Showcase or Travel Baseball

Casey went through some very tough times his last 2 years of HS with a family medical situation and his attitude about baseball never wavered. He has great family support and he will succeed.

 

PD Translator

Is PD's second language English?

 

I'm going to try to answer your questions

Elitism in baseball did not start with Showcase. It started with those who formed the alphabet organizations (AAU, USSSA...) for the purpose of playing better competition then they were facing in Rec leagues

Showcase should be exclusive to the players that have the talent to play at the next level; considering they are showcasing their talents before college scouts. But any team formed can slap the name showcase on their website.

The Invitational tournaments are team tournaments. If you show the ability to compete with the top programs consistently, you will be invited. I think it is important to have a high standard of play by the teams participating.

While you can't prevent a team to use the term "showcase", it doesn't take but a second or two (sometimes just watching a team enter a dugout, take the field or run off the field) to know if the team has college talented players.

I think what you will find in the future will be qualifying tournaments to allow new teams to be invited to the historically strong tournaments.

Everybody wants to climb on the bandwagon if it's successful. That is understood. But I have an idea of what you will see in the near future. I believe you will see some people with strong credentials do something that has not been done before; something I have been professing for many years.

Think about this: Most families do not know how talented their son really is. They think he's pretty good, but don't really know if he is talented enough to play at the next level. Many families don't know if they really want to get into all this "Showcase stuff" and spend money they may or may not have.

I believe you will see credible people start giving professional evaluations on your kids to allow you to know what they see as far as your son's projectibility. They will be able to tell you:

- Exactly what your son's strength and weaknesses are
- In most cases, he will be able to tell you to allow your son to stay home and play with his friends. If your son is good, he will alert the coaches at the level he sees most fits his abilities
- He will be able to tell you to "Save your money, support your son and allow him to have fun playing with his buddies"

Although Showcase baseball is here to stay, I strongly believe this is the area you will see the most growth; A quality professional evaluator(s) to help guide families towards the best direction for the son's future. I wouldn't be alarmed, because it would take someone with experience in doing this, so there won't be a rash of "evaluators" trying to capitalize this endeavor. But there are a few professional evaluators in our state that are not afraid to be open, honest and frank. They will not be afraid to say "Your son will be lucky to make his school team" or "I'm calling Coach Fox or Avent tomorrow." I've seen the methods and tools of the evaluations and they are a knockout!!!!

So...that's where I see the future of Summer/Fall baseball. It will be professional evaluators that can assist families in their decisions in what path they want to take. And please do not confuse these evaluators with recruiters. They could care less about recruiting your son. They will give an honest appraisal of talent and leave it up to the families to decide what they choose to do with it.

 

That's what I understand

 

A month from now, nobody is going to remember if I missed a pitch or kicked a call in a showcase/travel ball tourney. (They may not remember it in any other game for that matter.)[/quote from Punched Out ]

O' really! Knowing you ............ and you behind the plate, trust me on this one, we will "ALL" remember! I really like the KZone thing! Heck, if you ask most people, none of them really know what the strike zone is anyway!

 

Gotta Love It!!!!!!

 

Again ............... knowing you .............. well said!