← Most Valuable Agent with Matt Hannaford
Most Valuable Agent with Matt Hannaford
Travel Baseball Is a Tool, But Only If You Know How to Use It
00:49:00
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- [00:00]
A
They tend to look at it like it's black and white. Like, travel baseball is expensive, therefore it's bad. Travel baseball is demanding, therefore it's bad. It's not that it's either or, it's both. And travel baseball can be expensive, but also a good opportunity. Travel baseball can be demanding, but also provide you with a ton of value. So if the question I'm asking myself subconsciously is why does travel baseball stink, then naturally I'm missing a lot of the benefits of travel baseball. All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Most Valuable Agent podcast. I am joined today by my producer, Mike. Mike is going to help us walk through some various questions that we have recently received from families as it pertains specifically to travel baseball. So, Mike, talk to me, buddy. What's going on?
- [00:51]
B
How are you doing, man? It's good to be back on the show and excited to do another episode around travel ball and some of the things that, you know, we've been getting from you guys in terms of the comments, the feedback, again, we read all of them. So thank you guys so much for just contributing, whether it's in a way of your own past experience or it's just in an insider perspective from the episode. We greatly appreciate it a ton.
- [01:19]
A
Yeah, Mike, it's funny. And I'll.
- [01:20]
B
I'll.
- [01:20]
A
I'll pay a compliment. I. I go through my week, and I look forward to us being able to have this time together, because I feel like some of what you and I get to talk about are the things that I'm obviously dealing with on a daily basis. But it's nice to be able to, you know, share some stories and talk through some things with you who now kind of understands the industry, obviously, since we've been doing this. And so I just. I love. I love, you know, spreading the. The information and the insight that I received in whether it's this week or last month or whatever it is. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to our time together.
- [01:55]
B
Same here, man. I'm. I'm really excited about it, too. And, you know, with that being said, I'd love to get into the first question we have regarding today's episode where we were talking about the phrase that you used is travel ball is a tool, not the problem. And I'd love for you to just give maybe a little bit of a backdrop as to, you know, why did you want to call the episode, so to speak, or make this the topic of today's episode.
- [02:22]
A
Yeah, I think over the last. I mean, look, we've been doing this two years now. I think what I've noticed is kind of a trend from a lot of families and a lot of parents who immediately approach travel baseball from a place of doubt, which is fine. You know, they have a ton of questions, obviously, around this experience that they're either in or about to embark upon. And it's usually met with some skepticism, which I think is healthy on some level. But I think if we're not careful, we can miss really what the whole experience offers. Right. And so, as I was thinking through, you know, how best would I describe what travel ball is? The phrase that kept coming to mind is it's a tool, right? And like any tool, it doesn't mean that it works with everything. Right? It has to be specifically employed, you know, when you need that particular tool. But it is a tool. You know, just Me personally, I'm 45 years old. When I was coming up playing high school baseball, we didn't have travel baseball. And so I've been able to see from an agent seat over the last 25 years, you know, the creation of travel ball. And I. I've seen the quality of the player increase as a direct benefit of having travel baseball. Right? I've seen players who otherwise wouldn't be as good as maybe they probably could have been grow and to be better players. And part of that is because they're. They're, you know, putting themselves in these positions where they're playing against better talent more consistently. Now, there are so many more resources within travel baseball because of travel baseball, right? You have these various coaches, and you have these various travel teams. And so the reason I wanted to talk about this today is I think on some level, a lot of these families look at travel baseball and they say, look, it's. You know, they tend to look at it like it's black and white. Like travel baseball is expensive, therefore it's bad. Travel baseball is demanding, therefore it's bad. And what I want to encourage families to hear me say today is it's not that it's either or. It's. It's both. And, right. Travel baseball can be expensive, but also a good opportunity. Right? Travel baseball can be demanding, but also provide you with a ton of value. And I think the thing that a lot of families miss is they don't recognize that their viewpoint on travel baseball from the start, if it's. If it begins with this negative connotation, then very naturally, you know, our brains work to. To answer questions, right? So if the question I'm asking myself Subconsciously is why does travel baseball stink? Then naturally, what I'm going to tell myself is I'm going to see all the reasons why travel baseball maybe isn't great, but I'm missing a lot of the benefits of travel baseball. And so, because so much of my podcast has been really trying to help these families understand not only how to navigate travel baseball, but also, like, just not falling into some of the, the pits of travel baseball, I do want to call out and acknowledge a lot of the good that comes from it too, because having that perspective going into any family's experience is important for them to really make the right decisions. So I'm looking forward to jumping into a lot of these questions that we're going to get today. And, and I'm sure on some level a lot of my answers are going to be tied into this subject, but that should give everybody an idea of really what they should expect as they, as they listen to today's episode.
- [05:37]
B
Yeah, and, and, and, well said, man. So with that, let's go into the first question from Danielle from Fort Wayne, Indiana. She writes, matt, my husband and I have a 12 year old who just got invited to his first travel team and the price tag scared us. It's more than we've ever spent on anything for the kids. And a part of me feels like if it costs this much, it has to be a trap. How do you tell the difference between something that's just expensive and something that's worth it?
- [06:07]
A
So, Danielle, thank you for the question. Again, a kind of perfect segue into travel baseball being a tool. Again, I think if I just heard the language that was being used is travel baseball is expensive, therefore it's a trap. Right. Is travel baseball expensive? It certainly can be. Does it have to be expensive? Not necessarily. But some of what needs to, I guess, start every family's discussion should be around what are the resources that this family has to employ on travel baseball? Right. And I think what this ultimately gets at is at the heart of everything is you need to have a very clear objective. And the objective that you need to figure out is why are we choosing to play travel baseball? What is it that we're looking for travel baseball to give us? Okay. And I'll use this example. You know, a hammer is a tool, right? If you use a hammer to fix a tire, the hammer is not going to help you fix a tire. But if you use a carjack to fix a tire, it could help fix the tire. But just having a jack alone isn't enough to actually do the thing that you wanted to do. You have to know how to use the car jack. So as a 12 year old, your goals and dreams for your son are going to look a specific way. Right? Maybe some of the things that you hope that he aspires to achieve maybe isn't necessarily in clear view yet, right? I would assume if you're just like most parents, you want to provide him with the most opportunities so that he can be the best player he can be, God willing, in the event that he continues to develop, maybe one day when he's 18 years old, he can get a D1 baseball scholarship. If you want to go above and beyond that, maybe one day he can get drafted and he can make baseball a career. Like that's generally what a lot of families aspire to, to go through this experience for. But that's not everybody. Some families say, look, we, you know, if that's what's in store for us, great. That's not why we're playing travel baseball. Maybe for us, we're playing travel baseball because we think that it's going to give us some really good life skills. But all to say, whatever the goal is, that needs to be the thing front and center in your mind and that needs to be something that you're so clear on and aware of as you make these decisions. Because to any family with a, with a set number of resources, if you've got unlimited resources, then maybe it's easier for you to say, look, it doesn't matter what the cost is. We're willing to do whatever, whenever. We'll go to anything. That's okay too. But even if you had unlimited resources, you also may still have a negative experience with travel baseball because what you're not paying attention to is what's my son's abilities? Does he love to play the game? What are his skill sets? Why is he choosing to play this? I know why we are. We want to give him a good opportunity and we have unlimited resources. But maybe for him, he really wants to go play with his buddies or maybe he wants to get a scholarship. So you just want to get really, really clear. And I do think you should encourage, or I would encourage you to have your son involved in the conversation as well. You guys as parents need to get clear, but you also need to understand and have him articulate, well, why does he want to play too? Because that will also benefit you and as you, as you make these decisions. And so again, going back to this example, if you're somebody who has unlimited resources, then you're going to have access to a lot of things that maybe other families don't. I know that a lot of my listeners, they don't have unlimited resources. There is a limited amount of dollars that they have to spend. But so many families even go through this experience and they don't even talk openly about what that is. It's kind of just this thing in the back of their mind that any money is too much money. So let's, you know, we'll go to stuff if you tell us, Matt, we have to, but if not, we don't want to go. That's even something that I would tell you. You're probably going to miss a lot of what travel baseball offers. And so here's what I would encourage you to do. Get very, very clear on why you want to play travel baseball. If your goal at 12 years old, Danielle, is for your son to develop as a player, then keep development as the focus. Does development being the focus mean that he shouldn't ever go to travel ball events? No. But let development be the thing that you use to guide your thinking, your questions to yourself. If you have development as the focus now revolve around, will this event help us get to where we want to get to from a development standpoint? And the answer to that could be yes, but it also might be no in certain instances. And so my advice is really just getting clear on why you're playing in the first place once you know what that is. Again, get clear on how much money you have to spend and then let that guide your thinking as far as what events you should and should not attend. Just so everybody listening knows, I'm releasing very soon an episode that is going to be private that I'll email you guys on. Basically, it revolves around summer baseball, but also how to evaluate which events to attend and which events to not attend. And it'll give you very specific things to analyze. And it'll talk about, obviously the financial piece, but it'll also talk about the the thing I talk about a lot on this podcast, which is the development piece, the exposure piece, and the competition piece. There are different reasons why families choose to go to events related to those three things. And the thing that I oftentimes say that I want to make sure that I'm like beating into your head is nothing is static, right? I said it earlier, Mike, when you talked about why are we calling, you know, this episode specifically around travel baseball being a tool. At the end of the day, the reason why any family chooses to play travel baseball, it's not that there's only one way to do it. You, as a family, you have a different lifestyle, and you have different wants and needs and different prerequisites than other families don't have. But if you're ignoring these things and then making decisions based on, well, this coach told us we had to go. Our friends are going, so we should go. My son is telling me that if he doesn't go, he's not going to get recruited. And now you're letting all of these external factors guide you into doing things. Well, then naturally you shouldn't be surprised if at the end of the experience, you feel like it was a waste. It's not that it was a waste or not. It's that you're not clear with the reasons as to why you're even choosing to do it in the first place. So my answer to you, Danielle, is you have to get clear on why you're even signing up for travel, baseball. Once you know what that is, then let that guide your thinking.
- [12:43]
B
And.
- [12:44]
A
And that will help you ask some more specific, I would say, kind of better questions on the heels of it. That will get you the answer that you need.
- [12:52]
B
Yeah. And I think, Matt, the other thing that I loved about your response, specifically with Danielle, is that, you know, in this day and age where everybody is so consumed with the cost and the price of things, and it is no secret that inflation has crossed everybody's minds. And I think a lot of families are making tough decisions right now about what they're spending on, why they're spending it. And I think just with your podcast episodes that you've had in the past with some of your clients, like Mauricio Dubon and interacting potentially with his parents and Austin Riley and with their parents, I'm sure cost came up for them in some form or fashion at all. Do you mind sharing a little bit about, like, how they determined that that was an investment rather than a cost? Because I think that would be really helpful to Danielle and many other parents to hear it from big leaguers and their parents on when they were kids and how they first started out.
- [13:50]
A
Yeah. And I, and I hope my answer to this question, Mike, is going to be probably reinforcing to everybody there. Hopefully it makes them feel a little better. I've never met a family through this whole experience that says it doesn't matter. Well, I take that back. There's probably been one person who said, it doesn't matter what it costs. We're willing to do whatever it takes. Most of the time, families Say, look, we. We don't have endless. An endless supply of money, right? There are limitations to what we can do. But, Matt, we want to know from you, is this specific event worth our time and money? And if you say it is, we're willing to go. And if not, then we. We don't need to. I'll use Austin Riley as an example because him and Mauricio are a little different. Austin was someone who was ranked really high throughout the, you know, his high school career, was a big name going through the draft process, but he also didn't just go to anything. Right now, you may. You may say, well, Matt, yeah, he had access to you as his advisor at the time. And so, you know, he had the luxury of knowing those specific things well in advance. But the thing I want everybody to hear and understand is, look, a lot of the advice that I was giving Austin Riley at the time, you know, you got to understand it's easy in hindsight saying, well, yeah, you know, we went to these very specific things and it worked perfectly. But as he's going through it as a family, you don't know that, right? You don't have the personal experience. And so it's all a leap of faith. And so travel, baseball, on some level, it's a leap of faith. Whether you participate in it or not is a leap of faith. Sometimes families, when they don't go to events, they, you know, are questioning whether or not they made a mistake. And it's easy, if your son doesn't get a college scholarship or he doesn't get drafted, to say, oh, well, if we would have went to this event, he would have gotten drafted. And part of what I want everybody to understand is, look, the skill set of your son, the ability that your son has, that is going to be the biggest factor as far as whether or not your son is going to get drafted or whether he's going to get a scholarship. It's not necessarily going to just be, did he go to the right events? But again, talking about travel, baseball being a tool, you could choose to go to an event and maybe not get recruited for a college, but going to that event was a win.
- [15:54]
B
Why?
- [15:55]
A
Because he played against better competition. His goal at the time wasn't exposure. It was actually to, like, test his skills and figure out how he stacked up against others. And more importantly, maybe a family, if they're choosing to go to an event. Let's just say at 15, when he can't really get a scholarship yet, maybe he chose to go because when he actually is in the place to get a scholarship. He doesn't want to go to this specific event for the first time because he kind of wants to know what it's going to be like. Maybe you as a parent want to get his feet wet a little bit, let him experience it so that the first time he goes to an event is it when all the scouts and all the colleges are there for the first time. Maybe as a family, you're a little concerned that throwing him to the fire like that maybe will result in him being a little nervous, maybe he won't perform as well. So there's a lot of reasons why you should and shouldn't go to events, But I think a lot of what families need to understand is it's not black and white, right? It's not like these five events are the only ones you have to go to at all times. It just depends. And part of the way you learn is by going and trying it out and seeing whether or not you got the benefit of the event or not. Mike I was just sent an email from a dad in, in the Northwest. His son was 15. I think he had just turned 15, hasn't gone to any events. And he was asking specifically, should we go to these events, given, you know, his sons. He, like, raveled off a couple things about his son and, you know, he's a pitcher and what his velo was and all these things. And I basically said to him, I'm like, look, it's. It's not that, you know, I know you want me to tell you, yes, go or don't go. That's not what I'm going to tell you. I think what you have to keep in mind is if your son is as good as you say he is, if that's what his talent is, the industry is built to find him. So if you choose as a family not to go to a specific event because of the cost and he is good enough, he will be found. If, though you feel like you have the resources and because he's never gone to an event you want to go to, create kind of like a baseline understanding of what his talent is, then go. But be clear about it. If that dad didn't articulate to himself that he was going for those reasons and instead maybe assumed we're going to go to this event and when we go to it, we're going to walk away and we're going to have every college in the country call us. Well, he's 15. That can't happen yet. So when that doesn't happen. Don't be disappointed. So I think a lot of the times what happens, Mike, is parents go into this experience and they just kind of assume a lot of stuff happens a certain way, but in practicality it doesn't. And so part of what I'm trying to solve for families is giving them a clear view into, like, how they should think about their own son's abilities and situation so that when certain things happen or don't you understand what that means? Right. Like, we all as families need to understand whether it's the D1 recruiting calendar, which again, is going to be in that summer baseball worksheet that I put together. There's a lot of stuff that goes into all these different events that is above and beyond just, like, attention, if that makes sense.
- [19:00]
B
Yeah, I really think it does. And I think that was super helpful to Danielle and I'm sure many other people will find that type of contribution a really big help. Matt, I think, I think it's just super important that parents just hear it from families who got their kids to the majors.
- [19:18]
A
Hey guys, I wanted to take a moment and I wanted to thank you personally for being a subscriber and watching these videos. One of my ultimate goals with this podcast is just provide immense value to you as a family kind of embarking upon this travel baseball journey. Mike and I sit back and we really dive into every single one of your questions and really do whatever we can to make sure that what we're providing you is valuable. So if you've sent questions to us before, I wanted to thank you. If you haven't yet done that, you can do so by emailing me@mattostvaluableagent.com we get to all those questions. Just be patient. Obviously, we may release three at a time, four at a time sometimes. So for some reason we have not answered your question yet. Just know that we are getting to it. And lastly, just again, thank you. Appreciate you guys from the bottom of my heart. We have some really cool stuff coming up, so make sure that you tune in. And if you haven't yet subscribed, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Thanks.
- [20:14]
B
Moving on right into question two is from Marcus, who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Marcus writes, My son is 14 and serious about playing at the next level, but the travel schedule is eating every weekend. I keep hearing other dads say the whole thing burns families out. I don't want to be naive, but I also don't want to pull him from something that he might need and love doing. How do I Know when demanding is just the cost of the goal versus a real sign, we should just walk away.
- [20:42]
A
Yeah. So again, what I'm hearing, Marcus, what I'm hearing you say is you're looking at it again like it's either or. Right? It's so demanding. So we should just stop entirely. No, I mean, I. I think what you would probably be better served doing is. Is getting clear on. Well, what about it is too demanding? It sounds like playing every weekend is too demanding, and that sounds too demanding. Right. When you play every weekend, obviously it doesn't allow him any time to be a kid. Maybe it doesn't allow him enough time to kind of develop in between events. You know, maybe what he's experiencing is he has a bad event, and then the next weekend he has another event, and then he has another bad weekend, and then he starts to spiral. There are a lot of things that happen when you play a ton of baseball, some good, some bad. But what I'm hearing you say is what you're doing currently is too much. Okay, that's a good call out. Let's identify that. Let's recognize it. Let's make some adjustments. So instead of just stopping entirely, I would. I would probably tell you, just scale it back a little bit. Right. Analyze what specifically about the demand is hard. Is it the travel? Is it just playing too much baseball? Because those are two different things for the family. Who says, yeah, the travel is too demanding? Okay, are there other events maybe locally that you can go to? Yes or no? If it's not the travel, if it's actually the physical demand on your son. All right, well, then what is a more appropriate balance so that he can continue being a kid and he can continue developing, and then when he is going to these events, he can actually perform well, instead of going to maybe three events a month, maybe scale it back to one event a month or two events a month. I just think, you know, as a dad, Marcus, you need to look at this and play with it, knowing there isn't, you know, one right way to do it. It's. Let's. Let's really try to figure out.
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B
It's like.
- [22:26]
A
Honestly, it's funny. It's like owning a business. When you have a company, you're really trying to figure out, like, does my product work? Are people buying my product? And if the answer is no, I'm not telling you, just stop doing it tomorrow. Maybe you got to make some tweaks. So let's just make some tweaks, right? Instead of just completely ending what you've been doing, because that is the quickest way to say what you've done up to this point is a complete waste. Right? You spent, let's say it's 20 grand over the last year in travel, baseball, whatever that number is, maybe it's less, but whatever it is, and that's a ton of money and you know, it's, it's too demanding and all these things, the quickest way to guarantee that that's a waste of money is by literally stopping playing entirely because now you're not benefiting from that experience at all. So instead maybe you're not going from, from spending 20,000 a year. Maybe you're going to spend, go spend 5,000. Right? But, but spend the money in a very specific and strategic way so that you can see what you spent the money on actually is adding value to your experience and it's getting you closer to your goal. I mentioned already, and I'll continue to mention it again, this, this summer baseball worksheet that I put together that is going to be available here soon. So I, I will make sure everybody sees it on Instagram and YouTube. In this worksheet, I actually give you guys both a pre event checklist, but also a post event recap. And the whole point of having a post event recap is so that you can go back and look at your pre event checklist and say, why did we choose to go to these events? And then once you've gone through, let's say, the summer, you can now look back and say, okay, we wanted to go to these events because we thought they were going to give us these specific things. Did it in fact do the thing that we thought it was going to do? Yes or no, Right? Or maybe, kinda. All right, well, where are there gaps there? Where are there areas that you weren't pleased? What were the reasons for that? Was it we went to these various events and we thought we were going to play at every single one and we didn't, so we felt like it was a waste. Okay, then maybe what's appropriate, which we're going to do an episode next week on this is maybe it deserves a conversation with the coach if that's not you. And maybe the experience was a negative one merely because your son didn't perform well. Well, why didn't he perform well? Was he prepared? Right. In this worksheet that I'm referring to, we actually go through very specific things on how your son needs to be prepared for these events. And so again, I think a lot of these Problems that we're talking about here might get solved when you just have an open dialogue with your spouse, with your son, and you really get clear on why are we playing? What are we trying to solve? Is it doing it? If the answer is yes, great. Continue it. If the answer is no, should we make some tweaks? Let's make those tweaks, and then let's make an adjustment and then move forward. Too many parents are left. Like Marcus here saying, oh, man, I feel like all of this is a waste. Should we just stop entirely? And that, I'm telling you, I think, is just the worst thing any family can do. Because, again, travel baseball is a tool. You just may need to change your expectations around it. Right? As a dad, Marcus, your expectation could be, you think travel baseball is this complete, 100 degree, you know, magic plan that is going to give us all the things that we want. Well, we know that that's not true, right? It's not going to do anything for you. Your son is part of this. And I'll give you guys a quick analogy. When a player that I represent has to get surgery, right? As we evaluate what doctor to go to, a lot of times the player thinks, if I just go to the right doctor, then everything will be solved. And the reality of that is, well, no, the doctor only accounts for, I would say, 30%, right? 30% of the experience being good or bad is going to be by going to the right doctor. An additional third is going to come from the player actually doing the things that he now needs to do. And then the remaining third is, is it the right rehab plan? But if I went into a client having surgery and I said, all we're trying to solve is we have to go to the right doctor, well, that leaves the player then thinking, I play no role in this. I can literally do whatever I want afterwards. And that will have no impact on whether the experience is ultimately a good one or a bad one. The same applies to travel baseball. If you guys as a family go through the experience and you don't recognize your role in it being a good or bad experience, you're missing a huge component of this. If you think about travel baseball as a tool and think of it as a hammer, you got to be the one that swings the hammer. Your son's got to be the one that swings the hammer or holds the nail. He plays a role in it. And so it's not enough just to know you have a hammer. You've got to know how to use it. And then you have to execute on how to use it properly. All those three components go into whether or not your travel baseball experience is a good one. So Mike, I hope that analogy made sense. I think a lot of families, if you're hearing me, hopefully that'll, that'll guide your, your decision making going forward because I feel like that'll solve a lot of problems.
- [27:42]
B
Yeah. And I think like for someone, you know, like Marcus and thank you Marcus for sending in your question. You know, I think again it comes down to not just the monetary costs, but it comes really down to the effort costs at this point for Danielle seemed like more of a financial cost. For Marcus it seemed like more of a energy and a time commitment thing. And based upon the players that you have been around, the greats of the game, it seems to me that there's this obsession and there's this hyper focus on playing the game of baseball and making it so. With that being said, it's almost like the investment on the time and the energy standpoint for someone like Marcus isn't really even a factor because the goal is the goal and the dream is the dream. Am I tracking on that? Is that what you see with your major league clients or that's what you've seen interacting with high level prospects and players that you know, the energy and the time is a non negotiable because they're going after the dream?
- [28:47]
A
Yeah, I would, I would say that for anybody who wants to be the best in their craft, there needs to be a, you know, I think about like Conor McGregor, he was this maybe a bad analogy because he recently dealt with an injury and didn't look great in the ring. But I, I read something a long time ago from him and I think he may have been talking to Tony Robbins and he was talking about his obsession with being great. And obsession is kind of the best word for it. Right. Like any player at the next level to be really, really good at whatever it is, honestly not just baseball but any sport or even anything in life, you've got to be so consumed and obsessed with being great at it. Otherwise you're probably not going to be doing the things that you need to do in order to achieve the goals that you have. Or maybe your goals aren't high enough. But with that I think sometimes where players maybe go not down the wrong path. It's more like when players make mistakes with their thinking is they think if they're willing to be obsessed about it and they're willing to spend every waking minute on the thing that like they should. It should just happen for them. And no different than a family needing to kind of readjust. Players also need to make sure that they're, they're consuming information as it's coming in as well. There are going to be things that you do as a player that don't work, and you have to be able to see it for what it is. And you can't see these things that, that aren't working and receive the message of like, well, I'm not good enough. Because that may not be true. Baseball as an example, it's a game of failure. So if you're expecting that you're going to go 10 for 10, you know, every single series, well, chances are you're probably going to be pretty disappointed because you're going to fail. But if every time you strike out, you think you're not good, that's a problem. And so the thing, Mike, that I think a lot of families make the mistake of and a lot of players make the mistake of is there's no malleability to their, their viewpoint. It's like, again, black and white. It's either or. I want to encourage everyone. It's both and. Right. You can be a great player and also fail. I would argue the best actually just learned how to deal with the failure. And so it's not a matter of avoiding it. So as a parent, it's not a matter of avoiding making a bad decision. It's how do we make a decision, Go all in on the decision it was thought through. Well, and then recognize once the decision has been made and once the thing had been done, once the event had been attended. Now let's analyze it and say, was that a good event? Yes or no. Was it an event that if we were placed in this position next year, would we choose to go to this event? Yes or no? If the answer is yes, why. If the answer is no, why don't just say it's not a good event? My son didn't perform well. The event sucked. I didn't see anybody there. Nobody talked to him. What a waste of money. No, I think you're missing a lot of the elements to what you could be learning if you actually just looked at it, maybe unemotionally, and said, all right, wait a minute, was this a good event or not? Well, what are the things that make an event good? Well, if I'm going to an event because my son is 17 years old and he wants to get a college scholarship and we go to an event and there were a lot of college Coaches there. Okay, maybe the event might have been good, but he wasn't. He wasn't recruited. He wasn't evaluated well. Why wasn't he evaluated? Well, he wasn't evaluated because he didn't really have a good event. Maybe based on the NCAA D1 recruiting calendar, they couldn't evaluate him. They can't even call him yet. So, yeah, you know what? Maybe it wasn't the right event for us to go to if we were going to it for the reason of being recruited. But if we were going to the event because we wanted to test our competition, was there good competition there? Yes. Did my son perform well? No. Okay. Why did he not perform well? Well, he didn't perform well because he wasn't prepared. Why was he not prepared? Well, he wasn't prepared because he didn't practice over the last two weeks. Okay, that's not the coach's fault. That's probably his issue that he has to solve. But if he wasn't prepared because, you know, maybe the coach hadn't worked with them and your expectation was that he should have, or the son was trying to work with the coach, but the coach was unavailable. Okay, now you can see how this is the problem that we need to solve, not the event was bad. You see what I'm saying? So I think some of the time the. The solution is really just in the weeds a little bit. And as a parent, your son doesn't know how to do this yet. And so you really have to make sure that he's being methodical with his thought process. And I recognize, and I've talked about this on this podcast many times before, the time to have this conversation isn't in the car ride home after the bad tournament. It's probably the week after when, you know, he's not as stressed or frustrated. But then also, it's bringing the conversation to him in a way that helps him understand how to handle that. If you're approaching him and all you're saying is, well, listen, we're now a couple days, you know, past the event, and I gotta tell you, I'm still frustrated. You stunk. Like, if that's how you're approaching the conversation, you shouldn't be surprised if he doesn't want to talk about it. You know, I've heard on this podcast or comments from podcasts I've done where dads have said, look, I'm so tired of, you know, hearing about, oh, it's the parents fault, or the dad's being difficult and hard on him. Again, it's not 100% of the time, but we also need to see things clearly. There are plenty of parents that are really, really good at having this conversation with their kids. There are other parents, and you know who you are, who aren't the best at it. It doesn't mean that you're not good at it. It's. Maybe you just need to, like, change your approach. But a lot of the things in travel baseball, as in life, get solved by having an open mind and just getting curious and saying, look, it's not black and white. There's. There's some gray here. And I've got to figure out, well, what is the gray in all this? If my son had a bad event, it doesn't mean he stunk. If my son had a great event, it doesn't mean that he's the best player in the world. So remove the ego and let's just get down to the bare bones and analyze it for what it is. And if you can do that as a parent, your experience in travel baseball is going to be light years better than it currently is. And I would venture to guess you would not place as big of a negative tag on travel baseball as you do otherwise, because you're actually seeing it as the tool that it is. You're seeing it for what it could be. It just may be that the way that you're approaching it or the thing that you're thinking you're wanting to do with it is actually just not the right way. Yet. Yet. And there's a reason why I said that word. So, yeah, Mike, I hope that made. That was a long diet.
- [35:34]
B
Yeah, no, that was. No, no, that was. That was really solid. And again, thank you, Marcus, for sending in your question and for anybody out there that had maybe a similar concern. All right, last question is from Priya, who lives in Gilbert, Arizona. She writes. Hey, Matt, I walked into travel ball already convinced it was overhyped. And lately I've started to wonder if my own attitude is coloring how my son experiences it. He's 13 and loves the game. How do I check whether the story I've told myself is true before my assumptions end up costing him a shot he might want.
- [36:11]
A
Thank you, Priya. I want to call that question out because I hope everybody heard it. The question that Priya is asking actually is a much deeper question. Like there is some awareness around that she's kind of doing the thing that we just talked about. I'm recommending that parents ultimately do, which is go a little deeper. Right. Have some awareness around how are you affecting the experience? And so in this case, it sounds like she's aware that maybe there are some things that she's doing or maybe it's just her own view could be tainting the view that her son has. Priya, what I would encourage you to do is have a sit down with your son and just ask him specifically, hey, son, walk me through. What is it about travel baseball that you're enjoying? What are the things that maybe you're not enjoying? And for Priya, for you, I think get clear on, like, what are the things that you're enjoying and what are the things that you're not enjoying? I would. I would venture to guess that there's probably, even though you're not saying it in the question, there's probably some. Some stuff about travel baseball that you like, right? Most of the parents, what they do enjoy is they love watching their kid play on a weekend, right? They love the family environment at a baseball field. Like, it's exciting when their son wins a game, when their son performs. All that's fun. That's why a lot of families, honestly, that's why a lot of families like to continue doing this, even when it can be, you know, it can feel a little expensive. But I think the important thing here is get clear with what your whys are. And if you can just get your son to articulate these things, I think you're going to learn really clearly whether or not what your concern is is actually true or not. If your son says to you, no, Mom, I love it. It's the greatest thing in the world. I can't imagine doing anything else. I want to make it my career, well, then you're concerned that you're tainting his view of it, I would say doesn't exist. Right? But if what he says is, yeah, you know, it's okay, I'm certainly having fun. But I notice that you don't really love it and it's hard on you, then, yeah, what I would do is I would ask him, what about what I'm doing makes you feel that way? What is it about my experience that you're recognizing is not being positive? Because if you are somebody, Priya, who is wearing your emotions on your sleeve, and after a bad game, you're throwing your hands up in the air and not at your son. You're not frustrated with him, but maybe you're frustrated by the lack of playing time or the, or the, or the expense of it all, or the travel or being away from family or not being able to take vacations again. I think a lot of this stuff just gets solved by having a conversation with. With your son and really just trying to hear what he has to say and then just. Just try to solve that problem with them. So many parents, and so much of the time, we build something up in our minds to be much bigger than it is, and we don't have the conversation. And so every day that goes by, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger until eventually we just kind of explode. And now it's a huge issue, right? And now your son is frustrated. He's mad at you because why are you doing this? Why are you making this uncomfortable? Before it gets to that point, I would just encourage you to, like, take a beat, have the conversation, have it. Be a constructive one. Don't go into it thinking it's either good or bad, but maybe have an open mind that maybe there's some. Some good that could come from this conversation. And what I would encourage you to express is more than anything, what you enjoy first and foremost about the experience. What is it about what you see him getting to do around baseball that you enjoy? And then maybe share with them a little bit about some of the stuff that is frustrating. Because if pri. If one of the things that you get frustrated with is, well, maybe he's not doing the stuff that he needs to do in order to make this a worthwhile experience. Well, if you don't know what he's playing for, well, then your expectations are different than his. And we've done an episode on this. It's about expectations and agreements. And there's a couple episodes I'll point you to right now. So there's one event that I did, it was at a church in San Diego. It was with a good friend of mine, Johan Martinez Kalilian. And we actually walked you guys through a framework of how to change expectations into agreements. I also did an episode on this very subject. But just to summarize it really briefly for everybody, as. As a parent, we all have expectations on what we expect from our son, right? Families, you guys have expectations on what you want travel, baseball to be. That's not a problem in and of itself, right? We all have expectations. Where it becomes a problem is when you assume that this expectation is understood by your son. So as a parent, you're going to have an expectation that your son is going to work hard, right? You're going to expect that your son is going to give it his all. You're going to expect that your son is going to not forget his Equipment, you're going to expect that your son is going to wake up on time and go to school. If you don't ever communicate to your son that this is your expectation when he doesn't do it and all you do is get pissed at him, he's going to look at you like, what's the problem? Why are you mad? You're just being mean. But what you need to do is you need to articulate, look, I have this expectation and my question for you son is, are you willing to commit to sharing this expectation? We need to again, make it a commitment. Right. So you need to get him to articulate that you son are committing to working hard, showing up on time, doing the work that you need to do to make sure that the money that we're investing in your experience and is going to be a positive one. Most of the time, families do this unconsciously and don't ever articulate it. And that's where a lot of these problems get solved right on the surface. So it's not hard to do. It actually is very easy. But that Priya, I think could solve a lot of your problems as well.
- [41:46]
B
And I think, like Matt, one thing that I would love for you to just close it up as getting to the end of today's Q and A, you know, with the access to information that parents have on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and they see all these short form video video clips, they see longer form videos, they see baseball influencers, they see all of these different types of podcasts, even our own, where everybody's got a different perspective on it. And there is going to be times where parents when they're doing their own research are exposed to negative aspects of travel, baseball, sports in general. A coach, there's hearsay, maybe from other players or there's even hearsay from other parents that are part of that. And I think it's really important too. And something you said about having an honest conversation with your kid around that and not letting your own ego or your judgment get in the way. If someone wanted to find a way to validate their concerns around a coach or a team or travel, baseball overall, are there any suggestions that you have? Because there are some parents who really want to do some research and there are some parents who really want to make sure that if they are concerned about something, it is validated. It's not just an opinion. They want to make sure that they're doing what's best for their kid.
- [43:10]
A
Yeah, I mean, there's always ways in which you can validate this Stuff. I mean, I think some of what helps, obviously, and maybe this is why families are comfortable listening to my advice is because, you know, I'm an agent, I've been doing this 25 years. And so maybe you have the peace of mind knowing, like, well, you know, you've had some success doing this and so you're not just kind of, you know, shooting at the hip, just throwing stuff against the wall. For a parent who's trying to confirm and understand whether a coach is good or not. We're actually going to do an episode next week, Mike, obviously about this exact subject, but I think what, what families need to do is you need to ask questions. I think sometimes families go into picking a team or finding a coach and they just assume again that all the things that the coach is saying is just going to like, miraculously happen. And oftentimes that gets solved by asking more meaningful questions. Right? Like if a coach says, look, here are the guys that I've worked with in the past. This is what I see for your son. You know, let me be his hitting coach and let me do the same with him. As a parent, you're probably hearing that saying, like, great, I love that, let's do it. But before you just say let's do it, what I would encourage you to say is like, can you walk me through how you do it? Like, walk me through what that looks like? What's the plan? How do you put together the plan? You know, today's day one. What does day 10 look like? What does day 30 look like? what point do you realize that your plan maybe isn't working? Is that at the 3, 3 month mark? Is that at the year mark? Is that at the two week mark? I personally believe, like this, the best question that, that you could ask is how can I as a parent understand how to get the most out of you? And if that coach doesn't have an answer or he doesn't know how you as a parent can get the most out of him, then, yeah, I'm not saying he's not a good coach. He may be an amazing coach, but I would just wonder, well, if he doesn't even know how to, how any parent could get the most out of him? Does he even know how to get the most out of himself? Like, what is he being called to do as he works with your son? And through these conversations, you're going to learn a whole lot about whether or not this is a good coach or not. You can also learn just by talking to other people who have Worked with them before. Right. If it's a travel ball team as an example, you can probably learn a lot by talking to other families and players about how that experience was. And I would encourage you, don't just talk to one. If you talk to one player or one parent and their experience was great, obviously they're probably going to say great things. That doesn't mean there's never been a bad experience. So I would almost encourage you to talk to multiple families, multiple players, and really try to understand more specifically, why was the experience good or why was the experience bad? Because even if a kid or a family had a bad experience, you may learn that the reason why they're saying their experience was bad actually had nothing to do with the coach. It had more to do with the player's commitment to actually doing the things that he needed to do. And so if you're looking at your son who is deeply invested, very committed, willing to do whatever it takes, and you talk to a player or a parent whose son is the opposite, and they didn't have a good experience, okay, well, yeah, you didn't do the things that you needed to do. So I would just encourage you, get curious, go talk to multiple families and multiple players and really just analyze it from your own, you know, standpoint. I do believe, though, and I'm going to go back to the question that I had earlier, which is, you know, ask this coach. Teach me how to get the most out of you. That is a very, very important one that I would probably lead with because it's, I would imagine it's a question he probably has never gotten. So the response he's going to give you is probably as authentic as you can imagine. And so if the response is merely, wow, I, I, I don't even know. Let me think about that. That's actually okay. But if he's starting to sell you on stuff and it sounds like it's a sales pitch, then just trust your intuition and maybe back off a little bit.
- [47:10]
B
Yeah, and I think that's a great answer, and it's a great way for us to really just make sure that everybody's continuing to have the conversation around the importance of having these T talks with your kids and making sure that you're not imposing things onto your kid that you don't want them to experience because you saw a video or you saw something that just, you know, maybe just didn't make you feel good or just something that you saw that just kind of rubbed you the wrong way. So I hope you guys continue to have these conversations and we love getting these questions from you.
- [47:43]
A
Yeah. So something that I want everybody to know. So obviously this episode specifically was about how travel baseball is a tool. I'm actually going to do a much more in depth episode on this exact subject that I will tell you guys about in the future and make sure that you guys see it when it comes out. But the reason we wanted to record this episode this week and then next week's episode actually is more directly aligned with the coaches specifically is, again, if you understand that travel baseball is a tool, the people who oftentimes help your son and you really learn how to use the tool is the coach. And so next week's episode, we're going to be touching on how coaches can do that, what it looks like to have conversations with coaches, what makes a good coach, what makes a bad coach, and all the things. So I thank you. If this episode helped, please, you know, share it with another family that you think it could benefit. If you guys have a question for me that you would like me to answer on a future episode, send me an email@matt most valuable agent.com and we would be happy to tackle that question. So until next time, guys, I appreciate you as always. We'll talk soon.