THE WAR FOR SUMMER
The summer showcase season has been a vital part of the elite high school player’s development for two decades. The travel team showcases have been around long enough that sons of the first wave of showcase stars are spending their summers playing in top-level events.
For much of that time, the summer showcase circuit has been derided by many as the bane of baseball. It costs too much. It creates an “everyone gets a trophy” culture. It teaches pitchers to throw hard, not to throw well.
The Tommy John epidemic of the mid-2010s was blamed on showcase ball. The degradation of baseball skills and feel for the game and the rise of recruiting of freshmen and sophomores was also blamed on summer showcases.
The industry has rightfully earned that scorn. A formerly low-cost sport has become increasingly expensive at elite levels thanks to tournament fees and travel costs. And there’s little doubt that pitchers throwing in short stints to an array of radar guns are more focused on topend velocity than craft and feel.
It’s also a big business, and one that keeps getting bigger. Perfect Game and Prep Baseball Report have received significant investments recently that helped provide funding for expansion. They are by no means the only players in the space. Between Wilson Premier, East Coast Pro Showcase, Area Code Games, Baseball Factory and others, an elite player has a wide array of choices for how he will spend his summer.
There’s rarely a week during the summer that doesn’t feature a major showcase event. Often two or three are going on at the same time.
But now a relatively mature industry has gotten both bigger and more introspective. There have been efforts to reduce or eliminate many of the excesses that cause some of the biggest issues. Major League Baseball has worked hard to increase opportunities for lower-income players with cost-free events that attract players, college recruiters and scouts.
