25: Coach Ferber | What Baseball Parents Get Wrong About Travel Ball, Rankings & Development

Show Notes

Are baseball parents spending thousands of dollars on travel teams, national rankings, and private lessons without knowing whether any of it is actually helping their son?

Coach Jason Ferber, better known as Coach Ferber on Instagram, joins Bobby Minor on the Chasing Baseball Dreams Podcast for a conversation every travel baseball parent needs to hear.

A former San Diego Padres scout who has worked with some of the country's top young baseball players, Coach Ferber shares what he's learned about player development, youth baseball rankings, recruiting, and the decisions parents face as their sons grow in the game.

We get into why he thinks cutting 6U and 7U players is ridiculous, what parents should investigate before joining an expensive national team, and why locking a 9-year-old into one position can hurt his long-term development.

He also shares the story of an overlooked young player who became one of the country's top prospects, explains what separates a good hitting instructor from someone who's just selling a swing philosophy, and gives parents practical advice on finding the right coach.

And when it comes to college recruiting, Coach Ferber explains why he'd start with local college programs before spending thousands chasing exposure across the country.

In this episode:

• Why early baseball rankings tell you very little about a player's future
• The problem with national travel teams for 8U, 9U, and 10U players
• What to ask a travel baseball coach before committing
• Why young players need multiple positions and other sports
• How to recognize a coach who's developing players
• Red flags to watch for with private hitting instructors
• What college coaches actually evaluate during recruiting
• When a player needs more exposure and when he needs to improve
• What Coach Ferber would prioritize for his own 10-year-old son

Episode Chapters

00:00 Meet Coach Jason Ferber
02:10 Why you can't predict a player's future at 12U
07:09 The danger of playing only one position
12:08 National teams for 8U and 9U players
14:04 What young players lose without pickup games
16:24 Coach Ferber's take on cutting 6U and 7U players
18:38 Why parents need to investigate travel coaches
22:01 Questions to ask before joining a national team
25:17 Do young players really need national exposure?
29:27 Why youth baseball rankings mean so little
33:59 What parents should focus on instead of rankings
35:38 The story of an overlooked top prospect
37:43 Winning tournaments versus developing players
40:17 What good coaches should teach during games
44:26 How to evaluate a private hitting instructor
49:46 The question to ask before paying for lessons
52:43 Why talented players still need tough coaching
53:59 Tough coaching versus tearing players down
57:16 College recruiting: When showcases aren't working
1:00:07 Why recruiting should start close to home
1:02:38 Where he'd spend money on a talented 10-year-old
1:07:07 The biggest mistake well-intentioned parents make
1:11:07 Bobby's experience with his son Julian
1:12:21 Where to follow Coach Ferber

Follow Coach Ferber:
Instagram: @coachferber

Follow Chasing Baseball Dreams:
Instagram: @chasingbaseballdreams

If you're a baseball parent trying to make the best decisions for your son, subscribe to the Chasing Baseball Dreams Podcast for conversations with experienced coaches, former Major Leaguers, and people who know what it takes to develop baseball players.

#TravelBaseball #YouthBaseball #BaseballParents #PlayerDevelopment #CoachFerber

What is Chasing Baseball Dreams?

You're spending thousands a year on travel baseball. A better team. A bigger showcase. More lessons. A higher ranking. And you still have no way to know if any of it is actually working.

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That's not an accident. That's the machine.

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Chasing Baseball Dreams is the only baseball parent podcast hosted by someone with no financial stake in where your money goes. I don't run a travel team. I don't sell lessons. I don't coach for an org. I have no reason to steer you in the wrong direction. I'm Bobby Minor... former Division 1 player, 35+ years coaching select baseball and high school, former travel organization director, over 1,000 college recruiting assessments, and a college baseball dad who almost lost 2 sons to this game for 2 very different reasons, with one currently playing college baseball.

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Every episode, I sit down with former Major League players, college coaches, scouts, and baseball dads who've lived through the same grind you're in right now. People who've been inside this industry long enough to tell you the truth about how it actually works.

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Here's what you can expect.

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Real conversations about what actually matters at each age from 8U to signing day. The questions you should be asking before you commit to a team, a coach, or a showcase. The stuff the industry doesn't want you to hear, from people who've been inside it long enough to say it out loud. And the truth about recruiting, development, and where your money is actually going.

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No hype. No recruiting promises. No "get your son seen" nonsense. Just the one voice in this space with full-stack credibility and no financial tie to the machine that's taking your money.

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New episodes weekly. Follow @chasingbaseballdreams on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook for daily content between episodes.

Jason Ferber: if a kid comes to a tryout and you cut a six you player, seven you or eight you player, you should go to jail.

Bobby Minor: And welcome back to Chasing Baseball Dreams. And my guest today is Jason Ferber, better known as Coach Ferber. He's one of the most recognizable baseball coaches on Instagram, former scout with the Padres, and a guy who has worked with some of the top young players in the country. We're going to be talking player development, travel baseball recruiting, and some things I think every baseball parent needs to hear. So, Coach Ferber, welcome to Chasing Baseball Dreams.

Jason Ferber: Appreciate you having me all, Bobby. I love chasing baseball dreams. I've been I've been watching his content leaked out for a while. I think you're doing a great job. Just offering solutions and education for for for people out there that that need it. So yeah, keep doing keep up the great work.

Bobby Minor: I appreciate it. Man, I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep up with you, man. I'm trying to catch you. You're like one of the big dogs on, you know, on social media. So I'm really excited and it's kind of funny. So if you're watching this in a couple of weeks, Coach Herber and I are actually going to be together in Austin recording a podcast, a little baseball round table for for on the subject podcast. So we'll get to meet in person then. I'm really looking forward to that. So

Jason Ferber: Yeah, I don't know what's gonna happen. You got you got these guys are a podcast gonna film a podcast. Wait, it's a podcast going on a podcast. Right?

Bobby Minor: Yeah, th okay, you got I man, I need some co I need some coffee. I need some coffee, man. That's like you're

Jason Ferber: You got podcasters going on podcasts. No, I'm really excited about that event. they Michael, Mike Gazardo, I think his name is. Is Gazardo? Villardo. Jeez, I just botched his

Bobby Minor: Mike Volardo. Velardo. Yeah.

Jason Ferber: name. That's all my he's a really nice guy though. And I I I was really comfortable

Bobby Minor: yeah.

Jason Ferber: talking to him. Yeah, very nice guy.

Bobby Minor: Yeah. So and we'd actually both done his podcast before individually, and now he's bringing in you know me and you and Adam.

Jason Ferber: Together

Bobby Minor: Yeah, and Adam, so it's gonna be it's gonna be a lot of fun. But so let's jump right into it, man. Like okay, you've evaluated some of the best young players in the country, no doubt. So give me an example of a player who maybe he didn't look like much when he was twelve or thirteen, but he turned into a legitimate prospect. Like, like what did you see in him? that other people were missing.

Jason Ferber: I think that it's really tough to to to determine and when they're when these kids are super young and they haven't gone through the physical windows of development to predict, quote unquote, who's going to be what at that age, it's nearly impossible. I I think that there are certain characteristics of players. That you can say if they physically developed at this rate of speed or up to the point where they could play at the speed of the game, based on the way that their practice routines are, how much they love to practice, if they love to practice as much as they love to play, these are if they have great imaginations. these are some of the like if they can imagine themselves at a young age being Mike Trout. Or being Derek Jeter. If they, if, if they can imagine themselves during practice being in the game, those go like those are some of the characteristics or similarities of players that do level up and that I see become great. And there's also guys that are sleepers that a lot of people sleep on based on their size. Cause, you know, I I feel like baseball has started to come around in the past couple of years and not been going so crazy about. size, you know, like w how big is this guy? And at this a particular agent it's more about how well they move and how much they can impact the game. Which some of those stats like war and different things, I like that it takes out, like it doesn't include how big or strong or or or how big a guy's biceps are in involved and how much they impact the game. And like an example you were talking about is Richie Palacios. Is a kid from Brooklyn, right? He grew up right around when my house is 10 minutes away. He in high school was, I don't know, 5'7, 5'6, 5'7, 5'8. He's still only 5'8, right? 185

Bobby Minor: Mm.

Jason Ferber: pounds now, 190 pounds now, but it used to be 150. And lefty stick, righty arm, always played short his whole life. He did the whole recruitment process. Tried to go to the ACC when he was in high school and playing SEC, wasn't getting those looks. Why? Because of his size. And that's what they would continually say is we don't think you have the size to play in this conference. We don't think you're durable enough to play this season or what we're gonna put you through. Fast forward to now, he is playing second base for he's an everyday starter for the Tampa Bay Rays, playing in a postseason in the highest pressure in the world. Meanwhile, the the schools that were That he wanted to go to that didn't want to recruit him at that time. None of those shortstops that are at those schools are playing in the postseason right now. And he is at 5-8 once. So

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm. Let's go.

Jason Ferber: that's what I say is that tools matter, right? And tools to get you a look, but ultimately, his versatility is what keeps him in the game more than hitting home runs. He only hit 10, 11 homers this year. He didn't hit 22, 23. When I look at home runs now, I look at, A lot or a little. It's almost like this line. If you hit under 17 home runs, you hit a little. If you hit over 17 home

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: runs, you hit a lot of homers. Right. And so that's kind of like where

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: I I put where if you're gonna get a bag in in the pro in in the in the big leagues and they're gonna give you a a bigger contract. but there's other ways to go about doing this. And I always stress to parents at a younger age is a lot of guys focus on that hitting thing because the kids like to hit. They they find it fun, especially if they're good hitters and they have a knack for squaring up the ball. They love to work on hitting, but maybe they neglect base running. They neglect maybe some defensive, real real detailed work on defense with transitions and and where you're setting up, what's your pre pitch routine, what stride angles are you taking? How's your exchange? can you throw from multiple arm slots and multiple positions? When when you focus all on hitting, and because we all slump. Right. You end up going, everybody slumps at some point. What other value do you bring other than hitting? And for in Richie Palacios's situation, even if he's slumping, he can impact the game on the bases. He's quick. He can take away runs on defense. And not only that, he's a true utility guy. He's one of the only players at the Rays that he's played every in he played every position on the Rays big league team other than first base. pitcher and catcher. Second, short,

Bobby Minor: Mm.

Jason Ferber: third, all the outfield positions. When you are versatile like that, right? And when you're

Bobby Minor: Wow. Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: versatile like that, you don't need necessarily, if you're not a guy that's going to hit 20 homers a season, then you there's other ways to to to be able to play baseball and be compete at the highest level. So that's what I would say is that having a well rounded approach.

Bobby Minor: Okay. No, that's great because I'll so you've already answered. I was gonna ask you, you know, so what should a parent of a smaller late developing player take from that, but you already you already touched on that. But so let me ask you this, 'cause I think it's crazy when I parents reach out to me daily and you know, they'll tell me like their nine year old son, their ten year old son only played one position all season. How insane is that to you where you have these coaches that are like When the players should be playing to me, be playing all over, playing multiple positions, they're locking them into one position at such a young age. What do you think about that?

Jason Ferber: I think it's one of the worst possible strategies for long-term development you could have. I I would make a strong argument that there are like so my son, for instance, he plays baseball. He's five. Just learning to just read and write and just very, very beginning of stage. He we play T-ball just to go, for just for the fo just for the fun of it, to hang out with some friends so he can meet some kids his age that play baseball and I can meet some dads so that. We use that to go practice and find who are the cool dads and the cool kids that want to practice during the week. That's how I use it. And I can promise you that he also plays soccer at this age. And soccer is a as much as and I know nothing about soccer. I don't know any of the rules. I don't know what means you're offsides or not. I never played soccer my whole life. However, my son likes to play and it and he likes to run fast. So you get up to your top end speed. Way more than when you're playing baseball at this age. I could make a strong argument that playing soccer by itself is better for developing a high-level baseball player than playing baseball at this age. And the reason why is because you're you're you're cutting, you're trying to move fast in short windows, quick and fast in short windows, and you're changing direction and changing planes and things like that on a stop of a dime, creating more athleticism. And I think It's just more exciting because there's always a ball in play and you're always kicking and things like that. So the kid stays more engaged.

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: I think that parents, especially when you're looking at just playing one position. Look, when we were growing up, this is the thing that I think people don't understand. Parents, we don't we tend to forget how it was when we were growing up and what made the best athletes then. Times we haven't evolved like Two million years since then. It's only 30 years, 40 years since we were that age, right? And growing up and doing doing these type of things, or for however long it was. Neighborhood pickup games used to be the place

Bobby Minor: Okay.

Jason Ferber: where people learn how to get reads, right? That's where you learn your reads. That's where you learn instincts. You don't learn reads and instincts in a tournament at nine. That's not where you learn. You learn instincts how to compete. You learn that in the street. So if you're going to take kids out of the street and you say we're not going to play neighborhood pickup games anymore, we're just going to do this organized thing. In the neighborhood pickup games, bro, you play wherever they need you to spot play. You got, bro, you're playing left field, bro. Get out there. You know what I mean? You're not going to say, I only

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: play shortstop. You know what I mean? No, that doesn't work. If you wanna play with the older guys in the

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: neighborhood, you wanna learn, you wanna be even involved in this game, the older guys, they're gonna get picked to their position and we're gonna put you wherever the hell it is that we think you you you can do it. And so I I just feel like we need a little bit more of unsupervised play. I'm not saying that I I wondered myself, do you know, every single thing we do now, there's an instructor and it's all organized. Swimming lessons. I learned how to swim growing up on a beach in Brooklyn and Coney Island. I just swam in the ocean and just learned how to swim. I didn't have somebody, I didn't I didn't pay somebody to teach me, right? My older brother and just hung out with me and my my father, whoever. Foot soccer, I don't nobody just kicks the ball around or basketball.

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: It's everything is organized and they all have supervision involved and all this other stuff. So I feel

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: like like playing all different types of individual and team sports is the is is a good s foundation. I also think martial arts, any form of martial

Bobby Minor: Mm.

Jason Ferber: arts, you pick it. You pick well if I'm if I have a young kid, jujitsu, muay thai, kung fu, doesn't matter. You're talking about discipline, showing up. not being afraid of contact, balance, coordination, and just feeling confident about yourself, about you know, if somebody comes up to you on the street and tries to snatch your iPhone, you're not just gonna stand there and and cry. You know what I mean?

Bobby Minor: Yeah. No, that's true. Dude, there's there's so much there. So y well, so a a couple of things. So you're telling me that your five year old son, he's not playing on a five U national team?

Jason Ferber: No, I I I actually joke about that with these guys a lot because there are I see I saw a nine U national team, eight you national team. I've seen it and it's real. It's not satire. It's not satire.

Bobby Minor: I know.

Jason Ferber: It's it's real. And I I I look at it first, I look at it like you do and start laughing, thinking it's a joke. And I go, wait, no, they really have eight-year-olds taking a flight five states away. To go play baseball. That's actually happening. And I I go, like, Bonnie, when's the first time you took a f an airplane to go play baseball? I didn't take them a whole young I didn't take it at JUCO, maybe? That I went to a JUCO. The first time I

Bobby Minor: Bro, I didn't even know. I the first time I took a plane for baseball was flying somewhere with my son Julian. Like I never, you know Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Ferber: Never. Don't need to. It's really odd and you got Yeah.

Bobby Minor: Even w well, now we did go to Mexico to play, but even then we still we drove. you know, because I mean I live in Texas. No, it's it's crazy. Dude, I've seen I've seen posts for six U majors teams here in Texas. Like how do you have a six how do you have a majors t ball team? Like it doesn't even like that doesn't even register, but parents, you know, parents don't know what they don't know, and it's all to me it's all a money grab. It's designed to make you think that your son's special and you're doing something special so people can make as much money. money off of you as possible. But I wanted to go back to something you were saying a second ago about like I had a dad message me, I think it was yesterday, asking me why are so many baseball fields empty these days. And my exact answer was pretty much what you just said. Because when I was a kid, during the summer, every day we were at a playground. It was like the sand lot. Like we were playing pickup games and we were, you know, imitating our f you know, our favorite L B players and we're doing all that. Now there there are no pickup games. Every everything is structured and organized. And so you don't see kids at the playground, you know, the ballpark, the fields playing the way that

Jason Ferber: Yep.

Bobby Minor: You used to back in the day.

Jason Ferber: This is a crucial piece of not only the development process, also socialization and being more sociable, like being more socialized when it comes to being accepted into a peer group. I when I was a kid, I knew nothing about how to interact with other kids older or younger than me. The the people who show you how to do that are the older kids in the neighborhood that you're in the pickup games and say, Hey, bro, if you want to come out here and play with us, you you're not gonna cry like that. Get get out of here. Go back to your mom or whatever it is you do. You're gonna learn when to talk, when to shut up, what's normal to say, what's not normal to say. And this is why a lot of people complain and say, kids don't take they don't have any feel. They don't have no feel these days for the game. They have no feel. It's like, well, what did you expect was gonna happen if you take All these kids out of the street and bring them into a facility to train skills. Right now, at this present moment, skill work has outpaced real development. Skill,

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: skill acquisition has outpaced overall development. I say that, and people might not understand what that means, is because you can have all the skill you skill is, I'm really skillful with this knife, right?

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: I can

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: I got a butterfly knife and I can go right and I'm really skilled with it. But guess what? I only weigh 130 pounds soaking wet. So some dude that I'm playing against, it's like me going out with my knife and some guy has a bazooka. I I'm I'm not mentally or physically equipped to deal with this because I've been training my whole life in a climate-controlled facility where I can't, I don't learn how to compete in a facility. That competition. And then people go, hey, well, my kid's raking in the batting cage. He hits so well. He, but he does not hitting in the game. Well, so it's not his swing. It's not something he obviously he's proven 30 minutes before this game, he was just hitting eight out of 10 barreled up line drives. Now he's in the game and he's not hitting. Well, that's not a physical thing. That's not that's not working on his swing

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: mechanics. There's something else going on. And so Like the last thing I was gonna say before we're talking about, because this is an interesting conversation, I I love where you're going with it, is six you, seven you national teams indicate that if you're gonna build a national team, that means that you have to cut players. Right? If you I'm gonna

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm. yeah.

Jason Ferber: say this loud and clear to any new coach that's out there, and somebody might not like it or whatever, but if you cut a six or seven you player, a baseball player, some kid that

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: comes out, if a kid comes to a tryout and you cut a six you player, seven you or eight you player, you should go to jail. You should actually

Bobby Minor: Right.

Jason Ferber: go to prison for that. It should be a baseball jail for people that they could. Or you need to go see a psychiatrist. What in the world would you would ever possess somebody to cut a young guy? Cause who knows what that kid, he's six or seven, put a team of kids together that just want to go have fun and then we'll figure out later who wants to continue to practice. Why are you cutting kids and saying, well, I'm never coming back to this sport again. Stupid.

Bobby Minor: Dude, I want to do a mic drop, but it's it's connected right here, so I I can't do I can't do a mic drop. No, that's what I tell people like even even at eight, nine, and ten when they're not when players aren't playing multiple positions, when they're doing when they're so focused on winning, that's just to me bad coaching. And I think that's a part of the problem. You have so many guy any so anybody and everybody can start a team. They can call it whatever they want to call it. And you got a lot of guys coaching that have no business coaching. And unfortunately a lot of parents don't know. You know, they see the cool uniforms and you know they're getting sold on. Hey, our team was 32 and 8 last summer, you know, playing seven U coach pitch travel ball, and they get all caught up in the hype. And it is a to me it's a travesty. Like it's it just doesn't make any sense. But

Jason Ferber: I deal I deal with this exact thing you're talking about in when players should go I d go ahead, Bobby. I didn't mean to cut you off. Go ahead.

Bobby Minor: no no no no go go go this is this is this is me and you just chopping it up. So I have questions, but I'll I'll get always get around to my questions.

Jason Ferber: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I I mean, th there was there was a point that I w there was one thing. What was the thing you were talking about again? That last thing you were talking about.

Bobby Minor: About coaches that shouldn't be coaching, don't know how to coach? Yeah.

Jason Ferber: Yeah, I yeah, yeah. What what I've noticed is that parents, and especially from working with my evolution program, because all we do is streamline recruitment processes for young players, high school age players. you could literally parents will do so much research on a potential college or a potential high school. They'll they'll review when their kids are in junior high. What high schools in here? Am I gonna go to private school? Am I gonna homeschool my kid? What are the benefits? Who's the who's the staff? Who's the faculty? what what what does this school stand for? Are they a religious school? Are they not? Right? How what's a student body like? Colleges, what's the degree worth in the first five years, average salary, first five years out of school? what what what is the does it have the major that my so they'll do all this research with a travel team? I don't know why. They will literally show up at a tryout.

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: They've never met the coach before. They just let the kid try to go, yeah, I like him and just go, here you go, take my son. And you know, hold up. I don't I don't know this guy's background. This guy literally could have gotten out of jail after doing 15 years in solitary confinement for murder. Right?

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: He gets out on the street. He goes and draws a logo, and he goes against somebody to buy him some cool trick-out uniforms. and He's a he's already, he's on a matter. There is no oversight. There's no background

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: check. There's nothing. He's just a random dude off the street that you know nothing about, that you're saying, here's my 10-year-old son who's still in his most vulnerable developing skate stage that's looking for answers. He's very coachable. He's he's watching and trying to emulate and duplicate what he's seeing. And you bring in a coach in there that has no, forget about winning. He has no moral compass. He'll do anything to win. He will MF umpires for

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: missing a call two inches off the plate for the first pitch of the game. And his players, because let's be honest, young children don't follow our opinions. They follow our example. Right? Young,

Bobby Minor: Absolutely.

Jason Ferber: young children, you just because I tell a kid to do something doesn't mean he's gonna do it. He's gonna look to see what am I doing, and then he's gonna copy my behavior. So I I couldn't agree more what you're saying, but but but but go ahead, keep going, Bobby.

Bobby Minor: no, no, man, this is good stuff. And and parents need parents need to hear it. And that's it, that's why I that's why I talk so much in my content about asking the right questions before you ever swipe your card. Because you don't know what you don't know. I want to help you know what questions to ask to help highlight potential red flags so you can make the best decisions for your son. Now, does that mean that they can't lie? I mean that you know that they won't lie about it? No, it doesn't mean that. But the the more better. questions you ask before you spend a dime, the better off you're gonna be. Because you know, you make a bad decision and it costs you a couple of grand, you can make the money back. But you make a bad decision that costs your son a season or two of his development, you can never get that back. And that's why to me it's so it's so important. But Alright, I wanna I want to talk a little bit about because I know you you've coached the Game Changer National Scout team with some of the top 12U and 13U players in the country. Okay, so let's say a dad gets an invitation for his 12-year-old to join a national team, okay?

Jason Ferber: Yep.

Bobby Minor: But it's gonna cost him thousands of dollars, okay? What would you tell him to find out? What questions should he ask before he says yes?

Jason Ferber: So number one, I'd like to find out more about the coach who's coaching my son more than the actual organization. Most organizations, they're going to have a website or some type of a you know, some type of hub of somewhere that's going to be showing all their accolades of all of the things that they do great. Right. The coach himself is going to be impacting the son. He's going to be spending the most time around my son. So I want to find out more about that individual, him Who has he worked with in the past? What is his resume? If he's played baseball, not saying he had to become a major league or a professional to be able to coach. I never signed a pro contract. And I've coached

Bobby Minor: Same.

Jason Ferber: and I've I've coached and developed guys that have that are in the big leagues right now from young, young ages. So that's not more I I for me, it is finding out also getting player feedback because. I'd like for somebody to give me a few examples, not just tell hey, your son's gonna have a great time here. We do all the national events, we're gonna get you ranked, we're gonna get you to college and all this stuff. Okay. Can you give me a few examples of people or a few phone numbers of parents and families that have been in your organization? Can you give me like five of them that at are my son's age or were my son's age when they joined, and they could share their experience with me. If they have a problem doing that, that's a red flag, right? Because players and families generally. don't have filters. All right. Coaches have filters. College coaches have filters. Agents have filters. They're gonna tell you the things that make them look great. Players generally are just gonna tell you what happened in their in their opinion and what they saw. now I'm not saying that you might get two completely opposite end opinions from a kid that was a bench player and a kid that was an everyday starter. Right. Those two experiences might be Completely out like the feedback that the one kid might say to the others might be completely different. But I think you can get a better picture overall of what that program is like if you ask former players and parents, you know, how was the communication? Was it frustrating? Did you know what you were doing? And did you have plenty of time to make decisions and make make your plans to get your your your family pets watched, your other siblings and your kids? Did take time off of work to go to go travel and do all these things, or is it just thrown at you and says, If you can't do all this, you're not welcome here type of thing, you know?

Bobby Minor: No, that's good, dude. Parents, I hope you are listening. This is like gold that can save you lots of money, lots of time, and lots of heartache. So now let me ask you this then. At what age, what at what age can a national team actually provide something that a good local or regional team can't?

Jason Ferber: I don't want to say it's broken with no hope to get back on track because I feel like baseball and life is almost like the stock market, right? It crashes sometimes and then it will recover, right? And it will redirect itself. And generally the market will determine. What plays and what doesn't. Right now, the main issue is if you or I, Bobby, have a 11-year-old, a 12-year-old son, and he is a little bit of a cut above the rest of the kids on his team. Okay. That means I need to look for more competitive avenues, whether it is more competitive players and teams around him where he's who he's training with or who he's playing with. It's pretty much the only thing I can do for competition. When I move to the big field, now I can stay regional and local for as long as I possibly can. Even maybe if I'm 11 or 12 and I already hit a 12-year-old that hit puberty six foot, right? That kid, instead of playing with his kids his age, could play up or he could. Like, like if he wants to stay local and not and he doesn't have the money to travel, he could play with kids a year or two years older if they allow that. The issue is once they get on a big field, if you want to go compete and you don't have an extra 15 grand laying around of disposable income, where are you playing? What are you doing for your son? I do this event in in New York City that I really love to. It's called Metro Scout Day. And they got a over 175 kids that come out every year that are all in the five boroughs in New York that they're not well known. Some of them very, you know, some of them are well known, but most of them are Dominican, black, Puerto Rican kids, some white kids too. It's not race isn't a factor. I'm just saying like people from inner city

Bobby Minor: Right.

Jason Ferber: under underprivileged neighborhoods that can absolutely play on the same field as the guys that are ranked top hundred in the country. They can play with them. They just their their i i their mom is a single mom that's Dominican that's only speaks Spanish. And to ask her to be able to fly to Georgia or Florida for a week and stay on the holiday in and eat out every day, it's not even something that would be a ask. He couldn't even ask it. It would be silly to ask. There's no money. Yeah.

Bobby Minor: Hey coach coach, people that don't know, even if even if the team said, Well, hey, let your son just come with us and we'll take him with us, Dominican mom, Puerto Rican mom, absolutely not. My wife's Puerto Rican Dominican. I don't think we even let

Jason Ferber: Yeah. Yeah.

Bobby Minor: our daughter spend the night at somebody's house 'til she was like twenty one years old. So that's

Jason Ferber: Me neither.

Bobby Minor: not happening either. So I didn't mean to cut you off, but I wanted to get that in there. Yeah.

Jason Ferber: No, you're you're you're you're you're right. People go, yeah, you can just go. I'm not gonna let what what if what if some kid's bullying or hazing my kid in the middle of the night? I don't even know who these people are. And the reason I don't know who these people are is because this team is just com compiled of a bunch of guest mercenaries. Now maybe if I was on a team for three years and I had some strong relationships and we had all hung out together at home and maybe that, but those teams are few and far between at this point.

Bobby Minor: yeah. No, that that's that is really good. So obviously you've been around a lot of nationally ranked youth players, okay? And I don't I don't Pretty sure I don't think PG does r individual rankings this young yet, but I'm sure I'm sure it's coming. You know, they'll probably be ranking, you know, individual rankings 10U, 11U, and all of that. I'm sure it's it's you know right around the corner for PG. But but let's say a dad tells you his, you know, his 11-year-old, 12-year-old son is ranked in the top 50 in the country by whoever. How much does that tell you really about what kind of player he's gonna be at 17?

Jason Ferber: I mean, it doesn't tell me almost anything. It tells me that he may have hit puberty faster than a kid that he's playing with. I think that one of the one of the problems with with separating people by age, especially at that time, is that you know, we you you see 12 year olds that are bigger than 15 year olds and 14 year olds that are bigger than 13 years old and all in between, you've seen all those guys. You see them in a literally, it's always like some funny thing when the kid, the six two kid comes up and just touches the ball and he hits it 400 feet one of those drop five bats. And

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: so I do like I I think I mentioned to you some other time we were talking about my friends at Pelotera. I wanted to introduce you to Chris Colabello and Bobby Toosper because they're

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: trying to do this rating system that are more of a universal rating where You're you're you're not ranking players, you're rating them based on their swing score, their tools, what forces they put out, so that you can level the playing field and have these people, whether they're 12, maybe a 12-year-old, and that's rated at the same force output, speed, power as a 14-year-old, now they're playing against each other and they're competing against each other. And so you can also do that with teams too, but yeah, I I've seen so many times. And a lot of times the guy that's ranked really high at that age and he's getting worshipped at 13 and he's getting $5,000 worth of training tools and bats and sponsorship opportunities at 13, he thinks, hey man, I'm good. I made it. You know what I mean? I got my rollings icon. I'm I'm I got my I got my new glove. I got my custom. Like this is easy. And lot times you take your foot off the gas pedal when it comes to development when people are worshiping you and there's nothing to strive for. I told my I had this conversation with a dad the other day on my team. I don't want my kid to be the best player on the team. I also don't want him to be the worst. I want him to be somewhere in between. It's very simple. And like you have to have as parents, I j we just need to have a little bit of it's it's hard to see. And evaluate your son against other kids because everybody looks at their kid like they're the greatest. And and and I didn't realize that until I had a son of my own. And I used to criticize dads for acting like lunatics on the field. And I I'm I hope I don't turn into a lunatic, but I can see why you attach

Bobby Minor: Mm.

Jason Ferber: your emotion to your kids' failures and successes. Or if you see somebody coaching your son the wrong way, you want to like react or say, hey, hey, hey, hey, don't do what he said. It's very, very difficult. You know what mean? And it's a it's really challenging to to to navigate that whole that whole area. But I feel like you want to have be somewhere

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: in the middle of the pack so that you're part of the group, but you see some guys that are hitting the ball harder and further and running faster than you. You got some things to

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: work for. You know, like what when it's it's very simple. And I when when you when you talk to parents or when you put this stuff out there to parents, if they go, Well, I I don't really know what's the best way to develop. Listen, it's very simple. You can take all this advanced training. It's great. You have a perfect strength and conditioning guy that worked with you know, the New York Giants or whoever you want. Playing with players that are bigger, faster, and stronger than you will and always has been and always will be up to now. The best form of development is playing with a peer group that is stronger and faster and better than you. Now, that does include

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: some, that does include a lot of failure and it includes a lot of frustration for the player. But long term, that is

Bobby Minor: Mm.

Jason Ferber: there's no better form of development than

Bobby Minor: That's good man, that's good. So I'm I'm make a statement then I'm gonna ask you a follow up question to that because I think when you mentioned the Pelotero and the rating system, not ranking system The rating system is 100% objective versus rankings and grades from like perfect grain game, that's very subjective. Like they don't, they couldn't even I don't know if there's anybody at perfect game that can articulate this is exactly what goes into how we rank a player or grade a player. Just because nobody knows, and I think that's by design, but so going back to that dad, I say, you know, that dad that tells you his son is ranked, you know, top fifty or whatever, what should that dad be paying attention to instead of rankings?

Jason Ferber: I think that dad should be paying attention to things that all dads, whether they're player whether their son is a baseball player or not, should be focused on. is my son waking up every morning Passionate and driven about getting better at whatever skill, whether he's playing a trombone or a guitar or he's dancing or he's rapping or or or or he's playing baseball. Is he waking up every morning? Or am I pushing him? Hey man, did you get your work in? Did you did you do this? I'm my son right now at five years old is already leading the conversation. I told him, You want to go play, you want to play soccer, you want to play baseball? You tell me when you want to go practice and throw the ball, hit homers. And I'll go. I'm not asking you to go play. I'm not doing that. Hey, you want to go outside? So are you treating people, your, your other people with the same, the same way you want to be treated? You know, I I'm not really at that age. I'm I want work, I want to instill work ethic, good work ethic. I want to honesty, being a leader, you know, the the right attitude and the right effort. That those are the things that I want to focus on at that age. Because if I focus on attitude, effort, leadership, and those kind of, then all these other things are going to fall in line. I I there was a kid, there's a kid named Dylan Seward. He I met him when he was 14 years old. He is from Southern California in the evolution. I met him, I saw him in Carrie USA at 14 years

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: old. He was again similar to that Richie Palacio situation, undersized, very small, really good actions. But he was playing second base for another team at USA Baseball, right? For a team USA for the East Coast Championships. He flew out there. Myself and my partner Chris Reyes at Evolution, we got together and said, that kid is, that kid is legit. That kid has had some really good actions. Sat down with his father, asked if we could have dinner sometime, talk about his son. went to went to his house, had dinner with his family, and learned a lot more about him. And that kid was not even a high follow on Perfect Game when I met him.

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: we brought him into a a couple of events at Evolution. I coached him that season and basically got some different feedback from from colleges for him and and and and fast forward to now, he's the number one overall ranked player in the country for the 27th class.

Bobby Minor: Mm.

Jason Ferber: He's projected to go one of one. This year. He's committed to University of Tennessee. Switch hitting, shortstop, Francisco Lindor comp. And if things

Bobby Minor: Mm.

Jason Ferber: go as planned, he could he could get maybe a a record-setting signing bonus, over $10 million for a high school draft prospect. But

Bobby Minor: Wow.

Jason Ferber: three years ago, he wasn't ranked. So where is that kid? To your point, Bobby, that kid

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: that was ranked first, then over him, because he was just some nobody playing second base. Just some little, you know, good little ball player. Where is that kid? He's not even on the ranking anymore. He's gone. What happened

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: to him? And so these are some of the things that why why when you look at rankings, and like you said, there's it in a in baseball, they're a lot more subjective than other sports. Football, you know, if you're six foot five and you're 300 pounds and you run a 10-yard burst this fast, you're good, bro. You could play. You

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: know what I mean? In baseball, like some guys will be like, Yeah, I don't like his haircut. You know, I

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: don't you're like, wait, what? That what does that have to do with him play? Like th this is the type of stuff that baseball guys do evaluations for.

Bobby Minor: Yeah, it's wild it's wild for sure. I w okay, I want to talk a little bit more about development, okay, because I you talked before about, you know, winner-go-home tournament format, you know, how that can get in the way of development. So let's say a dad's paying, you know, four grand for travel baseball. His son's team is winning a bunch of tournaments, but the coach barely teaches in the games and they they hardly practice. So how does that parent figure out whether his son is actually getting better?

Jason Ferber: So this is another really, really big challenge. And it's one of the biggest issues that you see in youth baseball across the board is that parents are the some of the only tools that they have for baseball players is what? Stats, performance numbers. So they'll refer back to game changer and look at the stat line, just looking at what? How many hits did he get? How many bats did he have? How many hits did he get? We don't look at who was pitching on the other team. Was the kid really good or really bad, the pitcher? This is what a lot of parents and the great players, I'll say this, just to the parents who are out there that might listen, they don't chase, they never chase outcomes, especially in this game. The the process is and finding beauty in the struggle of baseball is where it's at. If you can find beauty in the struggle, then those are guys that because there's more struggle in baseball than there are these beautiful, unbelievable moments that are lifelong memories. You only those are fleeting. You need all that failure and all that struggle to get to that one walk-off, even if it's a bloop single off the end of the bat, not even a barrel, bro. It's just years of work and grind and I just somehow got to that slider. And it wasn't even a good swing on the data. The data said it was a terrible swing, but guess what? I won the game. You know what I mean? And so it it's just a lot of I I I think the the the lessons and the and the teachings is like, you know, in basically like I said before, you finding beauty in the failure and struggle.

Bobby Minor: That's good man. That's that's that's quotable. Find beauty in the struggle. So

Jason Ferber: Yeah.

Bobby Minor: so what would you expect then? What would you what would you expect a good coach to be teaching during a tournament weekend?

Jason Ferber: So listen, I like to speak for myself because I I I don't, you know, I coach players. I I I do give suggestions to other coaches because I've been doing it for a while. And I took suggestions when I was a young coach. I feel like what helped me the most was being open-minded and not being so a lot of us, we know the game, you know, and everybody knows how to play baseball. We know the rules, but you know, div co being a player and being a coach is vastly different, you know, and I think a lot of pl former players that end up coaching, they don't know where to start. How much should I be talking? How much should I be watching and observing? how much should I push this guy? And how much should I just let him develop and that's a sign of a good coach. You need some guys need to be blown up, right? And some guys just need to be picked up. Give him a pat on the back, dust them off and get back out there, bro. It depends on age too. So the the age range of what we're talking about here matters. So for instance Players, when you ask them, what's the most important stat, offensive stat for you for a baseball player? What do you value in hitting the most? Most of them will say OPS, slug, batting average, RBIs, whatever, whatever they think. And as a coach, we don't say that. We say runs scored. That's what the most important stat is. That's a team stat. How many I don't care how we get the runs. If it's a pass ball, the guy scored some third, or it's a sack fly. Sack fly with the runner with a runner on third with less than two outs is the same result as you hitting your your your pimping your solo homer, dude. Same result

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: for me. I like that you hit the homer, but coaches w the the way we view the game is a lot different. So I think that if you're not practicing, I I don't like a lot of instruction during games. That's I never did that because I feel like You're not getting you you just end up looking crazy out when you're out there. You just look when you're shouting, hey, give me two over, give me two back, you make sure this, hey, two. When you're doing all that, all it says is that you don't practice, that your guys don't

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: can't get little reads and things like that. So I tend to write things down. I'm if I you see me coaching the young guys, I'm I have a a notepad at third base with a pen. Every base running mistake I see, if the guy If the guy is not far enough off the bag, he's not getting a big enough lead, not pushing the lead, not pushing, not getting far enough off the bag, cool. I don't say, get more, get more, right?

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: Now, it's tempting to say that. It is tempting. And obviously, there's times where a kid's completely out of position. Again, we're talking about age and what where you're at. Some guys might need a little more help than others, but generally, a rule of thumb is that if you're talking about instruction, Baseball instruction during practice, the graph, if you're on a graph, instruction should be way up high like this. Once the game comes, now you're just playing. Now the instruction goes down and you're saying, We've worked on this, we we've talked about it. We know what we said what we want to do. We gave you a game plan. Go execute it. If you're if if the defense is completely silent, right? And that's my frustration when I'm in there, because there's no communication at all, and a pop-up gets hit in the infield. And nobody calls for it, it just drops in the middle of the infield. Me screaming is doing nothing. my

Bobby Minor: Right.

Jason Ferber: God, what do you do when somebody call it out? That's that's somewhat on me. And I don't think coaches realize that. Coaches would like to say,

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: like, you didn't tell the shortstop or the center fielder that he's getting everything. You didn't say on this bloop that the infielder isn't saying anything. The second baseman, he's just running after that ball. He's not saying it, he's not saying I got it. If he can get to it, he's getting it. The outfielder is the one going, I got, I got it, I got it, I got it. He's the one calling him off. If you're not explaining how these communication systems work, then you screaming in the middle of a game, it tells me if I'm on the other side watching a guy scream, I'm like, dude, I'm gonna destroy this team. They have no idea what they're

Bobby Minor: yeah.

Jason Ferber: doing. You know what I mean? When as it's a much different look.

Bobby Minor: Yeah, I I did a video on that probably a month ago where I said if your coach has to scream and yell at the players during the game, it's because he doesn't know how to coach. you know. So Alright, so I came across an interview where you question whether hitting instructors are promoting the player or they're just promoting their their their theory. So let's say a parent's been taking taking his son for lessons every week, but he's not getting better. How can that parent tell whether whether the instructor is actually helping or just teaching everybody the same swing? I call it a swing in the box.

Jason Ferber: Well, number one, if that coach isn't asking you questions, very simple questions, like where do you bat in the order? Right? This is a very simple question that every single private hitting coach clearly should be asking a player when they come in. How do I start training you, Bobby? If I don't know if you're a leadoff man, middle of the order guy, end of the order, what where am I even starting at that point? What does your coach that writes the lineup? I don't write the lineup. I'm just here trying to get you to hit a ball harder, right? What is your coach expecting out of you? Because what I believe in my philosophy, I I might my philosophy is, hey, everybody hit balls, pull side in the air. But guess what? If your high school coach's philosophy is not that. I'm doing you a disservice. I'm being extremely egotistical, selfish, self-centered. I want to get my point across. And guess what? When you are trying to hit balls pull side in the air as the eight-hitter of your varsity team as a sophomore, and your coach keeps on telling you, hey, bro, I need you to move a runner. I need you to wear this picture out. I need you to put the ball in play. I need you to not strike out at this at the rate that you are striking out, and you keep doing it. Guess what? The only thing that happens is he pulls you out of the lineup. The parent goes back to the instructor, says, wait, I just gave you $2,500 over the past couple of months to help my son. And he and and you helped him by doing what? How did you help him? so so these are very simple questions to what you don't even have to add. You just need to watch the relationship and interaction with the private coach. If the private coach doesn't ask isn't asking questions like, first of all, If there, if there's a possibility that you could even show up to a game as a private coach, I used to I I still coach guys, I coach guys to this, even the guys, the big league guys that I work with in the offseason, they're in the big leagues and we do all of our programming, we do all of our motor preference assessments, we do all of our training and our individual drill designs. I then fly from where I live in Northern California to spring training and I watch.

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: They're at bats live in game and I video so that I can see what they are swinging at, what they're taking, if they're chasing outside the zone, what their in zone whiff rate is, where they're slugging, what quadrant of the zone, if they are taking pictures that that should be taken, if they are if they're bad, if they are only hitting homers with off-speed pitches, or are they on time for for for 95 and plus, right? So If you're if you're if I'm in a cage all day and all I do is just prescribe a bunch of just hey, just do a bunch of these drills. Just do a bunch of them. And then what happens in the game, I don't pay attention to at all. That is an extremely amateur approach to development for elite hitters. You there's a reason why big league hitting coaches are in the dugout during the game, watching

Bobby Minor: Mm.

Jason Ferber: video, look pick trying to pick up any little things they can do and why maybe this guy his forward his his forward move. Is a little late. It's not slightly early. Right? And so wait, I hear some background noise. I don't know what that is, Bobby. Do you hear that? maybe that's just me. I heard like I heard like a I don't know. Maybe that's my maybe that's a mic. But but but you get what I'm saying. That's pretty much

Bobby Minor: No. Not the Yeah. No, no, no. It's Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Ferber: what I what what I'm what I'm saying is that if they're not invested into what's happening in the games, then they are just in a cage doing whatever. Nobody cares. How hard you hit a ball in a cage on Wednesday night, on Wednesday after school. Nobody cares what your exit VO was. You're sitting there like trying to like, man, I'm trying to feel myself. I just hit a ball ninety eight, bro, on front toss. Okay. And what'd you do in the game when it matters, when people actually care about statistics?

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: And so this is, I think, what you could tell like what you were saying about how people want to promote their, if you could tell that they're promoting their Hitting system more and using your son as a w as a tool to promote them is number one, they only post about the players that are having success that they work with. Right. I see guys, they work with 30 guys and they only post about one or two of them. What are the other

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: 20, 28 guys doing? Why are there crickets? Why? They don't hit. So you're just gonna say, look at this guy, look at this guy. Maybe those two guys that you're posting all the time, they'd be hitting like that, no matter regardless of who who coached them.

Bobby Minor: Right. So no good stuff, good stuff. So if it were your son, what's one question you'd ask a hitting instructor before paying him a penny?

Jason Ferber: Who have you worked with up to now that I could speak to? Similar to the travel coach. Who who because as

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: a coach, your your resume is kind of all we have at this point. And it's okay. And if the guy, if the guy says to me, here's the here's the key, Bobby. If the guy says to me, I haven't worked with really anybody, I'm just a young coach. But guess what? I'm passionate about the game. I care about what I'm doing. And my main objective is to see your son. Shining, smiling, and happy on a baseball field about his performance. And if I don't know the answer, I'm not gonna act, I'm not gonna act like I know the answer to everything. I'm not gonna if if if I meet a a hitting coach and he even gives off any type of energy that he knows everything about hitting, and there are guys out there, he's done. He's automatically a suspect. Because why? It's impossible. There's too much to know about hitting that you know everything. There's some guys I see, I see like that teacher man dude out there and and and and and some of the stuff he does. And he's literally claiming that he's reached the Mecca. He's there. There's no room to grow. There's no variation to his system. If I can't get a knock doing what he's doing, just keep doing it until I get released. There's no beep,

Bobby Minor: Hmm.

Jason Ferber: there's no plan B.

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: And any major league hitter that I've ever worked with, any guys in the big leagues will tell you, you better have a plan B. Cause sometimes your swing, whatever you're doing

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: in there, you may be even seeing the ball well. You feel like you had a hole in your barrel.

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: There is no keep on doing it because if you keep on doing it, you're optioned out, you are DFA'd, you're sent down to triple A. So there is no like keep doing it. Well, that's that's a that's

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: a silly, silly thing to say to somebody. So those guys, Like I said, I would rather work with somebody that said, hey, look, bro, I don't have all the answers, but guess what? If if I don't have the answer, I'm gonna put all my resources and effort that I can and my energy into finding the answer. I'm gonna reach out to people, other people in the field. I'm gonna send video to other guys and friends and say, Hey, I'm I don't I'm missing something here. Do you see something in this swing sequence that I'm missing? I and get another pair, get some eyes on it and stop being so egotistical thinking you have all the answers. I don't I don't mess with anybody that thinks they know it all.

Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's good. That's good. So you've mentioned you mentioned something before. I d I don't know where I heard you say it, but it caught my attention. Okay. Some coaches are afraid to coach talented players too hard because they're worried that the player is gonna leave for another team. So how much of that are you seeing in travel baseball? And what is it what does that ultimately cost the player?

Jason Ferber: Terrible. I mean, it's it's sad, is what it is, because those really a really good player, they crave, they want to be coached hard. I'm looking forward to somebody coaching my son real hard. And maybe a lot of parents aren't. Maybe a lot of parents go, hey man, I I don't don't talk to my son like that. No, talk to him if he's not giving effort and his attitude is not right and he's being selfish, if he's not clapping for his other teammates when they do something well, yeah. Blow his ass up sky high and tell him. And if he starts crying, tell him get off the field. Go down and you're not gonna hit with your tears in your eyes. You're not coming on this field with tears in your eyes. Go go get yourself together and you come back when you're when you're good, when you're good and you let me know. so I I guess, yeah, for me, I think that I I just want my son to be with somebody that that cares. About everything.

Bobby Minor: That's good. So okay, so for the parent that doesn't know what they don't know, how can parents tell the difference between just like a demanding coach who's actually helping their son versus the one who's just just beating beating their son down?

Jason Ferber: Well, I mean that's It's that's a pretty simple one because if you're just gonna shout out somebody's failures and whisper their accomplishments, that gives me a pretty good read on you. In baseball, we do have these guys that you know, I I there are coaches for whatever reason, and I don't know, maybe that's just a human element to how their personality is, where every time you do something bad or they deem as bad or negative, they will pull you to the side and go, hey man. you see you you dropped your sh like I'm talking about right after you pop a ball up with two strikes or something or you're in a 2-0 count and you get under a ball and you flare it up to the first baseman and he casts out, you're already pissed off. And as soon as you get through the bag at first, here's his coach walking up. Hey man, I told you it's like, bro, hold up, man. Like, can I have 15, 20 seconds to just be mad? Because I'm cause I cause I knew that I missed that pitch. And by you telling me that if I would have had my back elbow up a quarter of a millimeter from where it was would have resulted in a barrel, that's just tomfoolery. That means nothing to me. And I and in the stage that I am, the mental state that I'm in right now, being pissed off, I hear nothing. You could be speaking Chinese.

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: It doesn't make sense. So for me, I like to if you want to criticize, no problem. You could criticize, but offer a suggestion. Don't just point out failures. Give me something at the end of what I did wrong to how to make it better. And guess what? If I if I went 0 for three at the plate, but I then made a layout web gem catch in the field and ran into the wall, gave up my body for you, right? And crashed into a wall. When I come back in that dugout and everybody's cheering, don't be that coach that's sitting on the bucket looking the other way. Right? When everybody else is cheering. Because guess what? If I miss the routine fly ball, or if I get a bad A bad read in the outfield and I take a bad route, you're gonna be the first person up off that bucket, blowing me up in front of everybody, embarrassing me, telling me how terrible that was. So just be fair and make sure you keep an eye on that coach if you're a parent, saying, Yeah, he's tough on him when when when he is mentally checked out, right? Not when it's just making an error, everybody makes errors. You know, for me,

Bobby Minor: Right. Yeah.

Jason Ferber: I tell all my players if you make an error. I'm not going to ever blow you up. The reason I will blow you up is if you make an error

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: and then you don't raise your hand afterwards. At a young age, put your hand up. Yo, that's on me. Tell everybody loud now. That's me. Give me another one. Show

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: some accountability, right? Because at that point, everybody already saw you made the error. They saw you boot the two-hop ground ball. They saw you kick it. You're not going to hide. Everybody saw everybody went, that's cool. What you do next? Put your hand up. Hey, that's on me. That's my bag. Take some accountability. If you just try to put your head in the dirt, look at your glove, and there's a hole in this thing. People

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: know. You know what I mean? So that's why I I I would say the players have to do their job. I'm taking accountability. And then coaches on it if coaches are also have to have some feel when it comes to failures and successes and and and treating them both kind equally.

Bobby Minor: No, that's good stuff. So all right, so you've obviously you've helped tons of players through the recruiting process. You know what you know what college coaches are looking for. So let's say, you know, there's a sophomore, his dad, his parents, they've spent thousands of dollars on showcases, camps, recruiting services, and he's still not getting any interest. And I mean he's a sophomore, so I mean it's still early for Division One, but not early necessarily for you know JUCO, NAIA, even D2. but so he's not getting any interest. They're spending lots of money. What's the first thing you'd want to know before telling that family to spend another dollar?

Jason Ferber: Well, do his I I hate to bring it back to physical tools because you know,

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: just because j just because you have physical tools doesn't mean doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna perform well on a baseball field in a game setting. However, you college coaches that you have to start there. We have to start at a baseline of what speed, whatever speed is required to play at whatever level. So is he not fast enough to be a position player at this level? And that's what's gonna rule him out completely? Is he not throwing like if he's a pitcher, does he i if he If he has a high VLO, but he only throws two pitches, then he commands to only two right now. Okay, maybe we'll kind of develop his third one. But even if I have three pitches or four pitches I command and there's no there's not enough VLO to fool anybody, you know, at that point, you you kind of need to work on the the forces that you're producing that are going to indicate to that college or whatever level your your whether it's Ivy Leagues, NAI, it doesn't matter, D2, D three, JUCO. Every they still know all those coaches know how fast runners typically are from home to first. They know they they're sitting watching the game, they're timing it on a stopwatch. So they know the fastest guy in this in this lineup is a 4-2, 4-1. So I need a shortstop that's going to be able to field it and throw it to first in that time. If you you can't do that, there's no point in you showing up to that college exposure thing because you can't. Doesn't mean you have to quit. It means we have to work on that skill. And that's why that's what I would say is if if the numbers are, if you're producing really good forces and numbers, which a lot of times it does come down to that because, you know, and a lot of parents go, hey man, my kid's grinding, he's practicing. Yeah, but he's not hitting a ball hard enough or consistently enough in game to be able to do it. And every time you go to these showcases, just taking BP is not enough. Have to hit in the games.

Bobby Minor: So so okay, so when does a player need more exposure to get the looks and when does he simply just need to get better?

Jason Ferber: Well, look, everybody has things to work on and get better every day. But if if you're getting there's a few things that I would that I would tips that I would give to parents before they end up going embarking on this journey of trying to find a college and spend thousands of dollars and all this frustration and stress. Number one, stay local first. Whoever the nearest colleges are to you, don't worry about the name of the college. Worry about the location. How close it is. If you have a with you start in a five mile, 10, 20 mile radius from your house, JUCO's, any D2, D three, just search and just go to one of those camps first. That you don't have to spend a lot of money. You don't have to do it. And get that feedback. Because let's think about it. If I'm not if if the local colleges where I've grown up and I'm playing baseball consistently, and people are talking about me to those colleges there, and I'm in those events, I'm in high school. And they're watching the high schools. If I'm not getting good feedback from that local college near me, why am I going to LSU? What's

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: the point? What's the point? Right. So if you get that local feedback first, it's save you this way. Get your feedback the most cheapest, inexpensive way, is what I would recommend. Like, use the least amount of money. Your kid can ride a bicycle to the D2, D3 program, like a couple miles away. You don't even have to be there. Hey, bro, you want to see how good you are? Go. Down to their camp. We'll sign you up. It's 150 bucks, 250 bucks, whatever it is. If we don't have the money, go out and and cut some lawns, bro. Right. And and if you want to go to college or whatever, this is, you know, there's nothing wrong with this. Go wash some cars. Go, go help somebody, a construction crew for a couple of hours and get 250 bucks. And then go down there and see what that college coach tells you. The college coach from a D2 program is going to be just as honest with you as a guy that's in a D1 or an Arkansas or Clemson. He's gonna say, dude, you have no idea what you're doing out here. Or he's gonna say, hey man, you got some, you got some good stuff going on naturally under the hood, but you need your baseball IQ. I saw you setting up. You'd even know kind of like your job assignments on your position. So maybe it's not your physical tools. Maybe because you've only w trained in a facility your whole life, you don't know where to be on a double cut where you see the outfielders back and there's two guys on base running around the bases and you don't have any idea where to be.

Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's good. So, all right, this is this is where we're where we're gonna land the plane. so let's say let's say you got a dad with a very talented 10-year-old. He's willing to spend whatever it takes to give his son the best opportunity, okay? What would you tell him to spend his money on and what would you tell him to leave alone?

Jason Ferber: Ten years old? Wow, that's a great question, Bobby. I would I would leave alone the travel for now. I think that would save you thousands. I would I would look for I would look for like I always thought it would be really cool because you can't like keep a big it would be cool to take your baseball teammates and then go play basketball with them. And then go play football with them. You know what I mean? Not everybody plays everything, but I I would spend my money more on finding the right people that he's going to grow up with. and maybe you don't even need to spend a lot of money doing that. But in my opinion, I feel like as fathers, our main responsibility is taking our young kid and giving him enough feel and making him quote unquote cool enough of a kid. He's just a cool kid. He's not a first rounder. He's not, he's not, he's not some freak athletic talent. He's just cool. People like to be around him because he's got feel. He's he's competitive. So you know if you pick him up on your team or your vibe, you're at least gonna get somebody that's gonna give you some effort and a good attitude. He's gonna make you feel good when he's around you. Now I've I've got him accepted into this little peer group, this little pack of wolves, maybe four, five, six other kids in in your neighborhood or community. They go, hey man, they're not first rounders either, but they're all like to practice. The dads are all normal human beings. They're not psychopaths. The moms are cool, right? And once your kid gets assimilated into this wolf pack, now the wolf pack kind of takes care of itself. You don't need so much to be doing things and asking him to practice because once they get to about 12, 13 years old and that kid says, your kid says, hey, I'm going with Bobby and Jimmy and Johnny down the street. We're just gonna go, we'll, we'll, we'll be down here right down the block. We're just taking BP or whatever and hanging out, taking some ground balls, playing catch. I don't need you, Dad. Really? man, I was you don't need me out there out there anymore? Nah, we're cool. We're not gonna play again. We're just playing catch and taking some ground balls. That's when you know you're good and you've you've done your job as a dad. or or as a a mentor in in my opinion. But I would, yeah, I would spend more of the money. also, I wouldn't, I would try to make him feel comfortable being on a camera, being because I know that it's tough these, but I don't think you can run away from it. A lot of times you see kids that get paralyzed by fear of there's cameras on, there's people watching. It's a very weird Way a very weird time we're in. very very weird time we're in here where kids that are 12 and 13 or 14

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: have 18 different cameras on them during a game and they got people watching them like they're in the world series like a zoo animals. You know what

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Jason Ferber: I mean? So I I want my kid to be able to focus on the task at hand and say, hey, look, bro, this is the attitude.

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: If you want to watch me play, no problem. I like to play baseball. You want to watch me play, that's fine. I don't care. If you don't want whether you're here or not. Doesn't matter to me. I'm going out here. I'm gonna smash this team. I'm gonna be a one man wrecking machine. I'm gonna fly in and out of the dugout. I'm laying out, making plays. It doesn't matter if you're here or not. But if you want to watch, that's cool. It that's one of the things that I think is going to allow your practice and the money you spend on practice and training to translate to in-game

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: performance and that that extra piece of confidence. Because if you give me a super athletic kid that has that's insecure, he means nothing. Because athleticism,

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Jason Ferber: the athleticism doesn't get to play. I'd rather have a super confident kid that with a tick less athleticism that's gonna go out there and not be scared to get the lat to to get that last walk-off.

Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's good. All right. So last question. What's what's the biggest mistake you see well intentioned parents making at that age? Nine, ten, eleven?

Jason Ferber: the biggest mistake, one of them is just greenlighting everything their son says. I think because it's so important, once you get that coach that you said, you do enough research with that coach we talked about before, where you said, okay, I found a guy that's going to that I'm gonna trust with my son's development, which is a big Big piece of it. If you haven't done that that part of it, you skip steps, you're gonna be in that doubt mode, right? I just gave my son to this guy because he had a cool logo. Now I don't like how he's coaching my son. Well, bro, that's on you. Right? You you didn't you didn't you didn't take the the proper steps to ask. There were 10 other parents that said that they had a terrible experience here. You didn't dig around, so now you go, now you're right, another stat, another number. However, Once you see that you had some good feelings and these parents that told you before said, hey, bro, he coaches him hard. He has high expectations and he has uncommon standards. But guess what? My kid grew. He was a better human being. He became a better teammate. He perceived the way he perceived the game was different. He the way that he impacted him mentally and how he actually trains and practices, how he views practice. how he how has more accountability. How his emotions have been been more even and tapered off and not so up and down. Right now, you find that coach. If you bring your kid there and he coaches him hard and he drops him down in the order, right? You were hitting second. Sorry, bro. You're down, you're down at the bottom of the order now. When you started, you've just not been performing. You were playing short when you came in. Nope, you're playing second base, you're playing left field. As a parent, I have to, I it, the, the. The worst thing I can possibly do in that situation when the kid after the game, who's mad that he got taken out of his spot, moved out in the order, or he's taken out of a game, is the dad to green light his doubts with the coach. Man, that coach didn't he don't know what he's talking about, this and that. Right? The when I if I'm a dad and I start trying to place doubt and saying, yeah, that guy doesn't know what he's talking about. You're a shortstop. You're not a second baseman. I think that's what really does end up you know, kind of setting players back because they're they're given a parachute. You're giving them a little soft landing instead of saying, He moved you down the lineup, go what? Compete, work harder. Right? What what do you mean? What why is there an excuse? Why can't it just be work harder? Why can't it be practice more? Why can't it be you're not good you're not good enough at that position? Go out and train more and practice more than this other kid and get your spot back. It happens all the time.

Bobby Minor: Yeah. That's good man. And it makes me think when when my son Julian was a sophomore in high school, he the he was one of two sophomores on varsity. And scrimmages inner squads, everything, he was playing shortstop. Coach told him, You're gonna be you're gonna be my starting shortstop this season as a sophomore. when it came time to tournaments in district, he didn't play short. He played second half the time and he DH' half the time. And the other kid that was playing short was an the other sophomore. And you know, I I told my son Julian, I said, well look, okay, yeah, it sucks. He told you you were gonna play short, but the upside is you're still a varsity starter as a sophomore. And I said you just have to work Work so hard next year that when you come back as a junior Like there is no doubt that you've separated yourself from you know from this other kid who that he was actually friends with, and that's exactly what happened. You know, junior and senior year, he played every inning of every game at shortstop. The other kid ended up getting moved to the outfield. But you gotta, you know, I wasn't like, man, you know, coach lied or anything like that. So anyway, really good stuff, coach. So for the parents out there, if they're not one of the, you know, almost 300,000 people already following you on Instagram, where where can where can parents? parents find you and follow you to keep up with all the good stuff that you share with parents out there.

Jason Ferber: I've been doing some you of some some YouTube more in-depth things on YouTube if they want to go check out get Game Changer YouTube channel. I have a YouTube channel, but I I would my cousin was doing it, was helping me with it. He had recently had a baby, so I I I have some things on there, but I would say More on Twitter, I don't post a lot on Twitter. It just seems like a lot of petting beefs with coaches on there. I'm I'm I stalk people on Twitter. I don't I just watch things. So just Instagram, evolution. If we do have a website, and if you if you are interested in potentially maybe getting involved or coming to a strategic event at a college, you want to see how we do things, and we you know it it's a there's a tryout process and evaluation process that starts with obviously a video and then talking to one of our staff or myself about. where you're at, but those are typically the places that I'm that I'm at. Instagram's the biggest one. I c I can't at

Bobby Minor: Insta Instagram and it's just at coach Coach Farber on Instagram.

Jason Ferber: Coach Forever. Yeah, I can't TikTok. My brain'll melt. I'm too old for TikTok.

Bobby Minor: Dude, when I started doing this, I thought TikTok was gonna be my main platform. Now I post there, but I dread going over there. I'm just like,

Jason Ferber: Crazy.

Bobby Minor: So, but anyway, all right, coach man, I really appreciate it and I'm looking forward to meeting you in person here in the next couple of weeks.

Jason Ferber: Gotcha. I really appreciate it. I'm grateful for you thinking of me and bringing me on the show. And and and thanks thanks a million, Bobby. Stay

Bobby Minor: All right, take care.

Jason Ferber: crispy, my guy.

Bobby Minor: And