Little League to the Major Leagues: A Complete Guide to Baseball’S Assembly Line … Plus Insider Advice on Youth Leagues, High School, College, and the Pros

By Rod Humphries

There is no question that the physical and mental demands of the sport of baseball are rigorous. Not only is it difficult to successfully hit a ninety-mile-per-hour fastball in front of a crowd of passionate spectators, but it is also challenging to navigate an often confusing system that leads players through youth leagues, high school, college, and for a lucky few, the Minor and Major Leagues.

Rod Humphries, sports journalist, television writer, and former administrator of a worldwide professional tennis tour, shares his personal experiences and advice from experts in this complete insiders guide designed to help players, their parents, and baseball fans understand how Major Leaguers pay their dues. Humphries, who closely studied the entire baseball assembly line when his son was drafted out of high school by the Houston Astros, offers valuable information on:

The professional baseball structure
Little League vs. select/travel ball
Player analysis and recruitment
Scholarships and coaching camps
Draft day decisions, salaries, and career chances

Little League to the Major Leagues provides proven tips and time-tested advice for any family or player who dares to dream of journeying beyond youth baseball to high school, college, and the professional game.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475984682

Rod Humphries

Rhondda-born Rod Humphries, a lifelong lover of books, has finally got round to writing one. Having taught in the south Wales valleys for many years Rod has now retired to St Ives in Cornwall, which, he avers, is very much like the Rhondda, only with a beach.

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Copyright © 2013 by Rod Humphries

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-8470-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-8469-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-8468-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013906352

iUniverse rev. date: 05/08/2013

Contents

Introduction

Part One

An Overview of the System

Chapter 1       Difficult Game … Formidable System

Chapter 2       The Assembly Line

Chapter 3       The Structure of Professional Baseball

Chapter 4       Outline of the Major League Draft

Chapter 5       Player Evaluation: The Tools

Chapter 6       Player Evaluation: Performance

Chapter 7       New Bats Transform Amateur Game and Scouting

Chapter 8       The Money

Part Two

The Youth Leagues

Chapter 9       Daddyball and Coaching

Chapter 10       Little League versus Select/Travel Teams

Chapter 11       Pitcher Abuse and Tommy John

Part Three

High School and College

Chapter 12       It’s the Tools, Not the Schools

Chapter 13       Showcases

Chapter 14       College Camps: The Best Little Secret in Recruiting

Chapter 15       Wanted: A Lot of Good Men

Chapter 16       Recruiting Time Line

Chapter 17       Scholarships: Baseball Gets No Respect

Chapter 18       Performance-Enhancing Drugs

Part Four

The Pros

Chapter 19       Pro Prospects: Citius, Altius, Fortius

Chapter 20       Scouts and Scouting

Chapter 21       The Draft, Signability, Bonuses, Contracts, and Agents

Chapter 22       The Draftee Dilemma: The Pros or College?

Chapter 23       Draft Day … and a Family Decides

Chapter 24       Latin Players Boom … African Americans Decline

Chapter 25       The Minors: A Hard Day’s Night

Chapter 26       The Rite of Spring

Chapter 27       The Majors: A Temporary Career for Most

Chapter 28       A Personal Story

Epilogue

Biographies

About the Writers

Rod Humphries is an Australian-born author, sports journalist, television writer, and former professional tennis coach, who also organized a worldwide professional sports tour, World Championship Tennis. He became a Little League all-star coach, and after his son Justin was drafted out of high school by the Houston Astros, he decided to write a complete guide to baseball’s assembly line to fill an information void for parents, players, and fans. He not only chronicles the various steps in the baseball process and the history and numerical data behind it, but he also threads his family’s personal experiences throughout the book so that parents and players will have guidelines and advice.

To add insider advice on the path and the pitfalls, Humphries tapped three former professional players—Scipio Spinks, Sid Holland, and his son Justin Humphries—who between them have seen baseball from every conceivable angle.

Spinks pitched in the Major Leagues and later became a professional scout and coached in the pros, college, and at the youth level, including at private academies. Holland coached in the pros and college and today has his own private academy, where he organizes youth select/travel teams and works on hitting technique with youth, high school, college, and many Major League players, including All-Stars Carl Crawford, Michael Bourn, Chris Young, and Jay Bruce. And Justin Humphries has traveled the path that young players strive for: Little League and select/travel ball to the pros. He had nine years as a professional and provides personal information on all steps of the process, from youth ball through high school and college recruiting to the hard life of the professional game. He negotiated a college scholarship from the Houston Astros and attended Columbia University in New York while still playing professional baseball. He gives advice on the importance of obtaining an education to secure a career after the baseball journey ends.

(Full biographies are found at the end of the book.)

Credits

Evolution of a Baseball Player cover illustration by Fran Knueppel.

Photographs of Justin Humphries and other professional players by Mary Lay.

Manuscript proof read by Charley Taylor, who had thirty-eight years as a player and coach in the Houston Astros organization.

Introduction

My name is Rod Humphries, and I am an unapologetic baseball dad (retired). I was born in Australia, where cricket is the national pastime and far outstrips baseball. It wasn’t until I moved to America decades ago and my three sons—Scott, Mark, and Justin—began playing Little League that I fell in love with the sport and eventually participated as a Little League coach. When Justin became very good at baseball, I searched for help—not only on how he should hit a baseball, but on how the system worked all the way from Little League to the Major Leagues. At times it was downright daunting because our family had so many questions and so few places to find even some of the answers. There was no book explaining the total system, and only bits and pieces could be found on Internet websites.

On the journey I discovered that there was a real thirst for knowledge among dedicated families who were also looking to the future for preteen and teenage ballplayers. Parents not only pay for a young player’s physical journey and academics through youth baseball, high school, and college, but they are also central planners who need to know the system to help negotiate the various levels. Young players most certainly need to understand what to aim for, where they are headed, and what is in store for them—especially high school and college players and those eyeing the pros. Parents lighten the load by researching the pathway while allowing the player to concentrate on his game and school studies. It is part of being a parent.

After Justin was drafted out of high school by the Houston Astros, I decided that my experience as an author, sports journalist, television writer, and former administrator of a worldwide professional sports tour, World Championship Tennis, put me in a position to write about baseball’s very intricate assembly line. I took notes to produce a book that would be helpful for future baseball travelers: parents, players, and even avid fans who want to know about the process and how their favorite Major League stars paid their dues. I not only wanted to chronicle the various steps in the baseball process and the history and numerical data, but to also explain our personal experiences as a guide for parents and players who will follow.

Helping to shape Justin as a player—and guide the family through all stages of the system—were Scipio Spinks and Sid Holland, who between them have seen baseball from every conceivable angle. They were professional players, who also coached in college and the pros. Scipio pitched for the Houston Astros and St. Louis Cardinals and later became a highly respected professional scout. Today Sid works on hitting technique with Major League All-Stars Carl Crawford, Michael Bourn, Chris Young, and Jay Bruce, as well as coaching college and high school players and organizing youth travel teams. So I eagerly tapped their vast knowledge, and the reader will find their separate comments on personal experiences and advice to be a gold mine of information.

Also contributing is my son Justin, a nine-year professional whose experiences I have threaded throughout the book to illustrate the difficult path from youth leagues to the professional game. He also provides personal comments and valuable insight into youth and high school baseball, college recruiting, the Major League draft, the physical and mental strain of life in the pros, and the importance of an education to secure a profession after baseball. The comments by Scipio, Sid, and Justin directly relate to what I have written in the main text and can be found at the end of chapters.

So if a family dares to dream of journeying beyond youth baseball to high school, college, and the professional game, this book spells it all out.

Rod Humphries

Part One

An Overview of the System

The Difficulty of Playing Baseball; the System and the Assembly Line; the Structure of Professional Baseball and the Draft; How Players Are Evaluated; New Bats Are Transforming Amateur Baseball; and the Money

Chapter 1

Difficult Game … Formidable System

Immortal New York Yankee outfielder Mickey Mantle and Mr. October Reggie Jackson summed up the sport of baseball when they analyzed their Hall of Fame careers.

During my eighteen years I came to bat almost 10,000 times, said Mantle, who won seven World Series titles with the Yankees. "I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at bats a season. That means I played seven years in the Major Leagues without even hitting the ball!" *

Jackson, an outfielder and slugger who won three World Series rings with the Oakland Athletics and two as a Yankee, had a slightly different view of the same problem. "When you play the game for ten years, go to bat 7,000 times, and get 2,000 hits, you know what that means? It means you’ve gone 0-for-5,000!" *

That is the startling truth about a sport that can be a harrowing roller-coaster ride for even the most accomplished hitters. Batters often go through mind-numbing days or weeks without a hit. The successful spell of 6-for-10 can just as quickly turn into a slump of 0-for-20, which will play mind games with the toughest competitors in the business. Depending on which historical number cruncher you believe, the Major League Baseball record is 45 or 46 at bats without a hit by an outstanding catcher named Billy Bergen when he was playing for the Brooklyn Superbas, the forerunner of the old Brooklyn Dodgers, in 1909. Craig Counsell, who won World Series rings with the Florida Marlins and the Arizona Diamondbacks, went 0-for-45 in his final season with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2011 to either tie the record or fall one short. He did set a dubious record of sorts, going 0-for-July, a run of thirty-one fruitless at bats!

I watched my son Justin be tormented by the frustration of fighting the ever-present slumps of the game through high school to the pros, particularly an 0-for-37 run when he was struggling through a debilitating wrist injury in the Minor Leagues. I have watched pros become frustrated or shell-shocked after being swept with a golden sombrero (four strikeouts in a game, which is one more than a hat trick) at the plate or blasted by back-to-back home runs beyond the bleachers. I have seen Little League and independent select/travel team youth players reduced to tears when they swing and miss many times in a game.

As the title of this chapter suggests, this is a very difficult game within a formidable system. After years of watching moms and dads—especially those just starting out in Little League and select/travel ball—fretting over their sons’ performances, I concluded that I needed to point out in the beginning how physically hard baseball is, no matter how far a kid is likely to travel in the sport. I have seen the parental angst and the frustrations of youngsters who worry that they simply may not have the goods or just need to develop physically. Maybe it is a little of both, or as veterans of the baseball wars will attest, it might just be the sport itself. Baseball does not suddenly become easy at any age. The baseball gods will smile on a select few and allow them to perform with distinction over time, but they ensure that nobody ever truly masters their sport, not even Hall of Famers like Mantle and Jackson.

Hitting and pitching aside for the moment, it is my experience that it is just as daunting for a player and his family to negotiate the "system"—an assembly line from youth leagues through high school and college to the two levels of the professional game, the Minor and Major Leagues. For our family it was the great unknown, and with help and trial and error, we managed to put the pieces together. Select/travel teams and showcases, college recruiting and the time lines, how players are evaluated, and how pro clubs find draft picks are a mere starting point. There are so many things to know with so many nuances, and a misstep can be disastrous, even for a highly talented player. This book is all about the system, and I begin with a chart on the assembly line in Figure 1, and a full rundown of its five levels in chapter 2.

The physical and mental demands of the sport are undeniable. Hitting a 90 mph fastball often tops sports polls and questionnaires asking to name the toughest thing to do in sports. It is no picnic for a small boy trying to hit a 40 to 50 mph pitch from a machine or a dad—or a 50 to 70 mph pitch from a youth player who looks like he cheated on his age. It is certainly no walk in the park when a 90 mph pitch thrown from 60 feet 6 inches has to be hit with a round stick 2 3/4 inches in diameter. And 90 mph fastballs are certainly not confined to the pro game, because there are literally hundreds of high school and college players who reach that plateau. It has become even harder at all levels in the amateur game because of the newly mandated metal bats, which are designed to play like solid wood and have lowered the boom on hitters from Little League to the college game.

Batters have an astonishing failure rate. The best players fail 70 percent of the time, and there are plenty in the Major Leagues who have a failure rate of at least 75 to 80 percent. A lifetime batting average of .300—success at the rate of three hits out of every ten at bats—is a start to being voted into the Hall of Fame! What other sport deifies its athletes with a 30 percent success rate?

I spent many winter off-seasons watching Major and Minor League players preparing for spring training in the batting cage at our property in Richmond, Texas. Justin was the catcher, and I would stand right behind the netting and marvel at the ability of the pitchers to move the ball through the air at incredible speeds. One day a baseball fanatic who happened to be working at our property asked if he could face some of the pitching. The bat hardly moved before the ball thudded into Justin’s glove. The man was embarrassed and humbled, and I reminded him that professional hitters not only have to make contact but hit the ball cleanly past strategically placed fielders! I contend that all baseball fans should at least once in their lives stand behind a plate or a batting cage and watch the ball whistle and move violently through the air in about four tenths of a second. Then the ignorant caterwauling at Major League Baseball games would be reduced to a trickle!

Pitching is not only difficult but brutal on the arm. I grew up with cricket, where a bowler performs only one type of action—fast or medium-paced balls and spinners, which can be loosely interpreted as curveballs and sliders—and he is moved in and out of the bowling lineup during a game depending on when his type of bowling action is required. On the other hand, a baseball pitcher has no respite and is required to master many types of pitches and throw accurately over a seventeen-inch-wide plate with cunning changes of pace and spin maybe a hundred or more times a game. Some days it works, and other days it doesn’t. If a pitcher gets shelled because his pitches were a couple of inches high or a few inches over the middle of the plate, the fans bemoan his failure.

And on defense, you had better not miss anything. What other sport signals a player’s error and then highlights it on the scoreboard and in the official box score for the world to read in the newspaper or on the Internet? Offensive linemen in the NFL who miss a block don’t get errors posted on the scoreboard. What other sport designates a scorekeeper in the stand and gives him the ultimate power to decide if a player made an error in the first place? Who says it wasn’t a pebble that caused the ball to deviate? A player who is out of position or too slow to react and doesn’t lay a glove on the ball he probably should have played is normally not given an error. Figure that one! Scorekeepers are the front line in recording the games for official records, and if they decide it is an error and not an official hit, it has historical significance in a game that thrives on history.

Professional athletes in all sports make it look easier than it truly is. In this age of nightly television sports show highlights, the constant images of towering home runs, dramatic strikeouts, and spectacular catches give a skewed perception of baseball in the minds of many fans, especially the new or casual fan. For some, it is only when blooper reels are played on the scoreboards for light entertainment between innings at Major League games, or on television, that there is a reminder this is indeed a very tough game to master.

I have always categorized sports as being natural or manufactured. The ancient Greeks began the Olympics in 776 BC with mostly natural sports—everyday human athletic skills including running, jumping, and throwing. But over the centuries, man introduced balls and implements with which to hit them, and superior eye-to-hand coordination became a primary human element in the newly manufactured sports of baseball, golf, tennis, hockey and cricket. Professionals in all sports have the gift of extraordinary athletic ability, but not all of them have, at the core of their sport, the task of using a round stick to hit a small ball thrown at enormous speed from a very short distance. Manufactured sports require extremely long periods of time to learn the techniques to master the implements.

Baseball players, therefore, take countless years of honing skills to reach the top. In the NFL, the college game is the minor leagues, the farm system so to speak. In baseball, high school and college are the minor leagues before the Minor Leagues. The sport is so difficult that in the majority of cases, it takes years of sharpening skills in at least some of the seven levels of the Minor Leagues before a player is even close to the Major Leagues. Bryce Harper at nineteen and Mike Trout at twenty both broke into the Major Leagues in 2012 after two years in the Minor Leagues and shook up the baseball world by becoming All-Stars and Rookies of the Year. They were highly talented high school players who had accelerated careers. They were very rare exceptions.

It is this lengthy and tricky climb that makes it so important for families to fully understand the system so that they can draw up a game plan. One cannot simply have a dream and not know the path to achieve it, no matter how good the player may be. While parents play a pivotal role with money and planning, it is important that teenagers, especially those eyeing the prize of a college scholarship or a professional contract, also have a working knowledge of the structure because, after all, it is their future.

Not knowing the system can lead to mistakes that might jeopardize the journey. When our family was starting out, the first seeds for this project were planted at a tournament for eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds in Houston. We were watching a strongly built young man—touching 92 mph on my radar gun—overpowering all hitters, and I turned to the longtime tournament organizer and showcase presenter and asked him about the pitcher’s background. He was just selected by the Chicago Cubs in a late round in the draft … but he cannot decide whether to accept the draft pick or play in junior college because being a late-round choice, he is worried that he might be cut at the club’s training camp, he said.

We were naïve at the start of the Humphries’ baseball journey, but not that naïve. I told the organizer that it wasn’t the National Football League, and I understood that players picked in the Major League Baseball draft did not attend any training camp and went straight to assignments in the Minor Leagues. No draft pick, I said, appeared to be cut before he played at least one short season, and my statements were later confirmed by friends in professional baseball.

The real question in my mind was: How could it be that the player and his parents did not know the system after years in the game? And if the long-established organizer of showcase tournaments did not know how it all worked, then how many parents and ballplayers would also be uninformed? How much damage could be done to a baseball prospect if he and those around him were ignorant of the system and had no tactical plan? The player in question went back to school, and missed the professional opportunity. I do not think he was ever drafted again. That scenario happens all the time.

A short time later, the seeds began to sprout when the father of a young pitcher who was being recruited by a number of major colleges asked me if I knew how the NCAA Division I colleges dispersed the 11.7 scholarships they handed out each year. The question greatly surprised me because a family that close to having their son sign a Letter of Intent to play for a college should have known that the NCAA allocates a set number of 11.7 scholarships for Division I baseball and that is the sum total. There is no annual accumulation. College coaches, distressed by having such a paltry number of scholarships, have to be master jugglers in trying to accommodate all the players they need for their rosters. After the young man and his family had spent years in the system, it was incomprehensible to me that they did not know the NCAA rules on scholarships, which could have backfired on them in a process where thousands of players are competing to make college teams. I also saw a friend blow the chance of his son signing with a college because the family did not fully understand the early signing period in college recruiting.

This book will not teach how to hit a baseball. It will focus on the system and how it works, and how to negotiate, and hopefully master, the levels from youth leagues to the Major Leagues.

*Lee Green, Sportswit, New York: Harper & Row, 1984.

*****

Justin:

I did not realize until now that my 0-for-37 was only 9 away from the worst slump in Major League Baseball history! I was battling a very tough wrist injury in High A ball in Salem, Virginia, which had been reinjured after surgery; I couldn’t hit to right field, and I was pulling everything to try to get hits. We were on a long road trip, locked in hotel rooms and buses, which made it even harder to find mental diversions. In retrospect, I should have asked for a day off, but I was the only first baseman available at that time and it is also a no-no in the Minor Leagues to ask for days off because you get labeled and it can really damage your career. The club knew I was hurt, but nothing was done about it at the time. A few weeks after the slump, my wrist was placed in a cast, and I was on the disabled list for nine weeks.

The mental side of the sport is the toughest adjustment a young player has to make as he moves through the levels. In high school I never hit below .400, and I had never really dealt with failure like this. If I went 0-for-3 in a game, I knew I would get a hit or two the next game. It was just how it was and there was no sweat. But when I got to the professional game, the pressure to perform was infinitely higher, and there were so many reminders every day as to how you were doing. At every at bat, your average is on the electronic scoreboard—and family and friends always check online to see how you are doing. So when your batting average goes from .315 to .114 in a 0-for-37 slump in eleven games, you are reminded of it every day. It consumes you. And to be honest, a big string like that stays with you forever.

I went 0-for-4 on the first day, and then when I came to the plate the next day and got out in the first at bat, I said to myself, Okay, that’s 0-for-5. And then it was 0-for-6 and 0-for-7, and it just continued to snowball. I knew I was a much better hitter than the slump was suggesting, but I was hurt and it was eroding my confidence a little more every day. I worked overtime with the hitting coach, former Major Leaguer Chucky Carr, but nothing was happening at the plate. Even the solid hits were going straight to fielders. Eventually my teammates tried to relieve the pressure with lighthearted banter, but no matter how funny they were, the pressure did not go away. It was easy for them to be funny; it wasn’t happening to them! I tried everything I could think of it to get out of it, to get my mind off of it, but it was everywhere. Finally, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, playing against the Atlanta Braves affiliate, I smacked a ball between third and short for a single. Hallelujah! No matter how good the player, every hitter is vulnerable to this in a game that can play tricks with the mind. You just never see it coming, and once the downward spiral starts, it is hard to pull out.

On the subject of the system itself, if you are not totally familiar with it, then you will probably need a lot of luck to succeed. It was pure luck that got me a college scholarship because my parents and I were not at all familiar with college camps. We thought the recruiting process was select ball and showcases. It is documented later in the book, but I was at a showcase in Kansas City, and by sheer luck we drove an hour down I-70 to see the campus of the University of Kansas in Lawrence. We bumped into the recruiting coordinator, Mike Bard, and it ended up producing a baseball scholarship. He suggested I attend their camp, and at the end of the three-day camp, I was invited for an official visit and eventually gained a scholarship. I tell this story to young players and their families because most of them are not aware of the importance of the targeted exposure you can get in college camps. Most schools don’t even know you exist, and you have to go to them. This all happened between my junior and senior year in high school, and if I had known about college camps at the start of the process, I would have attended more starting at the end of my freshman year. Who knows what path that might have led me down? Chapter 14, College Camps: The Best Little Secret in Recruiting, includes extremely important information for families who are trying to negotiate the system.

Sid:

After many years of coaching at my academy and operating select/travel teams, I have dealt with hundreds of parents who unfortunately have little or no clue about how the system works, especially in recruiting for college. That is where most good young players will peak, and I am amazed how few families are prepared for the process when it means so much to them to get their son into a college. Some just think that all it takes is for somebody like me who has connections to pick up the phone and call a name school and everything will be fine. Often parents expect me to merely twist the arm of a coach at a college they want their kid to attend. I have to be blunt and tell them that their son is not up to the standard of that school and no amount of arm-twisting will convince the coach to give up one of his precious scholarships to an inferior player. I know one family that for seven years sent their kid to the college camp of the school they wanted so desperately for the child to attend. The player was just not good enough to sign with that school, and it was devastating for the family. Instead of spending countless hours trying to explain to parents about the need to study the system, I can now at least say, Read the book!

When it comes to the difficulty of playing baseball, I tell all my players from a young age to the professional game that while you obviously need ability and good tools to play at a high level, it is great passion for the game that is extremely important. From passion come extra hard work and the honing of skills. Baseball is all about honing skills and making adjustments as the game changes at every level along the way. But passion also has the ability to help deflect disappointment … and believe me, there will be disappointment on the way up the ladder. I often tell my pupils and their parents that this is a game of failure. The best players fail 70 percent of the time, and that in itself is pressure on every player at every level. From T-ball and Little League all the way up to the Major Leagues, it is so difficult a path that you need to maintain your passion and just keep plugging away.

Everything has to line up for you to make it through all those levels. This game will break you down and eat you up. The stress level is enormous, and passion for the game in a sense is a barrier to all that. You have to love the game and enjoy every aspect of it; otherwise it will break you. You have to play with the joy of a kid’s game all the way through the various levels and even in the pros. Passion alone obviously won’t make a young player successful, but I doubt that he will make his goal without it.

Scipio:

When baseball’s all-time winning coach, Augie Garrido, moved from Cal State Fullerton to the University of Texas in 1997, he took eight or nine players with him, thereby bumping a bunch of scholarship athletes from the Texas roster. He could do that because baseball scholarships are year-to-year contracts and have to be renewed before each season. I know that the NCAA in recent years has given permission for scholarships longer than one year, but that is not likely to become commonplace because coaches want the flexibility that comes with a yearly contract. The displaced Texas players were allowed to move to another school, but even that rule has recently changed, and a player now has to sit out a year when he switches schools.

I make this point because most of the families I talk to about college recruiting are quite surprised when I tell them that even a scholarship player does not have the security of four years in a college baseball program. You have to earn it every year, and it makes a huge difference for players choosing a school, especially those who would be on the bubble. This is just one of a bunch of rules, regulations, and situations that families need to learn about when they embark on what is really a complex journey.

Figure 1. The Baseball Assembly Line

The chart gives a breakdown of all the numbers in the assembly line from youth leagues to the Major Leagues. The system is discussed further in chapter 2.