I’m looking for help on travel teams. I am wondering which team will provide the most exposure and development. I am looking at playing for Baseball U, Tri State Arsenal, Evoshield Canes, or the Team US Elite. Any experiences with these teams?
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What is your total cost for each at bat or inning pitched? Which team has the College contacts for your ability? You mentioned development second. What do you desire to learn? Define the word "exposure".
Bob
"founder" of the Area Code games and Goodwill Series Int'l
Baseballcomesthird posted:I’m looking for help on travel teams. I am wondering which team will provide the most exposure and development. I am looking at playing for Baseball U, Tri State Arsenal, Evoshield Canes, or the Team US Elite. Any experiences with these teams?
Do you have invites from all those teams? In general, you want to play on an A Team with teams like that.
I have from a regional Canes team and an invite to US Elite and Tri State Arsenal.
Depends on what schools you are targeting. I am a little familiar with Evo and Tri state. Both seem to be good organizations but Evo may have more southern contacts and Tri State may have more pull in thier area. Both probably travel well and draw looks but sometimes it’s about personal contacts as well. See which ones sign more kids to your target schools or area if you have a target list.
Development mostly happens in winter workouts, from Oct-Feb/March, so it depends a bit on if you are local to any of the team's practice facilities.
If you are talking about Baseball U in Texas, run by James Bills, he does a great job of developing players, but of course you need to attend the practices to benefit in terms of development.
The Canes have a great reputation in terms of getting players to the next level, but there is something like 60 Canes teams nationwide in each age group it seems, so it depends on which team it is.
According to whether you are talking the big boys or just regional in each. The Big Boys are different than the regional teams of Canes and Tri State. The regional teams do not have play the same schedule so know their schedule and if it fits into your prospective schools. If we are talking the Big Boys in those groups then you better know where you rank or you could be sitting and only pitching an inning or so or batting one or two times a tournament.
It's just hard to advise without details.
Make sure the canes regional team is going to PG events. Not all do.
Those orgs are also relatively local to me as well and I agree what everyone said. Find out the tourney sched and which team you are going to be placed on or it could be a big waste of thousands of dollars.
Not referring to OP but others. I think many players and parents don't know the difference between the top team and the regional teams in organizations like Canes, Team Elite, East Cobb, and many others. The Top Team gets their pick of players but they also carry A LOT of players hoping they make it to the championship in every tournament. The regional teams do not play in the same tournaments and do not have very little following compared to top team. Plus in most cases, the regional teams pay for the top teams to play. Just don't get enamored by the name on the jersey and assume scouts will flock to see any Canes team play. Some of the regional teams are very bad and as had been said can be a waste of thousands of dollars. Because as we say on here every day. Baseball is a business and a very lucrative one for some people.
In my experience the team name on the jersey does not mean nearly as much as who is coaching the team. Is the coach known and respected by college coaches, and does he have many personal relationships with them? Does he get great players (especially pitchers)? Does he have a track record of getting kids committed and drafted? Does the coach know you as a player? Can and will the coach reach out to college coaches on your list and advocate for you?
I think the answer to this question is fairly simple...how good are you?
Are you going to make the A teams? Are you at the level their current players are on? Half of the Canes are going to be drafted - their B team even has P5 talent. US Elite has close to 30 D1 commits. Half are P5 commits. Same story with the Arsenal.
Were you invited to join the teams or invited to try out? Truth of the matter is unless you're throwing high 80s +, or hit that pitching like its nothing you will end up on one of the B/regional teams. Canes have 10+ teams each age. US Elite/Arsenal have 3-4. The A teams are great, but after that they range from average to not good at all.
If you were invited to the top team that is great and you are probably among the best players in your state and maybe even the country. You will be in good hands.
I see you're a 2020 so it basically comes down to this. What level of college ball do you project at? Have you talked to D1 schools? If so, this would work well for you. Are you talking to D2/D3? Might be better to look elsewhere. If I could get some more info on you (measurables, where you're at in the process, previous teams, etc) I could probably give you some better info.
Based on my son’s experience....the top (or better known as National teams) spend little time on development as they attract the Nation’s top talent who do the majority of their training outside of the team.
A kid I coached in LL and a friend of my son was in a prominent, nationally recognized travel program. But he was on the B team. This program highlighted and promoted D1 prospects. This kid ended up being a D3 All American. He said the program did nothing for his recruiting. The father told me they did one thing. They took a lot of his money.
RJM posted:A kid I coached in LL and a friend of my son was in a prominent, nationally recognized travel program. But he was on the B team. This program highlighted and promoted D1 prospects. This kid ended up being a D3 All American. He said the program did nothing for his recruiting. The father told me they did one thing. They took a lot of his money.
I made the decision after my son's 13U season, that I was going to put the recruiting in my, and my son's, hands. I didn't want to rely on a travel team that has its own agenda.
CTbballDad posted:RJM posted:A kid I coached in LL and a friend of my son was in a prominent, nationally recognized travel program. But he was on the B team. This program highlighted and promoted D1 prospects. This kid ended up being a D3 All American. He said the program did nothing for his recruiting. The father told me they did one thing. They took a lot of his money.
I made the decision after my son's 13U season, that I was going to put the recruiting in my, and my son's, hands. I didn't want to rely on a travel team that has its own agenda.
The best scenario is being on the A team with a known coach with contacts and credibility. The coach presells the player to the college coach before the event. The kid then goes out and plays to the level of the coach’s recommendation.
Yes, the players creates his business plan, makes contact and does follow up. But a credible travel coach selling the player helps a lot.
Baseballcomesthird posted:I’m looking for help on travel teams. I am wondering which team will provide the most exposure and development. I am looking at playing for Baseball U, Tri State Arsenal, Evoshield Canes, or the Team US Elite. Any experiences with these teams?
You have gotten some great advice above. My son was invited and played with East Cobb Astros. So I’ll give you a first-hand experience.
His experience was great. We live 3 hours from Atlanta, so I told him the ONLY way I would allow him to play was if it was the “A” team. He was told he would be given an opportunity to be a 2-way player. That’s about the only thing we were “mislead” about. He did get some playing time in the 17U WWBA and actually led the team in hitting for the week. The coach was honest with him and explained it didn’t make much sense for him to get hurt diving for a ball in the outfield or sliding into a bag. He knew son’s future was on the mound. I actually appreciated this though I hated to see son relegated to a PO.
We carried 25-30 players, with 15-18 POs. I know that sounds crazy. I’m certain there were some guys who were disappointed, but it seems most got mound time. You really need a LOT of pitching if your goal is to complete and win a WWBA or Jupiter. Most guys would throw 3 innings, so you would use 3 and sometimes 4 pitchers per game. For a tournament that requires 6-8 games to win its easy to see the need for that number of pitchers. Guys would rarely throw more than once per tournament. That’s just how it worked. The plus is we had a representative from almost every SEC / ACC school and numerous pro scouts at every game. There were even coaches watching bullpen sessions. The last game my son pitched for ECB was a 12:00 midnight start at Lakepoint. There at least 50 coaches / scouts at that game. So if you have the talent, one of the mentioned organizations is definitely the way to go. There is NO WAY my son could have gotten more exposure than he did the 18 months he played with East Cobb. So the $1200 or so I spent for that time was well worth it. That included all hotel stays and transportation. We were fortunate that Daz Cameron’s dad, Mike, provided the team a charter bus that they used to travel from Atlanta to college camps or PG in Florida.
By the way, 3 guys from that team were drafted out of HS and every starter was a P5 commit. To date, at least 4 others have been drafted. And we still won only 1 tournament to the best of my recollection. The Canes were SO dominant during those seasons. Somehow, we never managed to play them. Was about the only national team we never faced.
Best of luck with your journey. I will agree with the above advice. Only go that route if you (or they) feel you will competitive and earn ample playing time to be on the field to get seen. You will never get recruited off the bench.
