Kudos to Parker Stinnett

[CaptainObvious]

I?m afraid we haven?t seen this team?s worst .

I feel really bad for Hines and Clark. I hope changes are made so they don?t transfer out. I wonder if either of them can pitch!😳😳

[R2Dawg]

Yeah, I'm afraid we still a ways to go to hit bottom. One thing for sure, we either going to rebound or go down like a lead anchor.

[BeardoMSU]

Anybody have a video of it? I had stopped watching when this went down.

Bumpity

[shoeless joe]

Boy this could be an interesting thread…

I’ve done a lot of coaching at several levels but mostly in higher level MS high school athletics. Here’s the deal…travel ball is a necessary evil in my opinion. I’ve got kids that play if because rec league is so terrible and they will be left in the dust by the time they’re in middle school if they don’t play. I do have fun watching them play in tournaments and compete on Saturday’s. We also have a really good coach that is absolutely great, demanding, yet loves the players. I fault no one for playing it and hope those of you that coach it do so for the right reasons. At its best travel programs provide opportunities to get a lot of experience against quality, relatively speaking, competition.

Now for the huge negatives from what I’ve seen. The nature of travel ball does not instill mental toughness. I’ve seen travel ball all stars that flat can’t cut it in a big Friday night district showdown. They’re not used to the immediate pressure of one game, 3-4 at bats, handful of balls hit to them, and most of all knowing they’re the ones being relied upon. On the travel team they’re just one of 4-5, or more, guys that can carry the team at any given time. No real personally pressure that individually they have to perform in any given game. If they go 0fer for 3 games and then go 3/4 they’ll have good feelings at the end of the day. I have seen way more of these, what I call showcase all stars, that have all the tools but lack the toughness than I have absolute dirt bags that remind me of 80s/early 90s ball at the collegiate and pro ranks.

I recognize that this is not a one size fits all statement and I’m making some anecdotal statements here but all I can go by is what I’ve seen myself. There’s also some other traits that I feel the travel ball culture promotes that are not beneficial for the game. Look at 2 of the 3 teams left in the WBC and how they carry themselves versus the teams that are out. Maybe not related but I find things like that very interested.

[StarkVegasSteve]

Boy this could be an interesting thread…

I’ve done a lot of coaching at several levels but mostly in higher level MS high school athletics. Here’s the deal…travel ball is a necessary evil in my opinion. I’ve got kids that play if because rec league is so terrible and they will be left in the dust by the time they’re in middle school if they don’t play. I do have fun watching them play in tournaments and compete on Saturday’s. We also have a really good coach that is absolutely great, demanding, yet loves the players. I fault no one for playing it and hope those of you that coach it do so for the right reasons. At its best travel programs provide opportunities to get a lot of experience against quality, relatively speaking, competition.

Now for the huge negatives from what I’ve seen. The nature of travel ball does not instill mental toughness. I’ve seen travel ball all stars that flat can’t cut it in a big Friday night district showdown. They’re not used to the immediate pressure of one game, 3-4 at bats, handful of balls hit to them, and most of all knowing they’re the ones being relied upon. On the travel team they’re just one of 4-5, or more, guys that can carry the team at any given time. No real personally pressure that individually they have to perform in any given game. If they go 0fer for 3 games and then go 3/4 they’ll have good feelings at the end of the day. I have seen way more of these, what I call showcase all stars, that have all the tools but lack the toughness than I have absolute dirt bags that remind me of 80s/early 90s ball at the collegiate and pro ranks.

I recognize that this is not a one size fits all statement and I’m making some anecdotal statements here but all I can go by is what I’ve seen myself. There’s also some other traits that I feel the travel ball culture promotes that are not beneficial for the game. Look at 2 of the 3 teams left in the WBC and how they carry themselves versus the teams that are out. Maybe not related but I find things like that very interested.

You're pretty much spot on. These small towns in the South don't have good rec leagues anymore. Kids that only play rec ball til they're 11 or 12 are so far behind the travel ball kids from a developmental standpoint when they get to Jr High that most end up quitting. I mean you're talking going from seeing kids who throw a flat 60 mph FB to a kid throwing a 78 mph fastball with some run. They've never seen anything like that with any regularity.

I agree with you on the negatives as well, out of the travel ball kids I knew growing up I would 7 to 8 out of 10 quit either baseball or another sport when they faced any type of adversity. And some of them couldn't crack the field at the high school level in baseball because they took that travel ball mentality of if I have two hits over a 4 game span then that's successful.

Also I know exactly what you mean about some of those "other traits". It's fine when a major leaguer stares down or does a little celebration when they had a 400 ft bomb. But when a 13 yr old with 9 chains on tries to pimp a 250 ft HR that barely clears the wall then his coach needs to chew his around the bases. If you're Ronald Acuna you can act like Ronald Acuna, but when you're little Jimmy playing for the 13U Mississippi Express then settle the hell down.

[Commercecomet24]

You're pretty much spot on. These small towns in the South don't have good rec leagues anymore. Kids that only play rec ball til they're 11 or 12 are so far behind the travel ball kids from a developmental standpoint when they get to Jr High that most end up quitting. I mean you're talking going from seeing kids who throw a flat 60 mph FB to a kid throwing a 78 mph fastball with some run. They've never seen anything like that with any regularity.

I agree with you on the negatives as well, out of the travel ball kids I knew growing up I would 7 to 8 out of 10 quit either baseball or another sport when they faced any type of adversity. And some of them couldn't crack the field at the high school level in baseball because they took that travel ball mentality of if I have two hits over a 4 game span then that's successful.

Also I know exactly what you mean about some of those "other traits". It's fine when a major leaguer stares down or does a little celebration when they had a 400 ft bomb. But when a 13 yr old with 9 chains on tries to pimp a 250 ft HR that barely clears the wall then his coach needs to chew his around the bases. If you're Ronald Acuna you can act like Ronald Acuna, but when you're little Jimmy playing for the 13U Mississippi Express then settle the hell down.

100% on all this. The competition is so poor in rec league you're just wasting your time. When my son was 9 we faced a kid in a championship game that pitches for lsu now and that kid was 60mph+ at 47 feet at 9. You don't see that in rec league at 9. First ab my son doubled off the left field wall on a fb, next ab he got him to popup on a nasty changeup. Kid was more polished on the mound than some of the ones ive seen in hs. What 9 year old has that kind of velo and a changeup. Of course it helped Ben McDonald was his pitching coach.

[Cooterpoot]

I'm all for legitimate travel ball. I've done it for guys and girls. Play at the highest level you can. But organizations have to make money too. They do that by getting kids signed. Baseball ratings are a lot of horse hockey too. Like with anything else, superstars are obvious. After that, you better know who you're signing and who is sending them to you.
LSU has signed 24 top 200 that last three years. We've signed 10. And half of those were this current FR group. We've had a couple leave tgat did nothing here under Foxhall. We hear that we signed a top 5 class it seems every year. Reality is, it's not even top 5 in the SEC most years.
We've got former players in travel organizations. We can generally trust those guys not to sell us crap. We've got half of one organization wrapped up but they're LSU first. We've got to a better job of evals and developing players that we take who have big upside but might be a couple years of work away.

[SilentSteel16]

Funny story here and just wraps up my opinion of what travel ball does to a kid……

Here in Brandon just about every weekend there is a travel ball tournament at the Amphitheater fields. This kid and parent took the cake though, it was 12u and this team was getting demolished by a kid from Grenada that was striking everyone out, he also hit a bomb and kept his head down and basically sprinted the bases, but that is another story.

The team that was doing their best impersonation of State in Lexington was batting and there was this high pitched wail from the 1st base dugout, it was this kid decked out in batting gloves compression sleeves and a gold chain, the obligatory full face eye black as well, yelling at his mom and telling her he was walking up. This woman no crap pulls out this mini speaker and starts blaring this kids walk up music. Once the music started he then started walking to the plate and making a show of getting in the box. He literally watched 3 pitches go by and slow walked back to the dugout with no music.

Best part was somebody from the other team walked over and asked the mom if the kid needed walk up music to go and strike out. If he did maybe he should try golf. This woman was decked out in National Championship Ole Miss gear and they guy turned back around and said “Hail State.”

I about lost it hahaha

I really do hate travel ball but I really believe it is the adults as to why.

[PMDawg]

From my experience, the travel ballers are way more tough than the rec ball heroes that we play school ball with

lol. no way.