Thoughts on this camp as a recruitment opportunity?

A quick review of the website gives me no insight into which schools might attend. Instead, I see a "no refunds" policy prominently displayed and a lot of website advertising. Based purely upon a skimming of the site, I'd be skeptical if it were my son.

A couple of general observations (They have no relevance necessarily to the site mentioned in this thread.):
(1) Email address lists are bought, sold, and traded with abandon. You sign up in one place and you might end up on a dozen lists; especially for the more commercially-inclined operators.
(2) If your primary objective is to be seen by schools that are of interest to you, place a review of the colleges that have either attended a camp/clinic/showcase or that are expected to attend at or near the top of the list. If you don't (or can't) get a satisfactory answer to that question, don't attend.

These are supposedly the scouts/people expected to attend.

Charlie Greene Jr.-Brewers Field Coordinator/Catching Instructor
Charlie Greene Sr.-Coaching Legend/Author
Jamie Crane -Atlanta Braves Scout
Darnell Coles -Milwaukee Brewers Scout
Roger Smith-St. Louis Cardinals National Crosschecker
Doug Reynolds-Milwaukee Brewers East Coast Crosschecker
Brian Bridges-Atlanta Braves Area Supervisor
David Jennings-Baltimore Orioles Area Supervisor
Danny Watkins-Boston Red Sox Area Supervisor
Antonio Grissom-Chicago Cubs Area Supervisor
Kevin Burrell-Chicago White Sox Area Supervisor
Mark McKnight-Cincinnati Reds National Crosschecker
Jason Baker-Cincinnati Reds Area Supervisor
Alan Matthews-Colorado Rockies Area Supervisor
Carmen Carcone-Florida Marlins Area Supervisor
Lincoln Martin-Houston Astros Area Supervisor
Scott Hennessey-Los Angeles Dodgers Area Supervisor
Ryan Robinson-Milwaukee Brewers Area Supervisor
Jack Powell-Minnesota Twins Area Supervisor
Darryl Monroe-New York Yankees Area Supervisor
Armann Brown-Oakland Athletics Area Supervisor
Chip Lawrence-Philadelphia Phillies Area Supervisor
Ellis Dungan-Philadelphia Phillies Area Supervisor
Milt Hill-Tampa Bay Devil Rays Area Supervisor
Mike McLeod-Tallahassee Community College Head Coach
Brad Jackson-TallahasseeCommunity College Recruiting Coordinator
Brent Shelton-Chipola College Recruiting Coordinator
Nick Fletcher-Northwest Florida State College Recruiting Coordinator
Tim Davis-Former Major League Player

That list must have been on your email...or, they've done a great job of hiding the link to that list on that camp's page on their website.

That looks like a great lineup of pro and JUCO representatives. Frankly, I think the PG event, alone, would satisfy most players' recruiting/scouting objectives; but, if your son's goals line up with the names you see there, I can see why he'd be attracted to it.

Best of luck to him!

It is the Quite Period for the NCAA from Nov. 12 thru Feb. 28th.

Quiet period is a time when the college may not have any in-person talk with the prospective student-athlete or the parents off the college’s campus. The coach may not watch the prospect play or practice.The prospective student-athlete can visit college campuses during this time and a coach may write or telephone.

This why you do not see college coaches listed.

Lefty

quote:

Originally posted by Prepster:
That list must have been on your email...or, they've done a great job of hiding the link to that list on that camp's page on their website.

That looks like a great lineup of pro and JUCO representatives. Frankly, I think the PG event, alone, would satisfy most players' recruiting/scouting objectives; but, if your son's goals line up with the names you see there, I can see why he'd be attracted to it.

Best of luck to him!

Thanks

The site is not that easy to navigate.

Since the PG event will probably have many of the same pro scouts(maybe more), I will only do that one since I know they will run a good event.

Next level is supposed to be pretty good, the list that Vector gave is listed on the website on the banner for the event, they are listed as instructors. Void of 4 year college coaches, not sure how one would view it as a recruiting opportunity. It is billed as a camp, which probably means they will offer instruction, IMO completely different than a PG showcase.

PG's showcase event is where your son will get to be evaluated for his potential by the PG people, for future ranking among his peers, that is the entire purpose, why one should attend. It's also a good opportunity for players to evaluate themselves among their peers outside of their bubble. You can then use this information when contacting coaches about his ability, but I wouldn't necessarily view it the same as their wood bat tournies.
Understand the differences between these events.

JMO.

Next Level Baseball is an "Instructional Camp", and a very good one. They may have a showcase every year as well, I know we did one with FSU in attendence.

My Son went to the Next Level camp in Marietta over Christmas break. He was very impressed as was I . The coachs took the time to help , adjust and encourage the players. My son is a catcher and feels that he got a lot out of the camp and has since been to many showcases in our area. We did notice that since the camp he has recieved many more college camp invitations and e-mailds from coaches. Not sure if it is coincidence or not but I feel it is a definate must. Can't wait for next year!

AS far as the scouts that are listed on the website and the above thread, they were all there in attendance and even had a few others. We have never been to a PG event but I can't imagine it can be much better than this. The Pro Scouts have been known to give the names of players to college coaches that they know. Seems like a win win !

While PG and perhaps some others run great showcases, there are other ways to get junior noticed.

Junior was never on a travel team. I didn't know about HSBBW. Going into the summer after junior year, no one knew about Junior so I started checking and started hearing about these things called showcases. I signed up for a few.

We wound up at a little out of the way showcase in Atlanta, we're from Chicago. We'd been to a TPX96 and one other, and we show up and I look at this wrangle and think to myself, what a colossal waste of time and money I've made here.

I had talked to the promoter and since we had a flight to catch, he let Junior pitch first. About 8 pro scouts there, some local d1's, NAIA, Jucos. Junior strikes out the first two guys, both who had just been released from AA ball and were there at the scouts request, the scouts all hand Junior cards, and we leave.

Monday morning the results of the showcase are posted, all the players names with a blurb of an eval and they are ranked. There were maybe 60 players there, Junior gets ranked top prospect...Lord let the floodgates open. When we went to WWBA in Jupiter a month or two later, coaches were literally lined up around the backstop to see him.

WWBA is where he met his current college coach, and drew all the interest and offers, but this small showcase with a promoter that sent his showcase results to probably 400 colleges, was what created all the stir and lit all the fires.

quote:

Originally posted by CPLZ:

We wound up at a little out of the way showcase in Atlanta, we're from Chicago. We'd been to a TPX96 and one other, and we show up and I look at this wrangle and think to myself, what a colossal waste of time and money I've made here.

I had talked to the promoter and since we had a flight to catch, he let Junior pitch first. About 8 pro scouts there, some local d1's, NAIA, Jucos. Junior strikes out the first two guys, both who had just been released from AA ball and were there at the scouts request, the scouts all hand Junior cards, and we leave.

Monday morning the results of the showcase are posted, all the players names with a blurb of an eval and they are ranked. There were maybe 60 players there, Junior gets ranked top prospect...Lord let the floodgates open. When we went to WWBA in Jupiter a month or two later, coaches were literally lined up around the backstop to see him.

WWBA is where he met his current college coach, and drew all the interest and offers, but this small showcase with a promoter that sent his showcase results to probably 400 colleges, was what created all the stir and lit all the fires.

We had a very similar situation with my son as a late invite to a local area code games tryout. Although my son did not make the team, he performed and went from an unknown to someone who in the next several weeks drew a lot of attention.

One month later he verbally committed. If you get in front of the right people and perform, things will happen.

I agree with CPLZ and birdman.

That said, you can wind up totally wasting your time and money. Having a 2011 pitcher, we were getting worried we had waited too long to showcase him. So almost anything that came up we were looking to get him to, hence the reason I started this thread.
So we took him to a showcase that did not advertise specifically who would be there, but they claimed "many college scouts would be in attendance". I called them in advance to determine who, and was told "they don't like giving out names because if a particular coach did not show, they did not want the parents to be upset".
That should have been a red flag, but again we had already waited much to long to get him out there, so we hooked up with a team.
My son pitched against the Orlando Scorpions which is a known travel team powerhouse. They had 17 of 25 kids committed to D1's, so we thought this would be a good measurement of were he was at. As it turns out he pitches a complete game, allowing no earned runs, scattering just 4 hits in 7 innings with 7K's and one walk. Although my wife, son, and I were very pleased, not a single coach/scout was watching from what we could tell. There didn't seem to be any at the event at all. So it was a colossal waste of time and money.

It was not long after that we went to the PG WWBA event in Jupiter, and what a difference. There were so many coaches and pro scouts there you had to dodge one way or the other to stay out of the way of their golf carts. Needless to say, that was time and money well spent.

quote:

Originally posted by Vector:

So we took him to a showcase that did not advertise specifically who would be there, but they claimed "many college scouts would be in attendance". I called them in advance to determine who, and was told "they don't like giving out names because if a particular coach did not show, they did not want the parents to be upset".

For those that read this now and in the future, most camps will offer a list of invitee coaches and scouts and even better, more reputable ones, will give a list of committed coaches and scouts.

After reading the list of people being there and knowing most on the list I am going to ask one of those when he got moved up to where he is listed on the list. Can't wait to poke fun at him.

On the bright side that is a very good list of people who know the game of baseball and I would trust anyone on that list I know with an answer about a player. That had to be a very good camp by the people listed on the list.

I agree that the list of people are very good, and I have met and/or know a handful of them over the years.
Still I chose to go to the PG event instead due to the close proximity of the events, and am happy I did.

Did anyone actually attend this particular camp, and if so how was it?