We went last week. On on the fence on whether or not it was worth it.
1. The "pros" working the event - how should I say this...it seemed as though some of them would rather be elsewhere
2. The "scouts" or "evaluators" or whatever they called - sometimes weren't even paying attention, and there were only one per station for the subjective ratings.
3. For infield ratings, my DD got 5 balls hit to her. 1st at her medium speed, 2nd harder, 3rd right, 4th left and 5th slow roller. I get what they are trying to do. Problem was that there was a lot of inconsistency. Some girls got really really hard shots for #2, some soft shots. Some 10ft left, some 15ft+ left, etc. One girl got a bad hop to the throat/face and the guy was barking for her to get ready for the next ball. Mine got 4 of 5 that were "fair", the 5th was the ball to her left that was a base hit in every league I've ever seen. How can you evaluate a girls range when you hit one shot that Brooks Robinson would have not gotten to???
4. Hitting...oh my, this was great for some, rough for others. They changed pitchers several times, swapping between two guys who took turns. One threw traditional BP, not too soft but not trying to strike you out. One threw like he was Rick Vaughn from Major League. Hard and all over the place. And they only get 10 swings. Tough to compare a girl that gets the "easy" guy vs Wild Thing.
5. Weather. So the sky opened up and an absolute monster of a storm came before everyone was done. Weather alerts all over, tornado warnings to the north and south. Very poor communication about should we wait it out, come back tomorrow, or what. We got the hell out of there, I'm not getting killed over a softball tryout. Never an email or twitter or facebook post about rescheduling, or what to do if you didn't go through all the stations. Nothing. The running portion never took place as far as I could tell. Weather was not their fault, but the way they handled it was.
6. Pitching - online description says you get three warmup pitches on the mound, then 10 pitches to evaluate you. Someone must not have told the staff, as there were zero warmup pitches. They did get to warmup with a catcher in the outfield, but still would have been nice to get a few warmups to get a feel for the rubber there.
So far no results posted. Then again no results posted for the past few events they had. I don't know what's so hard about it as there's no meetings that have to take place. It's not like a group of evaluators were involved and they would need to meet and deliberate for hours and hours.
I'm a little disappointed in the event, aside from the weather. I know the weather is not their fault, but again, the way they handled the communication was poor. And I didn't get the feeling that subjective evaluations were carefully thought out. Only one person scoring each station and at times it seemed like they weren't paying close attention, having side conversations with other staff members at the same time.
In the end I think it was more of a money grab than I wanted to admit when we signed up.
1. The "pros" working the event - how should I say this...it seemed as though some of them would rather be elsewhere
2. The "scouts" or "evaluators" or whatever they called - sometimes weren't even paying attention, and there were only one per station for the subjective ratings.
3. For infield ratings, my DD got 5 balls hit to her. 1st at her medium speed, 2nd harder, 3rd right, 4th left and 5th slow roller. I get what they are trying to do. Problem was that there was a lot of inconsistency. Some girls got really really hard shots for #2, some soft shots. Some 10ft left, some 15ft+ left, etc. One girl got a bad hop to the throat/face and the guy was barking for her to get ready for the next ball. Mine got 4 of 5 that were "fair", the 5th was the ball to her left that was a base hit in every league I've ever seen. How can you evaluate a girls range when you hit one shot that Brooks Robinson would have not gotten to???
4. Hitting...oh my, this was great for some, rough for others. They changed pitchers several times, swapping between two guys who took turns. One threw traditional BP, not too soft but not trying to strike you out. One threw like he was Rick Vaughn from Major League. Hard and all over the place. And they only get 10 swings. Tough to compare a girl that gets the "easy" guy vs Wild Thing.
5. Weather. So the sky opened up and an absolute monster of a storm came before everyone was done. Weather alerts all over, tornado warnings to the north and south. Very poor communication about should we wait it out, come back tomorrow, or what. We got the hell out of there, I'm not getting killed over a softball tryout. Never an email or twitter or facebook post about rescheduling, or what to do if you didn't go through all the stations. Nothing. The running portion never took place as far as I could tell. Weather was not their fault, but the way they handled it was.
6. Pitching - online description says you get three warmup pitches on the mound, then 10 pitches to evaluate you. Someone must not have told the staff, as there were zero warmup pitches. They did get to warmup with a catcher in the outfield, but still would have been nice to get a few warmups to get a feel for the rubber there.
So far no results posted. Then again no results posted for the past few events they had. I don't know what's so hard about it as there's no meetings that have to take place. It's not like a group of evaluators were involved and they would need to meet and deliberate for hours and hours.
I'm a little disappointed in the event, aside from the weather. I know the weather is not their fault, but again, the way they handled the communication was poor. And I didn't get the feeling that subjective evaluations were carefully thought out. Only one person scoring each station and at times it seemed like they weren't paying close attention, having side conversations with other staff members at the same time.
In the end I think it was more of a money grab than I wanted to admit when we signed up.
