Get Noticed - Summer Baseball Recruiting Guide

Hey, how you doing, Alex here. Thanks for joining me. In today's episode, we are talking about your summer recruiting guide. So you are prepared and squared away going into the summer, which is the most popular time for recruiting, really, going into the fall and through November into December is the most popular time. Spring is actually not the most popular time, even though that everybody's playing high school baseball as well. But college coaches aren't actually that much, not as much as they will be during the summertime. And the reason why is because they're playing their own season. They're playing four or five games and frankly focusing on winning and trying to keep their job, especially at a higher level. If you don't win, you will get fired. So they're focusing on getting those W's and then obviously picking up when their season is done. Towards the end of the May. Most schools will finish at the end of the May, and it is full blast recruiting. Of course, there'll be some schools that are in the playoffs going to the College World Series that will pick up towards the end. But, you know, college, again, it's kind of quiet during the spring, which is kind of counterintuitive just because these college coaches are in the middle of their season. Now, a little background to me, in case you're new to my channel or new to my podcast, is I'm a former Division I college coach, scout, and recruiter with 11 years of experience. And now what I do is help high school baseball athletes go through this college recruiting process and help them find the best college fit for them. So let's talk about five things. There's five things that I want to cover for your summer recruiting guide. And when I talk about recruiting, I am talking about exposure. I am talking about being seen, because you need to be seen. All right. In order to get recruited and to get offered and define your school, if you are not being seen or you're just hoping this happens or thinking that if you're good enough, somebody will find you. Not a good strategy. Okay. Of course. Has that happened for some guys? Absolutely. But those guys are throwing 92, 93, 94, and hitting 12 home runs in a year. Absolutely, that happens. But those are the exception. All right. Especially if you're a good athlete, you're not an elite athlete, and I wasn't an elite athlete. I was still able to play at a high level, but I needed to get exposure. And these college coaches weren't just going to find me. I had to be proactive in this process. So what's the best Way to be seen. Some people say tournaments. I actually disagree with that. I think travel ball and tournaments is not the best way to be seen and to be exposure. And I'm very confident in that. So think about it, right? You're going to, you know, honestly, a random tournament on a random field and just hoping to be seen, right? You're hoping that a college coach. You don't know if a college coach is going to be there. So, so is that being very proactive hope is not a good strategy in this recruiting process. Okay? Now, have guys been seen at tournaments? Absolutely. But these tournaments and travel ball has gotten so big that These coaches miss 90 to 95 or higher percent of all games. Okay? So there's a really high likelihood you're not going to get seen at all. Or very few college coaches will see you at a tournament, especially if you're not on a top team, a top tier team. And that is such a small percentage. Excuse me, out of all the travel teams. Okay. Is the best way to be seen the first one. Okay, we're going to talk about. Is your highlight video. All right? Your highlight recruiting video is very, very important because it is the best way to be seen. Think about it. You can disperse that to as many college coaches as you want via email, via social media. Your highlight video is very, very important. And you want to showcase your best qualities as best as possible on your highlight video. Keep it short and sweet, three minutes max, preferably between that minute and two minute range. Because these college coaches want short, sweet. And you can get everything in, in two minutes. You can definitely get everything into two minutes. So having a good highlight video and if, if you don't have a highlight video or you need to update your highlight video, start that now and start that through the summer as you go. Because you're going to be playing games and you want games. You want, hey, you can get stuff in bullpens or in the cages and having all that in one, but highlight video is the best way to get exposure. Number two that I want to talk about is not necessarily exposure. I'm going to get into more of that, but it's knowing your athletic standards and what these college coaches are looking for from an athletic standard perspective. Think about this. Harvard and Ivy Leagues have certain standards that we need to meet to get into there. Honestly, I couldn't have gotten into Harvard. I wouldn't have gotten into Harvard and Ivy League schools. I was a pretty good student, but I didn't meet the standards. I didn't meet the. Meet the Standards from a test score perspective too. Well, it's the same thing with baseball, especially at a high level, we have to meet certain standards. Whether that's hey, miles per hour strike percentage of your 60 time exit velocity, which is wishy washy, but it does help. And then they're going to look at actions, certain standards with your actions and how athletic you are. So understanding those. I'm not going to get into all the athletic standards. Let me know if you guys are interested in learning more about that. If you're not sure what are the athletic standards of Division I, Power 5, Mid Majors, D2, D3, Nai Juco, I can go into it. I also have it on my recruiting platform. Premier athletes that you can check out. I'll leave that down in the description up here. But knowing your athletic standards because you don't want to. For example, like if you're trying to go after Vanderbilt or UCLA or Texas or Florida and you're a right handed pitcher and you're going into your senior year, right, and you throw 83 miles an hour, 84 miles an hour, 85 miles an hour, that is not reaching the standards that they're going to want. Alright, so that's not a realistic. Now could you play it at a college level? Yeah, you probably could play at a college level and it's fitting those athletic standards. Okay? So that's really important. Understanding your athletic standards. Now if you're a freshman you have time to develop. But if you're later into this junior, saw a junior going into your senior year. Understanding your athletic standards and hey, what goals do I need to meet and try to reach for and go after those goals. But then also as you go, dream big, but be realistic at the same time. There's a balancing act to all this. All right, the next thing, number three is camps and showcases during the summer and indefinitely during the fall. And understanding which camps are a good fit for you. Camps are school specific. Okay, schools. Now school schools will in reality blast out emails to all different kids across the country. Does that mean it's a good fit for you? No, it doesn't. All right, you need to put in your athletic standards. If Vanderbilt's inviting you to their camp. Nothing wrong with that for Vanderbilt. But knowing where you are, are you ready to be seen by them? Are you close to their athletic standards? Does it make sense? Now if you're going for experience, that's different. But if we're going for recruiting, making sure that makes sense. So doesn't mean that all blast emails are bad. Especially if it interests you. But if you're getting all these blast emails from all these schools, you want to consider camps that are more personalized to you that these schools. If you reply back to the camp email and they're replying back to you, are you getting more personal touch then consider those camps? Absolutely. Because that shows their interest in and then also showcases. Showcases can be really important. You can maximize exposure because you can have a lot of schools there. I like some showcases like Best in the US because they have two day events. A lot of their coaches are the decision makers. It's not the volunteer coach you want, the recruiting coordinator or the position coach or the head coach there that really has the decision making ability to get you there and to get you to campus, potentially offer you and recruit you. Okay, Best in the US show ball for high academics. I recommend those guys. And what are we looking for as far as camps and showcases? Is making sure that it's at least a one day, preferably two day camp because you're going to do a pro style. Everybody does a pro style. But if you go to a camp or a showcase that just does the pro style, that is not a good camp or showcase to get a true eval. Because think about it, if you were just doing a 60, running a throwing to the bases, hitting a couple times, or if you're a pitcher throwing, you know, 20 pitches or so, that's not a true evaluation and they're not seeing you compete on the field. Whereas a two day event, you do a pro style and you're competing against other competition, that's a really good chance for a true evaluation of who you are as a player. I wanted to dive into that next thing. Four, utilize the social media. Some guys like this, some guys don't. I mean, honestly, I'm not the biggest social media guy, all right. But it can be very, very helpful, especially on Twitter because a lot of college coaches, not all college coaches on there, but posting on social media, especially as you're progressing through this, through your development, how you're doing in games and your training, that can be really, really good and can be super helpful as far as exposure to standpoint. I think of it just like, hey, use Twitter as hey, post baseball and get off. Post baseball and get off. Because there's a lot of stuff on Twitter and social media in general that can just suck you in. All right, so that's number four and number five is lift, lift, lift. Make sure you are staying physical throughout the summer, into the fall. A lot of guys can lose weight. We need to make sure that we're staying physical through the summertime because the weight room can fix a lot of different things and improve you so quickly being strong and being super athletic. So hopefully this was helpful. And if you have any questions there any additions that you would add, please comment down below and make sure you subscribe to the podcast or to the YouTube wherever you're watching or listening to this. And I hope you have a great summer. Reach out to me if you have any questions or if you want any help through this college recruiting process. Have a great day. Bye.