Episode 124: Recruiting Question & Answer #2

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:11] Speaker B: Welcome to this week's edition of the Dugout Dish podcast. I'm Andy Kirakutis, joined by my handsome co host Keith Glasser. How we doing? [00:00:20] Speaker A: Great. How are you? [00:00:21] Speaker B: Good. A little Q and a sesh today. No big deal. Going to run down a list of questions that we've gotten from some listeners, shout out to the listeners. So we're going to take them one by one and we're going to see where it takes us. First question, Keith, I think you are particularly educated on this topic and can shed some light. How does tuition exchange impact the recruiting process? [00:00:54] Speaker A: Tuition exchange, great question. Every school has a little bit of a different process for how they handle it. But I think the biggest thing is to let people know up front like hey, you know, I, I have tuition exchange as part of, you know, one of my parents jobs. So, so I'm like, we're going to have tuition exchange with said school. That way they can kind of get out in front of it because there are, you know, like I said, there's different processes in place at every school for how they handle it. But at the very least letting them know up front a could move the needle, right? Like it could be something where like, oh my goodness, he has tuition exchange here. Like we, if it's a scholarship, things like that, depending on division one or two, if they're fully funded or not, like that might actually move the needle a little bit like you get a guy for free. But I also think at the Division 3 level it's a huge added benefit for student athletes because you don't necessarily have to worry about a lot of the finances. It's a little bit more straightforward tuition exchange and then you're going to be eligible for merit scholarship money, need based money, all of that stuff as well. So you could end up with more or less a free education, if you will at some schools. So the first thing first and foremost is to, you know, a let coaches know. And the other side of it too, if you do have questions about it, you can always, and I'm not saying to circumvent the coaches, but you could always email financial aid because sometimes the coaches might not have all the answers because it's not something that is, you know, very common. It's not a, it's not a negative to email the, you know, financial aid office and say like, hey, you know, we have financial aid. What does, like, what does that look like at your school? How do we do that? Xyz and they'll be able to get back to you and give you a really clear path on what that looks like, how to go about doing it and then you at least have an idea while talking to the coaching staff and such. [00:03:09] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not super common. I mean, in, in 10 years of coaching, I never once ran into it. We just happen to have some experience with it. So, you know, I don't have anything to add there. I mean, I think it's, it's a, it's a unique situation to find yourself in. I think it's a benefit, it can only benefit you, obviously financially it's going to help and it may move the needle with some guys just depending on what they're looking for. But yeah, don't be scared to ask questions there because to your point, I think it's going to be a little bit different at every institution. So when reaching out to coaches, is there a specific coach to reach out to? [00:03:53] Speaker A: Good question. The general rule of thumb I would tell you is hit the head coach and whoever is listed. Let me back up. Hit the head coach and the person who is named the recruiting coordinator. If there's two recruiting, recruiting coordinators where we have co recruiting coordinators, email the one that works with your position. Generally one's going to be the pitching coach, the other one's the hitting coach. If you're a position guy, obviously email the hitting guy. If you're a pitcher, email the pitching guy. If it's just, you know, baseballpi edu, just email that and it'll eventually it'll find its way because it's a shared email box that everyone has access to to be able to kind of cipher through that stuff. But I, you know, the general rule I would tell you is hit the head coach and then if there's no recruiting coordinator listed, hit the coach that is listed as the tie. You know, the first assistant that's listed that's generally regarded as the top assistant. So email those two on with your life. [00:05:05] Speaker B: I have nothing, nothing to add to that. If you follow coaches on X, formerly known as Twitter and they follow you back, should you tell them where you are playing or just post it? My knee jerk reaction to this is doesn't hurt to do both. You can DM them and say, hey coach, here's my schedule for the upcoming weekend. I would definitely encourage you to post. That would be my knee jerk response to that question. [00:05:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that that's probably the best way to do it. Post it and then you can DM it to them. Easiest way. I didn't see that question coming. [00:05:52] Speaker B: I Had these questions from coast glasses or. [00:05:54] Speaker A: I was going to say I had. We're all. [00:05:57] Speaker B: This is, this is. We're doing it live. [00:05:59] Speaker A: We are doing it live. [00:06:00] Speaker B: We are doing it live. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Kind of thought I had a feel for what was going on here. [00:06:04] Speaker B: All right, there's a couple different answers to this question, but is our athletic scholarships guaranteed for four years? [00:06:19] Speaker A: Yes and no. Technically speaking they are one to one year renewable contracts depending on the school that you go to, the school can supersede that rule and make it a four year commitment or for as long as you're at said school and or playing said sport, some of the lower mid majors it's going to be more of a four year commitment than being in a power four conference where you know, it's, it's likely a year to year thing. The other thing to add to this is it's a little bit different now where you know, division one obviously moving to 34 scholarships and again not everyone's going to have 34 but they can use their money how they see fit. So there's no 25% minimum and you know, I have a sneaking suspicion that in, you know they're going to do their best to use as much money as they possibly can but I think in some instances they might have, you know, a couple thousand left over. They might tack that on to, you know, somebody who's currently on the roster and give them a little bit more money. But for the most part they're, they're year to year contracts with an asterisk of some schools are going to make it a four year commitment so long as you're at that school. [00:07:47] Speaker B: Yep, nailed it. One year renewable. Some schools are a little bit different where those, those scholarships are guaranteed but there's not a ton of those. You gotta, you kind of gotta earn it, improve your worth there. Right. And with the transfer portal being what it is, that's certainly going to have an impact on things. What should you include on an introductory email to college coaching staff? [00:08:15] Speaker A: Your intro email should hit the highlights. All the pertinent information it is that people need. You're going to want obviously your name. I, I think let's back up before you said or send said intro email you're going to want to make sure that your email is appropriate to be sending out. You know, you kind of want to avoid the Flamethrower 726 as your email. You know at. I think our generation is a little bit more like we just made up wild emails and then it just stuck with you for like 47 years nowadays. I think it's a little bit, a little bit more cut and dry but it's a little bit easier. I think you know, your name, your initials, whatever it might be, your, you know. K. Glasser, 14 mail. That is not my email, so don't email me. But you know, something like that. The you're going to want to hit your name, your high school, where you're from. If you have your, you know, hit your gpa, make sure you're accurate with your gpa. If you're not, you don't necessarily have to throw it in there. The test scores, if you have them, any pertinent, verifiable metrics where if I go to PBR Perfect game or best in you somewhere where you've been to where I can go and see a profile that it's you know, kind of a third party verified metrics system that you know, yeah, you can tell me you ran a six, seven. I want to be able to go somewhere and see. Yeah, he ran a six, seven. Not you know, my high school coach put me on my stopwatch and I ran a 6 5. Like that's not necessarily something that's verifiable that I like. I am going to outright believe major, intended major. If you do have one, it's okay to not have one early on. And transcripts if you can get them which then would mean that you probably have your GPA and any schedules and video. So summer schedule, high school schedule, depending on when it is your, the timeframe in which you're emailing and then video. One good thing you can do for free is start a YouTube channel and just upload a bunch of videos there and just put the link at the bottom. I think one of the hard things and people don't like, not a lot of coaches are going to download your video if you're sending as an attachment. The other side of that is colleges have pretty strict firewalls. So if you're sending videos as an attachment, some, some coaches won't even be able to access that, that file to even download to watch. So the, the best and easiest way is to just do a YouTube page and send the link. [00:11:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the only thing I would add to that is two things. One, keep it as short and concise as you possibly can. I don't want to have to scroll multiple times to read an email. I don't really need to hear about how much you care about baseball. I'm assuming that if you want to play college Baseball. That, that's the case. Ideally something personal. That shows me that you took a little bit of time to, to actually do a little bit of research on the school or the program. I think that's a nice touch. And then, shoot, I lost my train of thought. [00:11:50] Speaker A: You had two things you wanted to add. Short and concise and, and, and. [00:12:02] Speaker B: Oh. [00:12:02] Speaker A: Geez, who you play for in the summer. [00:12:07] Speaker B: No, no, you mentioned that. It's gonna come back to me here in like five minutes. I lost my train of thought. Littering and littering and. All right, we'll come back to that. But you, you hit the high points that I think are important. Oh, don't exaggerate your metrics. That's what it was. If you're 84 to 86, put that you're 84 to 86, right. Because if you, if you are hyperbolic with your metrics, you're going to get found out. So if you have them verified, that's even better. Trackman report a link to some video that has metrics in it. But don't be hyperbolic with your metrics because you're going to get found out. And you don't want to be the guy who, who says that I'm up to 89, but in reality you pitch at 83 to 85. There's nothing worse as a coach. And we run, I've run into this with, with guys making phone calls and they tell you, hey, like this dude's going to be, he can be 87, 89 when you see him. And you drive four and a half hours to some small town in southwest Virginia and you get there and the first bullet is 82. And you're like, I really just wasted nine hours of my life for this kid to be seven miles an hour slower than he said he was. So don't be that guy. All right, open ended question here. Thoughts on junior college. [00:13:34] Speaker A: Love junior college. I think it's a great opportunity for kids who need to continue to develop, who need more time. You know, I think baseball is a sport in which not everyone develops at the same level rate. I think it's a cost effective way. It's not going to be as expensive as a four year school. And you know, not to sound like it's lawless, but there, there are very loose rules surrounding how much time you can practice and play. In juco baseball, which lends itself to being a lot more developmental for a lot of players. You can play, I think up to 16 games in the fall, it's 14 or 16 and then you can play 56 in the spring. There's no real rules around, you know, how long you can practice in the, in the fall. You could pretty much practice the day you set foot on campus until you leave in the fall and then start back up day one of the spring semester all the way through, you know, the end of the season. So you can get a lot of development time in there and really become the best version of yourself over the course of a year or two at a junior college. You know, I, again, it's cost effective. You know, a lot of, there are a lot of junior colleges out there as well that have agreements with other four year schools and some of them are, you know, of the higher end academic world. You know, if you graduate from said junior college with a 3o, you more or less have a free transfer into said really good high academic school. You know, I, we dealt with it a little bit at rpi. Hudson Valley was a junior college right down the road that, you know, if you had a, I think it was a 3.0Gpa, you had a free transfer into RPI. So we had some guys who, you know, as a family couldn't afford the price tag at rpi. Their first for four years, but they could do it for two. So they went to a junior college, developed, did really well, played two years and then transferred in and played really well for us for two years. So, you know, I know that there's, you know, Monroe out here in Rochester. They have agreements with U of R. Cornell ritual. You know, they have some really good academic programs too. So you know, it's, it's not really, you know, I think the stigma is like, it's like 13th grade and it's not real college. Like it's, you're going to be taking real classes and you're going to be challenged and you can do it at a cost effective way while also being able to play a lot of baseball. And you know, you can expound upon this because I know you do. You know, go look at some of these rosters in the power four conferences. They're littered with junior college guys. Like it's a high level of baseball. It's not, it's not just, you know, who shows up, they recruit. It's, it's high level, really good baseball. I mean Niagara Community College, an hour and a half from us. I think they were like 46 and 2 this year. Like their ace is going to Tennessee. Like they're pretty good. Lost in the, I think they didn't lose a game I think till they got to the World Series. [00:16:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I think junior college is underrated and I think that for a lot of players it can be a really good path for them to continue their baseball career, not only in the short term, but in the long term. Because to your point, you know, some guys need some extra time to develop, some guys need more playing time, some guys need some time to get their stuff together academically. But this is, it's not a throwaway. You know, I think that sometimes Division 3 and Junior College get lumped into this like, well, anybody can go play. And that's just not the case. It's ultra competitive and it's a great opportunity for guys to go and compete, continue their career. And at the end of the day, if you finish up two years of junior college and go to a four year school, you're getting a four year degree. The cost effective portion of it is, I think is massive, especially with the cost of schools these days. Specifically if you're looking at a private school, you know you're, you're going to spend a lot of money in those first two years. You're going to take the same courses you're going to take at a junior college for the most part. So there's a variety of reasons why junior college can be a really good fit. And I think that a lot of people would be remiss from if they didn't consider it and at least have it as a part of their plan or an option for them as they move forward. But I mean, you nailed it with the junior college at this point is just an extension of the transfer portal. It was kind of the transfer portal before. The transfer portal, you know, where you could go get some guys who've played college baseball. They've been in the weight room, they've been self sufficient, they've proven themselves they can handle themselves in the classroom. They know what it's like to go through a season. Junior college is great. I mean, yeah, I mean, as simple as that. Like, I think it, I think it's something that a lot of families need to consider as a potential option and certainly don't scoff at it. Especially if baseball is important to you. Is there such thing as too many emails? [00:18:31] Speaker A: Yeah, if you're emailing all 305 division ones and are all 435 division threes. Yeah, there is, you know, I think, and look, I think that this is, I think it's also unique to the coaches. Right. Like I think some coaches really do enjoy when guys keep him, keep Them appraised of how they're doing, how their season's going, their interest, all of that stuff. I think some coaches sometimes see it as a bit much, you know, not that it's a negative per se, but I do think that some coaches kind of like they view it through the lens of like they're emailing 8,000 people and, and it's just, I'm just part of a male merge. So you know, I think you need to do what's best for you. But also understand that you should be emailing coaches that are, or programs, excuse me, that are aligned with where you fit in from an athletic standpoint and also where like that have the, the academic focus that you are looking for because there's, you know, there's going to be whether. And that includes, excuse me, that includes, you know, what they do academically from a, When I say academic focus on say like, you know, a lot of schools are going to have business, but where do they align from a academic standpoint? Is it a higher end academic institution? Is it medium? Is it low? What does that look like? You know, if you're emailing every school in the country that has business, then yeah, it's probably a lot. It's too many emails. But you know, if, if it's a targeted focus of, you know, 20 schools that have this and like they align with what you want to do academically and they have baseball and you know, you might be able to play at them. Fire. [00:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the other, the only thing I would add to that is just be, be under control with your frequency at what you're sending to coaches. Like they don't need an email every week. Once you get that intro email out every couple weeks, once a month during the season with some updates as needed. You don't need to be peppering these guys with an email every single Monday morning about what you did Saturday and Sunday. But yeah, there's definitely there is such thing as too many thoughts on tagging schools and social media posts. I will start this with. I'm not a fan of tagging individual schools. I think it can be a bad look. That's just my personal take. I think you can post some, you know, you can tag some accounts that might help with your distribution and the visibility of it. But I would suggest you go and follow coaches so that your post will show up on their timeline. But I've seen stuff where kids post and they'll tag 14 different schools from three different levels and it just doesn't. There's not A lot of sense behind it. So that's, that's my personal thought. I honestly don't know if you differ in your, your thought on this. [00:21:48] Speaker A: No, I don't. I mean, I think once you're committed, it's not the worst idea in the world. But like, I, I would tend to stay away from tagging individual programs and schools because I think some people will, will view it negatively through the lens of like, you know, feeling left out, the fomo. Why are they not tagging me? Are they not interested in my program? I've talked to this kid five times, you know, things like that. So, like, I would generally stay away from that. You know, it's fine to tag your high school, your summer program, you know, if you work with people like us, tag us, like, we'll, we'll, we can take care of the rest of that. [00:22:30] Speaker B: Do colleges look at past injuries differently, specifically in acl? [00:22:41] Speaker A: No, I, I think it depends on where you are in your rehab process. Right. You know, I, you can probably speak to this more because I was going to make a joke. I won't. I was, I was going to say you were. Made a class. You're not, but you did, you went through it in the, you know, going into college. And I, you know, I, I think I can speak more like I got injured in college, you know, so it's obviously viewed a little bit different there. Like I had, you know, doctors and trainers and everything at the college that were working to get me back healthy. And, you know, it, it wasn't, it's, it's a lot different if, once you're actually there. But I would say it's, it's way more where you are in your process. If you're, you know, a year post op and you're having no issues. I don't think that it's an issue, especially with ACLs, you know, I, even with Tommy John nowadays, you know, and I know that's not the specific question, but obviously Tommy John is a relatively popular surgery. The brace surgery is becoming even more popular in guys. Like, it depends on where you are in your rehab and what they might think. You know, I don't necessarily think that guys shy away from it. You know, it might, you know, they might want to take a little bit longer to kind of see where you're at and what you can do. But I, you know, I don't think it's going to, you know, necessarily negatively affect everything. You know, rotator cuffs and labrums can be a little bit different because those are Kind of a coin flip on what's going on. I think the data can suggest that, you know, guys can come back from Tommy John. I also think I actually read something recently regarding arm injuries and this is a caveat. I don't necessarily like it was a, a doctor who, who had, you know, written a, a, an op ed piece. I suppose that like the, the rise of youth arm injuries is obviously, you know, become a, a huge problem in our game with overuse and growth plates and things of that nature. That there's kids that are getting surgeries so young that they fear that they're not necessarily going to be able to actually throw and be effective by the time they even graduate high school. So, you know, that might play a role in things as it gets older because as we move on in time, because I think that we're probably going to start seeing the fruits of, of those decisions over the course of the coming years. I don't necessarily think that we're, we're there yet, but I think we're close. But I think Tommy John stuff like, you know, anecdotally I would say, like we've all had guys that have blown out and come back and been just fine. You've seen it in pro ball, you've seen it in college, you know, but from a recruiting standpoint, I would say that, you know, it would depend on where you are post op and, you know, how many issues you're having, things like that. [00:25:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's 100 based on where you are. You know, I had my offers pulled, but my, the timing of mine, like couldn't have been worse. But I was lucky enough to have, you know, Coach Jeff and the mayor of staff take a chance on me knowing that I was going to show up to campus only, you know, 10 months post op, which at the time was like a super, super condensed timeline for an ACL tear, especially with the, the damage that I had to mind. But I would say that if you've had an ACL tear in the past and it's behind you and it's not causing any issues, I don't think any coaches are really going to be super concerned about it. It might be something that will come into question or could potentially impact your recruiting process. If you know the timing of the injury prevents you from being able to showcase yourself, that could certainly throw a wrinkle in things. I mean, I don't think there's any other way around it. But generally if you can show you're healthy in your back, whether it's Tommy John or ACL or, you know, broken leg, I don't know, something like that. Then I don't think coaches are really going to care too much about what's happened in the past. As long as you can kind of show that you're healthy now. Are big showcases worth the money? It's a loaded question here, coach. [00:27:11] Speaker A: I mean, I think it depends on what you're going to get out of it. You know, you have to ask yourself going into it is, is what I'm going to get out of this showcase worth it, and are the schools that are going to be in attendance of interest to me and do I fit in there? You know, I think sometimes you can get lost and go into a lot of these and, you know, let the. The reality is there are a lot of money because they're paying the coaches, excuse me, to be there. So that's why the cost is high. You want to make sure that if you're going to pay that money to go to those types of events that you're going to get out of it. What, essentially what it costs. Are you going to be seen by the coaches that you're interested in? Are there coaches there that you've been in contact with? You know, I think in. In a lot of instances, it is hard to go into those showcases because there's going to be a lot of kids there and essentially go in cold turkey having never spoken to anyone and attempt to get noticed. You're going to want to at least have had some baseline communication with coaches so that they know who you are. And when you, you know, get up to throw or you get up to play, they. They're going to pay attention and kind of give you an eval of where they think. They. They see you fitting in, but you want to make sure you're going to get out of it, you know, kind of what you're putting in. If you're not going to get metrics or you're not going to get, you know, any feedback, any. Any evaluation out of it, then it's likely not going to be worth your time. [00:28:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I would agree with that. Understanding what you're getting into. I think timing matters as well. Right. The later you get into the process, I think the more beneficial some of those big camps can be because you're getting yourself in front of a bunch of people, giving yourself an opportunity to go and showcase yourself. I think early on in the process, you probably want to be a bit. A little bit more selective, and those big showcases might not necessarily move the needle. We've talked about it in a previous Q and A around the value of the on campus camps. I think if you can start there, I think that that can really help and you can get some really good feedback. You can kind of figure out where you fit. But, you know, if you find yourself in a situation where, you know, your travel team may not play in tournaments that are going to get you in front of a bunch of people and you need to spend some money to go to one of these bigger showcases, yeah, they can move the needle. You need to play well, obviously, just like you do everywhere else. The other thing that I would add to it is that if you're going to spend the money to do it, prepare to go there. Prepare to go and showcase yourself. Right? There's certain elements of those showcases that are going to pique the interest of specific coaches. Right. You need to take a really good round of batting practice. So taking batting practice on a field, understanding what that looks like, how that feels, right. That's important. Running the 60, I think is a lot of things that a lot of times a lot of guys don't focus on this. They don't want to spend the time to go and do the sprint work. They don't want to spend the time to work on their start. They don't want to spend the time to go and run 60s. Like you can practice that. That is a. That is a practiceable skill. Right. Obviously, raw speed is great, but with a little bit of practice, a little bit of effort that you put into it, you can go from a 7:2 to a 6, 9 by just tightening up a little bit of your running form, a little bit of a better start, being a little bit better shape so you can run that full 60 at full speed. So, you know, make sure that you are doing things that are going to help you perform in that setting. Because it's not just going to be the gameplay stuff. You are going to be responsible to go and run a 60. Your pop time thrown across the infield, like you're going to need to do some of that stuff. So you need to practice it in order to make that as worthwhile as it can be. What does a commitment actually look like? [00:31:06] Speaker A: It's going to be verbal on the front end. You're going to essentially say that this is the place I intend to go to college for the next four or five years. Understand that it is verbal. Once you are committed, you should stop, you know, quote unquote shopping yourself. You know, you don't want to Commit somewhere and then, you know, continually shop yourself as you know it, more or less being a soft commitment, because it's going to get. It's going to raise a lot of eyebrows, and, you know, coaches are going to find out very quickly that that's what's going on. So. So, you know, you're going to want to, you know, when you make that decision that you're going to commit to said school because you have the offer that that is the place that you intend to spend the next, you know, four years of your college career. We can get into the landscape of college baseball changing. But, you know, I would say that when you commit, you want to make sure that that is. That is the place that you see yourself being for four years and getting a degree and playing four years of college baseball. [00:32:10] Speaker B: There's. Yeah, the. The tricky part of this is that you're seeing guys decommit, you're seeing players get, you know, get caught, that kind of thing. But I think the intent of it is, is kind of what we're talking about is that, like, when you may make that verbal commitment, like, that needs to be the place that you intend on going. Right. Things change, coaches leave. You know, maybe you, you know, maybe you blow up and you start to get some interest from some bigger schools. Like, that's a whole different conversation. Um, but the intent, I think, is really important. And, you know, one of the things I would caution, again, it's because, you know, I've had these conversations with folks, is don't make a commitment with no intention of following through on it and using it as an opportunity to shop yourself around. Like, once you're committed, you shouldn't be shopping yourself around. I firmly believe that. I understand the other side of it. Right. I get it. You know, people be like, well, coaches can cut you. Yeah, I know, but most coaches don't cut guys whimsically. They cut guys because the guy didn't get any better, or something may have happened off the field. But, you know, these decommitments that you're seeing, they're. They're likely happening for performance reasons, which I guess the follow on to that is that when you do make your verbal commitment, you're not done. You need to get better. You need to get yourself ready to go on campus, and you need to show those coaches that you're going to meet the standard that they have set on you. Right. There's an expectation for almost every single kid who gets committed that I'm committing you knowing that you're going to get better. And you need to get better, you know, so own that portion of it. Like if you're a 20, 27 and you're fortunate enough to commit in August or September this year, you better not pack it in because those coaches are going to continue to evaluate you and you don't want to put them in a situation where they have to make a phone call and say, hey man, like you're, you haven't progressed the way that we thought you were going to progress. But the intent should be that that's where you go to school for four years. All right, last question. Is being a multi sport athlete beneficial? [00:34:20] Speaker A: Yes. [00:34:21] Speaker B: Yes. [00:34:24] Speaker A: Being a multi sport athlete is huge. You know, we've moved away from it. I actually had a conversation today with a coach, told him that one of these guys was also a football player and that piqued his interest even more because that, you know, adds a little, an extra level of athleticism. It adds an extra level of, you know, toughness, you know, if you've done it for a very long time, competitiveness, things like that. So I'm not just specifically speaking football, but you know, you also, you pick up other skills and other sports. There's. I am a firm believer that you need to take some semblance of a step away from this game. You know, not to say that you, you know, completely shut it down, but you know, doing baseball 24 7, 365, you're going to burn yourself out. This game is incredibly difficult and trying to do it 20 and look, some people can do it, but I am not a proponent of single sport stuff until, you know, you get a little bit older in high school and you decide that that's what it is you want to do. But from a young age, I'm not a proponent of it. I think that it is not the best for, for student, for, for athletes to be able to develop, you know, you're, you're really only training one sport instead of doing multiple things. And you know, I think there's injury prevention in playing other sports. You're training different muscles, you're learning other athleticism. You know, that's basketball, that's volleyball, it's soccer, it's wrestling, it's hockey. It's literally anything, you know. And again, I think that taking a break away from this game sometimes is, is paramount for younger kids to be able to kind of reset and, and not focus on everything. It is that, you know, it can go wrong. This is a game of failure. And the more and more you do it until you get old enough to really kind of grasp that concept, it's, it can really weigh on you. So I think being able to play some other sports and a step away b, gain more athleticism, injury prevention in other sports is, is huge for, for student athletes. [00:36:36] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think the, the ability to play in another team sport, I think is really valuable, right? Maybe not necessarily being the best player on a specific team I think is really valuable. But for me it comes down to the athleticism. Like, there's just. Baseball obviously takes a really high level of athleticism in order to play at a high level. You know, you got to be a really good athlete, you got to be strong, you got to be fast, you got to be physical. But there's also the skill element of it that I, for me personally, I think skill acquisition in baseball is a lot easier than developing athleticism, period. And I think where a lot of people go wrong in this, and I firmly believe this, is that they specialize way too young and you got eight and nine year olds who only play baseball, and I just don't think it does them any good. There's certain movements, there's certain athletic skills that are not honed. When you're talking about the athletic development of a kid and letting them go out and compete, letting them go play different sports. Right. And the funny thing about this is, is that we've gone into specialization phase of things. But I've seen countless numbers of interviews from professional athletes, right. And I actually saw one from Russell Wilson the other day that I thought was really interesting. And he was talking about how he thought playing multiple sports made him a better quarterback. Right. And even like little stuff like you're a wide receiver on a football team, you're probably going to be better at tracking a ball in the outfield if you can track a football or vice versa. But he talked about soccer improving your ability to move your feet. Right. It's helped him as a quarterback. You know, playing infield helped him as a quarterback. Right. For those of you don't know, Russell Wilson was also a pretty darn good baseball player. But I think that you, you lose the opportunity to develop skills that matter on the baseball field that may not necessarily get trained on the baseball field. Right. And we turn kids into robots, right? They get really good at doing drills, right. And they get really good at doing like very niche movements in baseball. And yes, there's some value in that. But at the end of the day, you need to be an athlete. You need to be able to go out and play. And I think sports like football, I think sports like basketball, soccer, I'm a huge fan of wrestling and hockey. I mean there's nothing more intimidating and valuable for a kid from a confidence perspective is like you go one on one in a wrestling mat, like you only got one person to blame if you lose. [00:39:11] Speaker A: Who, baby? [00:39:12] Speaker B: And it sure do. You know kids, kids who have the ability to go and play other sports. I think it matters, I think it helps them in the long run. I don't think it's a coincidence that you look at a lot of guys who continue to climb the ladder in a baseball perspective. A lot of them have significant athletic backgrounds, right. Whether it's they were a really talented basketball player or really talented football player and they ultimately ended up, you know, settling on baseball or that was the route that they ended up taking them. But I have yet to come across a coach at any level of college baseball that would walk, that would be less inclined to recruit a player because he was a multi sport athlete. In fact, I think it's the other way around. So is there a point in time where you may have to specialize? Yeah, absolutely right. But I think that that's a conversation that needs, to your point, happen a little bit later. 16 years old, but like you get, you're 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, go play other sports. It's good for you to get away from baseball, it's good for you to not throw baseball. It's good to go interact with other people, other kids be in an environment that's different from a competitive perspective. So I think it's hugely beneficial. I would highly encourage any parents who are listening to this and you've got younger kids, let them play other sports. Right. Because the last thing you want to do is burn them out on it. And we all know that that can happen. So. [00:40:37] Speaker A: And I think the, I mean, I see it with people I know, like every sport has become a year round thing and you're getting pressure to do it from all sides, like, let your kids be kids. And like, not for nothing. And like I, I know I've said this before. Like, you know, I don't know if I'd be like, I think I still would be a, a pretty good college baseball player in today's world. But like I, I made it to where I made it because I played multiple sports. And I'm not saying it's just me, like it of the vast majority of people that I played with, a lot of the kids I've coached that were you know were some of the better players and got to where they got like they played multiple sports and this rise of specialization. Like you we have 8, 9, 10 U teams that are playing, you know, 40, 50, 60 games. Like their bodies are not able to handle that workload of playing that many games. You break down in college playing 40 to 56 games. And we're talking about guys that spend an exorbitant amount of time in the weight room in order to mitigate that breakdown. And we're doing it at the youth level and think that that's okay. And I'm not trying to get on my soapbox here at the end of this, but it's, we're playing far too many games in the hopes of, of. [00:42:08] Speaker B: What. [00:42:11] Speaker A: What'S the end goal when you're eight years old playing 60 games. Like you're going to email a coach in six, seven years and be like you, I've played 7,000 games like awesome, dude, I don't care, I don't care what you did at 8, I don't care what you did at 9. Could care less what you did at 10. It, what are you doing now? And if you're burnout, maxed out, whatever it might be, with the sole goal of making it to college and I've seen this is they get to college and it's like, well now what? Everything I've done for the last seven, eight years is to get here, now what do I do? And it takes them a while if they ever make that jump because they are burnout. And then you're going to go into a college setting and it is far tougher than anything it is that you've experienced. And it's not to scare anybody, but that's the reality. It is tougher than anything you've ever done, no matter what the sport is, whether you're listening to this and your kid's 10 and they think they want to play baseball, but maybe they end up playing hoops, I don't know. But it's far tougher than anything they've gone through. And you know, I think that we're, we're doing a disservice at that level of, of playing all these games because they're like their bodies cannot handle it. And I've seen seven, I've seen 18, 19, 20 year old bodies break down in 40 games and we're playing 50 plus games at eight, like it doesn't make sense to me. And you know, my point in all of this is maybe back off the specialization of baseball Maybe play less games and go play other sports. Let your kids be kids. Like, I can tell you first and foremost, myself included, being a father and knowing. And I've seen it with a lot of other coaches. I know very rarely do you have any of these coaches whose kids specialize in one sport. And these are guys who are really, really good at what they do. Like, their kids ain't specialized in it. Their kids ain't playing travel ball, like not happening at young ages. And I think there's something to that. And you know, I ultimately I had this conversation this weekend. I don't care what my son decides to play. I don't care if he ever plays in college. It doesn't matter to me. But like, if he wants to go play lacrosse or soccer or volleyball or hoops or wrestle or play foot, like, I don't care. Whatever he wants to do is fine with me. But we're going to like, I would like him to play multiple sports. We'll see what happens. You know, I don't know, but I'm not gonna make that decision at 8. And that, that's just my own personal feeling that's not to throw shade on anyone or, you know, you're doing it the wrong way. Like, that's just my own personal feeling that that's, that's what I would, you know, that's what I, I hope and you know, I hope happens. But I, you know, I think that we're, we're getting away from that and you know, hopefully we, we come back to, you know, playing and you know, I don't know what the answer is, but I, I can guarantee you that the answer is probably playing less games and putting less stress on young arms and, and bodies so that they're not breaking down at young ages. [00:45:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I talked to college coach the other day and we both got young sons and we were laughing about like, you've got these like 15 new national tournaments that are going on. And he's like, there's zero chance I'm flying to Atlanta, Georgia for my 15 year old kid to go play in a tournament when there's no value in it whatsoever outside of saying that you flew to Georgia, right? Like it doesn't move the needle anymore. And you can, you can accomplish the same thing of development and focusing on enjoying it, not overworking a kid without having to do that kind of stuff. And I think it, it, you know, it starts at a young age. And yeah, I mean, if your kid loves playing baseball, like, let him play a bunch of baseball. Like there's nothing wrong with that but you know, understand that, you know, you, I just don't think you need to be flying around the country and you know, spending you know, every Thursday night through Sunday night in a hotel room with your 11 year old kids so that they can play three games a day at some tournament. Like I don't think it's good for them and I think the long term benefits of it are pretty negligible. [00:46:45] Speaker A: Yeah. It's just there becomes a point of diminishing returns and it comes faster at younger ages. So you know, take that for what it's worth. [00:46:56] Speaker B: Go play some wiffle ball. Go play some wall ball. [00:46:58] Speaker A: Oh gosh, I love wall ball and wiffle ball when I was younger. [00:47:03] Speaker B: That's great. [00:47:03] Speaker A: Play in the backyard. [00:47:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Hit left handed. You know we used to go to. [00:47:09] Speaker A: The minor league field. Hit left handed. [00:47:10] Speaker B: Oh yeah, we used to, we used to play all kinds of little games. I don't know if maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know if kids do that as much anymore. [00:47:17] Speaker A: We sound old saying that. [00:47:18] Speaker B: Yeah. But like every, I think that, well. [00:47:21] Speaker A: I hear, I, I, I, I think for the most part you are right. I will say I drove by a little league field the other day and I did see kids hitting opposite handed on like a, like high school kids hitting opposite ended on a little league field. And I was like, huh, look at that. [00:47:36] Speaker B: Yeah, out in the wild. [00:47:38] Speaker A: I, I haven't seen that in years. [00:47:40] Speaker B: That fires me up. I think the other thing too, and I'll, I'll close with this, is that it's not really the multi sport thing but a large portion of what kids do now they do everything under supervision of a coach. Right. You're throwing bullpens on trackman, you're hitting on hit tracks or you're hitting with your hitting coach. And I think there's something to be said about just going and playing and not staring at the metrics and the result and just go and play. Right. I know pick up baseball is really, really hard, but that's not what I'm getting at. But like go play wiffle ball. Like go play baseball with a tennis ball. Like go and do some stuff that doesn't require adult supervision or a coach standing there evaluating every single swing you take. Like sometimes you just need to do it and just go enjoy doing it. Versus every. The only time I hit is when I'm in the facility with my hitting coach. The only time I throw is when I'm in a facility with my pitching coach. And I don't think that that is necessary for development, specifically at young ages. Not saying don't go to a hitting coach, but you don't have to do everything there. Like, everything doesn't have to be scripted. [00:48:57] Speaker A: No, in that, like we're stifling athleticism and doing that. And it's not, it's not to put down anybody who does that. But at some point, you have to challenge yourself and figure it out on your own. And that's where, like, you know, we did it growing up. I, you know, shout out Papa Borelli here. Like the amount of stories he's told about when he was a kid doing it. But like, you know, we did it growing up. We had neighborhood wiffle ball games, football games. Like, you're the youngest guy playing with a bunch of 12 and 13 year olds and you're 10. Like, you got to figure out how to be good. You got to figure out how to hit, you know, a tennis ball that's being thrown at you harder than you've ever seen. And there's something to that. And, you know, it's, it's gone by the wayside, I think, for the most part. And, you know, everything is in a controlled environment, a controlled setting. And, you know, that's, that's not how athletics in general is played. There's a lot of variables. There's a lot of things you got to try to be able to figure out. And I think that we've, you know, taken that part out of things. [00:50:13] Speaker B: Well said, coach. Well, that takes us to the end of our Q and A session. It was a good time. Always keep the questions coming, folks. We're happy to do this. I think it's a, a good way to get a bunch of information out there. So, you know, hit us up on social media, send us emails, whatever it is. We're happy to take on these topics, talk about them, hopefully shed some light on some stuff that's important to folks. So thank you again for listening. Tune in next week. We will talk to you then. Thanks, everybody. Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram. And if you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.