WHY ?

Why? Maybe no one has told them yet they are unworthy. Based on the roster of my sons southern school, a few snowbirds from up north have been able to make the migration.

Maybe the northern schools saw the players down south....

The reality is that unless you are a national caliber stud, it is highly unlikely that you will get recruited by someone who doesn't get to see you multiple times.

Ergo, most kids get recruited to in-state and bordering states' schools.

While I certainly see the value in heading to East Cobb or such, the notion that a single trip to a southern venue will open up all sorts of opportunities is a misconception.

TRhit - Out of curiosity what type of events, showcases does your program attend? Is it all local tournaments and showcases in the NE?

I see a business opportunity for PG. A northern version of PG World Wood Bat in Trumbull, CT (random location!) or somewhere up in the northeast or New England would keep all those WICKED good players in the northeast. Just a thought for ya PG Staff!

The big conference, high revenue/high exposure baseball schools are in the south. I'm not saying it is smart to spend the money and time to try to get recruited there, but it does explain it quite a bit. The moths fly to the light.

I agree with MidloDad, that your chances of getting recruited are unlikely if they don't see you mulitple times.

My son did the opposite. Lived in Virginia his whole life and now goes to school in the northeast. Go figure!

It's more than getting there. How about staying there? Being from the north of DC area a bunch of us had this conversation a couple of years ago. (note: my kids didn't play in NE)

Some kids do a fine job of showing well in showcases. Then they choose their reach, dream school and go south. There are others here who can correct me if I'm wrong but from our area (metro Philadelphia) outside of pitchers in the past five years the only "going south" successful major conference position players are the Coyle brothers (UNC, other signed) and Walker (SC). Any other successes have been pitchers. To be fair for getting there, I won't name those who got there and failed.

From NE in the past five years has been Yastrzemski (Vanderbilt), Casali and Esposito (Vanderbilt). There's Gomez from NJ at Vanderbilt. Flaherty and Giobbi from ME were recruited to Vanderbilt more than five years ago. Corbin scours the northeast. He has connections. He's from the region.

You never want to stop a kid from defying the odds. But I've heard from scouts the cold weather kids don't get the reps to be in the same place as warm weather kids. With pitchers it's about velocity not reps. Therefore pitchers are more likely to be successful going south.

There may be more to it than baseball. With some kids success and failure may be about being a long way from home in an environment different from the one they were raised.

quote:

I see a business opportunity for PG. A northern version of PG World Wood Bat in Trumbull, CT (random location!) or somewhere up in the northeast or New England would keep all those WICKED good players in the northeast.

There's a PG event in Massachusetts on the Cape.

Most of the NE coaches spend many summer weeks at E. Cobb so why not go where the coaches are if you are from the NE?

TRHit - My son's travel team played your travel team several times. All games were in the NE. Of the 8 starting position players 2 signed in the deep south (Furman & Florida Gulf Coast)and neither was seen during a travel game. In fact, most (if not all) of the other signees were recruited out of camps and showcases. So, by your logic, why waste money on high end travel ball?

I would imagine that even cold weather schools would want to see kids play against the best, and the best are in Georgia in the summer. A ton of So Cal kids are being recruited by NE AND West Coast schools who saw them at WWBA last summer for the same reason; they did well against tough competition.

2016---- right now everything we do is in the northeast

lefty

high end travel ball is great provided you are being seen by the schools you want to see you---this is why we are doing a tournament in New HampshireU, using the facilities at FRANKLIN PIERCE, SNHU. KEENE STATE& SAINT ANSELMS---WE WILL ALSO HAVE A RECRUITING SEMINAR to start it off

Tom - My kid played high end travel ball, so I'm a believer. I just didn't like your logic. The last two times we played your team there were exactly ZERO coaches there. In the final of the Liberty Tournament (a fine tournament which we won) there where two coaches there and they already knew all the kids. We played you at PG Fathers Day, a couple of years ago - maybe one or two guys there.

First day at HeadFirst Showcase- 110 coaches there! So, if we're talking coaches per dollar (ready to recruit talent), it doesn't come close. But, remember I'm on your side. I believe in travel ball and my son had a great experience over the years. However, you will lose the argument on the coaches per dollar metric that YOU used at the top of the thread. That's my only point. Using your metric, you are making a better argument to drop travel ball and just do showcases and camps.

LEFTY


we have never been in the Librty event

I dont think so with regard to what you term an argument

I know Tom. We didn't play you there. I used that as an example of another quality tournament that doesn't see the depth of college scouting relative to top showcases. That's not a knock on any of these travel programs. I see recruiting is shifting toward the showcases and the big national events. No news there! The last time we played you guys was at some backwater field in New Rochelle with nobody there. I even watched that one from the car.

NEW ROCHELLE ?

what tournament was that ?

I'm not the organizer of travel baseball, so I don't really know about each event, but isn't that the tournament put together by the New Rochelle A's? I'm not the expert, my son tells me where he's playing and if I can, we drive together like we did that morning. You and I sat next to each other for a while, then I moved to the car. You were telling us where each kid was from, etc. Then your team got kind of blown out. I had a nice discussion with one of your coaches who went to St. Johns.

There are tons of guys playing ball in the south who come from the northeastern US. Look at the Duke or Wake Forest rosters. They are loaded. A lot of the scouts like pitchers from cold areas.

TR Hit,

Is your program mostly for D111 type players?

I live deep in the heart of Texas and have a spare room if any of you snow birds want to send your offspring down for a summer of 'high profile' baseball. Of course, the charge will be minimal and not to exceed one-tenth of your superstar's future earnings.

MARK---NO IT IS NOT----we currently have players in the pros including the bigs----our emphasis is getting our players into college ball

One of the kids from my son's high school is playing for the University of Tampa. Go figure. Don't know how he ended up there. I mean, it does happen, although I'm sure it takes some work.

I'd suggest that any kid from NE who wants to play in Texas should take Catcherz Dad up his offer. A summer in Texas is as brutal as a winter in Connecticut!

UNC might have two kids from NJ starting this year, not to mention Coyle from PA. And two other NJ kids on the roster. RJM mentioned others who are or have done well in the south.

That being said I also know of about 10 kids in the past couple of years that started south and moved on. Some came back north and others went to D2 schools in the south. The lore of a name D1 school (ACC, SEC, Coastal, Elon, ECU and others) is hard for many NE kids to turn down. They're offered minimum scholly and off they go. Sounds better than accepting more money from Rutgers, Monmouth, Seton Hall, St. John's and other good programs up here.

Many kids who don't start or get much playing time freshman year leave for playing time. Turns out it more fun to play on a less prestigious team than sit at ACC U. I believe this happens regardless of where the kids come from but we from the NE take notice because more and more kids are going south due to travel teams playing in the south.

I understand a player going to a reach school. Then it doesn't work out and goes somewhere else. What I have a harder time understanding is...don't the recruiters see that this player is a reach player for his program? Why do they offer a scholarship to a player who they are not sure can play at their school.

quote:

Originally posted by mifdaddy:
There are tons of guys playing ball in the south who come from the northeastern US. Look at the Duke or Wake Forest rosters. They are loaded. A lot of the scouts like pitchers from cold areas.

I was being specific about position playing starters at major conference programs from Virginia to Florida. It's one thing to be recruited and rostered. It's another thing to get on the field every day as a regular.

Face it, the competition is much better below the Mason Dixon line. A lot of it has to do with the desire to play against the best competition and, in the process, get seen in a situation where there are no doubts regarding the skill levels you are going against.

In some northeast areas other sports are grabbing a lot of the top athletes. In eastern PA (where my son grew up) I believe baseball is fifth in popularity behind basketball, football, s0ccer and lacrosse.

My 2013 is one of the late bloomers(5'11,151) in FL, so we are looking north of us for sure. They chew em up and spit out down here in FL. They aren't looking for any projects down here and newcomers often find out just how brutally hot is the hard way. Great baseball all over the east coast and mine just wants to play sooner than later.

TR, are there any tournaments played in the northeast that target the LAC`s that the northeast is loaded with? I ask only because it seems the only place I seem to hear about them looking at players are Head First and East Cobb (neither which are cheap to attend). These schools are loaded with money to help the kids who have done well in school and the bulk of which end up there anyway.

Aren't teams playing at East Cobb to get the most exposure to any and every scout they can? I don't think the kids on my son's team went to East Cobb thinking they were going to play for SC, Florida or Georgia. They went because there were a hundred scouts from all over the country and they hoped they'd show well in front of some of them.

quote:

Originally posted by RJM:
In some northeast areas other sports are grabbing a lot of the top athletes. In eastern PA (where my son grew up) I believe baseball is fifth in popularity behind basketball, football, s0ccer and lacrosse.

Very true. There are tons of northeastern lacrosse players (male and female) all over the south and west.

Sort of off topic, but sort of related, when we moved here from Texas my son tried to play s o c c e r. He couldn't keep up - the level of play in our new small town was that much better than it had been in Houston. Lots of the serious jocks play s o c c e r and LAX.

quote:

Originally posted by twotex:
Sort of off topic, but sort of related, when we moved here from Texas my son tried to play s o c c e r. He couldn't keep up - the level of play in our new small town was that much better than it had been in Houston. Lots of the serious jocks play s o c c e r and LAX.

My son played travel s0ccerr starting at age seven. Rec s0ccer started at four. He played defense and goalie. In middle school he gave up s0ccer for two years and played football. When available he played goalie for the travel s0ccer team.

In high school he decided not to play football. He said it was too hard to bang on Friday and play baseball on the weekends. He would have preferred to play defense in s0ccer. Goalie can be boring against weak teams.

The two years he took off playing in the field put him so far behind in dribbling and ball handling skills he had to play goalie. It didn't help the high school coach had identified him as a goalie when he was twelve. The entire team had college s0ccer opportunities at some level.

I've watched it for years, and in my state 90-95% of the kids that go onto college ball stay in state. Never understood the logic of travelling half way across the country to "be seen." If you want to do it just for the competition that's a different matter. But let's face it, parents and kids aren't being sold on the competition, they're being sold on being seen.

Of course, my state may not be representative. We've got something like 10-11 D1's, 5 or 6 D2's, and 4 or 5 JUCO's so there are plenty of opportunities to stay in state. We're also not the most affluent state, so many parents couldn't afford out of state tuition anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by TRhit:
I have been watching this for years now--with the huge number of players players from the northeastwho spend time and loads of noney going to the deep south to be seen in hopes of playingcollege ball in the deep south and the majority end up up playing ball back home in the northeast---do they not do the proper research ?do they not understand the odds

KEN the COLLEGE SELECT EVENTS TARGET THE NE SCHOOLS

quote:

Originally posted by TRhit:
LEFTY


We have never been in the Librty event

That's a good thing since there were no college coaches watching.

quote:

Originally posted by slotty:
Face it, the competition is much better below the Mason Dixon line. A lot of it has to do with the desire to play against the best competition and, in the process, get seen in a situation where there are no doubts regarding the skill levels you are going against.

I would guess the cross country skiing skill level is better (more developed) in the northeast, as well.

quote:

Originally posted by HunterMac95:
My 2013 is one of the late bloomers(5'11,151) in FL, so we are looking north of us for sure. They chew em up and spit out down here in FL. They aren't looking for any projects down here and newcomers often find out just how brutally hot is the hard way. Great baseball all over the east coast and mine just wants to play sooner than later.

Lot of kids who live in FL head out of state, there are not enough good bb D1 programs for the amount of good players the state turns out each year.

A few years back I sat with the HC from Harvard at WWBA in Jupiter, he indicated to me that he attends the big events each year recruiting players from all over and enjoys watching them play in better competition.

Apparently it isn't just the players from the NE that travel south.

and?----ill HAVE TO CHECK WITH THE HARVARD COACH ON THIS ONE