It's Just Business

How many times do we hear MLB players saying it's just business when they are traded, not offered a contract extension by their current club, or leave an organization after many years for more money? As fans, we get upset when we feel like these rich owners and general managers don't do everything they can field a competitive team every year or keep the players we have cheered for years. We fall in love with certain players and with certain teams, which makes it hurt that much more when we see them broken up for financial or business reasons. While these moves always hurt in the moment, we are soon given all the business world quotes from the players and management that help us realize as fans we really don't have much control over what our favorite teams and players decide to do with their futures and careers, and maybe they don't care as much about the fans as they make us believe.

When I got into the world of travel baseball almost 10 years ago, I never imagined that I would get to the point where I was making comparisons to the business world of MLB to travel baseball. However, as my youngest son has gotten into high school and I've seen this travel baseball thing take off to new heights, I'm even more aware than ever that travel baseball is becoming a business, and July/August are often times its busiest months.

I have documented over the years how much I dread the stretch from the 4th of July to the middle of August. With near certainty, the majority of phone calls, text messages, and emails are all focused on roster spots and availability for our team. Before, during, and after games, as a coach you start analyzing how a parent's position in the stands or disposition might indicate their feelings towards returning next year. You think about the friendships and relationships that can be severed or reshaped with one decision. You realize that every lineup decision you make has a two fold impact on the families kids that are playing and the ones that aren't. As much as we want to act and be like a family, we also want to do what is best for our kid. We wonder if playing at a higher level will eliminate some kids playing because we play for an equal opportunity organization, or if we should take our kid somewhere else where they'll get an opportunity to be seen by more coaches. We act like a family that will remain close for years after this experience is over, but as soon as someone moves on from your team, you go from seeing them routinely every summer weekend to once a summer, if you're lucky.

Balancing the personal side of travel baseball with the business side only gets tougher as the kids get older. Friendships are important, but depth and exposure become more of a priority. Some kids and families start to focus on baseball after high school, and that means raising their own personal stock and profile. One of the best ways to do this is by working hard as an individual, but also by playing for a good organization that college coaches respect and want to watch play. If they cannot watch you play, they certainly will find your players and understand that they are playing against really good competition. The better your team gets, the more kids and families that want to join. It sounds like a wonderful problem to have, if you want to run your team like a business. However, you also have the families and kids that aren't focused on baseball after high school, so they just want a great experience during their high school years.

Recently the travel organization I have been a part of for nine years sold their rights to a nationally recognized program. Our local organization had gained enough respect and prominence in our area over the years that we were chosen to represent this national brand in our region. From a business perspective, it makes total sense to make that move. However, a raised profile leads to raised expectations. With a simple name change and coming off a great summer, I was shocked by the number of people that wanted to join our team. In fact, we had a few kids who were clearly better players than some of the guys we were bringing back. I spent many hours going back and forth in my head thinking about what adding a couple players like that could do for our profile. As a pitcher, my son could really stand to benefit from this. I thought about giving into the business side of the game, but before I did I considered a few things.

One of the things I enjoy the most about coaching baseball are hearing the familiar voices in the stands. Since my kids were eight, I've heard many of the same parents during our games encouraging our kids. It wasn't a set of parents encouraging their own kid, but it was an entire team of parents encouraging an entire team of kids. I thought about that compared to other teams from larger organizations where you never hear the parents say anything because they're focused solely on their kid. They want their kid to perform so well because they know there are two other kids that play his position and a couple of bad games could result in their son not seeing the field much. There are parents of pitchers who rarely get to see their son pitch. They are in the position of having to root for other kids to fail so their son can get an opportunity to play. That's what the business side of baseball looks like.

There are kids who play for a team all summer, only to see two new kids show up for high profile events and take their spots so the team can do better. That team and those kids may be getting a lot of exposure and looks, but not the kids who aren't playing. And why aren't those kids playing? Well, it's pretty simple; they found other kids that are better than them. They don't care about their feelings or their families. At the end of the year, those kids are forced to tryout again and told that they are no longer good enough to play for the same team they tried out for a year ago and made. It's not personal, it's business.

A lot of parents think that their kids are better than they are, but they don't realize the cut-throat world that travel baseball at the upper levels has become. The bigger and better the organization that you play for, the more pressure on you to perform or be in jeopardy of losing your spot to kids that are more talented. It is a double edged sword for the players and the parents. If you are good enough to make the team, it doesn't ensure that you're good enough to play on the team. If you're good enough to play on the team, it doesn't ensure that you're good enough to play on the team next year. Those coaches and programs are looking to always make their teams better, so more families and players will want to try out for their program, which brings in more money to fund facilities or fees for tournaments so their players can continue to be in front of coaches and scouts. One of those organizations reached out to me about my son playing for them. It was an extremely flattering offer that makes you feel a little big-headed as a parent, but you have to remind yourself why they're reaching out. They are reaching out because they want to cut a few kids based off their performance. While it's flattering, you have to remind yourself that next summer your kid could be the one that the coaches are sending out messages to others trying to replace.

While all of those things haven't trickled down to our region yet, it's only a matter of time. I thought about adding a couple of kids that could have made us better. I felt the pressure to live up to the new name on our jerseys. I thought about having the tough conversations with dedicated families about fighting for playing time or how "it's just business" and kids need to learn that lesson now, but I didn't want to be a part of that cut-throat culture. I believe in my heart, that our team won some games this summer because of the culture of our group, not the talent. There are kids who show up to our tryouts that have much better numbers and measurables than our guys, but they can't play the game like our guys can.

Putting a new organization's name across your chest can definitely raise pressure, expectations, and exposure for a player. However, it is important to remember that for a lot of those organizations, those raised stakes mean raised competition for existing player's spots. Those coaches often don't care about the players, they just care about the wins. At the end of the summer, a number of players on those teams are left searching for a new organization and they're forced to learn that they're not just playing a game anymore, they're part of a business.

I made a decision years ago that I always wanted to win and put guys on the field that could play at the highest level, but I didn't want to run my team purely as a business. I didn't want to chase a couple more wins at the expense of kids who could play and contribute on our team, but maybe didn't have the measurables of other kids. I wanted to keep my kid away from that kind of environment as long as I could. However, as we get older it becomes more and more difficult. In order to play college baseball, you need to learn if your kid can thrive in that kind of environment. It is a tough balancing act, but don't kid yourself. The upper age groups of high school travel baseball for big programs and college baseball are purely business. If you can find a team that wins without operating like a business, you're pretty lucky.