Summer After Junior (HS) Year

C-Play with your current HS and still attend a few showcases?

My opinion is senior summer is the most crucial time to be seen as much as possible, PLAYING in game sitiations.
You could fill in with camp.

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My opinion is senior summer is the most crucial time to be seen as much as possible, PLAYING in game sitiations.
You could fill in with camp.

Good advice. Playing on a team is much more fun than camps and showcases. Camps and showcases can get a bit tedious with recruiting "talks" and alot of standing around. Playing the game on a team, with your friends, to win games, is the point of it all.

Get on a team that offers exposure and get to a meaningful showcase or camp as the schedule allows.

There is no substitute for playing on a solid summer team. If done right, the coach will be of the type who puts kids in good exposure settings first and foremost, winning is secondary.

Add in a quality showcase, perform well, and that should go a long way.

I would attend a camp only after the July 1 calling date, to a school where the player and the coach have a genuine interest. It is there way of hands on work, a prelim to the potential relationship between coach and player.

Along the way, having a few area scouts following you doesn't hurt either.

********* If the player is solid enough after sophomore HS season to get on a 18u premier summer team, that added year expedites many good things. Why wait!!

I think much depends on where you live. In some areas of the country showcases are very important because there is very little exposure from summer teams.

You don't get better playing in showcases and the junior summer has to also be an improvement time too, IMO.

If your son is a good student, I think the Stanford Camp is a must.

Best exposure my son had all summer.

First of all gotta agree with KellerDad that if you can get to the Stanford Camp do so. dozens of schools represented there and to that end, anything you can attend where a multiple of colleges are present is critical the summer after jr. year, it is the KEY time period.

That summer for my son, he attended the Stanford Camp, the Area Code tryouts and our state's HS showcase. As a result he received some form of recuriting "contact" from more schools than I would have ever imagined.

Bottomline, do what you need to do to get seen and attend whatever type of events are attended by multiples of schools.

I'm another one who thinks it is far more important to play on a quality summer team, and fill in with a camp or showcase here and there. Most of the boys who play with us in the summer get in a 40+ game schedule and some of them receive invites to try out for the Area Code Games, a few attend the Stanford Camp each year and others attend camps at universities where they might have a chance to play.

The Stanford Camp is outstanding, and I'll say even if you don't have the very best grades (at least if you're from California). My son attended twice, and he doesn't have the grades to get into Stanford. His attendance at the camp has resulted in several other college coaches who worked at the camp contacting him when they've seen our team at tournaments and talking to him about playing for them, based on getting to know him at Stanford. He's injured currently and can't play until next year. At a recent tournament, the coach of a southern CA school came and found him at one of our games to ask if he might have an interest in playing for him, and that was after seeing him at Stanford more than a year earlier.

When playing on a summer team, it is important to play on a team that gets into tournaments where they are seen by college coaches. Its pretty common for us to have several college coaches come up looking for rosters and asking for input about players at our tournament games. Having a summer coach who is connected and that makes the effort to assist his kids with being recruited is crucial.

With regard to showcases, I'm a big fan of the ones operated by Perfect Game. There are other good ones out there, but I think PG gives the most benefit to those who participate in a showcase.

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Originally posted by 06catcherdad:
Having a summer coach who is connected and that makes the effort to assist his kids with being recruited is crucial.

I think not truer words can be spoken!! Wins/Losses don't matter nearly as much as how connected and how much the coach will work to get you signed.

quote:

Originally posted by KellerDad:

quote:

Originally posted by 06catcherdad:
Having a summer coach who is connected and that makes the effort to assist his kids with being recruited is crucial.

I think not truer words can be spoken!! Wins/Losses don't matter nearly as much as how connected and how much the coach will work to get you signed.

*********but be cautious, because a well-connected summer coach has limitations..........they can steer a player to a situation they have a comfort level with.....LET THE HEART OF THE PLAYER DICTATE THE PATH FIRST!!

As the old saying goes; there is more than one way to skin a cat. While I am a firm believer in exposure, I would never suggest a player give up a summer of baseball so he could showcase or go to camps. So, number one, I suggest you play for your summer team. ---- number two, I think you should attend a showcase or two to get exposure to colleges (or pro scouts) in the geographic area and at the level you can compete. Each player is different and all players should select different showcases or camps that best fit their needs. Not knocking Stanford or Area Code but most players that go on to play college baseball don’t go to area code tryouts or attend a college camp on the West Coast.
#1. Summer team
#2. Showcase
#3. Camp(s)

Fungo, that is an excellent point. I focus on these two because a number of my summer players are involved with one or the other, BUT, you are very correct that this situation doesn't apply for the overwhelming majority of student athletes across the country. Point well taken.

Fungo does have it right on the money when he lists summer team, showcases and college camps at a level you can compete effectively. Thanks for the fine tuning.

While the concensus seems to be emerging that summer team is the priority - would people's answers change when we are dealing with pitchers. I guess my concern is that summer team managers would "use up" the pitchers arms thus resulting in a sub par performance at a camp or showcase. From my admittedly limited exposure to high end travel ball teams, the best pitchers tend to get used a great deal and there isn't a lot of arm left for other activities after playing a full summer of tournments.

as a parent you need to manage the use of your son with the summer team. if you are going to a showcase then his routine should be altered so he is at top form for the showcase.

when it comes to the future and health of your son a parent should make sure steps are in place to achieve maximum success.

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Originally posted by Giants Fan:
While the concensus seems to be emerging that summer team is the priority - would people's answers change when we are dealing with pitchers. I guess my concern is that summer team managers would "use up" the pitchers arms thus resulting in a sub par performance at a camp or showcase. From my admittedly limited exposure to high end travel ball teams, the best pitchers tend to get used a great deal and there isn't a lot of arm left for other activities after playing a full summer of tournments.

In answer to your post, we made sure that whoever coached son would not use him up and there was plenty of pitchers. They all had a normal rotation. This was another reason why we never had him play full summers before his senior summer, if he played, it was a very limited amount and then usually didn't pitch much, but took over another position. In the summer before he entered into college he remained with the team, but his pitching role was limited.
I am seeing these young pitchers play summer after summer, fall after fall, spring after spring, showcase after showcase, tournament after tournament and convinced, by seeing the increasing amount of youth arm injuries, it is not healthy. If your pitcher wants to be involved every season, make sure he rotates as a position player, and make sure you insist upon a yearly healthy limit on his innings.

We knew son would get an early sign, so he took off for fall ball completely and I think he actually enjoyed the time off away from the field.

More empirical experience than opinion. My son did a combination of things. He played on a decent summer Connie Mac team that played both CM league games and a couple summer tournaments where there were several college coaches present. He played in a summer tournament with his HS team that had several college scouts present. There were also some other 'venues' that had a ton of college coaches scouting players: CA North/South Junior all-star tryouts; Areacode tryouts; Angels Elite tryouts; Cardinals Elite tryouts. He did do a couple of targeted college camps where the schedule allowed at schools where there was a mutually expressed interest.

He was invited to the Stanford camp solely as a pitcher as that was the only slot they had available. While the Stanford camp is excellent, at that point in time he was still recoverying from a pulled muscle from his Junior HS season. We decided there wasn't much point going to the Stanford camp if he couldn't swing his bat and his pitching just wasn't back to 100% yet ... actually we thought being seen pitching with the injury was probably worse than not being seen at all at that time. We knew he couldn't really show his best stuff, and we didn't want to put him into a situation where he'd feel a need to push it and risk injuring something else by overcompensating. I had hoped that he'd progress back to 100% in time for the Stanford camp, but the reality was that he didn't get back to 100% until after he'd had a chance to simply shutdown for a couple months in Aug/Sept going into his senior year.

Oh well, not great timing ... but at least a pulled muscle is a 100% recoverable thing that isn't a long term problem. It just takes some time. As a senior he was definitely 'back' at 100%. Threw 89-91, stayed healthy, and finished the season with a 10-1 record.

The only other advice I have for kids going into their Junior summer is to be mentally prepared to work very, very hard, not have much down time, and pay very close attention to fluids, rest, nutrition needs. It's not just the time commitment and physical drain of going from one event to another, sometimes on the same day, but the mental intensity that has to be maintained at each event to play at your best with dozens of college coaches sitting in the stands with their notepads and guns. And parents, make sure you plan some real fun family vacation for August that gets your son's head completely away from the game and the college recruiting stress for a month of real physical and mental downtime. We rented a beach house down in Mission Beach for a couple weeks and invited a gaggle of his teenage friends (boys and girls) to just come down and hang out. Teenager heaven. Probably one of the best vacations ever.

GiantsFan, while there are some coaches out there in summer ball who might overuse a pitcher, I know there are also plenty who have great concern for the health of their players arms. It's not that hard to find a coach who is considerate of his players, you just need to do some research and ask these coaches what they expect of their pitchers.

Most of the '06s that pitched for me in the summer that we just finished wanted to keep their pitch counts around 70-75 at the most with only a few exceptions. In our last game, my starting pitcher threw 93 pitches, but he had a no-hitter going into the last inning of the last game he was ever going to pitch for our team, and I'll be darned if I was going to pull him since he made a point of telling me he felt great and wanted to finish the game. He went out at 76 pitches and finished at 93. It was very rare that any of our 06 pitchers wanted to go that far, and we never asked them to go more than they wanted, and what we all considered reasonable. One way to acheive this is to play on a team with plenty of pitching. No single player will get as much time, but nobody will get overworked, either. I handled the '07 pitchers the same as the '06s. A college coach doesn't need to see 7 innings to determine what a kid has, 2-4 innings is usually sufficient to get an idea of what they think.

Many of my pitchers threw 50-60 pitches in a game and we called it a day and brought in a reliever. Most summer coaches that I know are pretty good about remembering that it is about the boys first and foremost and plan on using 2-3 pitchers per game most of the time. If there are college coaches present, this gives them a chance to see more arms and keeps all of the boys fresh for another day.

I think the way you address your concern is to talk openly with the prospective summer coach well before the season and find out his philosophy and make sure he understands yours. Where I'd most carefully watch for problems is with a coach who is obsessed with winning his league, be it Legion or Connie Mack, etc. Those guys who think its about them and winning in a league that most of them won't remember down the road, they're the ones to watch out for. In my opinion, summer ball is partly about winning baseball games, but it is also about showcasing all of your players to coaches and scouts, and giving them coaching in a more relaxed environment than the one they are involved with during high school spring season.

In our area a good connie mack team playing a good schedule will get you in front of most of the area scouts and many of the local college coaches. However I'd have to say some of the local college coaches don't venture very far from their own field! So the summer team schedule is very important.

Attending a decently scouted showcase is also important. i.e. area codes, PG etc

The Stanford camp is a great experience but be forwarned that most of the guys coaching at the camp come from expensive schools that don't offer scholarships!! Yes, others schools and scouts showup at the games but you are getting most of your face time with Dartmouth, Army etc. I am not sure this camp will help you with any of the D1 UC or CSU coaches!!

Attending to many of the events can be an issue. I was at a connie mack game scouted by a couple of pro scouts and a local D1 coach all looking for the same guy who was an out of state showcase!!

UHH, if you are talking about Army, if you're accepted there, the government pays for your entire cost of attending. Same goes with the US Naval Academy and Air Force Academy. If I remember correctly, all three academies have someone at Stanford. If you have what it takes to make it into one of our military academies, your entire cost is covered. Of course, it is difficult to gain admission to any of them, very high standards.

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Originally posted by 06catcherdad:
UHH, if you are talking about Army, if you're accepted there, the government pays for your entire cost of attending. Same goes with the US Naval Academy and Air Force Academy. If I remember correctly, all three academies have someone at Stanford. If you have what it takes to make it into one of our military academies, your entire cost is covered. Of course, it is difficult to gain admission to any of them, very high standards.

Uhh I said "most of the guys coaching" not "all", represented expensive schools not offering scholarships. I only recall Army being there three years ago.

There are actually a good mix of schools represented by the coaches at the Stanford Camp. My son's coach last year was Rich Price of Kansas University, that is probably a pretty reasonable costing school. Also, there are coaches from D2,3 and Jr. Colleges who work there. My son made some nice connections with several juco coaches at the camp, and since he's going that route, it was very beneficial.

Go with Fungo's advice.