Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, parents and coaches, are your kids using the right glove? The most important skill for youth athletes to learn is how to play proper catch. The problem is most youth gloves are made with bad leather and are too big for small hands. They actually make it harder to play catch. That's why former Major League Baseball shortstop Kevin Smith created Cali Gloves. Cali gloves are crafted from 100% Japanese kip leather and are the perfect size for kids.
All Cali gloves come with palm slits, finger loops and elastic wrist lacing that encourage proper hand placement. The right closing patterns and give kids more confidence to go make plays. Cali gloves even allow parents to break in the glove without stretching out the fit.
It's the glove Kevin wishes he had growing up and the glove all his teammates want for their kids. Visit caligloves.com to learn more and help your kids play better catch.
Cali Gloves K a l I gloves.com
[00:01:10] Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of the Dugout Dish podcast. I'm Andy Kirikidis, joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How are we doing, sir?
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Great, how are you?
[00:01:22] Speaker B: We're doing it today.
We're going to talk about stress related to the recruiting process and how to potentially alleviate some of that. And I think, I think stress comes in multiple different forms as players go through this and I think stress can happen regardless of how your process plays out. I think you can be a really highly rated recruit who's getting a bunch of phone calls from the best schools in the country. And I think there's stress related to that. And then I think there's also stress related to things maybe taking a little bit longer than you think or performance anxiety, whatever it might be.
Um, I think it's, I think it's very hard to be a 16 or 17 year old kid in today's world with social media and just, just a lot of the stressors that I'm not sure if I can fully put my shoes in.
I don't remember having to deal with anything even remotely close to what some of the kids have to deal with now. I mean back in the day it was like I barely knew who was good in a town over for me, nevermind knowing that, you know, the four star recruit from Texas, you know, from small town Texas, just, you know, hit 92 and committed to the school that I like. We just didn't, the information wasn't there. So like there was a lot less to stress about. But I think in general the process itself is stress inducing. Right? You're Talking about having to go and perform in front of a bunch of adults that are ultimately making critical decisions about your ability to play a game and the fear of failing and thinking that one bad performance can be the end of your recruiting process and all that kind of stuff.
I think it adds up for kids, and I don't necessarily envy them by any stretch. And I actually empathize with how stressful this process is. And for a lot of kids it can be difficult.
Some of it's self inflicted, but I think part of what we try to do is alleviate some of that stress with what we do. But I think we want to take a little bit here to talk about some of the different types of stress, how you might be able to avoid them, different tools, different types of people that you can reach out to, and some different techniques that can be used to make this process as enjoyable as you can make it. Because I think the end result is to get to something that is a pretty cool accomplishment. You know, being able to say you're committed to play college baseball. I think there's a lot of kids that, you know that strive to achieve that, and I think there's a small percentage of kids that actually do.
And that's what we're here to help for. So where do you want to start with this one coach?
[00:04:16] Speaker A: I think timelines is probably a good place to start.
I, I think as much as we've talked about this on here, and I'm hoping that we can, we can spread more awareness through this podcast about timelines and the stress inducing things that can, that can pop up on timelines and where you're at and what's going on.
You know, I feel like we've at least in our world, and I use our world loosely, right, Like I think in the, in the baseball world, we're all coaches, people like us who work with families are well under the understanding that timelines have slowed down.
Where, you know, when we were, when we were coaching, you know, 10, 12 years ago, timelines were so sped up, it was absolutely out of control.
With the new legislation and everything that's come down, timelines have kind of grown, have ground to a halt.
The transfer portal has something to do with it. The contact rules have something to do with it.
And I would argue that it's really good for baseball. If you listen to this enough, you know, that we both think that this is good for the game overall and it's good for players to be able to develop over the course of their high school careers instead of having to make decisions as a freshman, sophomore, or maybe early in your junior year where you're going to spend the next four years of your life.
But, you know, I think a lot of the information out there is you see people, you've seen people who committed super early and people are in a rush to get this process over because it is stressful and it can wear on your mental health and it can do a lot of things to kids. And it's, you know, to your point on your opening monologue there, you know, it's a tough thing to go through.
The flip side to it, and this is the truth and this is the reality.
We did it, right? Like, we did it not in the social media area era, but we did it.
The other side of it is it's kind of designed that way because when you get to college, not that it's stressful, but that, but the stakes are raised.
You know, like your, your Friday double header on a July summer tournament game is not as meaningful as the April conference weekend game that you, you need to win the series to keep yourselves alive for the one seed or the April series where you need to win to get your, to keep, you know, because you got it rolling on the back half of the year to get into the tournament, the stakes are raised. And that's, that's the reality of it, right? Like when you go to play in college and you're, you want to do this and you want to, this is something you want to do, you need to at least have the basic understanding of when you go play in college, the stakes are raised. If you're going to go play at the upper echelons of college baseball.
You know, those guys, jobs, regardless of whether or not you're at the upper echelons or the bottom, like, you're, you're paid to win baseball games.
And in some instances, like guys, jobs are on the line, you know, so, like, they need to coach and they need to win. And, you know, it's a uber, like, we've talked about this a lot, that it's an uber competitive environment, but a lot of it comes with the fact that the stakes are high when you go play in college. Like, you want to win, you want to get to the conference tournament, you want to play postseason baseball, you want to do all of these things. A lot of people, you ask anybody who wants to go play in college, and we hear this all the time, like, what's your ultimate goal? I want to play in the big leagues. Any kid who wants to, who plays baseball, who aspires to play in college. Like, generally speaking, all of them are like, I, you know, it'd be cool if I played pro ball. It'd be cool if I made, like, I want to make it to the big leagues. Like, everyone wants to do it. Like, you know, it doesn't get easier.
Right.
I'm not saying that it's not a stressful situation and to completely, you know, downplay what it is that you're going through, but you need to have that understanding of the basic understanding of what this is. You're going from a high school game in which there's half a million people playing, down to a college game where only 8% of them are going to be playing in college. So the kids are better, the play is better, the stakes are raised. You want to win.
But I think a lot like, the rush to get recruited also gets a lot of people jammed up into the stress and anxiety surrounding the recruitment process.
Understand now that the timelines are slowed down the portal, obviously, where coaches are losing kids to the portal, maybe gaining a handful more than they have in the past out of the transfer portal, and then getting to high school guys a little bit later. And it's not necessarily that negative, but they have a little bit more data on the. The college guys that they can look at and decide whether or not they might be a plug and play for a year versus a high school guy. And we've talked about this on multiple podcasts. But being able to kind of fundamentally understand that the vast majority of recruitment for you is going to happen after your junior year of high school that summer and into the fall of your senior year. Are there going to be people that are going to commit during their junior year? Absolutely there are. That's never going to stop happening. It will happen. It's going to happen at the upper echelons of college baseball. It's even going to trickle down a little bit, as we saw last year, and it'll probably, you know, be that. Be that way as coaches kind of lean into the transfer portal era and kind of say, like, hey, we've had guys who have left here and gone and played in the sec, acc. We can develop you to do that, and kids make the decision to go do that, you know, but the rush to say that you want to be committed immediately is. Is where we get jammed up. I think a good portion of, you know, understand that you have plenty of time. If you are a 27, you still, like, you're just starting your high school season. You got March, April, May, June, July, August, September, you got seven, eight, nine months, you know, to get better and get recruited. If you're 28, you know, you have tack 12 months onto that, right? You have a full year plus another seven, eight months, you know, so you're looking at, what's that, 19, 20 months before, you know, you have to ultimately make a decision. Hopefully, you know, if you're 29, it tack two years onto it, right? Like, you have so much time in this process. And I can guarantee you unequivocally, because we had multiple guys last year as 20, 26 as our clients, who ultimately played Division 1 baseball, who didn't commit until July and August and September of last year, who didn't have Division 1 offers at the start of the year, and then come July, August, September, had Division 1 offers and ultimately decided to go play Division 1 baseball.
It's happening in real time. And we've talked about this on multiple podcasts, like, we're living this, doing this, you know, advising, consulting business with families.
It's. It's a reality that's going on. You do not have to hit the panic button if you haven't talked to anyone yet. You do not have to hit the panic button if you haven't been recruited by Division one school. It doesn't mean that it's going to happen, but the opportunity is still there if you can put your nose down and just go to work and get yourself better. If you've done what you've needed to do in October, November, December, January and February of last year and this year to set yourself up for success in your high school season and moving forward and being able to create that roadmap for families like we do. And understand, if you listen to this, there are things that you can do to mitigate all of this stress that's going to be able to get you to a understand the timelines of, like, oh, wow, I have a lot more time than I thought think or, you know, what, what? Do what, you know, we'll get into this as we go here, but, like, what other things can I do over the course of my career and where I'm at from a graduation standpoint to get in front of college coaches without having to spend an astronomical amount of money.
And there's a lot that you can do, quite frankly, you know, and we talk about this a lot. It's knowing, you know, getting your, you know, knowing where you fit in, getting an honest evaluation of yourself. But I think fundamentally we start at the timeline piece of, like, understanding how much time you realistically have.
And I think I'll additionally add in like, what are you doing with that time? If you're not doing anything with it, it's going to speed up and it's going to give you even more stress and anxiety. But if you're doing what you need to be doing over the course of the months leading up to you becoming into the summer where you can be recruitable, you're going to give yourself a really good opportunity to be able to be seen and get recruited by a lot of schools.
If you're the parent of a high school baseball player with college aspirations, you already know the recruiting process can feel overwhelming. Endless showcases, non stop emails and big promises with very little clarity. That's why we recommend Diamond College Showcase Camps, the nation's premier academic baseball showcase. At Diamond College showcases, every college coach in attendance is there with a purpose to coach, instruct, evaluate and recruit. Every player is seen, every player is engaged, and every family leaves with a clear understanding of where they truly stand. This is not a mass camp. College coaches run the drills, evaluate every athlete and provide honest professional feedback that you can trust. Diamond College Showcase Camps are built for serious student athletes who value both baseball and academics. If you're looking for transparency, clarity and a recruiting experience that respects your time and and your players future, Diamond College Showcase is the place to be. To learn more, visit diamond collegeshowcase.com.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: What you're doing with that time I think is huge. And I think that the reason I want to focus on what you said there is, it's related to the process involved with getting yourself in a place to be recruitable.
And the goal isn't to commit as soon as possible. The goal is to find the right fit. And for, you know, everybody's going to have a little bit of a different timeline. And to your point, like most guys are going to get recruited, you know, the spring and summer of their junior year. It's just when you look at when Division 3 heats up, when Division 2 heats up, and when the vast majority of Division 1 is going to do a lot of their legwork, you know it's going to be in that window of time and you know, the new recruiting rules have impacted those timelines. It slowed things down in a very, very good way. For high school guys that can put their heads down, they can focus on development less about, you know, who's calling them and what they're doing and focus on, all right, well, what do I need to do to get recruitable? Like we've said this on this podcast before, you're worried about getting recruited, but you need to worry about getting yourself in a position where you're actually a recruitable player. Right? Do you have the right type of metrics? Are you doing some of the in game performance stuff that's a prerequisite to being a recruitable player? Have you made your varsity team yet?
Focusing on some of those things in the short term, understanding that checking those boxes as you go, hammer in the weight room, hammer and nutrition, doing the things that you have control of that ultimately gets you where you need to go.
And I think where the stress of this process comes in is that we, I shouldn't say we, but players and parents, I think are guilty of this as well, is they start to focus on the other stuff outside of their control. They start to focus on, well, so and so, you know, committed to this school and I think I'm as good as him. Well, okay, it just kind of is what it is, you know, and then you have to ask the question, all right, well, what are you doing? Do you have a plan in place? Have you been reaching out to coaches? Right. If you're a 2027, you know, you. If you're not reaching out to coaches, it. You should be in the process of figuring out who you're reaching out to and starting to lay that, that groundwork and starting to get some of that stuff out. But like, are you doing some of the basic things that you need to do to help yourself in this process? And more importantly, are you doing the on field stuff that's actually going to move the needle so that you can close the gap on your competition so you can make sure that you're going to push, put your best foot forward. And I think a lot of times we get distracted by things that we don't have a ton of control over. And I think that's really stress inducing.
And I think, you know, social media plays a role in that.
It kind of gives off this illusion of that it's a zero sum game.
Right? Well, that if somebody else commits, that means that I can't commit.
There's a ton of opportunity out there.
And I think there's two basic fundamentals that you can put in place to help reduce the stress. One is having a plan for what you're going to do from a development perspective. Right. It's something we talk about with our clients ad nauseam.
What's the off season going to look like? Who are you working with from a strength perspective? We need to add weight. We need to Add velocity. We need to get faster. You know, we use that as tools and information so that guys can get better. And then the other part of it is, do you have a plan on that you're going to execute for the summer? Right. Where are you going to be? What tournaments are you going to be in? What showcases do you need to be at? Are the camps that we need to get you to? Where do you fit in the grand scheme of college baseball? Because there's a lot of stress induced around.
I think there's a lot of undue stress that ultimately falls on people because a lot of the decisions they make are not going to be fruitful for them. And at the end you don't get the result that you're looking for. But you never really put yourself in a place to be successful anyways. And I think some of that comes from a lack of understanding on where a player may fit from a talent perspective and not really having a clear understanding of what you're trying to get out of the process.
Right. If you're a high academic kid, it helps nail it down, right. It helps you focus on a specific set of schools.
Sometimes casting this super wide net actually makes it more stressful because you can't really, you can't really narrow in on what you're trying to get at. So having a plan, having an understanding, and having somebody in your corner who can tell you where you fit, why you fit there, what you can do to increase your stock, right. It's a lot of the off season stuff that we're talking about and who can help you put together a plan that's executable for you. You put yourself in a position where a lot of that stress gets removed because you're prepared, right? You have a plan, you have something that you can actually work towards. You have goals, you have a system in place that helps support you. And it takes some of the thinking and some of the stress out of the process.
I think that that's pivotal because when the stress starts to seep in as you go through this process, I think it ultimately will impact your on field performance.
Because a bad game turns into, well, that coach was there and he didn't like me, you know, because I didn't play well that game and that turns into another bad game because we start to get some doubt that creeps in. But understanding how the process actually works, I think allows kids to focus more on competing, playing hard, doing the things that they can do that they have control over.
Understanding that perfection in this game is, is not Something that is, that is realistic or should even be strived for, you know, doing some things that are always controllable. The play hard stuff, being a good teammate, like focusing on that type of stuff, I think is actually a lot more fruitful for guys. Obviously the performance is going to matter eventually, but you can drive yourself into this performance anxiety of every time you take the field. You feel like you need to go 4 for 4 or you need to strike out 21 guys.
You get to this place where you lose sight of what's really important and that is playing the game hard and playing it the right way.
Some of that just comes from a lack of understanding of what coaches are actually doing and how they're actually evaluating.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you nailed the part of the performance stuff.
As a college coach, when you're recruiting, you're not necessarily.
You want to see guys fail to a certain extent, see how they react, see how they might get exposed and what you think you might need to fix if that kid gets into your program.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: And I think from a recruiting standpoint, you know, from a kid's standpoint and possibly a parent's, when you're thinking about it like, you know, you're constantly thinking that they just want to see success all the time. And while there's some truth to it. Yeah, like would I love to show up and watch a kid hit all the, you know, get four hits every time I see him play? Yeah, I would. But that's not how this game is played. That's not the reality.
You get out 7 out of 10 times and people are like kicking head a little bit, you know. So like you have to keep that aspect in mind. Like what are you doing with your at bats? Are they competitive? At bats are like are we not giving it away? What's our approach look like? It's things like that. It's more process based than it is results based.
And I think you, we, you can get yourself caught up in a.
You know, I think performance anxiety is probably the best way to put it. But into a performance anxiety vortex of like every time that I take the field, I need to be really good. I need to make every play, I need to get a hit. Every time I can't strike out, I can't do like that's not, that's not real, that, that's not a realistic outcome and what, in how this game is played and what's going to actually happen and you know, you need to be a little bit more process based around like what is my approach and you know, if you're struggling, have the conversation like, hey, what do I have to change my approach? What's going on here?
Things of that nature, not necessarily, like, I need success now, and that's the only way I can get recruited.
Because you can get yourself crossed off. If you go for four and have bad body language and throw your stuff and you know you're not ready and you do it multiple times. Like, that might not be. You know, some coaches are gonna be like, hey, man, like, I'm out. And it might not be because of skill or talent or anything like that. It might be because of how you're reacting to your failures, which is inherent in this game.
You know, I think the other thing, and I think I alluded to it a little while ago, but that along with the timelines, is, you know, what you can do, you know, based off of your grad year, to kind of get in front of some coaches or do some stuff that might get you out there.
And I want to be very clear when I say this, and I'm going to steal one of your lines.
You want to have a decent enough understanding and have a conversation with your coaches, or, you know, if you work with people like us, we're going to flat out tell you, like, hey, man, you're not ready to go to this showcase or you're not ready to go to this camp. Because in the line that I'm going to steal from you is that exposure can get you exposed.
You can go to these camps and try to get exposure, and if you're not ready for it, it can expose where you're at and be a detriment overall to your recruiting process. You know, if you show up to a camp and you're a sophomore and you're competing, you know, you compete against a bunch of rising juniors or rising seniors and you're a rising sophomore, and you get, you know, completely blown out of the water because you're not ready yet to be able to showcase yourself. You're going to do yourself more harm than good. There's going to be a lot of coaches that are just going to put an X to your name.
Excuse me. Or they're just gonna say, you know, they might circle and be like, I used to do this. I'd circle and be like, super young, you know, but I wouldn't really take any other notes surrounding it because that. I don't know, like, you're not really ready. And I. I don't. I. I can't really evaluate you because you're still for me, when I was coaching at rpi, you're still two years away from me to recruit you. So, like, it's hard for me to really be able to give you an honest evaluation of where you're at other than just like, hey, man, like, you need to go back to the drawing board, like, not to the Dr. But you just need to get in the weight room, you need to get better, you need to develop.
Stop going to these showcases. You don't need to be here.
And that's a reality for a good portion of kids. Just because you're not necessarily ready as a sophomore doesn't mean you're not going to be ready as a junior.
And maybe you're not ready in July of your sophomore year to go showcase, but come October, maybe you're an arm who put on some weight and grew a little bit and now you're throwing a little bit harder. Like, hey man, why don't you go to as, you know, in the fall? You know, if you're a rising junior, let's say, like, you can go to it, go to a camp in the fall, an on campus camp that's not that expensive of a school that you're really interested in. Have what they, what you're looking at for academically and get in front of that coaching staff and get the feedback that they have and see what they have to say. Because, hey man, you go in there and light it up, you know, they might be like, hey, this is a kid that we should definitely get out and see next spring. If you don't, like, get some feedback and be like, hey, what? Like, where, where am I deficient? What did you not, like, what do you think? You know, at least you can have a little bit of feedback of like, hey, okay, like, you know, I was 81 to 82.
They're looking for a little bit more velo. You know, I need to sharpen up my break and stuff. You know, my breaking ball needs to be a little bit better. My change up was, you know, average. But, you know, they think that it can play, but I can still tighten that up a little bit more. You know, if it's a position guy, like, hey, you know, we think your arm strength is, is a little bit below average for what we're looking for. Not to say it can't get better because you're a younger kid, but like, if, you know, push comes to shove, if it's in the same spot next year, not really a guy that we would be able to really bring in here to recruit because we don't think that you can play on the left side of the field or in the outfield. We think you can only play second base. And that's going to be a hard, it's going to be a hard, hard guy to bring in unless you're really going to bang it and you're left handed type thing.
So like, there's a more nuance to it. But I think that, you know, depending on where you are in your timeline of, of, of your grad year, you can be targeted in, in where, where you go, what you do. And you don't have to go to 8 million showcases to get in front of coaches.
They're still going to be there.
Come see your rising senior year, you know, after your junior year where they're still going to be looking for players. You can spend a lot of that money instead of going to some of these camps and showcases on your development, on weight training, on nutrition, on, you know, defense, on offense. All of these things that are going to continually get you to develop.
And some of the best things you can do in order to get better at this game is just go play and go try to play as many games as you possibly can. Don't worry about the showcases, just go play. Get more at bats, get more live in game reads. Do all of the things that are going to get you better at this game versus worrying about getting recruited in a timeframe in which you're not like there's not a college in the country that's really realistically recruiting your grad class, let alone you specifically. You know, so I think that can obviously be something that you can do as a family. You know, we talk about it with our clients all the time about where, you know, being targeted and where we're going to go and what events we're going to hit. And you know, honestly, when we have younger kids, like sometimes it's none, sometimes it's one depending on where they're at in their development. Sometimes it's like, hey, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna find something in the fall to go to, you know, and if it's a position guy, and you know, I know that we're, I, I'm very vocal about being against winter camps. But you know, if it's position guy and you've been hitting and you've been doing stuff and you want to go to an indoor winter camp at a school that you're going into your, you know, senior year that you, you, the summer will be your rising senior year, you know that you're really interested in, hey, why not? You've been taking out bats, you've been hitting live. Like, go ahead, go see what's up, you know, but like what you have those conversations and it can happen with people like us. So your coaches or whoever it is, you're, you know, you're hitting guy, whatever, right? But like, you want to also kick the tires on, you know, whether or not it's going to be worth it for you. And I think some of the stress, especially nowadays surrounding how many emails get sent out there to everyone and the sheer amount of events are out there can get overwhelming. You know, again, I go back to the timeline stuff, but also understand, like, where, where you're at, have the conversation about where you're at. You might not like what you hear, but it's going to save you a lot of stress and anxiety in the long run. Say like, hey man, you don't need to go to that camp right now. Like, let's just focus on getting in the weight room. Let's focus on getting better offensively and let's make sure that we're getting, we're getting ourselves in really good position for when, you know, the back half of this year, when you're a junior, you know, at the back half of your junior year and rising into your senior year that we can go to, you know, maybe a couple camps in the fall or a showcase and kind of get some feedback on where we're at. Because next year is the year where we're really going to want to hit our stride, to know where our deficiencies are to, to make them better.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: I think the other part of the stress too, right. I think, and I'm not gonna lie, I mean, I wish that this was a more readily available resource when we were playing is, is, you know, back then, and this isn't throwing shade at anybody, but it was kind of like, well, you know, get over it. Like you failed. Like, get over it. You know, like, be tough, like be mentally tough. You know, dealing with failure in baseball and just in general. And I think that that space has evolved and it's very much a part of athletics now, which is there's a lot of resources out there. There's a lot of people who really do a really good job at giving players tools to help them perform at the highest level that they can. Like we understand how much of a mental process baseball is in sports in general and just even performance of anything, right? Breathing techniques, basic step by step processes that you can take from a Routine perspective that can help you kind of get in the right mindset, right? And we had, we had Michael Huber on, I believe it was episode 105, you know, who's a mental performance coach, and he talked about some of these tools and for, for some guys, they can be huge, hugely impactful.
Whether it's a pre game mental routine, whether it's visualization techniques like some of these, you know, there's some old heads on Twitter and call it foo foo or whatever, but I mean, at the end of the day when some of the best athletes in the world are leveraging these people and these techniques, I think it's hard to, I think it's hard to dismiss it as a potential tool that you can use.
And you know, they're, they're like anything else that takes effort, it takes time, it takes commitment to the practices and you know, commitment to what, you know, your, your coach may be asking you to do. These aren't instant fixes, but you know, a sport like baseball with the amount of failure that we have, like just having a mechanism to be able to kind of reset after you take a bad switch swing or you know, after you make a bad pitch or, you know, you give up a bolt and you know, do you have a routine like, all right, we're going to walk around the mountain. I'm going to take two deep breaths, I'm going to stretch, I'm going to grab, touch my toes and I'm going to get back on the mountain. We're going to go, all right, well maybe that's the cue you need to just get you back to center so you can get back to doing what you're doing.
You know, performance anxiety and just the distress of the inevitable failure of college baseball is, you know, it's there, it's real. And I think that, I think that the recruiting process can, can make that like hyper sensitive and I think it can get really difficult.
[00:31:58] Speaker A: Right?
[00:31:59] Speaker B: It. See.
Yeah. I remember talking to one of our guys. It was, it was two summers ago.
He's pitching at the Division 1 level and he's, he's a very talented kid. But I remember talking to him after one of his outings in the summer.
I said, well, how'd you like, how to go?
[00:32:17] Speaker A: He's like, how.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: He's like, I threw fine.
He's like, it's still weird to pitch and you've got 15 guys with radar guns back there. And I feel like I'm not pitching to win. I feel like I'm pitching to get Evaluated.
And he, he went as far along to say, he goes, I kind of miss high school because when in high school all I was worried about was, was winning.
I want to win this game, I want to pitch to win this game. And he had guys at his high school games. He had, you know, the school that he ultimately committed to. They were at a bunch of his high school games doing their, doing their due diligence, but it's a different atmosphere. And honestly, when he, after that conversation I had with him, it really made me think long and hard about how it is very easy to forget that these are 16 and 17 year old kids who are going through a really stressful process. And he's not wrong. Like, I think he kind of nailed it and he, he wanted to be in an environment where winning was what mattered. And it wasn't about him throwing hard or making this pitch or like, well, how good was this breaking ball on this day? Or is he quick enough to the plate and did he throw enough strikes? Like, because he was well enough informed, he understood what coaches were looking at because we'd been working with him for a year. He's, you know, very much understood how this all works. And, but I remember him calling me after he committed and he was like, I'm super happy with where I'm going, like, and I'm fired up to go and pitch, you know, pitch there, you know, for one of our good friends.
But after that he said, I'm also really glad that this is over and then I can move on. I kind of can just focus on getting myself ready for my high school season and I can get myself ready for college when that time comes. But you know, that's, that's the type of reality that these, that these kids are going through. And I think, I think sometimes, and I don't know because I'm not a parent of a kid who's going through this, but I got to imagine that it's easy to lose touch that your son or your daughter is going through something that is really stressful and they probably, you know, knowing 16 or 17 year old me, like, they're probably just swallowing it down and going through it and may not be all that vocal about it. And I think that sometimes, you know, it's worth checking in on that. And I think that if you have the means to do it, reaching out to somebody who has the ability to maybe help your son and daughter, even if they don't necessarily have it, I think there's tools that can help them make sure that they don't find themselves in that, that stress induced anxiety on the field.
You know, there's a lot of free content out there like social media. That's probably one of the coolest things about social media is that there's a ton of information out there and a lot of it you can find for free.
But I think if you can find some tools to put in your tool belt as a player, if you're a parent and you want to try to support your, support your son or daughter as they go through this, I think that's a really terrific way something to pursue is give them the tools between their ears that are going to allow their physical talents to show up most frequently.
Parents, if you've ever felt overwhelmed trying to navigate youth sports, there's a new resource designed just for you. Team Match.
Team Match is an online platform built to streamline how families find the right youth sports teams by location, sport and skill level all in one place.
It also provides a safe, organized space for kids to share their accomplishments, stats and highlights while giving coaches and teams a clear way to connect with athletes who are the right fit. Less searching, less stress, more confidence in the process. Youth sports just got simpler for families. This is Team Match. Check it out today@teammatch sports.com
[00:36:14] Speaker A: yeah, yeah, I just think that the, you know, this is a very stressful, it can be a very stressful process. And I think regardless of whether or not it's super easy for you or it is difficult, there is a level of stress surrounding being recruited.
And you know, to our guy's point, that there is a lot of truth in that. Like you are, you, you do feel that way, right? Like, you know, and I think I would say this, like I would.
My counterpoint would be that I, and I think he nailed it first and foremost, but I think that, that, that is probably an overwhelming feeling for arms in this process. Like, I don't necessarily know if you feel that as a position guy, you know what I mean? Like you're not throwing the radar guns. You're not, you know, like you don't see the stopwatch. Like you're just, you're, you know. But I think the flip side of it, like you can get buried in it like we talked about a little while ago about if you're, you know, if you're, if you're only worried about your outcome on offense and defense, then you can kind of start to feel that way where, where it's a rather overwhelming experience.
But you know, it. I think being able to again, Understand your timeline and understand that this people call the recruiting process for a reason.
Right? Like it's not something where you play one game or show up at one showcase and everyone, you know, you get offered the world, you know, like this isn't like everyone's Shohei Ohtani and just shows up and it's like, yeah, throws 100 and hits at 490ft. Yeah, no, you will give you a spot like that. That doesn't happen.
There's going to be multiple times for the most part where you're going to have to be evaluated as a player.
[00:38:08] Speaker B: And
[00:38:10] Speaker A: I think you can decrease some of this stress and anxiety by understanding that that's kind of what you're opting into, right? Like it is, this is what you're opting into. And it can get a tad bit overwhelming when all of a sudden there's 15, 16 radar guns getting, putting up behind home plate when you're throwing and there's guys showing up to watch you play. And you know it, right? And again, to my point earlier, like it's, it's kind of designed that way because when you get to college, the stakes are raised and we want to win and we want to do these things. We want to coach you up, we want to see if you can handle what it is that we're, you're going to be asked to do. Because there's a lot of people that can't.
And I'm not saying that it doesn't make it easier, that it doesn't make it less stressful, but I think that if you have a basic understanding of what that kind of looks like and how that kind of shakes out and what you're opting into, you can at least have, you can sleep better at night knowing that you're doing everything in your power to give yourself an opportunity to be one of the 8% that goes and plays college baseball.
Because that's, in reality, that's what it is.
You're opting into going and playing with other super competitive people with an opportunity to go win and win baseball games and hopefully win championships and do these things. And that doesn't happen with just, you know, a bunch of, and don't take this the wrong way, but a bunch of nine hole hitters out of high school who don't really care for baseball at all, right? Like that. You're not going to win a whole hell of a lot with that. Like you're going to win with competitive people who, who want to put in extra work, who want to get better who want to strive to be as good as they can possibly be. And I think in an era where, you know, you know, Eric Kraus was on talking about how, like, you know, people get made fun of for trying hard. Like, if, if you're gonna get made fun for trying hard, like, you know, I would be willing to bet the people who aren't trying hard probably aren't going to be that successful early on, and they're not going to be the ones that are going to go play in college as much as they say that they want to. Right? And like, I had a conversation today with somebody who'd reached out and, you know, there was a. Not one of our clients, but a friend of mine whose essentially the story was that the young man was told that they didn't think that he wanted to play baseball in college, so they questioned his commitment to playing high school baseball.
And it struck me as such a bizarre comment to make where, like, if only 8% are going to play college baseball, like, the want to do it doesn't.
Shouldn't preclude. Shouldn't be a question, right? Like, it's high school, and not to diminish it, but, like, it ain't college. You ain't getting paid to win baseball games in high school. You know, you see it all over Twitter. Guys are, you know, they don't make a lot of money, right? Like, you don't get paid a whole lot to do it. Like, you know, it should be about competition. It should be about trying to, you know, work hard and learn life goals and life values that you can use through the lens of baseball to help people get better. The ultimate goal, regardless of who you are and where you are, should not be that. I want everyone on my team to play college baseball like that. That's an unrealistic goal to have.
Like, I coach at RPI, I had for 10 years. There's a laundry list of players who went through there and played for me and played for Carl. Carl played for 34 years. See, a lot of guys played pro ball. Like, to a man, I don't know how many of them are like, I want to play pro ball. Like, they went to RPI to get really good degrees to have to set themselves up in life if they played, awesome bonus. But, like, they were realistic enough. And the reality is, like, it's 8% to go as plays in college. It's such a small number of kids.
And I just, it, it, it struck me as such a bizarre comment to be made, but also, like, the stress and Anxiety induces in the kid, in the family. And I think that, like, as coaches, we need to have an understanding of what, what that looks like and how we can do a better job of mitigating that.
You know, and that's not the only one. Right? I'm sure there's, there's, there's tons of those out there, you know, but I, I think that also comes from a large misunderstanding of what, what the college recruitment process looks like and, and what, what it's meant for. You know, it's meant for the people who want to go play, like, legitimately want to do this. And I think you have to understand the basic. Understand that you have to have the basic understanding, excuse me, of, you know, you're opting into an uber competitive environment and stakes are going to be raised and it is going to be a little bit stressful, and it's kind of designed that way, but how you manage that and, you know, your point. Mental, you know, mental performance coaches and understanding, you know, I think having an understanding of what it is can, can make it a little less stressful. And, you know, it's, there's a lot more that goes into it, you know, so it's.
I, I don't know. I, I went off on a tangent there. I'm sorry that, that story came up in my mind as I was speaking, so I just kept on talking.
[00:43:30] Speaker B: I think it's, I think it speaks to that. There's, there's undue stresses that can be put in this process, and there's. There's kids who have the ability to play college baseball who get so burnt out by how this process plays out and travel ball and, you know, the high school politicking and all that kind of stuff where you get kids who come to the end of the road who can play play, and we're just like, you know what? I don't want to do this. I just want to play. I just want to go to college. I just want to go get an education. And, and for me, that's sad because there's something that happened along the way, whether it was pressure from parents, whether it was pressure from coaches that you lose. You're losing people at a young age that have the ability to play this sport at the collegiate level.
And I think some of that burnout starts really early, and it's a very slow fuse that trickles down. And I think some of it starts with well before high school. Right? And I mean, I got all kinds of thoughts on how stupid. I think the nine new and 10U teams traveling all over the country to go and play and trying with rankings. Like, you're just creating this freaking toxic environment where your kids don't actually enjoy playing. Like, I've told this on the. I've told this on the podcast a couple times, but it coached. I was fortunate enough to coach some really talented players, some really talented players at William and Mary. Guys who played professionally, you know, made a bunch of money doing it, all that kind of stuff.
As soon as their love for the game went out of it, it was over.
As soon as it became a job, as soon as it became tedious, right? And I watch guys who are on our team quietly kind of just go through the motions because the game had become.
It wasn't fun for them anymore.
And that's the quickest way to add stress to this, is that it's not fun anymore.
And I think as a parent, you got to be cognizant of that and making sure that that doesn't creep into your child's experience. Because if they have fun doing it, it's a lot easier to deal with the ups and downs. If they enjoy showing up to the field, it's a lot easier to deal with an over 4.
If they enjoy being around their teammates, it's a lot easier to deal with giving up some runs when you're on the mound.
If they show up and everything is about getting recruited and everything is about the end result. In the Twitter post, you're setting them up for increased stress before they even arrive to that field.
So I think that's probably the last thing that I kind of want to caution against is, like, try to make sure that you're not introducing unnecessary stress. It's not just about mitigating stress, right? When we talk about having a plan and making sure that we're doing the things that are required of you and doing the hard things, you know, the lifting, the running, the sprint work, the extra work, all that kind of stuff that we know is necessary if you want to get there. Like, you know, we had Kevin Smith on who played in the big leagues, and he kind of put it as like, it's the illusion of choice.
You know, there's. There's really only one way to do most of this. And it's not a coincidence that the guys who end up playing in college typically have a very similar path to get there. They all work their butts off, they lifted, they ran, they did all the things that were hard.
But there's, you know, that helps reduce stress because you Know, you're doing what is required of you. You know, you're putting in the work. You know, you have a plan that you can execute against. You know, you have information around what you're trying to get out of it and where you fit. Right. That reduces stress. But I think there's another element of this is, like, don't introduce unnecessary stress. And I think some of that stuff can come from parents, I think it can come from coaches, and, you know, not to. I, I'm as competitive as anybody else out there, and I, I hate that everybody get a trophy environment that we're in right now. And I think there's a ton of lessons that you learned from competition and competing and, and losing and all that kind of stuff. I think it's wildly valuable for kids to go through that. But at the same time, like, don't conflate that with not having fun. Like, your kids need to have fun. They need to enjoy doing what they're doing. And I think that that can reduce some, some stress organically.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: So I think you hit the nail on the head, too. The, the, the 9, 10, 11 use stuff where this goes into a whole other long podcast that we're not going to get into today.
But I thought about it when you said that, you know, the guys that you coach and, you know, listen, I coached a lot of guys, too, that, you know, played professionally. We're all Americans, we're all league, just like you did.
We played with a lot of guys that, you know, had phenomenal careers.
And I look back and think about the guys that, you know, I played with who, you know, had long professional careers, handful, played in the big leagues. You know, the one thing that sticks out to me, and it was, it was a little bit of a different era, but, like, humor me for a second. How many of those guys solely played baseball?
[00:48:45] Speaker B: Most of those guys played other sports in high school, specifically.
Right.
[00:48:51] Speaker A: The point I'm just driving at is,
[00:48:52] Speaker B: like,
[00:48:54] Speaker A: not just the specialization, but, like, There was no 9U travel when we grew up.
It wasn't a thing.
[00:49:04] Speaker B: No.
[00:49:04] Speaker A: Like baseball from what, April to June? Or like April, July, like, we even. I don't even know if we had an all star team.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: You played your town league and then,
[00:49:16] Speaker A: yeah, that was it. You marched in the, you marched in the parade. Felt like a big deal.
[00:49:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:21] Speaker A: You know, your grandparents are sitting on the side, you wave to them. You're like, yo, I'm in the middle of the street here, riding in a float. I feel like I'm on top of
[00:49:28] Speaker B: the world hand me down uniforms from the previous year.
[00:49:31] Speaker A: Yeah, you had the, the canvas bag with the orange chest protector and the blue, the blue, the blue shin guards with the orange kneecap.
[00:49:40] Speaker B: A bag full of bats that you didn't have to pay for.
[00:49:43] Speaker A: A bag full of helmets that like, the one thing I will say now, like, I don't think they would have protected anybody back in the day. Like, the foam in that thing was like concrete. Put it on your head, like you're just sharing helmets. You put on a helmet, it's sweaty from the guy before you. Like, you didn't care as a kid, but you look back and still you're like, yeah, we probably could have done without that one. But my point is like, you moved on from that and then went and did something else.
Like, you know, I, I played baseball, I played football and I wrestled.
Like, I, I, those were my seasons. That's what I did during that time. From the time I was, shoot, five, six, I didn't play T ball. So from like six on, like, that's what I did. And then I got really serious about baseball when I got older. And you know, I, I look back and I, I don't envy the kids in the social media area. Like, I, I don't, I don't envy a 9U kid who's playing 65 games.
Like, go be a kid, Go play, go. Like, you know, and I do believe this. Like, think about how many times when, when you were a kid, like, you just went and played sandlot baseball. You made up the rules, you played with older kids, you had to figure out how you could hit the 12 year old when you were 9 because they threw harder.
And you can't tell me that that doesn't help you in the long run because you start to try to figure things out.
And you know, I just think that there's, you know, we've, we've gotten away from like, to your point, we've gotten away from, you know, what, what this actually means. Like, we're, we're trying to groom kids into college scholarships and being professionals and blah, blah, blah, blah, instead of just like, hey, go ahead and play 25 games and be a kid, Get a freeze pop after the game, maybe hang out at the field for a little bit and you can return the foul ball to the press box for a free freeze pop.
[00:51:36] Speaker B: We had the best. This is gonna sound super weird, but I'll leave it at this. We had at the, the Snack Shack in my little league, we had four teams in my whole Town, right. We won the district though, when I was.
[00:51:49] Speaker A: No big deal.
[00:51:50] Speaker B: No big deal.
Pittsfield had four Little Leagues. We took them all down.
[00:51:55] Speaker A: We did two at 12. I had a walk off Bolt suck
[00:51:58] Speaker B: at Pittsfield, but they 12, they had the best. They were a quarter.
So they were affordable too. But they had the best dill pickles from this deli in town. And I used to as like a 10 year old, like that was a big thing. Like after the game it was like, hey, mom, can I, can I get a quarter? Yeah, I would really like a dill pickle right now. And I would go hammer. You're like the big. They're like, you know, they're like twice the size of a hot dog. Like big dill pickles. Oh, man.
Golly. Take, take me back, right? Take me back to the Olympic medals. Down near the Housatonic River.
[00:52:37] Speaker A: Those are things that, like, not a care in the world, but those are things that like, you know, I don't, I don't know if I would have. And it's easy to say it, you know, almost 40. Like, I don't know if I would have made it that long in baseball if I'm playing 65 games a year from nine. You on, like, I really don't. Like, it's not, you know, the burnout factor is real. And it's not just baseball. It's every sport, you know, and like you need to step away. And as we talked about earlier, like, it's inherently tough.
It's a game around failure and that, that's hard on you mentally. And if you're just going to continually fail year after year, it's gonna be like, why, like, why am I doing this? Why do I. Why AM I playing 65 games to hit 220?
What's the point in all of this?
And the amount of money you're spending all this stuff, like, you know, and then the reason I brought it up is you extrapolate this out and you get to recruiting age and it's like, we've spent a hundred thousand dollars and it's probably on the low end. If you're doing this right now, like, what am I getting in return?
You know what I mean?
[00:53:48] Speaker B: It's that slow burn of stress which
[00:53:51] Speaker A: adds, which just adds stress to this entire process.
[00:53:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think you even realize it, but like, you put so much on, on the kid, even at like 9 or 10 years old, like playing that amount of games and like people are be like, well, 65 games. Like, no, it's not hyperbolic.
[00:54:06] Speaker A: It's not. Their bodies aren't. This is a whole other issue. Like your bodies aren't made to play 65 games like college guys who are lifting three to five days a week in season. In our six foot four, we have an entire thing from division one all the way down to division three of height and weight that you'll see being released on social media in the near Future. Like there's 6 foot 4, 215 pound guys playing 65 games and some of them break down and we got 9 year olds playing 65 games. What are we doing? You're adding more stress to the body. You're adding more stress to this process. You're adding more stress to everything because this is all geared towards what.
[00:54:42] Speaker B: And at the end of the day, who you are as a nine year old has nothing to do with your ability to get recruited in college. Oh, I think, but I think there's parents out there who think that this is the, this is the development process for their kids. And then if they're, if they play 65 games or 50 games as a 9 year old and they do it as a 10 year old and 11 year old and 12 year old and then like all of a sudden like all those games are, you know, they're gonna, they're, they're gonna, you know, explode in this crescendo of recruiting, you know, when they're 16 years old. And like it's just not the reality of it. I think the reality of it is that you burn your kid out and I think the stress of it just builds up and it becomes this, it becomes the such a result driven process that you, you lose sight of your kids being bought into it and really enjoying it and loving it.
And I think that that's core at this. Like you want to reduce stress, make sure your kid actually really wants to do this and is, is kind of bought into the, the process that they're going to have to take.
And don't, don't do that too early because you're going to burn them out.
[00:55:48] Speaker A: I concur.
[00:55:49] Speaker B: All right, well, thank you for listening everybody.
Hopefully that was insightful.
Tune in next week, we'll 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 MD Baseball 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.
