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How to Get Recruited by Your Dream School · The Mound Visit

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Don't be afraid to make an email. Don't be afraid to make a call.
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You never know what's going to come of it. You might send one
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hundred emails and you only get one back, but getting that one email back
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might be the one that changes things and changes your trajectory on your baseball career.
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All right, we are live, Josh. How was the first weekend
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of games? FLA. This weekend of games? It wasn't very good for
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the team. We took three losses, but honestly, as a pitching stuff,
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we did pretty well. Most of the losses were because of a couple
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of errors here and there. We couldn't hit too much, so we couldn't
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put up any runs. But as a pitching stuff we did pretty well.
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Our statas went long, our relievers shut them down. A couple like runs
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here and there made us lose, But overall, I thought it wasn't too
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bad. Nice and I'm sure just being out at your affiliate in the season
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starting, just having your first weekend in general is probably just a good feeling
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to be out there. And obviously it's a long season, so the wins
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will come, yeah, for sure. I mean, our team is so
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good on payper It's that was saying it's one of the best teams that they've
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ever seen. So we're full of prospects and I'm sure that we're going to
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turn around. And yeah, it's definitely good being out at an affiliate.
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I'm in Hickory, North Carolina, and it's a small town but it's beautiful.
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So I'm in my apartment right now, and yeah, it feels good,
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love it. Yeah, I was with checking the box scores to see
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if you're a pitching I know you said you weren't sure if you're going to
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pitch this first weekend, but I'll definitely be looking for that next week to
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see how your first outing goes. Yeah, for sure. I pitched in
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the exhibition game against a community college on Tuesday, and so I think I'm
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just in a rotation more of a peggyback role this year, So I'm going
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to be pitching Tuesdays or Wednesdays once a week. Nice. That's kind of
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nice. I mean, obviously being a starter's preferred, but like a piggyback
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situation is pretty common and the minor leagues and isn't a bad way to get
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consistent work. So that's good. So dude, this week was kind of
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insane in Major League Baseball. It seemed like every day that there was a
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new pitcher getting hurt or something was going on. Like Spencer Stryder obviously jumps
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off the page. Shane Bieber another one, and I don't know if I
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don't know if he actually got hurt. But like I saw someone posting about
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Kevin Gosman as Vila was like super low in his last outing, like he
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was even throwing some fastballs like eighty seven eighty eight, which is unheard of
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for him because he throws ninety five to ninety eight. So you know,
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it's kind of nuts really, and you know, you go on Twitter,
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you go on a social media and you just see people just blowing these players
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up or coaches for you know, the training methodologies that are going on,
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saying, oh it's you know, it's weighted balls, or it's his mechanics
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or there's all these things that like people think they haven't figured out why injuries
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are happening down to a tee. Like from your perspective as a player,
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I don't know if you you know, obviously you probably have been talked about
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on social media, but like I think about like being a Shane Bieber,
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being a Spencer Strider, and like, I wonder if they ever see people
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comment about them, But like, what would your thoughts be or what would
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be going through your head if you saw people just blasting you on social media
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about why you got hurt? Yeah, I mean, injuries is such a
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hot thing. I mean, I've been injured plenty of times in my career.
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I had my back surgery, and honestly, it just comes out of
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nowhere sometimes, especially like with my back, I was doing everything right,
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I thought, and it just kind of my dish just exploded while I was
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doing a back squad And so it's kind of a freak thing. In terms
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of Shane Bieber and Spencer Streider. I don't know what's going on there,
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but I think as players were squeezing so much performance out of our body on
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a day to day basis, and especially for guys who are throwing, you
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know, up a ninety so one hundred, I mean, it just takes
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a toll on the buddy and sometimes it's just going to give out. And
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I don't know if there's one specific factor that caused it, but I think
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it's just, you know, the human body. Sometimes you're just going to
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give out when you're putting so much force into the baseball Yeah, exactly.
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I mean there's so many things that go into it, Like we could have
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a whole podcast about every single topic. We could talk about mechanics, we
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could talk about the way you're building up your workload, all those things,
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because a lot of these injuries do happen at the beginning of the season or
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in spring training, and it's just because in some cases there's this big ramp
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up period that happens too quick for some guys and they're trying to make a
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team, or they're trying to impress a coach, or they're going to a
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level that maybe they're not ready for, like so that can play into it.
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There's actually an interesting tweet. So Bauer posted a question about this on
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Twitter, asking people like why people think all these injuries are happening, and
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someone commented back and said, is it because the ramp ups are too quick?
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Do they need to start throwing earlier for arm to adjust injuries or distress
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from season before that pitcher fought through. Bower responded, yep, the death
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spiral. Arm gets banged up during the season. Take pills to basket and
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get through the year, take more time off in the off season to let
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the body recover, go to spring less prepared than usual, expected to throw
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harder than usual in spring to make the team or keep up. And I
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never really thought of it from that perspective of how you know, an injury
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that happens right now, it might have started because of something that happened last
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season, right because you're trying to get through that season and you finally get
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to the off season, you need time off to recover because you're so beat
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up, and then you end up not giving yourself enough time to ramp up,
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or you try to go full throttle during spring training when you're not ready.
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But it's because of the demand for it is there right like you're fighting
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for a spot. There's very few people in Major League Baseball to where it
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doesn't matter what their spring training looks like, they're going to be okay and
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they're going to have, you know, the spot and the rotation or whatever
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that they want to have. So there's just like you no nowadays compared to
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twenty years ago, I feel like spring training you have to be in mid
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season form. You can't be showing up with spring training as a way to
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get your arm back in shape. You have to be there ready to go
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full throttle right away because there's someone right behind you trying to take your job.
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Yeah, for sure. And I think the times are just changed to
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where spring training right now is a time to make a team and back like
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a couple of years ago it was a time to get ready. But it
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is difficult because, like I felt it, I came into spring training like
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full throttle, I'm ready to go, and then a weekend I get a
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backspas because maybe I wasn't prepared for it. But you know, it's tough
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to it's tough to look at it like that because when you come into spring
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training in mid season form, maybe you break down at the end of the
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season. So it's kind of like a balance of that. But yeah,
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I've definitely seen players go through through those stages where all right, I'm hurting
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a little bit. All right now, I'm gonna take a couple of pills
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and you know, red hot to try to mosk it. You know,
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I'm doing that right now with my back actually because I had that backspasm.
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But I'm still trying to go and compete. So but yeah, that death
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spiral thing is really interesting, and I'm hoping that there's gonna be a lot
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of studies into it to see if there actually is something behind that. For
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sure, quick note, red hot, that stuff is magic. I used
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I used to use that on my elbow all the time and I was throwing.
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It's amazing how much that helps. But yeah, I mean, this
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is a tough question for you. But if you had to pick one thing,
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and this is nearly an impossible question, but if you had to pick
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one thing, what do you think is the leading part of injuries today in
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baseball? What is the number one cause for pitches? I think it just
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comes back to we're just trying to Like Velo is in demand right now.
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You know, everyone's trying to throw a hundred and so we're doing all this
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training and throwing to try to get there. But sometimes a human body,
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like it's a tiny ligament, you know, the UCL sometimes you're just going
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to give out. And I think that's just a byproduct of the Velo training
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and something that we kind of really get around. Yeah, that's what I
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would say. Yeah, I you know, along those lines, I would
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completely agree. It's I don't want to say it's a necessary evil, because
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velocity is important, it's good, but because we have to push ourselves,
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or players have to push themselves so hard and so frequently that sometimes things break
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right, it's we are pushing ourselves to the limit. You are redlining yourself
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essentially, and that's why all those other details like recovery and taking care of
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yourself away from the field are so important because when you are pushing yourself as
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hard as you know you are, and other pro athletes are in collegiate athletes,
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every single detail matters. And if you're not taking care of every single
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part of those things, let's just say, you're not maximizing recovery, you're
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not getting enough sleep, you're not taking care of the things that are really
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fundamentals and in your control. But you're redlining your velocity work you know,
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two three times a week. Over time, that's going to add up.
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So it's we have to really really be aware of the workload, of course,
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and we also have to be aware of what we're doing in between those
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velo days to making sure that we're maximizing the recovery the best we can.
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You know, in some cases it's inevitable regardless of what you do. Like,
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some guys just get hurt despite having quote unquote perfect mechanics taking care of
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themselves. Sometimes people break and things happen. But as long as you're doing
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the things that are in your control, you're at least going to give yourself
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the best opportunity. And I saw something I forget who tweeted that eighty miles
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an hour is basically the limit that the arm can handle, or something along
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those lines. Don't quote me exactly on this, but some of the comments.
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What I was thinking was, Okay, yeah, maybe eighty miles an
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hour. For whatever reason, he says that is the limit of what the
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arm can handle through high school. But how many high school kids you know
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that are getting recruited throwing eighty miles an hour? How many kids that are
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throwing eighty miles an hour you know at seventeen eighteen years old, are going
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to LSU, are going to Arizona State, or are going to know it
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doesn't even have to be a good Division one school. It could be even
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some Division two schools and other spots. So you know, that's the time
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we want to talk about today, is recruiting. This is a little segue,
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we'll get away from the injuries for a second. But from a recruiting
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standpoint, throwing eighty miles an hour typically isn't going to get the job done.
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In some cases, maybe get an opportunity, but for most kids that
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want to go to high level college baseball, eighty miles an hour isn't going
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to be enough, and they have to push themselves, you know, within
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a certain range. We're not trying to you know, crush high school kids
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and trying to do too much. But at the same time, they do
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have to pu in the work to throw harder, to throw more strikes,
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develop good off speed pitches if they want to reach their full potential and reach
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their goals of playing division in baseball. So you know, for you,
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you were seven throwing seventy eight at sixteen years old. When you were sixteen
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years old before you started your you know, your training journey, were you
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trying to reach out to schools or were you trying to get recruited before you
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made that velocity jump. Yeah, So what actually happened was that I went
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on a travel ball team. Uh, it was like an Australian travel bull
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team, and we went out to Arizona, and so it was supposed to
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be like a recruiting trip, and at that time I was throwing, you
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know, I think I was throwing like low eighties, but I had a
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friend who was throwing in the low nineties, and so we would go out
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and showcase and then I would just see getting all these offers from big time
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colleges, pro scouts, you know, big time jucos, and I would
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get nothing, and I was like, why is this happening? And when
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I really broke it down, I kind of figured out that, Okay,
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like velo is something that is a necessity if I want to get recruited.
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I can't just you know, throw low eighties and throw strikes and try to
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get recruited. It's just going to have to be something that I work at.
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And that's kind of where I got the realization of, Okay, I
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need to gain like, you know, ten miles an hour if I really
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want to get to where I want to be. Did someone help you come
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to that realization or is it just simply no schools are interested and you've kind
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of just figured out on your own that I need to throw harder. I
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think at the time there was like a big thing about oh, if you
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throw ninety you get recruited, and so I had that, But also I
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was just looking at all the guys who are getting into these powerhouse universities,
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powerhouse d ones, and I was watching things like The Perfect Game USA,
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and you know, the trend is that all of them are throwing ninety three
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ninety four miles an hour, and so I kind of just looked at myself
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and said, all right, like eighty three is not going to cut it
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if I want to go to a powerhouse, do you want? Which is
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what I wanted to do. And so yeah, that's kind of where I
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got the realization of VILO was a necessity, not just something that you don't
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have to welcome. Yeah. So once you started throwing harder and schools were
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getting interested, were you reaching out to them, like, were you sending
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emails to schools or was your coach making phone calls or was it simply you
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started going to showcases again and they just saw you and liked you and they
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started reaching out to you. Yeah. So, once I got my velop
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I was actually a drive line baseball and I was talking about you know,
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ninety to ninety three miles an hour. I got the video of myself and
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it's actually funny. I don't throw a single strike in that video, like
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the catchers set up and yeah, I don't throw a single strike. But
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I was like, all right, it's fine. I got that video and
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a I cold approached like one hundred college coaches a cold email. Sorry.
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I was like, hey, coach, whatever, I really love you university
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because you know, and I try to make it personalized. I didn't just
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like mass send because that's going to get ignored like most of the time.
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But anyway, I did that, and you know, I didn't really get
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any replies, probably because I didn't throw a single strike. But what did
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happen was at the coach at University of Washington, he reached out to a
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guy called Ryan Roland Smith in Australia and he ran one of the biggest football
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teams in Australia. And so I got connected with Ryan, and I was
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able to get on that showcase team and we all went out to Arizona to
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showcase. And that's kind of where it all started. Where I was starting
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ninety three ninety four at that showcase and the Ryan, he's well connected.
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He was reaching out to a lot of these coaches to try to come and
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watch us, and yeah, that's kind of where the office started to roll
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in and my recruiting process really kicked off. Was that your junior year or
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what time frame was that when you started actually getting interest from schools. This
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was my senior year. This, yeah, senior year of high school.
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And I know that's not the most ideal. You kind of want to get
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recruited, you know, sophomore junior year because like, especially when I was
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getting recruited, a lot of these powerhouses had their recruiting classes filled up.
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They didn't have any spots, and they were like, look like, if
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you want to come to a team, like you're gonna have to walk on.
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We have no scholarship money left for this recruiting class. And so you
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know, ideally you want to be throwing, you know, in the low
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nineties by a junior year. But I mean, I think the lesson is
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even if you're not, I think just keep training and training and it's not
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going to be too late. If you have the talent, that's a good
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point. When you're good, they'll find room for you. They'll find a
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way to get you on campus. Like yes, is it more ideal for
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it to be early in your career, of course, but that doesn't mean
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that you're doomed if you're, you know, a senior in the fall of
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your senior year and you still haven't committed. So truthfully, for me,
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now, I didn't go to a four year school out of college. I
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went the JUCO route. But I didn't commit to a school until literally May
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of my senior year, so two months, two or three months before school
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started. I was getting recruited a little bit during my senior year. Junior
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year, not really at all. I was throwing seven eight eighty miles an
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hour left handed, yes, but just velocity was not there. Senior year,
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velocity still wasn't really there. I was like low eighties, around eighty
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to eighty two. But at every showcase I went to, I went to
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Perfect Game Showcase and all that, Like I just dominated and just struck out
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everybody despite not throwing hard. So I was getting some interest from some schools
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then, But believe it or not, academically I was not very good.
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I had horrible grades, which when you're a fringe guy and you have bad
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grades, like there's basically no chance that you're going to go to, you
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know, a really good program at that point. Now, if I was
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throwing you know, ninety to ninety three from the left side, and I
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had, you know, averager below average grades, they would probably find a
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way to get me on campus. But because I wasn't a good student and
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I was a fringe guy from a from a pitching standpoint for a major Division
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I school, there weren't a ton of opportunities there. So I kind of
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had in my head that I was going to go to the Juco route pretty
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early, pretty early on, but I still didn't know where I was gonna
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go. Like schools wanted to see me pitch in the spring. Then of
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course during the spring they have games going on, so there was really no
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time for them to come watch me. And then I basically went to like
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a tryout for Chandler Gilbert Community College in May. So May is when high
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school baseball season ends in Arizona, and I went to like this like tryout
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thing was it was like they still could offer you a scholarship, but in
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Juco and Arizona, like scholarships are literally like three hundred and twenty five dollars
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for a semester, like there's no full rides for JUCO, just like kind
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of here, here's a little a little amount to show you that we we
18:37
want you, but like we can't offer full rides out of junior college.
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So I went to a tryout for Chandler Gilbert did really well, and then
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I also threw for a couple other schools through. One of them was South
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Mounta Community College, which is where I ended up signing. But like I
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literally threw for them. I think it was like the end of May and
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school was starting two months later, and that was when I made my commitment
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to go to go to the JUCO route. So all that to say is,
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you know, regardless of where you're trying to go over what your path
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is, it's never too late. Like you know, you see guy,
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especially nowadays, you see kids committing or verbally committing I should say, as
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freshmen and sophomores, and you know, if those are your buddies or you
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see people like man, I want that to be me. I wish I
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was the one that was getting, you know, recruited. Right now,
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use that as motivation to work hard and keep going, but don't use it
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as a way to loose hope that it's too late for you to get recruited.
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You're gonna have to settle for you know, a certain school or a
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certain level. Keep pushing, keep working. Understand that as long as you
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get to a certain skill level, like, there will be opportunities for you.
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Yeah, for sure. And I would even go to say, I'm
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curious as to what you think about this, Jared. But if your goal
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is to you know, get to Pro Bowl or like a powerhouse university and
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you're just not there yet, when you're like, you know, a senior,
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I would even go to say that, like a gap year could be
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super valuable if you can train and take a bet on yourself and get that
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velo up and then you can try to get recruited or signed. What do
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you think about that, Jared? Yeah, the gap year thing is kind
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of a newer concept for me. Like when I was playing, that wasn't
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really an option. Like really it was like if you weren't ready to play
20:19
a four year school, you would go the Juco route or if you didn't
20:22
have the grades or something like that. So I can't say I really have
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like a strong opinion on it, Like I kind of tend to lean towards
20:30
the JUCO route. That way, you're still playing games and you have stats
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to go off of. But with that said, when you're in a team
20:38
setting, you are limited on the training. It's you know, you're obviously
20:41
in an end season type of mode, and really the only time you have
20:44
to yourself is the summer when you're not on a team. So there is
20:48
something to be said for the gap year. I think it just kind of
20:51
depends on what is the missing link for you. If it is velocity,
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if it is like you got to raise the floor by a lot, then
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that might be the best route for you, versus if it's just a great
21:00
issue or a command issue or something like that, I think the JUCO route
21:04
is probably the better option. But at the end of the day, it
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kind of comes down to whatever your goals are and really what you want to
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do. I will say this that, yes, it looks good and great
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to go to a four year school out of high school, especially a big
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Division one, But I can't tell you how many times I have seen literally
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top high school baseball players in their state go to a Division one school and
21:30
they get five at bats their freshman year, or they throw two innings their
21:33
freshman year. It happens so so much like there's so like my time frame.
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I graduate twenty ten. There was a pitcher in Arizona named Jake Barrett.
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He went to Desert Ridge High School, really good high school baseball program
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out here. They won I think, back to back state championships. He
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was a two way guy. He hit for a lot of power. He
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threw ninety five plus on the mound. He got drafted. I want to
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say it was like the fourth round out of high school. He decided not
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to sign. He went to Arizona State his freshman year. I think he
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only pitched ten innings his freshman year, and he was the number one player
22:07
in the state of Arizona. Was a fourth round draft pick. Now back
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in twenty ten, Arizona State was a really, really good program. I
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want to say they went to the College World Series that year. But still
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he was the number one player in a very good baseball state and he still
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got limited innings his freshman year. So I'm not saying that like freshman or
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that high school students shouldn't go to for year schools out of high school.
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But what I am saying is it isn't always as glamorous as it sounds,
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there's a lot of people they go to a school, they transfer out of
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it because they're not playing or something happens. Like you need to understand what
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your goals are and what's important to you, and those things should be from
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a baseball perspective, place where you're going to be able to develop and get
22:47
better, in a place where you're gonna have an opportunity to get meaningful innings
22:49
so that you can actually pitch. So with that said, if that's the
22:53
gap year, if a gap year is the best route for you for one
22:56
year, I'm on board with it. If it's the juker aout worth it.
23:00
If you think you have a really good opportunity to play as a freshmant
23:03
of four year school, do that. There's really no right answer to these
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things, but you need to make sure that you're educated on all the different
23:08
circumstances that come along with it. Yeah, for sure, that's a great
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point. Actually, and sometimes it's better to be the guy at a smaller
23:18
school than one of the many guys who throws ninety three ninety five at a
23:26
powerhouse powerhouse university. And that's something that I was actually really considering when I
23:32
was going through my recruiting process was okay, throw I throw ninety three miles
23:37
an hour right now, but everyone on this staff at a powerhouse university is
23:44
going to be throwing ninety three miles an hour. So you know, I
23:47
was in a post of going out and competing for a spot, but it
23:49
also was a little bit of a risk of dang, well, if I
23:53
have a really bad fool, then I could get like very minimal innings in
23:59
this season, because you know, colleges are out here to win. But
24:03
maybe if I go to a smaller d one, a mid major, and
24:08
I'm one of the hottest throwing guys, i have one of the best stuff
24:11
on the staff, then I'll have more of an opportunity to go out and
24:15
compete and get more innings and uh, you know, more leeway to go
24:22
out and fail and learn and go out and play. Were there some mid
24:29
majors or smaller schools that you were considering, because I know Stanford was you
24:32
know, the dream school, but like, well, I guess number one,
24:34
did you commit to Stanford? I don't even know if you like actually
24:37
committed there or what that path look like. And then you ended up signing
24:40
Pro pro ball out of you know, out of high school. But like,
24:44
yeah, what were the options you were weighing, and like where were
24:45
you actually committed to? Yeah, so I showcased in Arizona. So most
24:53
of my UH college office came from the West Coast, and so I went
25:00
on visits to most of the pact Ole schools. I went to you know,
25:03
Arizona State, U dubb Stanford and all of these places. But there
25:08
was one school called Tulane University that came out and they really loved me.
25:15
And this was a question where I was like, Okay, do I want
25:18
to go out and have a major role at a mid major or go into
25:23
a PAC twelve and compete for a spot. And you know, there was
25:27
a lot of factors that went into it, like scholarship money. You know,
25:30
the powerhouses aren't able to offer as much as a mid major. But
25:38
in twenty nineteen, I ended up committing to Tulane University. But there was
25:45
some stuff that happened where like, you know, the coaches left and the
25:49
recruiting coordinator left, the I think the head coach left as well, and
25:55
so I think my commitment wasn't solid and so I would have had to find
26:00
another school, but then I signed with the Philadelphia Feelies, so that's kind
26:06
of how it happened. But yeah, it's it's a tough question, you
26:11
know. Even college versus Pro Bowl is another whole conversation. But yeah,
26:15
you just have to weigh out the pros and cons of both of them and
26:21
really just figure out what's the best path for you. Yeah. He brought
26:26
up another good point too, about how college coaches, you know, sometimes
26:30
leave and if you're committing, you know, as a freshman or a sophomore,
26:33
there's no saying if it's even going to be the same coaching staff by
26:37
the time you get there, and then that creates a whole other mess with
26:41
you know, do they still want to keep you or you know, I
26:42
don't know how it works. If like you're free to get out of your
26:45
commitment if a school or if a coach changes schools, is that right?
26:49
I'm pretty sure that's how it happens. And this actually happened to one of
26:53
my good friends out of Australia. He was committed to you Dubb as a
26:59
sophomore, and a year later, the whole coaching soft changes and now they
27:07
didn't onna his scholarship and they didn't want to bring him on, and so
27:12
he lost that commitment and he ended up going to a JUCO. But yeah,
27:18
it's kind of scary sometimes when it's like you're committing to a school and
27:22
then you don't know if the coaches are still going to be they if they
27:26
still want you. Coaches are changing all the time. But has that ever
27:30
happened to you? No, not to me personally, but I have heard
27:33
about that happening with a lot of guys. It is. Yeah, it's
27:37
interesting how that happening. I don't think it's you know, I don't want
27:41
to say it's not common, but I don't think it's you know, super
27:45
super common. But it's definitely something to consider when you're looking at your school
27:48
and deciding where you want to go. Something that I think would be helpful
27:52
for our listeners, and you mentioned this a little bit earlier, is writing
27:56
emails. And this is something that I did all the time when I was
28:00
trying to get recruited and when I was especially when I was out a JUCO
28:03
trying to get to a four year school. After that, is emailing schools.
28:07
Knowing what to say, what they're looking for. And you know,
28:11
now being on the other side and having been a college coach for a little
28:15
bit and just kind of knowing what I know now, I think we could
28:18
help a lot of high school kids with the recruiting process of reaching out to
28:22
schools and what to say, maybe not what not to say, Like for
28:26
you when you're writing your emails, like, what were the big things that
28:30
you were including in that email and touching on that you wanted to get across
28:33
to the coach. Yeah, for me, it was just I was trying
28:38
to emphasize for a ninety plus I think one of the biggest mistakes is like
28:45
videos of game tape of you just striking out the house, but there's no
28:49
like metrics to go along with it. There's no velo, there's no track
28:53
man or anything. But for me, it was I think in my heating
29:00
I said right handed pitcher ninety to ninety three miles an hour, twenty twenty
29:07
class something something along those lines. But it was very straightforward, and I
29:12
was just trying to say that I throw hot enough to get recruited, and
29:21
yeah, that wasn't too much. It was probably like a couple sentences of
29:25
Okay, why I love the school and stuff like that, but even that
29:27
I don't think is super necessary. What do you think? Completely agree?
29:33
So starting with the header, like it needs to be flashy, like I
29:36
love what you just said, Like you put the headline of like what is
29:38
kind of the main draw for you? Which is ninety to ninety three right
29:42
hand pitcher? You said what class? That's perfect because think about it,
29:47
especially with these big schools, and really not even the big schools, I
29:48
would say all of them. They get so many emails from kids wanting to
29:53
play there, so you have to have something that initially jumps off the page,
29:56
especially if you're kind of just cold emailing pace without a connection to them.
30:00
It's going to take a lot for your name or for something in that
30:03
email to flash and jump at them. Just number one a really good header.
30:08
Number two would be the body like you want this to be as short
30:11
and compact as possible while still giving them the necessary numbers and information that they
30:18
need. So things that I would make sure I hit on would be heightweight,
30:22
class, the school, the high school that you go to, and
30:26
then give just really quick bullet points on your velos for all of your pitches.
30:30
So fastball ninety ninety three, slider eighty three to eighty five, so
30:34
on and so forth. If you have a TrackMan report, definitely include that.
30:38
And then the next thing I would do is from a video standpoint,
30:44
send video. But like you said, you want to have something that's like
30:47
objective with it. And I mean if you have a TrackMan report, it's
30:49
not as important because they can look at the TrackMan report, But if you
30:53
don't, at least have a radar gun showing in the video for a few
30:56
clips so they can see all of your velos for your pitches. Make sure
31:00
you have good quality, get a side view for them behind the mound or
31:03
behind the plate, and make sure that this video is not long, like
31:07
this video should be probably thirty seconds max. They're not going to sit there
31:11
and watch a five minute video of you pitching against you know, some high
31:15
school for an hour, so make it very quick, good quality, have
31:18
all the objective numbers that they need, and then of course make sure that
31:22
you list your own phone number for them to call. And then have you
31:26
know at least one recommendation or a coach your whether it's your high school coach
31:30
or travel coach with their name and their phone number, and then I always
31:33
try to obviously this isn't always possible, but try to find a connection with
31:37
that coach, whether it's you know another coach you play for, maybe you
31:41
know someone on the team. Just any sort of connection to where you can
31:45
tie yourself together, to where you can connect and he you know, he'll
31:48
have more of a reason to follow up with you because there's some sort of
31:52
connection there. I think that always helps. But at the end of the
31:55
day, be as quick with those with those emails as you can, as
31:57
far as giving them the key information. Like you said earlier, as well,
32:01
make sure that you put their actual name at the top. Don't just
32:05
say hey coach or dear coach, because that makes it pretty obvious that you're
32:09
sending the exact same email to one hundred colleges. Like, make it a
32:13
little personal. Make sure you put their name, say something about the school,
32:16
something that makes it a little bit more personable. But other than that,
32:20
like, it doesn't need to be long and fluffy. They don't need
32:23
your whole life story. They don't have time for that. They have a
32:25
lot of a lot of emails that they're getting and going through, So you
32:29
want to make sure you hit them as quickly as you can with the big
32:31
hits, and provide a short and concise video with all the information that they
32:36
need. And do you think you should email the head coach or the recruiting
32:42
coordinator. Recruiting coordinator for sure, I mean if you wanted your head coach,
32:47
I guess you could, but I would recommend the recruiting coordinator because they
32:51
are the ones that do this. Now, if you are a pitcher and
32:53
the recruiting coordinator is the hitting coach, I would send it to the recruiting
32:58
coordinator and the pitching coach so that he can see that as well, because
33:00
a lot of the times, even if the pitching coach isn't the recruiting coordinator,
33:05
he'll still handle a lot of the pictures just because that's obviously his area
33:07
of expertise. So he'll definitely get a say in the pictures that they're bringing
33:12
into the program. So you could send it to both of those guys,
33:15
and then as far as finding the emails, it's pretty straightforward. Go on
33:19
their website, the baseball website. If you click on the coaches tab,
33:22
it will have a list of the coaches. Sometimes right there it'll just have
33:25
their emails right next to their names, or if it doesn't click on their
33:29
name, it will take you to their bio and then it will have their
33:31
you know, sometimes their phone number, and it will definitely have their email.
33:35
And that's also a good way for you to kind of figure out if
33:37
you do have a connection with that coach through their bio, like, look
33:39
at where they've been before, where are they from, anything that you can
33:43
connect yourself to. I think that's really valuable just to build that relationship a
33:46
little bit further. Yeah, for sure, I think connections are so important.
33:52
And you know, coding emails, I wonder how effective they are though.
33:58
What do you think, Jared like that it was just such a hard
34:02
medium to try to get recruited on. But do you think it's worth it?
34:05
What do you think? Well, I can speak from personal experience that
34:09
it is how I got to George Mason, well sort of how I got
34:15
to George Mason. I'll tell that story in a second, but it is
34:17
how I got to Independent Ball was through cold emailing coaches. So I am
34:22
I'm a big believer in it. Like I have probably sent a thousand emails
34:24
to coaches in my life. I can't really remember the juco path. I
34:30
think my travel coach helped me get to South Mountain Community College. But so
34:36
what happened with South Mountain or as I was there my sophomore year at South
34:42
I actually wasn't pitching very well. So the fall of my sophomore year,
34:45
that's the big time to get recruited as a junior college player, is the
34:49
fall of your sophomore year. I was. I had gained velocity. I
34:52
was thrown like eighty five to eighty eight. In the fall of my sophomore
34:54
year, I was pitching really well, and I was starting to get recruited
34:59
by some decent schools. One of them was Grand Canyon. At the time,
35:02
they were a D two school with I think they said by my senior
35:06
year they were going to be a Division one school. I had the stubbornness
35:10
in my mind of I'm playing Division one baseball. I don't want to wait
35:14
till my senior year to be for it to be a Division one program.
35:16
So I held off on that. Had a couple other like Division two type
35:22
offers, held off on them. Springtime came. I pitched awful to start
35:28
the season. I was just I was pressing so much because I wanted to
35:30
get signed. I wanted to go to, you know, a really good
35:32
school. Still ended up getting some interest from some schools that were some good
35:37
Division one programs, but like they all fell through, they just kept falling
35:40
through and falling through, and by the end of my sophomore year, I
35:45
still didn't have At that point, I basically lost all of my opportunities even
35:49
for the Division two schools because I waited too long. They gave away those
35:52
scholarships to other players. So I couldn't even go to a Division one or
35:54
a Division two school on a scholarship. I was gonna have to walk on
35:58
somewhere. So so my plan was after my sophomore season was I'm going to
36:02
try to get into a really good summer league or as good of a summer
36:05
league as I can, and try to get recruited here in these next two
36:08
months, and if I don't get recruited, then I'm going to walk on
36:10
at Arizona State. So what I did was I emailed every single coach in
36:15
the Cape Cod League, in the West Coast League, the California League,
36:19
the North Woods, the Jayhawk League. I literally emailed every single coach in
36:23
those leagues. I got one email back from a team in the West Coast
36:27
League, the kids at Blue Jackets in Washington. They said, we can
36:31
offer you a ten day contract because my season ended earlier than Division one schools
36:37
end and they were going to need a few extra players for the first,
36:39
you know, a couple weeks of the season as the playoffs and the season
36:43
winds down for Division one baseball. So I decided to do it. I
36:46
drove to Washington ten day contracts. I pitched two times in those ten days.
36:52
One was one I got to save and the other one I got a
36:54
win. As a starter. Pitched really well, but they were like,
36:58
you know, we'd love to keep you, but we just we don't have
37:00
a spot for you because we got all these other guys that we've already mad
37:02
commitments to that are coming in. And then literally the day I was gonna
37:07
leave, they I don't know what happened. I don't know if like a
37:08
player didn't show up or what, but they decided to keep me. So
37:12
I they kept me the whole summer. Pitched pretty well. Around July first,
37:19
George Mason called my summer coach, asking if he had any pitchers that
37:24
were uncommitted for next season that were worth talking about. And I was the
37:29
only player on my team. Of course, this is a rare thing to
37:30
be July and to not know where you were going to school the next month.
37:34
So I was the only kid on the team that wasn't committed to a
37:37
school. So my stummer coach told him about me. I got connected to
37:40
the pitching coach at George Mason. He literally never even watched me pitch in
37:46
person. I sent video of him or sent video of me throwing, and
37:51
then they had me go on a visit. So I went on a visit
37:53
there about a week later. I liked the school. I felt like it
37:58
was a good place to be, so I ended up signing. And what
38:00
was amazing about this was I ended up getting a good scholarship. Still and
38:04
people probably wondering how did I get a good scholarship with a month left before
38:07
school started. Well back then, the draft was in June and they had
38:13
a left handed pitcher they got drafted, but he was a junior and they
38:15
weren't sure if he was going to sign or if he was going to come
38:19
back to school, and he decided, you know, in July at some
38:22
point that he was going to sign professionally, so they now had this wide
38:28
open spot on the team. They had a scholarship, so I was able
38:31
to take it and I ended up going there for my next two years.
38:35
So purely because I reached out to all those summer coaches, that is how
38:40
I ended up getting in the West Coast League. And because I was in
38:44
the West Coast League there at the right time, I ended up gett an
38:46
opportunity to play at George Mason. So if that doesn't happen, if I
38:50
don't play in that summer league or reach out to those schools, who knows
38:52
what my path looks like. I don't know where I am today or where
38:54
my baseball journey takes me. But the point of that is, don't afraid
39:00
to make an email, don't be afraid to make a call. You never
39:01
know what's going to come of it. You might send one hundred emails and
39:05
you only get one back, but getting that one email email back might be
39:08
the one that changes things and changes your trajectory on your baseball career. Yeah,
39:15
that's such a great story. I think to get recruited, you're gonna
39:20
have to get lucky somehow, and doing these cold emails just increases your chances
39:25
of getting lucky. I love the saying of increase your surface luck, of
39:30
a surface area of luck. And so by sending out all of these emails,
39:37
you're just increasing your chances of getting lucky just by a little bit with
39:39
every single email, because as he said, one might be worth it.
39:45
That was the case for me. I mean I didn't even get a reply
39:47
back, but you know, the up coach got in touch with a guy
39:52
who has big connections and he was a guy who really got my recruiting journey.
40:00
So yeah, that was a great story. Thanks dude. Yeah,
40:06
it's funny. I just I don't know why. It's just emails were always
40:08
the way I went, just because it was like, these are publicly on
40:12
websites. You can email literally anyone you want. And that's how I got
40:16
to independent ball. I didn't get drafted after my senior year. George Mason,
40:22
I don't remember how I even found out about independent ball. Someone told
40:24
me about it, I'm sure. So I literally emailed every single coach in
40:29
the American Association Frontier League, Atlantic League, and the canam League. Those
40:32
were the four main leagues at the time, and I got a couple of
40:36
emails back and ended up signing with a team in the American Association in WHICHITSA
40:39
And it was purely because of the email and what I laid out in there.
40:45
I pitched well my senior year, laid out stats, sent them video
40:47
and literally the day I sent that email, one of their left handed pitchers
40:52
got hurt likes. It's literally it's all about timing. You never know when
40:58
that opportunity is gonna pop. Opportunities present themselves all the time, but you
41:01
have to be willing to make the call, send the email, put yourself
41:06
out there, and the worst worst thing that happens is they say no and
41:08
you're in the same exact spot you're in. You have nothing to lose in
41:12
everything to gain by putting yourself out there and reaching out to coaches. Yeah
41:16
for sure, Yeah, that's awesome. And I think you touched on the
41:22
academic side just a little bit, and you said that you didn't have the
41:25
best grades. I'm curious, what would you have done a little bit different
41:30
if you could go back on the academic side. I would have gotten good
41:36
grades if I could go back. Yeah, I mean, well, here's
41:40
the thing. I think even if I have good grades in high school,
41:44
I think I still go to the junior college route because physically I wasn't ready
41:47
to play Division one baseball, and that was my goal even going to Division
41:52
two school or Division III school, Like I wasn't ready to play at a
41:55
four year school. And that's not to say that junior college baseball is worse,
42:00
because I actually think junior college baseball is really really good, especially in
42:04
the state of Arizona. Like you know, we had probably off the top
42:07
of I had six or seven guys that went Division one both years I was
42:10
there. We played schools like Central Arizona's the number one school in the country
42:15
most years for junior college baseball, and I think my freshman year they had
42:19
twelve players committed to Power five schools. Like It's like, junior college baseball
42:23
is very, very good. The benefit of it is there's only two classes.
42:28
There's freshmen and sophomores, so it's not like I'm competing with a twenty
42:31
and a twenty one year old. I'm competing with eighteen to twenty year olds.
42:35
So it's somewhere more in my age range to where it's more realistic to
42:38
play right away. Still got to earn it, You still got to perform
42:43
well to get those opportunities. But there's a smaller age gap, which makes
42:46
it a little bit easier competing against people closer to your age. So I
42:51
think that's still the route I would go, But I do think there would
42:52
have been value still in me getting good grades just to see what those other
42:55
opportunities were. Maybe I would have had an opportunity to go somewhere that I
42:59
really liked, and I would have been okay not playing as a freshman because
43:01
of the program I would have been in, and I would have had an
43:04
opportunity to develop and maybe be a standout player by my junior year. There's
43:07
a bunch of different ways to go about it. Just for me, I
43:10
knew I wanted to pitch right away, and I was able to throw,
43:14
you know, close to sixty innings my freshman year and then another one hundred
43:16
innings my sophomore year, which, you know, throwing one hundred and sixty
43:21
innings in your freshman and sophomore year total, that doesn't happen a lot if
43:24
you're going to a Division I school out of high school. Yeah, and
43:30
I think something that I actually wanted to hit on. Was one of the
43:32
biggest things for me in my recruiting process was getting into a showcase game called
43:38
the Arizona Classic Academic Game. And so it's a showcase where if you have
43:45
an SAT score of I think it was above twelve hundred or thirteen hundred something
43:52
around there, then you're illigible to get in. And at that showcase there
43:58
were so many scouts like one hundred plus, and I think it's just easier
44:05
for coaches to be like, Okay, this guy has an SAT score of
44:07
this, and so we don't have to worry about academics for him. We
44:12
don't have to dig into what is you know, GPA SAT scores are.
44:17
And so I think what I'm trying to get at is that it's not that
44:23
hard to get a decent SAT score. I feel like what I did was
44:29
honestly like an hour weekend. I would do a practice test and then I
44:34
would just review what I got wrong. And I wasn't like intense study or
44:37
anything. But if you can put in just a little bit of effort into
44:43
it, then it can make a major difference, and it can be the
44:46
difference between getting you know one to two offers to getting all these other offers
44:53
because your academics cover it, and you don't have to worry as much about
44:58
scholarship money because academic you could get an academic scholarship that covers that. And
45:04
so I think it's a very underrated aspect of getting recruited. Yeah, you're
45:09
just you're you're decreasing the friction that a coach has to go through to get
45:15
you on campus. Like, if he has to jump through all these hurdles
45:16
to get get you, it's probably not going to work out unless you're literally
45:22
the number one player in your state or something like that. But like,
45:23
the less friction there is for a coach to get you and the less he
45:28
has to worry about, the better those opportunities are going to be. And
45:30
that's probably why at that academic game there were so many scouts in schools there
45:35
is because they knew they weren't even going to have to worry about the academic
45:37
side of things. They knew that was good, so all they had to
45:40
focus on was just your skill. Are you a player that is a good
45:44
fit for this program from a skill perspective? And then do you fit in
45:46
with our culture as a person like that, it completely eliminates the need for
45:51
them to really do homwerk and dive into the grades and the school aspect of
45:54
it, and it can really focus on the things that they really do want
45:58
to focus on more, which is the baseball side of things. Yeah,
46:01
for sure, that's exactly right. And yeah, when I was going through
46:06
my recruiting process, that's what they told me though, like we love how
46:10
you know, as an Australian we don't have a GPA, so they didn't
46:13
really have to look at that. So all they had to look at was
46:16
SAT School. And I think I got a pretty good SAT School. I
46:21
think I got like a fourteen twenty or something like that, which was pretty
46:28
good, I guess. And so they were like, yeah, we love
46:30
how your academics are all sorted and now we just have to find a way
46:35
to get you on campus. And yeah, it just helps immensely because I
46:39
got like some of the schools could only offer like, you know, like
46:43
thirty forty percent scholarships, but then my academic side would cover for another thirty
46:51
forty percent, and so a school that might be unaffordable suddenly becomes an option.
46:59
And so yeah, that was a major role, and I think that's
47:02
something that a lot of high school kids should focus on. And it doesn't
47:07
have to take much, you know, an hour a weekend, an hour
47:09
to a weekend. If you can focus on that just as much as your
47:15
baseball training, then you're going to have a good time in your recruiting process
47:21
for sure. This just comes down to making it a priority and understanding the
47:24
importance of it. Like when I was in high school, I didn't see
47:28
any value in it. For some reason, I had in my head that
47:30
my grades didn't matter. If I played well, that was going to take
47:32
care of it. And that's not the reality. So cover all your bases.
47:37
Don't give a coach a reason not to sign you or to be interested
47:40
in you. You want to cover all the things that are in your control.
47:44
I want to transition a little bit to you know, still on the
47:45
recruiting aspect of like reaching out to schools, but I want to approach it
47:50
more from like the social media aspect. I have a lot of high school
47:52
kids that follow me on Twitter, and I look at their pages sometimes and
47:55
just look at their bio. I look at the stuff they're posting. I
48:00
would be curious as you know, to what you would do. Maybe you
48:02
did do this. I don't know if you were on Twitter when you were
48:04
getting recruited, but if you had a recruiting page on Twitter, what do
48:08
you think should be in your bio and like what type of stuff should you
48:12
be posting, you know, on a consistent basis. Yeah, no,
48:17
I actually didn't do this, but I don't think there were any like recruiting
48:24
pages when I was getting recruited. I might be wrong, but I know
48:28
right now there's flat ground app, which is a huge one. But the
48:32
thing is, like flat ground app, they repost so many people every day,
48:38
and so you can kind of get lost in lost on that page,
48:44
and so you have to find a way to stand out, and so you
48:46
know, one of the ways is to, I think again just having objective
48:52
numbers. It's the velo and the TrackMan number, TrackMan numbers, and then
48:58
really trying to emphasize if you have something elite, trying to emphasize that.
49:02
But again with the page, I would just be like same thing as the
49:09
email. Really, I would just be really clear on who I am right
49:14
handed pitch a left handed pitcher, what class, how hot I throw,
49:17
the pitches I throw, and a big wanted to not post anything like silly
49:23
or stupid because if you have that on your page, you could just ruin
49:28
your whole recruiting process just like that. So I think just being really clear
49:32
on who you are and doubling down union strengths will be my biggest things.
49:37
Yeah, I think that's perfect. And one thing that I would say do
49:40
not do. Maybe I'm wrong with this, but like just looking at it
49:44
as an outsider, it just doesn't look good to me. Is when a
49:47
player posts a video and he tags like ten or fifteen accounts or schools or
49:53
coaches in one post, like it'll be coach from Marizona State, a coach
49:58
from Grand Canyon, a Junior CA coach, California School coach, Like You're
50:01
you're tagging all these people in it as if that's gonna help them want to
50:05
recruit you. I just I personally just think it's kind of a bad look
50:09
just to tag all those different schools and it just doesn't look clean. And
50:12
then also you're you're posting different schools on there, which I just think is
50:15
kind of a turn off. I think like whenever I get tags, I
50:19
get tagged and stuff like that. Sometimes too, with kids I have never
50:22
talked to in my life and they're tagging me in these random videos of them,
50:25
you know, out pitch two innings today, four strikeouts, one walk,
50:29
great day or something like that. It's like, Okay, that's that's
50:32
cool. I'm glad you pitched well. But from a recruiting standpoint, like
50:37
they don't really care, Like, yes, they want you to pitch well,
50:39
but like that isn't gonna make them want to watch you and be like,
50:43
oh, I need to recruit this kid because he threw two innings today,
50:45
I have four strikeouts and there's a video from behind home plate showing him,
50:50
you know, striking out these kids. So make it clean. You
50:52
want to be very clean looking the objective, like you said, and don't
50:57
tag you know ten plus people. I really want to tag any coach.
51:00
The only thing I would tag is is flatground app if you're going to do
51:04
that, and then you know you can link back to that. So say
51:07
I'm sending an email to a coach, you could link back to that,
51:10
right, like I can add my social media accounts have Twitter on there,
51:14
and you can even say there's more videos of me pitching on here or something
51:17
like that, just a simple tag there. But other than that, like,
51:22
I think more kids do more harm than good with their social media when
51:25
it comes to getting recruited. So keep all those things in mind. And
51:29
it's tough when you're fifteen sixteen, you don't have the perspective of a coach.
51:34
You don't know what they're thinking, how much they're seeing these things.
51:37
So part of it is just getting educated. And hopefully this segment will help
51:40
some of those high school kids with those things. And if you have any
51:44
further questions with that, please don't hesitate to reach out to either of us.
51:46
We'd be happy to help you with designing the page, you know,
51:51
to a certain degree and kind of telling you some dudes and don'ts when it
51:53
comes to creating your page. Yeah, I didn't notice that. That's crazy
52:01
tagging ten to fifteen head coaches. I mean, I don't know if that
52:06
Yeah, that's probably just annoying. To be honest, I don't think it
52:09
helps in the slightest. So yeah, as you said, just tag flackground
52:14
app And I know there's a couple more pages recruiting, just tag them and
52:20
then if you are really good and you have the skills, and someone's gonna
52:23
find you. Well, let's let's wrap this up with just a couple other
52:30
notes. You know, I think you've talked about this before, and we've
52:36
talked about it together. Is focusing on developing a good product before advertising,
52:40
Like you, I think you've used those words exactly, and I love the
52:43
way that you put that. Is, before I try to reach out to
52:45
schools, before I try to, you know, advertise myself, I want
52:50
to make sure that I am advertising a product worth looking at, worth recruiting.
52:54
And part of that includes velocity. Part of it includes grades, like
52:58
we touched on and off speed pitches, all of those things. If we're
53:04
talking to Vision one baseball, you know, around ninety miles an hour is
53:08
probably the baseline for you to start drawing some attention. Doesn't mean that you
53:13
can't get recruited throwing under ninety there's plenty of guys that do. But when
53:15
we're talking about trying to find ways to stand out, getting to ninety is
53:20
definitely a good number to try to get to for Division one baseball. But
53:23
what are some other things? You know, maybe in touch on the velocity
53:27
a little bit more, but like, what are some other areas that you
53:30
focused on or you think kids should focus on when it comes to building a
53:32
good product. Yeah, building a good product, I think. Yeah,
53:39
Number one is velocity, you know in ninety plus, as you just said.
53:45
Number two would be being able to just compete. So you know at
53:50
the time when I was a drive line Yeah, also in ninety ninety three,
53:52
but if you put me in a game, I probably would walk everyone.
53:57
So you need to be able to be going out there and competing.
54:00
You don't need perfect command or anything. Just being able to throw strikes and
54:07
show that you're able to, you know, compete would be my next big
54:10
thing. Academics is huge. Just being able to get a decent SAT score,
54:15
a decent GPA, And I mean if you don't have that and just
54:21
can't get it, then you're just gonna have to compensate with your skill.
54:24
You know, you're gonna have to get even better to compensate for the academics.
54:29
I think another one would be this is kind of like a weird one,
54:38
but just kind of like how you carry yourself. I think, you
54:45
know, you don't want to be doing anything like stupid or like silly in
54:49
front of college coaches. And you want to be talking professionally when you're talking
54:52
to them, and especially like social media, don't put anything stupid on there.
54:59
I think those full things, if you can nail those, you'd have
55:02
a pretty good product to where any kind of school would won't you, And
55:08
you'd be good to go out and distribute, you know, start the cold
55:13
email process, start to go out on showcases, going out to show yourself
55:16
in front of the college coaches, and you'll be just fine. Yeah.
55:22
I like that. It's it's checking all the boxes in a way, right,
55:25
Like coming back to we don't want to give coaches a reason to write
55:30
us off, and some of those reasons can be off the field stuff,
55:34
bad grades, things that are in our control. If those things are bad
55:38
in our skill level is just average or mediocre, like you're immediately crossed off.
55:43
And I don't know if this is actually true, but I've heard when
55:45
I feel like when I was in high school, I heard coaches say this
55:46
all the time. Is coaches are looking for reasons to cross you off the
55:52
list rather than to add you on the list because they have so many players
55:55
that like they're looking for reasons not to recruit you. I'm there might be
56:00
some validity to that, but I think the moral of it is if they're
56:04
looking for reasons to cross you off, those are usually things that don't even
56:07
involve baseball or like the actual skill of pitching. It's the grades, it's
56:10
the off the field issues, or it's the on field issue of you know,
56:15
showing up your coach, not being a good teammate. Those types of
56:17
things. All those little details are harder to quantify like that, but they
56:22
are really important. You want to make sure that your coach actually wants to
56:25
speak highly of you and feels like he should stick his neck out for you
56:29
to give you opportunities, assuming that the skill is getting to the level where
56:31
it needs to be for that school. Yeah, for sure. I think
56:38
as long as you have a good product, people are going to find you,
56:40
and if you can check all those boxes, you'll be fine. It's
56:45
really it's difficult, but it's simple to get recruited. You need to be
56:53
good enough. You need to throw hot enough, you need to throw decent
56:58
amount of strikes, have decent and then you'll be good. But you know,
57:02
getting there is a tough part. But as well, you know there's
57:09
a cliar path to get there so, if you can work towards those things,
57:13
I think anyone will be fine. Totally agree. Well, I think
57:19
that wraps this one up. That's a great episode.