Freshwater Storm 15u Jacksonville – Summer 2023

• We are a nationally-ranked organization (on PG) that has been helping players since 2007. Our 2023 summer teams will have teams in the following age groups: 2023-2027.
• Each of our players will have a recruiting video done that we can both use to get in front of college coaches. This is a huge part of the recruiting process today.
• Relationships with college coaches matter. You can see some of our connections here:  https://baseballprospectconnect.com/coach-interactions/
• Social Media is a powerful recruiting tool. Follow us on Twitter, where close to 250 college coaches follow us looking to identify players. https://twitter.com/PrspCntSports
• We will play six of the best tournaments in the state of Florida and do not leave the state to play (since the majority of our players want to play college baseball in their home state).
• Cost: Just $1,500 for position players and $700 for POs. Jersey is included and there is no uniform package purchase required. Please consider our travel costs compared to other organizations as well.
• A long list of our former players have had success in college and in the pros. You can see a list of them here:  https://baseballprospectconnect.com/ex-players/
• Our high school-aged teams do not practice as a team.
• Typical roster size: 12 position players and 5 POs.
• You can read all about the Freshwater Storm below.

Freshwater Storm 15u-Jacksonville 2023 Summer Tournament Schedule:
May 20: Freshwater Storm Player Recruiting Video Day
May 27-28: Freshwater Storm Kickoff Event (New Smyrna Beach)
June 2-5: Perfect Game (Fort Myers)
June 10-11: WABA Florida Baseball (Auburndale)
July 1-4: Perfect Game (Sanford)
July 7-10: Perfect Game (Auburndale)
July 22-25: Perfect Game (Sanford)
July 28-31: Perfect Game (Fort Myers)
* Practice Schedule will be announced before the start of summer tournaments.

If you’d like to officially sign up to play with us, you can do so below.

Position Players ($1500): [wpecpp name=”Position Player” price=”1500.00″]
Pitcher Onlys ($700): [wpecpp name=”Pitcher Only” price=”700.00″]

Note: a PayPal account is not required to make the payment. Simply choose the “Pay with Credit or Debit Card” option. If you prefer to have an invoice emailed to you so you can make payments, please let us know.

About the Freshwater Storm:

Talk a little about the Freshwater Storm history and background.
We are a central Florida-based travel ball organization that started back in 2007. We have teams in various age groups, ranging from graduating seniors (2023 grads) all the way down to incoming freshmen (2027 grads). We’ve had multiple nationally-ranked teams on Perfect Game in recent years and our primary goal is to provide a competitive opportunity for players who may want to play college baseball one day.

How much emphasis do you put on the recruiting process for your players?
It’s as important as anything we do. It’s a major priority for us and always has been. We promote our players in the following ways:
1) Video: every player in our organization will be given a recruiting video. Video is a huge part of the evaluation process for college coaches. Good video is often the first step in getting the attention of a college coach. All our players will have a recruiting video they can use to show college coaches. Even if other organizations provide these, please check to see if they’re edited. Posting a video where a player misplays a ground ball or can’t throw a strike or is fouling off pitches during BP doesn’t help much. We edit 100% of our videos to make sure the skillset of our players is on full display. All of our player recruiting videos will be posted on our Twitter so that college coaches can easily access them.
2) Getting the information on our players in front of college coaches: We send a spreadsheet of our players to every school east of the Mississippi River. The list typically goes out once a month but even more often during the summer. It’s simply all the facts (and videos) on all of our players.
3) Helping players sort through which camps and showcases to attend. You’re probably getting invited to a lot of them. It can be overwhelming choosing which ones to attend. We will help our players navigate through this to help make sure they’re not going to the wrong events.
4) Starting in 2023, all of our players will be given a Google Document that can help us understand where you’re at with the recruiting process. Some players don’t care as much. Others want to be as organized as possible. This will help us understand who you’ve been in contact with, where you’re at with the process, and help give you some ideas and tips on how to get in front of specific schools and coaches.
5) Social Media – see below.

How important is promotion of players on social media?
It’s huge. Every college baseball program in America has a coach on its staff that is active there and one of the biggest reasons is that it’s a great recruiting tool that can be done virtually. We are very active on there promoting our players. We do not post about political stuff. We do not post about what we had for lunch. We promote our players and it’s a big reason why you’ll see close to 250 college coaches (from UF all the way down to Junior College programs in the Northeast) following us on there. We post all our recruiting videos on there. We always post when our pitchers are scheduled to throw so college coaches have this information in advance (ex: https://twitter.com/PrspCntSports/status/1580701237875380225).
We also promote strong individual performances after each day of games for all our teams (ex: https://twitter.com/PrspCntSports/status/1584626434516975616).
You can see all of the ways we promote our players here: https://twitter.com/PrspCntSports

What are some schools you have connections with?
We have sent players to schools at every level. Some of our former players were 1st and 2nd round draft picks. Some were 4-year college starters. Some were able to get degrees from big time academic institutions for next to nothing because of baseball. Some were able to stay in Florida. Some left the state to play and ended up becoming college coaches at the school they played at. Every player has a unique situation and we understand and respect that. What might be a good fit for one kid might not be for another. We had 10 college coaches from schools all over the state at our November showcase. You can see a sampling of our connections here: https://baseballprospectconnect.com/coach-interactions/

When are tryouts for the 2023 summer season?
We identify players in one of three ways.
1) Any returning player in 2022 who is offered the opportunity to play with us again in 2023 does not need to try out.
2) For new players, tryouts are happening all the time. We don’t believe in a single day/weekend tryout like a lot of other organizations. We feel like a lot of really good players get overlooked at those events with 100+ players. It’s very difficult to get a really good evaluation of every player in that setting.  Instead, we prefer doing more private workouts with 4-5 players at a time. It allows us a chance to get a really good evaluation of the player and for the player to see what it’s like being on the field with us. Plus, it allows us a chance to meet and spend time with the parents. These private workouts are no cost to the player.
3) We feel like one of the best ways to evaluate a player is in-game so we will be out recruiting all through the spring high school season. Watching players during the high school season is a great way to identify and evaluate players and meet their parents.

Talk about the different teams in your organization.
We will have teams in each age group this summer.
15u (primarily 26 with some 27 grads)
16u (primarily 2025 grads)
17u (primarily 2024 grads)
18u (primarily 2023 grads)
We don’t have “scout teams” in our organization. Some of the difference is based on location. For example, one of our teams will be Jacksonville-area players.
We understand being able to play with some of your friends from your same high school is important to you, as it should be. There are times we try keeping specific players together on the same team (often at the request of the parents for travel purposes).
Our 18u teams are often split between players who have committed to play in college already and players who are still looking to make their college commitment.
The bottom line is that all of our teams have had success and we play in the same events.

Tell us about your tournament schedule:
All of our teams will play a very competitive schedule. We believe it’s very important to play in the right events where our players can be challenged on the field and get in front of college coaches at the same time. Below are the tournaments our teams will play in 2023:
Perfect Game – The king of travel ball events, our teams play more PG events than anything else.
Prospect Wire – We’re actually the only travel ball organization that has been playing in PW events since they started hosting tournaments over a dozen years ago. They do an outstanding job promoting their teams and players.
World Amateur Baseball Association – Also known as Waba, they’re the king when it comes to hosting Junior College events in front of NCAA and MLB scouts. They do a great job with their high school division and we’ve been playing in their events since we started in 2007.

What is the Freshwater Storm event that you guys have before the first tournament?
That’s a one-day event that will be held in New Smyrna Beach. Each of our teams will play a full game against each other and directly in front of several college coaches. We had 10 college coaches from schools all over the state at our last event in November so it will be something similar. We often hear parents talk about playing travel ball and not seeing college coaches there. This allows our players to get directly in front of coaches and allows the coaches a chance to figure out which of our players they will be following throughout the summer. It’s a fun, exciting, and very powerful recruiting event for all our players.

Why do you guys not leave the state to play in tournaments?
We used to play at the major PG tournament in Atlanta every year, including when we took 5th (out of 250+ teams) in our first year back in 2007. We stopped for a couple reasons:
1) Most of our players want to play college baseball in the state of Florida so we choose to play all our events in the state where they have the best chance to get in front of Florida college coaches. If most of our players wanted to play college baseball in South Carolina, we would schedule events in South Carolina. Or Alabama. Or whatever state our players wanted to play in.
2) Cost efficiency. Spending a week in Atlanta can be super expensive and it’s not something a lot of families are able to do – especially when we can play a quality event here in Florida.
3) Lack of exposure there: The last time we played at the PG tournament in Atlanta, we played all but 1 of our games at various fields around the city while the college coaches were all hanging out at the main complex.
Instead of playing PG in Atlanta the first week of July, we now play a very good PG event at Boombah during that week. It’s close to home, we play quality competition, and there are several area college coaches there recruiting.

Have your teams had a lot of success?
Yes. In fact, we’ve been a nationally-ranked organization on Perfect Game in each of the last 3 summers with no plans of slowing down anytime soon. We win a lot of games and events but far more important to us is creating a culture that our players will enjoy and helping create opportunities for them to play baseball in college for those who choose to do so.

How are pitcher onlys treated in your organization?
There are a few very important things to know here:
1) our pitching rotations are set as soon as the schedule for each event is released. As soon as we get it from the tournament directors, our coaches work on it and send it out to players. That’s very important for pitchers who have a routine or would like to get the information out to college coaches well in advance. It’s always fascinating to us how many pitchers do not know when they’re pitching when going into the start of a tournament.
2) Our POs are only required to be at the games they’re scheduled to pitch in. If a PO throws the first day of a tournament (let’s say Thursday), he does not need to be at the remaining games of the event (until he’s scheduled to pitch again, if that happens). Although all of our players are absolutely invited to be at every game, this helps cut down on travel costs for our pitchers.

What’s a typical roster size for a Freshwater Storm team?
The exact answer to that question often varies depending on how many two-way players we have on each roster but the ideal number is always 17 with 12 being position players and 5 being POs. There have been times the number of position players is 11 (which means we have fewer two-ways) or 13 (which means we have more two-ways). The bottom line is this – if you’re coming to play for the Freshwater Storm, be prepared to play a lot. Feel free to look at some of our team photos and you can count the players. We will put the size of our rosters up against anyone else.

Tell us about your coaches.
Mike Bakas, a New Smyrna Beach resident, runs the organization (in addition to a private scouting company called Prospect Connect) and has since he started it 16 years ago. Al Yevoli is the coach of our 15u-Jacksonville team.
About Coach Al Yevoli:
A high school graduate of Flagler Palm Coast High School, Yevoli was named all 5 Star Conference 3 times and All-State once. Al then played at High Point University (Div 1 in NC). After 3 years there, Al transferred to Tennessee Wesleyan College where he helped them win the 2012 NAIA National Championship with a record-setting season. Al followed up his college career with 5 years of professional baseball playing in several leagues such as the MidWest League, Frontier League, American Association, Atlantic League, ABL (Australia). Al participated in 3 Spring Trainings (Braves, Cubs, Diamondbacks) and was a 2014 Frontier League All-Star.
Al played 2 years for the Freshwater Storm while in High School and has been a coach for the past 5 years. Al currently resides in St. Augustine, Florida.
“I was in a unique situation in HS, in terms of recruitment, and was very clueless in all honesty. Once I started playing with the Storm, in 2007, I felt like I had a resource to help me navigate through the situation and ended up receiving a Division 1 offer in July after I graduated. Being a Freshwater Storm Coach, to me, is about helping these guys the same way I was helped when I was in HS.” – Al Yevoli

How is playing time determined?
If you choose to play in our organization, it means we believe you can help us so you’re going to play a good amount. Obviously the more productive players for us will play more than the least productive ones (just like any other organization) but oftentimes it’s far more in-depth than that. If a player becomes unreliable (showing up late, missing games without telling his coaches, and other signs that he’s not being a good teammate) then that’s a good way to lose playing time to players who may not be quite as productive on the stat sheet.

How do you guys communicate with players and parents during the summer?
Each coach will have a group chat with the players. That will allow him to send out weather updates, field changes, or any other important information. Mike Bakas will send out all emails to parents, keeping them updated on everything they need to know about each event. We are always a call, text, or email away from answering any questions you may have.

Who are some of your former players?
There’s a long list of them and we are super proud of every single one of them who helped make our organization what it is today. Here’s a partial list of them: https://baseballprospectconnect.com/ex-players/