The best camps & showcases + how to get noticed at them

All right, team, in this episode, we're going to be talking about camps and showcases and how to best navigate this, how to find the best ones and avoid the ones that are a waste of time, money, and energy, because there's a lot of those out there as well. And just how to get noticed at these camps, how to get some feedback at these camps and showcases that can be super helpful. Right? Have you ever gone to a camp or showcase and you walk away and you just don't really know if you got anything out of it or you got any feedback from that? So we're going to talk how to best navigate that approach as we go. And again, just setting ourselves up for success. Because this time of year, you see more camps and more showcases, typically, definitely more camps than any other time of the year. And there's a reason for that, and we're actually going to get into that. So let's first talk about showcases. Okay, we are in September, September 14, to be exact, of this recording. And which means we are in the contact period. We're in the contact period for about another three weeks. And what does that mean? Okay, the reason why you only want to go to showcases in the contact period is because actually college coaches can be there. If you go to a showcase outside of the contact period, which starts October 9th, we go into the quiet period, and college coaches cannot be at showcases off their campus. Okay? So if you go to a showcase or you're looking at a showcase in late October, November, December, January, February, no college coaches are going to be there. So if you're going for recruiting purposes and you're not going to just get improvements, maybe you're going for updated metrics or video, that's perfectly fine. But if you're going to get exposure, don't go. Because there's not going to be any college coaches. There's not going to be any Division 1 coaches there, and there's not going to be any Division 2 coaches there. Okay? So we're in this contact. It's a short little window here. And not all college coaches are out at this time because all the players are back on campus, they're practicing, etc. So usually college camps are best. Now, the thing is, you can go to a college camp during the quiet period because college coaches can watch you on their campus and their campus only. These weird NCAA rules. So if you're looking at a. A camp, it could be really any time. There's some camps during the contact period, there's some camps during the quiet period. But let's go back to showcase. Okay. Showcases are basically a third party host or organization that is going to help you showcase and bring college coaches in so they can evaluate you, see if they want to start the recruiting process with you. And what are some good showcases to look at or as far as features to look at to make sure you're going to the right ones? One for a showcase, make sure college coaches are actually going to be there. If you're going to just a showcase and you don't know if any college coaches are going to be there, I would not recommend going because there's probably not going to be any college showcase or college coaches there. Now some of these, some of these organizations will let you know these college coaches are going to be there. And preferably you, you want to know the coaches that are going to be there because you want the impact coaches that are actually involved in recruiting. Usually that's the head coach or the top two assistants or one of the assistants that actually deals with recruiting the recruiting coordinator. There's other times there's a volunteer there and honestly the volunteers there really just to make money because they don't make any money really at all. So they're not really there for recruiting purposes and they're not usually heavily involved in recruiting. Okay, so we have that. So preferably know which coaches are going to be there. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. So it's a little bit of the risk. But as long as you know the schools that are going to be there, that's helpful. And the good showcases, honestly, the good showcases let you know which coaches are going to be there. So look out for those. And then preferably you want a two day event. All right. Preferably if you have a one day showcase, it doesn't mean you don't totally write it off, but you want to have some playing time, you want to have games, right? Have you ever been to a showcase and all you do is you hit a little bit? It's called a pro style workout. You do a pro style workout. So if you're a position player, you hit, you field and you run. Okay? And that's it. I mean, how are you supposed to get a true evaluation of your talent and your game performance if you're not playing any games? I totally understand the pro style side. That is one element of it. But if you're going to a showcase that only does, okay, Pro style, you're only getting one element. They're not actually seeing you play a game. So make sure you go to a camp and showcase that you're actually playing games. And if they're not telling you that you're playing games, you're probably not going to play games. Okay? You're probably just going to do pro style. So look for those elements of camps and showcases. Look for, hey, playing games. You're going to do a pro style. Most all of these camps and showcases do pro styles, but you want to, you want to play games because that's a big factor involved in this. See your game performance. One big thing that I talk about is I was never a big metrics guy, right? And pro styles, that's really what it is. It's your metrics and they get to see your actions and your hands and all that, your athleticism, but they don't get to see any of your game performance. Performance. I was a big gamer. I was called, you know, there's players that are like, hey, he shows up in the game and he really performs. That's kind of who I was. Metrics were very above average. But now that didn't really stand out and I would eat some of my metrics were very. Just average too. So that's. I just want to emphasize when you look at a camper showcase to make sure that you're playing games or. Or a game. Okay, so just a real quick recap. If you're going to showcase, make sure it's during the contact period, which is all the way until October 9th. Then we get in the quiet period, and then college coaches cannot leave their campus to come watch you play. They only can watch you on their campus, which means their camp. So just for example, the University of Florida, you could go to University of Florida camp and they could talk to you and watch you, but they can't leave their campus and go out and watch you at a tournament. They'll come. Okay, Speaking of tournaments and travel ball, usually this time it's really overrated, frankly. You guys might have heard me say this, but travel ball and tournaments in the fall specifically, and even some in the summer are overrated because you don't know who's out watching. You don't know who's coming to watch you play, you don't know if college coaches are there, etc. But at camps and showcases, you do know, especially the good ones. Okay, now what should you be doing before the camp? You, you should be sending emails to college coaches two to three days or the week prior to the camp. I prefer, really like to touch up to as close to the camp to be front of mine. Short and sweet Not a long email, just saying, coach, hey, really look forward to playing in front of you at your camp or at the showcase. And here is some updated video. If you haven't introduced yourself yet, make sure of course you introduce yourself. But again, short suite. Have your contact information there. Have your highlight video in there as well. That is really important. And then, okay, during camp, what can you be doing? What are these college coaches looking for? Just three quick things. Have done other videos about this, but you want to play loose, all right? Of course you want to play fast and aggressive. Coaches want fast and aggressive. Do not play tentatively. Do not play or showcase fearing to fail. And that's of course, a lot easier said than done. But these coaches know you're going to fail in the game of baseball. It's just part of you do it more than anything else in the game, okay? You fail. And so don't play. Don't play with tension. Don't play like, oh, man, I have to be perfect here. Because you're not going to be perfect and these coaches know you're not going to be perfect. So why would you expect to be perfect? Don't try to be perfect. You fail and fail fast, fail hard. So, meaning go out there and be aggressive. Running around, diving, taking hacks. I like to call it controlled aggression. Controlled aggression with your swing, controlled aggression with your arm motion. As long as we're filling it up in the strike zone and pitchers, same thing. Be loose, all right? Be loose, be repeatable with your mechanics and be aggressive in the zone. Be aggressive and attack hitters. Coaches don't want to see you walk players, all right? So find your element and your balance of when you are, of course, throwing velocity and strikes. You want to find the balance of both. Like if you're playing in the game, hey, you want to fill up the zone and then maybe when you get ahead or you're trying to go a little up in the zone, hey, let it loose right there. Let your V load loose. Bullpen, fill up the zone with strikes, preferably. Get it going, get your velo going and then fill it up as we go. So that's a big element of it too, as we go into this playing at the showcase. Then when you are deering, hey, be interactive with the coaches. You don't have to say a lot, but introduce yourself and like coach Noah. Coach, I would love to hear any feedback that you have to help me with my game, because feedback helps you with your game. And then post camp, send in an email one to two days after the camp, thanking them and highlighting maybe anything that you did that you liked and asking them if they have any feedback for you to help improve your game or if there's any possibilities on the roster or in the future as we go. So hopefully this helps you. Let me know if you guys have any questions down below in the comments. Camps and showcases that's why camps are so big now, because college coaches were in the quiet period for a long time. We won't be back into the contact period until March 1st of 2023. So they can only watch players at their camps, especially when we get back in October 9th. Okay? So that's why these camps are popping up and that's why until something changes, this is will continue to be the case. And they're good. All right. Look for camps that are your match. Look for camps that are at your skill level. You know there's some players that want to go to Vanderbilt. That's okay. There's nothing like wrong with that. But if you're not a Vanderbilt player, like if you're going into your senior year and you throw 82 miles an hour and you're a right handed pitcher, you're not going to get recruited for Vanderbilt. That's just part of my job is to be honest with you guys. All right, that you're setting yourselves up for failure. Look for schools, okay, that are in that range of you and then you can do this fall a lot of colleges are playing games. You can look on their schedule, on their website and go watch players. Go see if you compare all of that. So my tangent is over again. If you have any questions, go on and comment down below and make sure you like and subscribe here. As we go through this, I put out a weekly video going through just helping you with the recruiting process. All right, I'll see you in the next video. Take care.