Showcases: Players Deserve Better For What We Pay

In the modern world of high school baseball, the best way for kids to get exposure is to attend a showcase event hosted by a school or recruiting service. Unless you're personally invited to attend a showcase event by a school on their campus, all you're likely doing at those events is padding their budget. The top level D1 kids get personally invited as incoming freshmen and sophomores. Therefore, most families send their kids to a one stop shop showcase event put on by recruiting services that offer verified numbers, videos, player profiles, and categorical rankings that college coaches can access from anywhere. College coaches can simply filter out players based on their size and performance metrics, so before they ever leave their office they know which kids they will be sending emails to and following up with to try and get on campus or go watch play in person. Based off of these recruiting services, those kids are usually extended a personal invite to college showcase event or camp heading into their junior or senior years

From a coaching perspective, these recruiting services are a fantastic tool to save them a lot of time and money. All of the statistical information that you could ask for on a player is right at your fingertips, or is it? After sending my own kids to a few of these showcase events, I see a number of things that are flawed that I think could be easily fixed to make these events more meaningful for players and the information more relevant for coaches.

Before I start talking about what could be better, let me address what I think they do right. For coaches, having video of a kid taking batting practice is a good tool for them to analyze a kid's swing to look for flaws or things that might be different than what they teach philosophically. Exit velocity and bat speed are also extremely important metrics that coaches need when evaluating a player. I'll get to whether or not that translates to game action in a bit, but kids need to possess certain quick twitch ability to play at the highest levels of college baseball. Exit velocity and bat speed are rarely increased, so these are good indicators of a kid's ability to hit a fastball without having to "cheat" to catch up to it. If a kid has to cheat to catch up to a good fastball, they'll just be more susceptible to the off speed stuff. The fact that exit velocity and bat speed are measured by tools and technology makes them completely objective.

Pitching video and maximum fastball velocity are also important and done very well. When college coaches start dividing up their 11.75 scholarships, an overwhelming amount of that money goes to the arms on the mound. It is not much different than at the big league level. When a coach is handing out money, he wants to make sure he's going to get a good return on his investment. Analyzing mechanics and seeing how easy a ball comes out of a kids hand can be strong indicators of long term health and how much velocity a player could still gain while in college. College coaches have a number in mind when filtering out which kids can pitch at their level of baseball, and being able to sort through kids' recruiting profiles while filtering those numbers makes their time management that much easier. Factor in that they have the ability to measure spin rate and movement, and these are great bits of information to share with college coaches.

The last thing that I think these showcase events get right are catcher pop times and velo. While it can be argued that some catchers react differently in terms of set up and receiving in an actual game, in general the metrics are very accurate and valuable for coaches in determining which catchers to prioritize and can play at their level. Nobody can deny that arm strength is a big priority when evaluating the catching position. Yes, accuracy is important, but that can be taught and refined, arm strength cannot be taught. Quite simply, if you cannot throw out baserunners at the college level you will not be asked to catch.

Overall, I think that the showcases do a good job of getting some key numbers and metrics. Factor in the advanced tools that they use to measure hitters and pitchers, there is a lot that offer to college coaches. Additionally, those numbers are verified, not a number that kid did on their own that may not be entirely accurate do to the environment in which they were conducted. However, I think that some of the things that these showcase and recruiting services do are not a very good measure of a kid's overall baseball ability. A number of the events featured in these showcases do not involve natural or relevant baseball movements. The data gathered from them can be used to classify and rank kids, but in my opinion they don't show much in terms of a kid's ability to actually play the game. I'm not asking for drastic changes, but I feel like for the amount of money that parents pay these services they are owed more in return.

At the top of the list for me in wasted analytics would be the 60 yard dash. I love how everything is laser timed, so there is no disputing the results, but is there ever an instance in the game of baseball where a player sprints 180 feet in a straight line with no regard for positional or ball awareness? I cannot think of a single time I've ever seen this in the game of baseball. I understand the importance of measuring speed, and I think it really is a separator when evaluating very similar kids; therefore, why can't we use baseball actions to measure speed? Instead of lining kids up one at a time to run 60 yards, wouldn't it make more sense to time them from first to home? That is a true measure of baseball speed and intelligence, and that is the type of speed that really matters when it comes to winning games. Instead of 180 straight line feet, make kids run 270 feet where angles and footwork are essential to registering a good time. You can set up the lasers to measure that time objectively. Maybe the theory is that baseball instincts and angles can be taught, but if I'm a coach, I'd much rather see those times than a 60 yard dash where a kid doesn't even have a hat or helmet on or have to make a turn.

The next thing that makes me shake my head is posting a kid's infield or outfield throwing velocity. Arm strength is an absolutely vital separator when evaluating and rating talent, but shouldn't we do it replicating game actions? If not, here is my idea how to still get that data. Have the kids get good and loose, and then let them make 3 max effort, single crow-hop throws into a net. That will measure a kids max effort arm strength. What I get tired of seeing at these showcases are kids fielding a ground ball, coming to a stop, then taking two big shuffles, winding up, and then throwing a ball as hard as they can across a diamond. Shawon Dunston is the only person I've ever seen do that in real game action. The kid that shows fluid movement, gets rid of the ball in game-like rhythm, and hits the first baseman in the chest is evaluated lower because he didn't max out on his throw and was 4 MPH below the kid that did nothing that he would do during game action. That doesn't seem like a good way to evaluate kids nor very helpful to coaches. Likewise for outfielders, the movements are more natural in terms of max effort throws from the outfield, but there is no regard for accuracy or making a throw that could be cut. Having kids throw into a net would eliminate all of this non-sense, while still getting maximum velocity numbers.

In addition to that, I think there needs to be a measure for accuracy. Coaches can see short clips of kids fielding the ball and their transition to releasing the ball, but they really don't get a feel for how accurate a kid can deliver the ball under natural baseball movements and actions. If kids weren't worried or obsessed with how hard they were throwing, we would be much more likely to get a better feel and sense for a kids overall accuracy when throwing a ball. I've witnessed multiple kids literally throw a ball out of the field of play, but that has no consequence on their evaluation because it is solely about throwing hard. With all of the analytics, cameras, and metrics we have available at these showcases, it would not be that difficult to get video of and metrics of a kids accuracy when throwing a ball. What good does it do to have a kid that can throw a ball 90MPH across the diamond if the ball is being caught less than 75% of the time while a kid that throws 85MPH is accurate every time? Wouldn't it be good for a coach to see the difference in accuracy between two kids throwing 85MPH? I'd also like to see which kids can put the ball on the third base bag from right field compared to a kid that throws harder but is more likely to award kids an extra base with his errant throws or inability to get the ball to the bag without throwing a rainbow.

Speaking of accuracy, let's talk about pitchers. The message for pitchers when they get on the mound is literally, "throw as hard as you can,' because that is all college coaches really care about. My son was told that verbatim by the guy that was running the event and runs the recruiting service. The reason for this is the first thing college coaches will filter when searching for pitchers is max fastball velocity. It does not matter where that pitch is located, or if it is a strike or a ball, it is simply about how hard can this kid throw. Again, I understand that velocity is extremely important because it cannot be taught. However, there are so many kids that are literally recruited, offered, and signed based primarily off of their maximum fastball velocity. Watching kids pitch in games and how hitters react to their pitches is a luxury that few schools and coaches have when it comes to recruiting 5-10 pitchers every year. Wouldn't it be nice to get some of that on video from a showcase event? It really isn't that hard or time consuming to have a kid come in and throw 4-6 pitches as hard as they can and then another 4-6 off-speed pitches. After that then have them throw any mix of 15-20 pitches to a live batter/s.

Not only would doing things this way give college coaches live game footage of pitchers stuff facing hitters, but it could also show them how they pitch to and sequence their stuff to hitters. How do they react when giving up a hit? Does their off-speed stuff get hitters out? Is it a pitch they can throw for a strike when facing a live hitter? What pitches does the kid really feel comfortable throwing? All of these are great tools for coaches to accurately measure pitchers, and it wouldn't take much more time than their three minutes of "go throw as hard as you can" current set-up in these showcases. This isn't a perfect solution, but it's not much different or worse than a kid sending coaches video clips of their in-game pitching recorded on a phone from a parent.

On the flip side, this could also be an extremely valuable tool to help evaluate hitters versus live pitching. I know that there are no guarantees that the hitters will see any pitches to hit, but it can help coaches evaluate the approach and swing adjustability of kids they're looking at. It's also a good indicator of whether or not the kid with 95 MPH exit velocity has just as good bat to ball skills, or are they a classic BP type stud. How often do college coaches actually get to watch and evaluate a kid face live pitching before offering them a scholarship? Based off the number of kids that commit before they reach high school or their sophomore year, I'd say their future college coaches have probably seen them face live pitching for eight to twelve at bats in person if they're lucky. Most of it is based off metrics and highlight videos put together by the kids. Maybe kids don't want to risk facing live pitching at these type of events and look bad, but that should be their choice. I guarantee the top hitters want to face good pitching. Why shouldn't the recruiting services provide some of these videos to be placed on their site for kids?

I am obviously just a novice looking at this from the outside. I am not a college coach or recruiting coordinator, so maybe the showcase numbers being provided by the scouting services are really all that is needed to evaluate kids. However, for the amount of money that is being charged for these events, I find it rather embarrassing how little emphasis is put on the important and practical parts of the game. The scouting services could argue that by adding some of these things it would only lengthen these events. It isn't easy getting 40-50 kids through all of the hitting and positional work in a couple hours so the parents aren't sacrificing an entire day, but if you do things correctly, all of these things could easily be done in less time than these events already take.

Under the current format of most showcase events, they have all of the kids doing the exact same thing at once. Baseball practice 101 says this is never a productive use of time and space. Literally, if there are 40 kids signed up for one of these events, all 40 kids go through the hitting drills and batting practice at the same time. The result is you have 35 kids shagging balls while a group of 5 kids come in to hit. Meanwhile, there is an abundance of neighboring empty fields that could be used to divide the kids into different stations. It's not that difficult to have outfielders hit while catchers and infielders go through the fielding, throwing, and running events. Once the one group has completed, they switch fields. Same amount of time without having over 30 kids standing around doing nothing at once. If you talk to kids that do these events they don't like them because all you do is stand around and wait. An event lasts close to three hours and the player is actually performing for less than 10 minutes. As a parent, if you start to break down the cost versus how much time your kid is actually doing a baseball activity that is being measured, it is pretty depressing.

Would making these changes drastically alter how kids are ranked within their positions and their classes? I highly doubt it. So I maybe the question is, why should these scouting services even bother making these changes? They have a formula that works, it is simple, and people line up to send their kids through these. As a parent, there really aren't many alternatives to these type of events unless you're willing to go to multiple college showcase events and camps on campuses in front of coaches. Typically, that is even more time consuming and costly than doing these single day showcase events, so why can't these events offer more for the ridiculous amount of money that is spent on them?

What I am asking and challenging these recruiting services with is to do a better job of fully evaluating a player. Those raw numbers are important and separators for different levels of baseball, but parents are spending a lot of money and you're not painting a full picture of these kids. The D1 kids will truly stand out with their numbers, but beyond them the difference between a lot of the other kids are the things that I suggested above. Those kids' families are spending the same amount of money, and for most families much more than the the D1 kids, to get their kids evaluated. Provide them with numbers and videos that they can use to shop their kids to multiple schools across multiple levels. The recruiting services have given kids a good platform to get their information out there, but the information given to coaches could be so much better than what it is now. These sites only allow their videos to be posted. Kids and families cannot upload their own in-game videos to these sites, so in most cases they have to pay for yet another service to share with coaches. The money drain is enough, and these services should do better for the families that pay them hundreds of dollars. We've come a long way with helping kids get exposure in the last 10-20 years, but why not keep striving to do better? We're certainly paying for it.