showcase tournament after school commit?

Those players are under constant evaluation by the school to where they are committed. Constant. Why? Because the commitment is contingent upon continual high level play, especially against top level competition. Can those players play against high level competition locally? I'm guessing that's possible. We know of many mid level D1 commits who do just that. Ditto JUCO, D2/3 commits. Power conference D1 commits that play locally? That's the minority.

 

But consider other potential motivating factors:

-they want to be challenged and improve against the best

-they want to improve their rankings

-they have built an affinity to their team and desire to continue to play at different venues with different challenges

-and perhaps they're thinking beyond college recruiting

 

All total, we've probably spent the cost of two year's in-state college tuition, and trust me when I say it hasn't been easy. But we wanted to afford him these challenges, venues and opportunities so that he could (can) continue to play in this environment.

 

And BTW: we're doing the same thing with joemktgdaughter2 vis-a-vis competitive dance.

 

It's our choice to provide our children with these lifetime memories.

Those players that commit don't do it to stop playing. Some of these players are the best in their age class, probably have been advised they are pro material so they must continually improve.

 

I know of a program that used to committ all alumni children. They would give them unis and books and then release end of fall practice. The 35 man roster limit with 25% minimum for scholarship ended that practice.

 

When you use the word commit and 15/16 year old in the same sentence, you must realize that the dictionary definition of the word differs from the real world meaning of the word within the recruiting context. The topic has been discussed many times.

 

There is no way to enforce such a "commitment" - from either side. 

 

So the college will continue to try to upgrade its recrutiing class and the player tries to keep up and improve the skills which made him seem desirable at the beginning or middle of puberty.

 

As a concrete example, who can tell if the 15/16 year old will satisfy the academic standards of the school (a non-baseball issue); and why would a coach not have a contingency plan for this (usually expressed by over recruiting). Likewise, the player needs contingency plans. Also, perhaps the player would like to go pro from HS.

Several good responses. I can say in my son's case he/we continue to find the best competition he can play against. He wants to validate his future pitching coach's choice as well as show him that he can get out the best kids in the country in his peer group. 

Also his future coach made it clear he expected my son to continue to challenge himself over the next two years before arriving on campus.

If a kid is talented enough to be an early commit there's also a very good chance he is or will develop into a potential top rounds of the draft pro prospect.

Many times the TEAM is counting on that player to play!  I checked some of the 17u WWBA rosters from this summer and some had a full roster of committed players.  

 

"Save the travel cost"?.....needs to be a line item, even a modest one, in the budget through college. Or you won't be seeing your kid play.