A short YouTube talk by Alex Swenson advising high-school athletes and parents on whether to participate in summer baseball/travel organizations. Swenson—former college scout, coach, and recruiter—argues summer baseball requires significant time, money, and commitment; it can help development but often fails to aid recruiting unless a player is on a top-tier (top 1–2) team or is highly committed. He recommends alternatives for recruiting exposure (videos, showcases, camps) and promises a follow-up on college recruiting activity in late summer and fall.
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Hey team, Alex Swinson here. Hey, thanks for joining me. Today we're going to be talking about summer baseball, summer organizations, summer travel, baseball, and why it might not be a good fit for you and maybe why it is a good fit for you. Because there is a lot of time and a lot of money that you have to put into this. You have to be really committed if you are going to do this. And you got to make sure it's a good fit for you because summer baseball is definitely not a good fit for everyone. And I get this. I've been around baseball a long time. I was a college scout, coach and recruiter. So I would see all this. And I was a baseball player going through high school. I played in these summer organizations and a college player. So I get it. I understand. But I want to be real with you guys and just let you know though, you definitely don't have to be part of a summer organization to play at the college level to help your recruiting. You definitely don't need to. But that said, there is definitely good fits for summer baseball and we're going to talk a little bit about that. But hey, if you get anything from this video, please select that thumbs up and that like button and subscribe. If you haven't already, I put out a weekly video on recruiting and how to better ourselves on and off the field. Alright, let's get into it. So how do you know if playing summer baseball or playing for a summer travel organization is a good fit for you? And if you're, if you are watching this and you are a student athlete, you're in high school, understand that your parents or whoever is providing this for you puts a lot of time and a lot of money into this. So if you're going to play, you need to be committed because there's a lot of travel, there is a lot of things as far as logistically that you might not even be aware of, that goes on. And you need to make sure that you're thanking your parents or again, whoever is is providing this for you. Now if you're a parent to this, you need to understand what is the plan going into this, what is the plan going in for your son or daughter depending on if you're playing for baseball or softball. Because there's organizations all over the place, no matter the sport, is it for development, is it for recruiting? And one of the problems is there's some organizations out there that are good. There's no doubt, I know a few of them that are super good. But the problem is I know a lot that are not good and they're all talk as far as, yeah, we're going to give great development and we're going to help with recruiting. But when you go through the organization or you go through summer, maybe you just went through a summer of with a certain organization and they didn't really focus on development. They didn't help with recruiting, which they said they were going to. Okay. Because that's a lot of the same sales pitch, honestly, that a lot of these summer organizations do. But it's cricket. So there's not really any practices. And if there are, are the practices good? Are they're actually working on skill development and are. Is. Are they working on development through tournaments and games and are they helping you strategically what you need to be doing to get recruited and helping you with that? Because there's a lot of things that you need to be doing to help your recruiting process. Frankly, it's 80 to 90% you helping yourself get committed to the next level. Okay. Playing college baseball, there's too much talk of like you might even feel this way. And I don't blame you for this because I could see how it might feel that you have to play summer baseball or you feel like you have to put your son or daughter into a summer summer travel organization. That is not the case. You do not have to go through a travel organization to play at the next level or to give yourself the best chance. You need to make sure that you are doing the proactiveness in this. I help with a lot of that and I can go into that. But picking an organization, if you are going for development, okay, play summer baseball, absolutely. But if you're going for recruiting and you are not on the number one or number two team that gets in front of all the scouts, I don't think it's worth it for you to play. Okay. Why is that? Because there's a lot of things that you can be doing on your own to get even more exposure to these college coaches and help your recruiting process then these summer organizations can. Because if you are not on the top tier team, then you are not going to get really exposed to these college coaches very much. Really? At all. And you're going to know this, right? You're going to know going into some of these tournaments, are the college scouts there. Right. For the majority of your games, usually the top teams get all of the scouts there. Okay. With you being proactive and you not wasting time and money going to these tournaments and those scouts are there. If you're not on the top two teams. You can be doing stuff through your recruiting video, going, reaching out to these college coaches, talking to these college coaches, going to specific showcases and camps, getting in front of of them, you doing what you need to be doing, saving that money and not putting 2, 3, 4 grand into a summer organization, but spending some of that money into your recruiting video, into personal recruiting help or going to showcases in camps, that's what you can be doing. So if you're solely going for recruiting and you are not on the top two teams and you're not committed, summer baseball is not for you, okay? And when I say you're not committed, like you're not into it, you're only going to be going to some tournaments and you're not going to be really playing that much. You're not practicing that much. You're not really focused on develop. It's just not for you, okay? And there's nothing, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. You have probably other commitments somewhere else. If you don't, you need to have other commitments. You need to have a good hobby, especially in high school, okay? So commitment and hey, if you are focused on recruiting, you're not on the top two teams. Don't play summer baseball. It is not a good fit for you. Okay? But if you are playing summer or if you are playing for the top two teams and you are committed and you're focused on development, summer baseball might be a great fit for you. If it works with your schedule and your parents work out. From a financial and time and logistics standpoint, it is a good fit for some, okay? No doubt about it. But the problem is there's a lot out there, a lot of players out there that's just not a good fit. You're not getting the most out of it that you should be. If you're looking to go through the recruiting process, hey, I hope this helped. Let me know if it did. And I want to talk about. I'm going to put this out in the next week's video. We're going to be talking about what college scouts and recruiters are doing in August, September and then into the fall, October, November, December. Are they recruiting? And the answer is yes. But what are they doing? Where are they going? And we're going to get into that. I'll see you in the next video.
