Rams picking up Emmanuel Forbes on waivers

[OldSchool]

I’m local to Commode country. Local sports radio is all up the ass of Washington’s CBs. They want to cut starter St-Juste (3rd TD pick) and are replacing the other (2nd rd pick) with Marshawn Lattimore. Something is off in that room.

Mostly it comes back to the drafts under Ron Rivera. He had 4 first round picks and none of them are on the team a year after he was fired.

 

[fearsomefour]

Well, depends on the coaching. My kid played a lot of travel ball and it helped him to not only learn to play the right way, but also gain confidence in his game and in himself. He went on to play college ball, only D3, but he excelled there and that confidence carried over into his schoolwork and into professional career. He has a great job and is doing very well.

Now, I did see bad stuff in travel ball/ tournaments etc... He was lucky in that he mostly had a good experience. There was one year where we tried an organization after his little league days ended and it was not great, but then we found a very good organization that was well run and had their priorities in order, was not expensive and seemed to really put the effort into skills & personal development.

I will add that I was a big believer in playing local ball as well. My kid still played Legion Baseball, especially after he committed to a college, so he ended his summer ball days playing with the kids he played with growing up from 9-13 yrs of age on his local little league teams and his HS teams.

Thats awesome!!
I wouldn't say "only" D3 either. Baseball is different than many sports as there are different levels of play up and down the scale. My son played for a JC in California that had players drafted on a pretty regular basis. If you look at the % of high school players that go to any level of college ball there is no "only" level. Congrats to you both.
Learning the game, learning the rules, both written and unwritten, learning the right way to play baseball, yes, travel ball can be great for this. 100 %. My son and others certainly learned those lessons as well. My son, who is now coaching high school ball, took much of that approach in terms of teaching (young players today seem to have zero to very little "baseball sense" about the right way to play baseball) young players.
I am talking more about physical development for players.
Playing 3 tournaments a month, so a Friday--Sunday tournament with games every day and travel time etc., good for game experience, but, not developing a lot of skill without practice reps. Teams can be run differently but in our experience there were not a lot of practice reps. 15 minutes in a cage or 20 minutes of catch twice a week at practice between multiple games per week is not reps to me.
To me, its like someone trying to learn an instrument and mostly trying to learn on stage playing gigs. You'll learn some lessons for sure but you need time wood shedding.
I worked with high school players.
All of them playing all summer long, usually 5-6 games a week, then spring ball, then high school season etc.
First thing I would do is indentify a weakness. For one kid, a SS/3rd guy, it was fielding ground balls to his backhand side. Could usually get there, but, had a hard time field them. Honestly, just not enough reps. In game warm ups you might get 4 or 5 reps, then its game time. In practice a few more, but, there is stretching, a run, BP, then fielding (maybe 20 minutes of reps with the whole team) and other stuff. Not enough reps. So, we would just hammer that, over and over. 50 to 100 reps at a time. Finding specific weaknesses that travel ball and other coaches didn't have time to address.
The biggest thing for most of the guys though was being under trained.
There are guys playing an explosive sport....pitching being one of the most explosive movements in all of sports....while being under weight and physically weak.
Id have them stop the distance running (dumb) and start explosive movement exercises.
Sprints, throwing a medicine ball, hip and rotational exercises etc.
The throwing program was intensive involving stretching, band exercises, should tube exercises (a shoulder rehab tool), plyo ball throws, long toss and eventually weighted ball throwing.
Weight lifting and gaining weight was a key component as well.
For pitchers it as a lot of squats, deadlifts and upper back exercises. Something like 90% of throwing injuries in baseball happen at or after ball release. Meaning, the guy has a loose arm (good external rotation or layback on his arm when he throws) but his body is having a hard time safely slowing his arm down. So, backside exercises (say, tricep vs bicep) were 1.5 or 2 to 1.
So, a 16 or 17 year old who is 6 feet tall and 155 lbs is physically weak. He is trying to improve being explosive and his idiot coach has him running distance. Its mind boggling.
So, over time, getting his weight up to 185--190 pounds and getting him much stronger (using the Russian olympic model of 2 X bodyweight on dead and 1.6 x body weight with squat) made tremendous differences. Velocity jumped. Batting averages went way up and pop up power turned into doubles or HR power at the plate.
As I said, there were pitchers. They played other positions too but mainly pitchers in terms of trying to get to the next level.
Seeing a kid, who is not a natural 90 mph guy, go from Junior year and 74 mph to senior year and 86 mph and go onto college was very, very rewarding.
All four went on to play college ball and one is currently in the MLB.
Sorry for being longwinded.....its interesting to me, obviously, haha.
I don't have a problem with travel ball per sey, but, more "average" players would benefit so much more from training and practice reps rather than endless tourney games with few reps.
But, that how travel ball teams justify expense to parents.
Depends what the kids goal is too of course.
Congrats on getting to watch your kid play college ball.

 

[Soul Surfer]

The Rams are one of the top coaching staffs in this league. So if you draft a player high and cut him, and he ends up with the Rams, there is a better chance you're going to look stupid than if he ended up with, say, the Browns.

Not to mention that the Rams have some of the best defensive back scouts in the league.
They constantly find middle round guys and even undrafted free agents and get major production out of them.
Look at this year alone with Kinchens and McCullough both getting major playing time as rookies.
And according to our DC Shula, our scouts and coaches were high on Forbes in the '23 draft.

 

[PhillyRam]

Thats awesome!!
I wouldn't say "only" D3 either. Baseball is different than many sports as there are different levels of play up and down the scale. My son played for a JC in California that had players drafted on a pretty regular basis. If you look at the % of high school players that go to any level of college ball there is no "only" level. Congrats to you both.
Learning the game, learning the rules, both written and unwritten, learning the right way to play baseball, yes, travel ball can be great for this. 100 %. My son and others certainly learned those lessons as well. My son, who is now coaching high school ball, took much of that approach in terms of teaching (young players today seem to have zero to very little "baseball sense" about the right way to play baseball) young players.
I am talking more about physical development for players.
Playing 3 tournaments a month, so a Friday--Sunday tournament with games every day and travel time etc., good for game experience, but, not developing a lot of skill without practice reps. Teams can be run differently but in our experience there were not a lot of practice reps. 15 minutes in a cage or 20 minutes of catch twice a week at practice between multiple games per week is not reps to me.
To me, its like someone trying to learn an instrument and mostly trying to learn on stage playing gigs. You'll learn some lessons for sure but you need time wood shedding.
I worked with high school players.
All of them playing all summer long, usually 5-6 games a week, then spring ball, then high school season etc.
First thing I would do is indentify a weakness. For one kid, a SS/3rd guy, it was fielding ground balls to his backhand side. Could usually get there, but, had a hard time field them. Honestly, just not enough reps. In game warm ups you might get 4 or 5 reps, then its game time. In practice a few more, but, there is stretching, a run, BP, then fielding (maybe 20 minutes of reps with the whole team) and other stuff. Not enough reps. So, we would just hammer that, over and over. 50 to 100 reps at a time. Finding specific weaknesses that travel ball and other coaches didn't have time to address.
The biggest thing for most of the guys though was being under trained.
There are guys playing an explosive sport....pitching being one of the most explosive movements in all of sports....while being under weight and physically weak.
Id have them stop the distance running (dumb) and start explosive movement exercises.
Sprints, throwing a medicine ball, hip and rotational exercises etc.
The throwing program was intensive involving stretching, band exercises, should tube exercises (a shoulder rehab tool), plyo ball throws, long toss and eventually weighted ball throwing.
Weight lifting and gaining weight was a key component as well.
For pitchers it as a lot of squats, deadlifts and upper back exercises. Something like 90% of throwing injuries in baseball happen at or after ball release. Meaning, the guy has a loose arm (good external rotation or layback on his arm when he throws) but his body is having a hard time safely slowing his arm down. So, backside exercises (say, tricep vs bicep) were 1.5 or 2 to 1.
So, a 16 or 17 year old who is 6 feet tall and 155 lbs is physically weak. He is trying to improve being explosive and his idiot coach has him running distance. Its mind boggling.
So, over time, getting his weight up to 185--190 pounds and getting him much stronger (using the Russian olympic model of 2 X bodyweight on dead and 1.6 x body weight with squat) made tremendous differences. Velocity jumped. Batting averages went way up and pop up power turned into doubles or HR power at the plate.
As I said, there were pitchers. They played other positions too but mainly pitchers in terms of trying to get to the next level.
Seeing a kid, who is not a natural 90 mph guy, go from Junior year and 74 mph to senior year and 86 mph and go onto college was very, very rewarding.
All four went on to play college ball and one is currently in the MLB.
Sorry for being longwinded.....its interesting to me, obviously, haha.
I don't have a problem with travel ball per sey, but, more "average" players would benefit so much more from training and practice reps rather than endless tourney games with few reps.
But, that how travel ball teams justify expense to parents.
Depends what the kids goal is too of course.
Congrats on getting to watch your kid play college ball.

Yeah, I can agree with all of that. And some orgs just want your money and will lead kids along who have no business spending big money on playing baseball or whatever sport it is as they just would be better off playing on a local spring/ summer league.

 

[jap]

McVay and the Rams are probably the last team you want to see claim a high pick castoff.

Especially for the secondary coaches who are pretty good at spotting and improving talent. Aubrey says, "I see Jalen Ramsey's little brother here! What do the 'Skins know about DBs!?!"

 

[Merlin]

Yeah, I can agree with all of that. And some orgs just want your money and will lead kids along who have no business spending big money on playing baseball or whatever sport it is as they just would be better off playing on a local spring/ summer league.

"The spring badminton league was no joke when I was a kid."
~ @Loyal