Plumlee announced for Saturday

[Todd4State]

Educate me- do you have to play travel ball to be great at baseball? What's the development path for the Latin America players? Is travel ball a lifestyle? To get noticed? Or to become great?

A Puerto Rican coach told me that USA young players are far more polished than PR youngsters and PR destroys teenager arms as collateral damage to playing lots of games. But, he says PR players get far more Glove time and ABs. He says the Latin players thus have far more Twitch than polished USA players.

My kid is 4

I don't think you HAVE to play travel ball to be great. Hunter Renfroe skipped a year or two of it- and actually didn't make Hillcrest Christian's team as a freshman I believe. And you see where he is now. However, the way baseball is nowadays it's definitely more to your advantage to play travel ball because of the current baseball climate. You need the private training to learn how to take your talent to the next level and apply it. A lot of times (not all) those private teachers have travel ball teams and their players get linked in that way. See Dulin's Dodgers.

Basically what happens is all of these elite travel ball teams go to college showcases like the one at MSU and more importantly at the Perfect Game facilities in Georgia. That's where most of the college recruiters and MLB scouts congregate to evaluate and assess players. It's kind of like a one stop shop for them. So, that's why travel ball is so big now. It's for most people their most likely path to college/pro baseball. And like I said it's not the only path but it's definitely the most likely path. Sometimes the guys that don't go that route end up having to go to JUCO to get noticed but if it gets you to MLB there's nothing wrong with that.

Latin America is apples and oranges. Basically what happens is you have these kids that are playing outside all the time and sometimes they get a handler basically. MLB has totally separate showcases for a lack of better words for those players and those players are not subject to the draft unless they are from Puerto Rico. They sign them at 16 basically as free agents and each team is given an international pool to sign Latin American players. If a team goes beyond the pool they are taxed. Sort of like the draft but it's less organized. Cuba and Puerto Rico are exceptions or at least they are a little bit different. Cuba has a Communist system to develop talent. They develop all of their players locally based on where the player is from and they try to identify players at a really young age and start them playing baseball based on their athletic aptitude. To get to MLB they used to have to defect to Mexico or the Dominican Republic or somewhere like that but the Serie Nacional the Cuban MLB has just agreed to a new system that I think starts next year where I believe players can be posted like they are in Japan so they don't have to defect anymore. Puerto Rico is different because they are subject to the MLB draft. They've never really been known for producing pitching to be honest with you which is probably partially why they abuse any good arm that they actually have. They're known more for producing elite catchers than anything. The coach you spoke to is absolutely correct that American players are more polished- and honestly it's probably in part because of the travel ball system. It's also because the coaches in America are better than they are overseas. College baseball helps a lot with development as well.


Canada has the same system as the US except with a much smaller pool of players.

Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan have their own leagues and drafts. Japan is the best but South Korea is not far behind and actually plays more of an "American" style than Japan. Most Asian players have to be posted to sign with MLB- definitely Japan for sure. The other countries may fall under the International spending rules that MLB has if I'm not mistaken.

[PMDawg]

No Gun, I didn't think that. I was just making an observation. Don't be so quick to jump on somebody's comment, I don't do that to you, when you are sometimes out of your lane.

I can't add more rep for you. Tried.

[Political Hack]

Travel ball isn't the problem. It's the parents and coaches that lets the kid play all year long or throw a 100 pitches every time out. As Todd said it helps with development but it has to be done wisely and in moderation just like anything else. I coached travel ball for 20 years. I always carried at least 8 guys that could throw and we only played spring/summer. In the fall winter my players played football, basketball or soccer. We played some of the best talent in the southeast and it definitely helped my kids with their development. Many have played college ball and some more on the way. I've also seen the ugly side of travel ball. Several years ago the 14u team I was coaching played a team from Pensacola in early season tournament championship game. I threw each of my pitchers their 40 pitches each. The other coach threw his ace all 7 innings. Kid threw 140 pitches. They beat us 5-4 but I don't know how that coach could sleep at night after that. Seen that happen more than once. Just as with anything there is good and bad.

That's criminal. I've let a kid go 93 once. That's the most ever and he hadn't pitched in more than a week when he did it... and it was the championship game and we were out of arms.

Travel ball isn't the problem. It's the amount of games these kids are playing. I know some 9/10 year old teams that are playing 80-90 games a year. We played 47 last spring, and that was way too much, but we won a lot of tournaments, were given a free tournament, and made the state championship tournament, which added a lot of games. We played less than 10 games in the fall though, and I force my kids to play another fall sport.

[Political Hack]

Kids from PR and DR are hitting bottle caps with broom sticks. That baseball looks like a beach ball.

If you're from the US, you have to play travel to "keep up" or else you're going to be behind 90% of high school players. 9/10 year old kids now are more polished than the high school kids I played with. Baseball numbers are dropping too, so the select few that are playing are going to have less and less competition domestically.

[Jack Lambert]

I think we start him against Texas Southern to see where he is and let him have a very short outing and go from there assuming all is well. Total guess on my part.



I think there is good/bad with travel ball. I think there needs to be some heavy restrictions that go with it. It's a catch-22 because those AB's/IP's all help with development as well. I agree that playing other sports helps baseball players become better players.

Parents just need to be better parents. If it's their child wanting to do all the stuff they do the parent should step in and say to them you might want to slow down a little. If it is the parent pushing the child they should stop immediately. When I coached my sons city football league team I had a kid who at one time was playing football, baseball, church basketball and soccer. He was worn out one day at practice. I asked what was going on and he said too much going on but my parents make me go. I let the kid rest and not practice. The next practice I let the kid rest. He was a really good athlete and did not need the practice but I could not tell him he did not have to come. So I took that approach. I cannot understand soccer moms and baseball dads. let the kid be a kid and enjoy being a kid. Stop living their child hood through them.

[msudawglb]

The problem is money. There's plenty of cheaper baseball leagues out there for kids to play. But a volunteer parent ends up coaching those teams and that parent may or may not know the basics and thus isn't the best coach for a kid who wants to develop. The good coaches get snatched up by the travel teams and gets paid to coach.

And I'm no baseball athlete but I have trained for marathons and the key is to cross train to avoid injury. Swimming and running go hand in hand....much like baseball and football or basketball. Kids should get exposed to many sports and maybe pick out a couple to do through high school.

[Jack Lambert]

Ginn has a multi million dollar arm and don't blame him or his parents one bit for being careful with it.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Good for him. I hope he get 7 scoreless innings and strikes out around 5-7.