spring, right at the end of May of his HS senior season, after a couple of disciplinary issues including a DUI. There was a much-discussed situation 2 years ago involving another kid caught with marijuana. And you'll get 1-2 kids a year who bypass a D-1 commitment to go JuCo, sometimes for academic reasons, sometimes as a draft/pro signing strategy move. But I cannot recall more than one or two instances where someone just flat out changed their mind on one side or the other.

Thanks Midlo. As usual you have posted some solid information. I always enjoy reading what you have to say.

So, as for a Sophmore who is getting a lot of attention at this point, what would your advice be?
Tyler is currently in winter training. Mondays & Wednesdays - Weightlifting right after school. Hitting at night. Tuesdays & Thusdays - Pitcher Conditioning, Running, Core Work and Long Toss. Fridays - OFF. Saturday - Pitching Mechanics and a Good Bullpen at my Facility. Sundays - Hitting with his instructor and later in the day on Sunday a few buckets of groundballs in the facility working on his fielding and footwork.

On the recruiting end, he continues to fill out and mail the Questionnaires he receives and follows them up with his Bio Packet and Video.
He will once again play with the Richmond Braves 2012's this year with their normal heavy schedule of College Showcase visits as well as Perfect Game/WWBA Tournaments.

On the Academic side he has very high grades and takes all AP Courses.

I think we are on the right track but it's always nice to hear from someone who has successfully been through the process. Any advice would be extremely helpful and appreciated.

Seems like a HUGE decision for a 15 year old boy to make--- just think ther kid hasnt even learned to drive a car yet!
I have heard people say things like "thats the only college he was interested in"....how does one know that at 15?
There has to be some connection to Georgia with the family- maybe they are from there?

Verbal as a Sophomore? What does that mean? Did he say "Hello" to a UGA scout? I thought colleges couldn't talk to you until Sept. of your Junior year?

Colleges can "talk" to you at any time if you're on their campus for a camp, etc. Most of these kinds of early commits come that way.

As for when you can start being actively recruited, that's July 1 after your Junior year. And take it from one who's been through it recently, July 1 first thing in the morning, the phone starts ringing and the mailbox starts filling up and the email starts coming in (although there are weekly restrictions on all of those)...the kids get stars in their eyes, and it's your job as a parent and a coach to help them keep their feet on the ground while reaching for the best baseball, academic, and financial fit. After that, it's a matter of sifting through the communications to separate out the ones that are really interested from the ones that are only keeping you on their list just in case their real target commits somewhere else...

In the end, most players end up going to school and playing where they should. It's a fun process -- keep your eye on the prize, enjoy the ride and don't let the stress and gamesmanship and politics ruin it for you and your son.

Good advice...Thanks.

quote:

So, as for a Sophmore who is getting a lot of attention at this point, what would your advice be?

If you are one of the very, very few who have already spent a year or so examining schools from both the academic and baseball perspectives, if you have reasons why one place is THE place for you, and if you are given a truly outstanding % deal, I suppose you could commit.

But to me, you may as well ask a 15-year-old if he wants to marry his current girlfriend. I simply have trouble believing that he is, right now, close enough to being the same guy he'll be in 2 years, with the same exact goals and desires. A lot of maturing happens in those two years.

To me, if he's such a stud that a big time program is willing to commit to him already, he ought to express his great thanks to Coach Perno, ask them to let him know if/when they get to where they absolutely must have an answer, but otherwise keep my options open and play the field, so to speak, for another 10-12 months. Maybe longer. You'd be surprised how many doors can open for a kid of that caliber after, e.g., going to PG National in June after his junior year. At a minimum, Coach Perno may end up feeling that he needs to up the offer to keep the stud in the fold.

On top of everything else, the recruiting trail can be fun, and I hate to see you miss out on the fun. It's fun to go to lots of schools and get the red carpet treatment. I saw football games from the sidelines. I saw basketball games from courtside. I took numerous road trips with my son that were really fun times for me as a dad, and I dare say, not so bad for him, either.

For most people, the battle is just to get SOME offer SOMEWHERE. But when your kid is the stud that everyone wants, I just don't see the rush.

I do think that it's possible to wait too long, to where programs' budgets are committed and your choices start to dwindle. For that reason I actually have encouraged early commitments, in the sense of January to July of junior year. But December of sophomore year, that causes me to have reservations.

Midlo Dad, what do you consider a significant offer? Second, if you commit during your freshman, sophomore or junior year, don't you forego the "visits" during your senior year? Obviously, you can visit the school(s) anytime you want during your freshman, sophomore and juniors years, but isn't it at your (parents') expense?

El gato, I suspect that if you spoke with a number of coaches at the upper level D1 programs, you would find that the official visits don't fulfill the purpose for baseball that they were originally intended to fulfill, that most of those programs have most of their players committed to them before players can make official visits. The visits are all on the players' / parents' nickel. The timing of official visits needs to be moved up or restrictions placed, as has been proposed, on how early colleges can make offers and receive committments.