A trend is emerging across youth travel baseball in North Carolina. If you haven't noticed, you may not be paying attention. Gone are the days of travel teams being put together from the all-stars of every town's recreation leagues. The last few years have ushered in a trend that is sweeping across the travel baseball events of North Carolina: the rise of the national youth programs. Yes, you read that right. National programs targeting youth players.
In the not too distant past, most of the teams in youth travel baseball events around North Carolina were comprised largely of players from the same city or town or geographic location. These players played together on recreation teams and in leagues and came together with the best players in their towns to compete against the best players from other surrounding towns. West Raleigh and East Rowan are examples of high-quality programs who continue to succeed with this structure.
Out of this model was born the travel baseball blueprint that has taken hold in North Carolina over the past several decades. These teams focused solely on travel baseball and in many instances, increased the geographical reach of a specific team far beyond their own town. Very early on in the evolution of these travel teams, however, many could see some of the problems with this structure. "Daddyball" that could destroy the experience for a player or even an entire team, and teams that might be focused less on individual player development and more on team success (e.g. winning) are just two commonly referenced examples.
To combat this, numerous programs offering physical facilities, near year-round training options, and "professional" coaching in the form of former collegiate, minor, and major league players started to spring up across the state. Led by the examples of programs such as Showcase Baseball Academy (SBA) in Charlotte or the Coastal Athletics/Rock Solid program in Wilmington, many other similar programs such as C35 (Sanford), Carolina Baseball Academy (Lake Norman), Norman Showcase Academy (Fayetteville), FUNGO Baseball (Raleigh), North Carolina Developmental Baseball (Raleigh), Spartans Baseball (North Wilkesboro), and North Carolina Baseball Academy (Greensboro) have sprung up across the state.
Coincident with the development of these “pro”-led programs, predominately high school-aged showcase programs have begun filtering down to the younger age groups. Programs such as Canes Baseball (previously the Evoshield Canes), the Dirtbags, and the Rawlings Prospects got their starts developing highly competitive high school-aged showcase teams. These programs have all now begun enlisting teams as young as 8u into their ranks. And while this phenomenon got its start in North Carolina with these east coast/NC-based programs, the past several years has seen an explosion of national showcase programs developing youth teams and programs in NC.
Take one look at Perfect Game’s list of the top travel baseball programs in America and you should already recognize many of those names in North Carolina. Five Star National from Warner Robbins, GA, has partnered with the Vipers organization at the older levels and has also developed the Five Star Carolina program in the Winston-Salem/Kernersville area. More recently, Five Star has also partnered with the Heat program out of Hickory to further strengthen their presence in North Carolina youth baseball.
Team Elite, from Winder, GA, has partnered with NCDB out of Raleigh to develop high school-aged showcase teams. Now they have extended this program down into the 12u and 13u age groups to develop teams at those ages as well. Just this fall, 3 other highly respected national programs, Garciaparra Baseball Group (GBG) based out of Southern California Tri State Arsenal based out of Mount Laurel, NJ, and US Elite based out of Philadelphia, PA, have all announced plans to develop youth teams in North Carolina.
The first question any baseball parent should be asking is why have so many of these programs come to North Carolina. The answer to that question is probably multi-faceted, and in some respects quite simple, and in others, quite complex. The simple answer is money. These programs would not be coming to North Carolina to develop youth teams and programs if there wasn’t money to be made. And we do not view that as inherently bad. In our view, it is perfectly reasonable for these organizations to make money so long as they are providing a service commensurate with what they are charging. This is the case with any consensual transaction in a capitalist market.
The complex answer is perhaps not as obvious. Our view is that by and large these teams and programs want to develop excellent youth baseball players. They want to identify and develop players at younger ages, and bring them along to their older teams to enhance the competitiveness of their programs as a whole. The complex part of this, however, is how likely are the best future high school players going to be identified at 8, 9, or 10 years old? How much can be ascertained regarding a player’s future abilities before they have even gone through puberty? That is a difficult question to answer and raises concern that dozens of players will be left in the wake of one of these programs in order to develop just a few national-level prospects.
Parents of young ball players are left in a difficult place in the ongoing youth baseball “arms race” taking place with the national programs. While this might mean more unique opportunities for a wider breadth of players, it also begs the question of how to determine what is the right spot or team for their child? Or when should a parent pull the plug on their current team/program and seek alternative opportunities? These are very individualized questions, but at least for the time being there will be no shortage of options to choose for from for players and parents in North Carolina.