Will Armijo: I believe youth baseball should be 100, I would say 90% focused on development, 10% focused on playing games. I believe that parents should look more into how their players, how their kids are developing,
Bobby Minor: And welcome back to Chasing Baseball Dreams. Today I'm joined by Will Armijo. Will played D2 baseball at GCU Grand Canyon University, back before they moved up to Division I. But his road there included Tommy John surgery and some serious setbacks along the way. Today, you may know him as the CEO and co-founder of LPA Legendary Prep Academy in Scottsdale, Arizona, which was just featured on the Paramount Plus reality TV series Team Mom's Baseball. So we're going to talk about his own baseball journey, what he's learned working with young players. and their families and then some things that baseball parents need to think about before going all in on their baseball dream. So Will, welcome to the show.
Will Armijo: Thank you, man. I appreciate you having me on. I've I've followed your stuff for a while, so I've been looking forward to getting on here and chatting with you.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, likewise. And not that anybody would know this, but like Will and I actually connected connected via DMs back in May before I knew anything about the show or anything. And so this is our long overdue Zoom call that we said that we needed to jump on from back in May. So let's talk a little bit about just like when the baseball dream doesn't go as planned. Okay, so like Will, you grew up thinking you're gonna pitch in the big leagues. you know, you throw from the left side, that's always a plus. Then you had Tommy Johnson. surgery, you've talked about doing everything you thought you were supposed to do and still not getting the opportunity that you wanted when you're trying to walk on at at Arizona. So when you're going through all of that, what did you need from the people closest to you and did you get it?
Will Armijo: Yeah, you know, it's such an interesting journey because I think when you're a kid, you you don't want to ask for a lot of help. You know, you want to just like, I can do this, I can work hard. And I'd say, you know, to answer your question, my dad has been my biggest supporter. He, you know, I I I've so I remember being at U of A that you just brought up, and I didn't know anybody there when I transferred down. It was right before the semester started. I was like last pick of classes, I was living off campus, I didn't know anybody. So I would meet my dad halfway in Casa Grande once a week to throw long toss out of high school. So, you
Bobby Minor: wow.
Will Armijo: know, he's always been there for me. He always showed up. that was that was the biggest support I got. But I would say this: I also got a ton of negative support. And that's, you know, that was just as bad. I I vividly remember when I was in high school in Gallup, New Mexico, I was a freshman on the varsity team, and I remember our
Bobby Minor: Mm.
Will Armijo: head coach bringing I was on the mound, I was having a bad day. He brought up all the starters. He must have been having a bad day. And he told me to my face, you will never be good enough to play after high school. You might as well pack up your shit and pick another sport because you're probably not going to make it. And just walked off. So I think all of us have gone through some type of like sports
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: adversity like that. But I look back and I'm like, if none of those things happened to me, I probably wouldn't be where I'm at today. So it's it's crazy to reflect back on stuff like that.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, and it's wild to me that a coach at any level would say that to a player that they should be doing everything that they can to help prepare them for opportunities at the next level. so just curious, so you you're from New Mexico, you're in Arizona now. did you ever have a chance to play in the Connie Mac World Series?
Will Armijo: No, I didn't. I didn't. But I did play at at Ricketts. That was like a a memorable thing for us to be able to go up to Farm because I'm from Gallup, go up to Farmington and play
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: at Ricketts. That was like that was our dream, right? Like dude, I grew up on I remember practicing in middle school and we didn't have lights or grass and there were a lot of I don't know the best way to put it, but like drunk people around everywhere. So we used to have to pick up glass out of the infield, broken glass, before we practiced, so that none of us would slide on glass. Like it was just, it was a rough, it was a rough version of baseball for sure in New Mexico. But then you go to somewhere like Ricketts and you're like, this
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: is that was like our field of dreams in New Mexico.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, it's it's amazing. For anybody that doesn't know, and I know parents, you know, everybody gets so so drunk on the PG Kool-Aid and you know, you all you talk you all you think about is like WWBA and Jupiter and all that. In my opinion, the Connie Mac World Series is the ultimate baseball event for a high school senior. And I know some sometimes you have some you know juniors that play in it, but it's it's not you can't buy you can't buy your way into it. The only way to get there is to qualify. I think it's a twelve team feature. If I'm not mistaken, I was thinking eight, but it might be a 12-team field. And it is, if you go and look at the list of Connie Mac World Series alumni that have played Major League Baseball, that list will blow you away. It's just an incredible experience in Farmington. And my son actually got to play in it with the D Mat D Bat United Connie Mac World Series team back in 2023, and it was just a great time. So and I can see why it would be your field of dreams if you're growing up in New Mexico.
Will Armijo: yeah.
Bobby Minor: So I Let's talk a little bit about what I will just call the D1 obsession with parents. So, like you ended up playing Division II baseball at Grand Canyon before that moved up. I talked to baseball parents who act like anything less than D1 means their son came up short. You know, they think going the JUCO route, their son's coming up short. So, what would you tell a dad who has a really good D2 opportunity on the table, but the dad keeps pushing the son to hold out for a D1 opportunity?
Will Armijo: Yeah, I'd say I've seen this a hundred times. I wouldn't be surprised if I wouldn't have this conversation with myself at that age, if I would have tried to push my parents to the to the D1 side too, just because of the bells and whistles, right? That that's what you see. You see bells and whistles. That's that's college recruiting in a nutshell. Like if you go get rec if you go on a recruit to an SCC school, it is it feels like you're walking onto another planet. Like it doesn't feel real. And the the key is is opportunity, right? Like if you're gonna go to a school where you're an incoming freshman and now you're a shortstop, and their starting shortstop is now a sophomore, you're not gonna play. Like it it's gonna it's gonna punch you in the face so hard, you will be best friends with that transfer portal before anything else. So I think it's looking at the opportunity of your child, who is there? Who are they recruiting? Ask questions. Like it's it's about the opportunity. You need to, as a parent, I think you need to help your kid understand. But behind the bells and whistles, what is your real bell and whistle? It's to play Major League Baseball. It's to walk out on
Bobby Minor: Mm.
Will Armijo: national television, not in double A, single A, triple A. In the big leagues, it's to make it there. None of this matters. And it will never matter to you as long as you make it there. So put yourself put Put your son in the best possible position to give him that opportunity because you could send him to the best school, but if he doesn't get the opportunity, his n he's never gonna advance. So it's like don't, don't, don't set your son up for failure because a school has accolades and it's a it's a nice hat to wear around your friends.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, there's so much there, so much we could talk about. And the the only thing I'll add to that is you would be amazed how many how many former major leaguers that I've talked to that went to colleges that most parents have never heard of, you know? And everybody's path is different. And like I've always told my son, your goal right now is to to do whatever you can to take that next step, you know, and then to take that next step. And if it means going to this junior college, that junior college, this D two school And then you end up, you know, you get drafted or whatever, then that's your path. So now, obviously, like you've been around some some pretty talented young baseball players, including kids with national rankings. you have some of those players at your at your academy. When you're looking at a 13 or 14-year-old, what can you really tell about his college baseball potential at that age? And what are parents getting way ahead of getting themselves way ahead of way ahead on?
Will Armijo: Say, you know, talking about age specific, it there's a weird gap with this 13, 14, 15-year-old, right? Like these kids have hit different growth spurts, hormones, things are happening. So I would say at 13, you're you're you're not gonna know. At 14, you can kind of see some natural potential, but I will say this: I that we have a lot of scouts in our building all the time. We have coaches in our building all the time. We have a lot of MLB guys, people in baseball. There's a very commonality across the board. Nobody cares about a kid's potential until they're sophomore, junior, senior year. Like nobody cares. And I think it's because we've seen it time after time after time after time. These young kids have these high rankings. They're playing all these tournaments. They're doing all these things. And then they don't go anywhere at the high school level. And I I personally, from my personal opinion, is a lot of it has to do with a lack of adversity. So you go, you, you go and you play and you play and you play. They haven't gone through like showing up to practice every day, showing up to development stuff every day, showing up to strength and conditioning every day, and having to persevere through that over and over and over and over again. I that because that that's what they see at the college level. And at the pro level. And I think that that's
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: what get kids caught, that's what gets kids caught up a lot. Is they're so they they could be so good at the club level,
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: even at the high school level, even at the college level. Look at the MLB. All
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: these guys you see at the College World Series and in D1, you don't see a lot of them playing in the big leagues. There's something that happens, there is absolutely something that happens in baseball that. the transition to the pinnacle of the sport, something happens there from the pervas baseball we provide here and in like Latin America. There is a big difference.
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: We see it at the big league level. Just look at the big league level, look at the college level. There's a drastic difference.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, that and I don't think yeah. It it's there's yeah, again, again so much there. And I think you really see the see the gap between thirteen and fourteens even on on your show, you know, with some of the players and you know, some of the thirteen thirteen U players playing up in fourteen U and everything and you definitely see it. So I so LPA, so you built an academy where baseball is a huge part of every player's day. Okay, so so I'm curious, when would you actually tell a dad, hey, your son doesn't need a place like Legendary Prep right now? And what would make you recommend that he stay where he is?
Will Armijo: So one of the key things when we first built this was, and I've said this to our coaching staff, you're not your your jobs are not dictated off of winning a championship or wins and losses. To be absolutely honest, it's not. It's how many kids go to the next level. I don't care if that's the SEC, drafted, division three, NAIA, Juke, I don't care. That is our job. The parents' investment here is to allow their kid an opportunity to play at the next level. Whatever that next level is for that kid, that's where that's where we want to get him that a normal high school schedule wouldn't allow him to get. So the point that we would turn kids down is when they're not showing up enough at the academy. I even if they're good. Like we, I can't allow that to affect the culture in the building. You you just can't allow it. You're middle school through high school. There's a lot of kids in there. There's a lot of testosterone in there. You have to protect the culture in that building. So the only time that it would be we would turn down a kid is if they showed up and they were not prepared. They were not showing up to the workouts. They were not showing up on time. Or they just simply didn't make the team. We we're not at capacity yet. We're we're we're not there. So once we reach capacity, Things spots are going to get limited just by nature. They're going to. So I think that that will come into play at some point, like a tryout process at some point. But at that point, we will build in feeder teams into that to provide opportunity across the board. But that's kind of where it would if if that answered the question.
Bobby Minor: Yeah. I and so and okay, so right now because you're not at capacity,
Will Armijo: Mm-hmm.
Bobby Minor: if I have a I have a twelve year old son, thirteen year old son, and I have, you know, I have enough you know, I have the funds to, you know, to pay for everything, would you pretty much accept my son? Let's say let's say he's only played rec ball. You know what I mean? He's only Yeah.
Will Armijo: Okay, I got you. I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's up to the coaching staff. So that's not up to me. That's up to the coaching staff. So we have this conversation every time. They they'll do a tour with a kid. They'll they'll look into the kid. They'll let us know if the kid is if the environment's gonna be good for the kid or not. Because it could be detrimental to the kid, right? That that's we we lean on the coaching staff for that because I just I'm not in the weeds enough with the kids and their like. I I don't know. So I we lean on the coaching staff and their expertise to let us know if the kids are f a fit or not.
Bobby Minor: Okay. And I I think that's good for people that think like, it's just a money grab, you know, they'll just take
Will Armijo: Mm-hmm. Right.
Bobby Minor: anybody and everybody. Obviously that's not the case because I feel like you do have even with theater teams, you know, you do have a a brand to protect and you know, kind of a rep
Will Armijo: Well and and think about the parents on the other side, right? Like
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: what what I've learned about this industry is parents look at, which has been a eye-opening for us, right? Like the industry has changed a lot. But we're we I'm also from the business side looking at what do families and parents care about? Competition's one of the biggest things, right? Like that's one of the biggest things is like who are you, who's in your schedule and who are you guys playing? That's a big thing. So if if we have kids there that are very, very good and kids that are there getting progressively better and working hard, we can't diminish the the the culture in there, right? And it's like if a kid's not ready to play against the competition that we're at, then it's it's not a personal thing. It's you're not gonna develop at this level yet. You're just you're you're not ready for that. You still need things to work on before you can get here.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's good. So like on team moms, people
Will Armijo: Mm-hmm.
Bobby Minor: get to see just how competitive these parents can be, even even with each other. So from what you've seen, what's something that that parents do because they think they're helping their son, but they're actually making things harder for him?
Will Armijo: Yeah, you know, that's a that's an evolving question there because I first and foremost, I get it as a parent. Not that I'm a parent yet, but I get it, right? You wanna you wanna put in as much as you can to your child. You wanna make him as good as he can, you wanna invest in what you can to make him better. I find this, this might be a little controversial, but I find this to be common as well. Parents who were athletes are a little different. With parents who weren't athletes. They don't sometimes they haven't been there and they don't understand the your kids gotta do other things. You're you're you gotta let your kid rest. You gotta let you gotta let your kid be a kid. Like that's part of his development, is also at that level, middle school of being a kid. So I think that sometimes parents do too much for the kid, right? And I'll I'll give you a perfect example. Right. So we we do we have a physical therapy team that comes in every Monday to work on our kids. We we we partner up, they do assessments on our kids. So what we're starting to find is early development problems in the shoulder.
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: Not from strength and conditioning, this is from playing because this can only happen at game speed, right? I just had this conversation this conversation last week
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: with our PT doctor. Our strength and conditioning coach and our head coach. It's when you're in gameplay, you're at a hundred percent. Even if you're at practice, you're still not at a hundred. You might be thinking
Bobby Minor: Right.
Will Armijo: you're throwing, you're not. It is not the same adrenaline as game speed. And if you look at the amount of games these young kids are playing, they're putting their shoulder in this position, which is a precursor for shoulder and elbow issues when they get towards first, it was like, It was post like late college. Then it was mid-college.
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: Now it's early college. Now it's like high school. Like if Tommy John becomes commonality in high school, that is a big problem. A big problem. That's why I'm such an advocate about development and recovery and PT work. Because what are you doing all of this for? Especially at the middle school level. What are you doing all of this
Bobby Minor: Mm.
Will Armijo: for? If your son gets hurt, his junior year of high school? When he could f actually get recruited. Do you realize that rec recruiters are gonna put an asterisk next to your kid because he's already had Tommy John or he's already had a surgery? Like you're you're you're hurting your kid more than you're helping your kid by trying to do too much.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, that is in incredible information and parents I hope you're listening. I've talked again, I've talked to so many former major leaguers and everyone to a man will tell you, they'll say some version of this, every player only has so many bullets in their gun, okay? And that clock doesn't start once they graduate high school. That clock starts from the time they the time the first time they throw a baseball. And when you're overusing them when they're ten, eleven and twelve, when it means absolutely nothing, that can one hundred percent affect them later because you're I mean, you know, you're you're it's just it's just the reality of it. Man, that that's that's really good. So, okay, I I had a phone conversation yesterday with a mother from the States who actually moved to the Dominican Republic for her son to train and go to school there. Okay. And obviously, you know, people people love to compare in the comments, you know, in the DR, there's a kid, you know, with no shoes, hitting bottle caps that's gonna play in the MLB and all that stuff. I'm very familiar with the Dominican Republic. My father-in-law is from Santo Domingo, I ran an event for four years. in San Pedro, so I'm very familiar with how it works. But here's my question for you. What would you say to like what what makes like what LPA does different but also better than maybe going and training you know in the DR for a couple of years?
Will Armijo: Yeah, no, for sure. I would say, you know, I've never been down to the DR. I hear about this all the time. We we've talked about you know, just how we do a similar thing. And that's why kids go to the level they go at such an early age and why they cy because that's what everybody hears, right? Like I think the first hook to the whole Latin American market is kids are signing at fifteen, sixteen years old for millions of dollars, right? How my God, how is this possible? What are they doing down there? This is crazy. So
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: all we said is. Okay, we can do the same thing here, if not better, more organized, maybe more structured, and you're closer to home. Like that's that's the big thing here. Now you go into cost, things like that. I don't know what it costs to go down there and do that. I know they have summer programs. but I I mean a cost conversation about LPA, this is these are conversations I have every day on cost of this place, right? And like what is the value, etc.? But I think when you're being in the States. You're in the United States, you're going to a program in the United States that is de that is development focused, just like they are down there, that is also focused on recruiting to help you get into college, et cetera. I don't know about college and things like that down there. I mean, I think they're heavily focused on getting kids signed for sure. That I mean, that's it, right? Like
Bobby Minor: Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah. That's that's the goal.
Will Armijo: I I I won't disclose names, but like I had conversations with the parent this year about. Pulling his kid out of high school to sign him in Mexico. I'm like,
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: that's I don't think that's a good idea, right? Like, there's still so much more to be done, and there's so much who knows if baseball's even is even this kid's future. Like, you
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: got to give them time and opportunity to decide if the sport that you're you're on them about 24 7 is even what they want to do in life. Like it's not just about baseball.
Bobby Minor: Yeah. Well and and for any parent that might be thinking about doing that, there's a lot more to it than just saying, Hey, I'm gonna go to this foreign country and then my son's gonna be eligible to sign at sixteen. There's residency requirements and citizenship requirements and there's a lot more to it. So I wouldn't I wouldn't just pull your son out of school
Will Armijo: And also,
Bobby Minor: yet.
Will Armijo: also, let's just talk about the kids that do get signed at that age. Like the level of ability of those, they're one in a million. You hear about the one in a million kid that is getting signed at 16, blah, blah, blah. And you look at his statistics, like his exit belows and his throwing velocity. It's a unicorn. Like it, this is not a normal person that they're signing. It's not normal. It's not like, I could so I could just take my kid down there and then in like a year or two, he's gonna sign for ten million dollars. No, that's not it's not how it works.
Bobby Minor: Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you this, what are your thoughts this I don't know why this even popped into my head. I'm not a fan of it for a lot of reasons. I get it though. Everybody, you know, everybody has to do what's best for their son. What are your thoughts on all of these players? 'Cause it happens a lot in Arizona, reclassifying.
Will Armijo: yeah, that's you know, that's been that's been happening a lot lately. My personal opinion, and I think, you know, I'm not in the weeds on it a lot. I think it's it's individual to the person. I think that some people need to for development purposes, but also let's just call a spade a spade. People are also doing it to just to try to get an extra year to get signed to a college, right? Like I I look at the kid, I look back at myself and I like it's one of the big reasons why I started this place is I didn't have development anything until I got to college. Like there was no develop, there were no drills. There were no like none of that. It was just throw, throw, throw, throw. So I think there are some kids that could benefit from an extra year. I do think there are. That like mature enough to you're you're at, but I think it's also a lot on the the authenticity and integrity of the coaching staff to be like, hey. Your kid can act this is why he will benefit from an extra year. This is why. I think that positive influence on that needs to be forefront and it shouldn't just be a decision made by the player and the parent. Because I don't think you're you're doing it. You don't you really don't know why you're doing it.
Bobby Minor: Yeah. That's good. But let me ask you this, because when you're making that decision when your son's thirteen or fourteen and now, you know, you reclass, he's fourteen and a half playing thirteen U baseball, which to me is is just I mean, insane. When you you're making that decision there when you ha you have no idea what's gonna happen over the next two, three, four years. Would it make
Will Armijo: Mm. Right.
Bobby Minor: more sense if you really like t to me it makes more sense to wait and see what happens in high school and if you feel like he still needs another year, then take a gap year. Go to a post grad academy. You know what I mean? When to me that's just I mean, that's my take on it. So
Will Armijo: Well, no, that that's actually a good point. Cause what I was referencing in your answer was more at the high school level. That's where
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: I see it's more beneficial to be like,
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: okay, you're like, you know what I mean? Like you have a player and it's like, man, you're so close. Like you you have it figured out. You're just not we just haven't fine-tuned you enough yet. You need one more year, but you have it figured out. Like we're in a we're it this is a relationship here. To add another year to we are very confident we can get you instead of here, here. Like we have a high
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: probability that this is gonna happen. Doing it at that young age, honestly, personally, doesn't make sense to me.
Bobby Minor: Right.
Will Armijo: It just I I you gotta show me like statistics or some type of track record. That's the only way I'm gonna influence anything on what we do. Is like you gotta show me some type of proof where I could make informed decision that this is a good decision. I don't think at that age it's super informed yet. I think it's more of like a I don't wanna miss out like a FOMO thing, like my god,
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: my god, this this this gets us another year. Do it, do it, do it. That's where I'm I I don't think the industry and the culture has has fine-tuned that yet.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, I think it's crazy. And I hon honestly I think it's comical when you see like perfect game will post like thirteen U leaderboards and really like hype these players up and then you look at all of their birthdays and they're all, you know, fourteen and three months, fourteen and five months. I I just think it's comical, but it's obviously good for their brand,
Will Armijo: Yeah.
Bobby Minor: you know, when they can show a fourteen year old I mean a thirteen U player thirteen U let me do air quotes, thirteen you player throwing, you eighty nine, but really he's fourteen and a half, so
Will Armijo: Right, right.
Bobby Minor: You know, I just think I think it's hilarious. So all right, so let's let's say I'm a dad. I'm spending thousands of dollars on, you know, travel baseball lessons, maybe even a prep academy. But six months from now, what should I be looking at to know my son is actually getting better, getting better? Because like I think a lot of parents are spending that money without even really knowing how to judge whether it's working or not. Like they don't know. They don't know what they don't know.
Will Armijo: Right. No, that's a that's a great question. So one of the things that we do is we have beginning of the year, mid-year, and end of year meetings with the primary coach. And one of the things that we focus on from a development standpoint is we do use statistics. So we do have a lot of tech, right? We have the hit tracks, track man, rap soto,
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: we have vaulved force plates and strength and conditioning. We have speed, speed metrics, all these things. The only reason we have them is for this specific Situation. So what the coaches do is they sit down with every family and they go over what we call a development report card. Where has your kid actually gotten better? And notes from those, like from the hitting. If your kid's a hitter, there's a note from the hitting coordinator. If your kid's a pitcher, there's a note from the pitching coordinator. There's always a strength and conditioning, there's always a speed note. There's all head coach, all these things. Because that's what I've said from the beginning. Peep if people are gonna pay to come here, there has to be a return on investment. So this is how we show them that your player is developing. Now we're we're in iterations right now to turn this into like a digital app where you know it shows your player on your kid almost like a video game and it shows like all their stats and how much they've improved year over year. But I think that
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: that's where you find your investment and that's what you should always be looking for. Eve even in a club team. Like if I'm paying for this. Where show me how it's making my kid better. Because otherwise, what am I paying for? So that's where we can sit down with a family, especially if a kid, you know, because like our varsity team is a very competitive team to play for. There's a lot of kids on the JV that maybe even could be playing a varsity at another school. And we have to talk to parents about this too. But if your kid is developing and he's getting to a point where he's prepared and ready to go to college. He's going to get opportunities in the right place in time to get him there. That's our job. But the key is that he's developing to get there. Because just look at any incoming freshman. I mean, there's math, there's a math side to anything. Look at the incoming freshman at any level. Don't look at the SEC level unless your kid's ready for that. But talk about SEC. It's six foot, 195 pounds is your average incoming freshman. So
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: there's met I'm not I I will never say baseball is based off metrics. It's not, I believe completely different. But because we have this technology, we can help show you your kid is actually getting better. Like he's developing his speed, his exit v low, his his bench press, his squat, his body weight, his body fat percentage, his muscle percentage. All these things have progressed in a positivity. This is development. So that that's kind of how we show.
Bobby Minor: And that's really good. And I know when I had Joey and Trina Taylor on, that's one of the things that Joey really liked and appreciated about LPA was and again, metrics and stats are just one part of to me, one part of the the puzzle,
Will Armijo: Right.
Bobby Minor: but it is something tangible that you can look at and see progression. And he loved that like since Jet's been going there, you know, you can look back and see all the areas that he's in you know, he's improved. And so I I think that's really, really good. So walk me through. So what what does the day a day in the life of an LPA athlete look like.
Will Armijo: Yeah, so we we try to mimic it very similar to what they're they'll experience in college. So they have a report time, they have to lock their phones in a lockbox when they get there. They have certain things that they have to wear. So we're we're very big like we give them really cool gear. We try to make them feel like they're going to a college. So if we tell them, hey, it's black top, black bottom, they better show up in black top, black bottom. So we we enforce on like daily habit things that prepares them for the college level. But it shows up, it's about eight o'clock. It can change randomly. They're gonna do about two hours a day in the classroom. They're gonna sit in the classroom with an academic advisor. Middle school and high school are kind of separate, first half, second half. And then they they have blocks. So it's skill development in the cages, depending on their group. Pitchers are doing bull pens or skill work with the pitching coaches. Then there's a strength and conditioning. Then there's a speed session. Then there's lunch. So we also cater lunch every day for the kids. So they have a huge food hall. They they have an hour to eat lunch. And then they work on specialty stuff, second half of the day. And then sometimes we'll incorporate like recovery days where kids are required to get in the cold plunge, get in the sauna, get in the red light therapy, do the cupping, do the all the stuff. So we we we schedule it out as like a block that they would see in college.
Bobby Minor: That's really, really good. Smoothies in the morning? You forgot that part? Yes.
Will Armijo: So some so sometimes we we we need to add that in. We actually just put vending machines into our
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: academy because so it was funny. I think it was last year. I think Trina might have been the culprit, actually.
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: So we my mom, she had bought me this really cool candy jar, like this vintage-looking with glass bowls, and there's like seven glass bowls and they spin, and you could fill them with candy, right? So I was like, you know what? This would be really cool at the Academy. So I'm like, hey, do any parents want to volunteer and fill? Because I was filling it from like Costco, right? Like, hey, if you want to volunteer
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: and fill it. So Trina's like, I'll do it. And then what we noticed was all the candy was gone within like
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: two hours. Cleared out. Like we were looking around, like, is somebody walking in and stealing the candy? Because there's no way that this can all be gone. And then the coaches are like, the kids are going off the walls in the batting cages. And then we put it all together.
Bobby Minor: Okay.
Will Armijo: And the kids were like secretly just going in and getting handfuls of candy and just devouring
Bobby Minor: wow.
Will Armijo: it. It turns off I had to cut the candy. I'm like, we can't, this is not healthy for the kids at the end of the day. So we have vending machines. We're getting ready to get them installed. I'm gonna get like fun, healthy snacks for the kids. But yeah,
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: that that was just a funny story that happened with that.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, that is I'll I'll have to I'm gonna have to text Joey and ask him about that.
Will Armijo: Ha ha.
Bobby Minor: so all right, so you you've got families who who are making pretty big sacrifices for their son's baseball future. What's the biggest sign up that a parent might want this more than their son does?
Will Armijo: Yeah, that's probably I would say that would that comes in parent meetings. You know, I sit in a lot of these. I would say, you know, another good person to talk to is RJ, who's our COO. He's our main operator. that that's usually where we find out in parent conversations. You know, we have conversations with parents of like, hey, you know, my my kid is showing up every day. Why why isn't he starting? You know, one, that's not a conversation to have with us, because I really have no idea. But two, you know, that's that's kind of the the reality of the situation, right? But the good thing is, is I'm glad the parents come to us for stuff like this because we tend to help the kids at a different level of like, hey, you're showing up every day, like, are you not fitting in? Is it is this too difficult for you? Are are you ner are you too nervous to ask the coaches for extra help? Usually it comes to that. And we try to help them with with some extra work, but Usually it's the parents that come in and they're like demanding, why is my kid not starting? Why why is my kid not a starter? That's usually the first sign of you. It's not may not be totally your fault, but you don't really know how this works. Like
Bobby Minor: Yeah,
Will Armijo: you're just uneducated on all of this. Like you just don't get it. I'm telling you right now, I've never had that issue with a family. who the parent was a former professional athlete or very high level collegiate athlete. I never get that issue from parents who are former athletes. Never.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, I I and yeah, I agree with you. It's it's just, you know, and it's interesting. You know, parents don't know what they don't know and if you've never experienced it then then you don't then you don't know. So do during the summer do the do the student athletes are they still playing for LPA teams during the summer in tournaments or are they going off and playing for, you know, the Canes or Five Star or or whoever?
Will Armijo: So we we have a summer team. We allow them to play. We also give them the option to go play on some of these club teams because we also know like some of these club teams are beneficial for some of these kids. They like they are, right? Like if scouts are gonna be there, whatnot, and the kid's hot, he's getting looked at. But most of them are not. Like they're not. It's it that it's not worth it. So we offer that, but again, we're going through Trans, I call it a transition change in youth and high school baseball. Like I think a transition is happening, of there's overplaying and not enough development. And I think it might be slow, it might be fast, but I think there's a transition coming. I'm seeing it everywhere, across the board. Of it's it's kind of getting exposed that there's just too much playing going on. There's too much tournaments, there's too much club ball. I mean. I'm we we found out we had one kid, I think this was a couple weeks ago, that we found out he played six games in like three days.
Bobby Minor: Wow.
Will Armijo: And we're like, what why? What was the purpose of that? You know,
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: so I think it's hard, man. It's shifting the the mindset of the parents of like, I get it, I get the attractiveness of the the club teams and these tournaments and all this stuff. But there's and it's that's where it's hard to to transition their mindset of like, well what is this really for? Like is this really are these does this does a tournament develop my kid at this age? I
Bobby Minor: Absolutely.
Will Armijo: I just don't see how it does. I I don't.
Bobby Minor: It it doesn't. And it's it's crazy, but again, that's what parents get so they get so caught up in it and again I'm gonna say it for at least the fifth time during this episode, they don't know what they don't know. And it's really crazy. So over the course of of a school year, the fall and the spring, what would you say? Like what's the ratio of playing versus practicing, like how many tournaments, how many games are they gonna play versus how much they're sp time they're spending practicing?
Will Armijo: Yeah, so in spring, they play a typical schedule of an of a normal high school, I would say. in the fall, our coaches are really good about specific tournaments. I don't know our exact schedule. Honestly, I mean, we've been in an inception going on year three. So our schedule has changed drastically every year, right? Because first, nobody wants to play us. Like that, like what league do we play in? Then we
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: elevated our league. Now we're in a good league. But a lot of that comes with tournament play, right? Like we gotta travel the kids to Texas. We gotta travel the kids to South Carolina and play a tournament thing. Because we we don't play in the traditional high school league here. So we've had to get clever with our schedules because again, what's important that they're playing competition. So
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: there's there's some there's also how long have you been around? What are the who are the kids on your team? Like we've done everything we can to get the highest competition. But I'd say Majority is development. Like that's the majority of it. I think that the the what parents have to understand too is the mentality of the coach, and this is my personal opinion, it shifts the older your kid gets. Like the mentality of the coach is like, I don't care if your kid plays or not when they're young. I don't care. I care if he gets better at hitting, making contact, and throwing a throw the right way and fielding a ground ball the right way and Learning how to run on and off the field. And when the kid cries, learning how to not cry, like learning how to be a young man, then the coaches, once your kid becomes a sophomore junior, the coach shifts. Like, okay. Now I'm thinking about these kids on where are they going to play next. Now things start to go, okay. Well, what is your kid's position? How good is he realistically? And who do we know that needs to fill that gap? Like what parents need to know now, like when I was playing in high school, we didn't know about the 3,000 colleges around the United States that had baseball programs. We knew about ASU, U of A, GCU, and the four junior colleges in the valley. That's it. Like, yes, we had dreams to play at USC or Texas. Because they were big
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: names, but we didn't know all these schools existed. Now you have the transfer portal, you have social media, you can look up schools, schools are looking up your profiles. Like to me, if you're not that great of a player today in high school, you can find a place to play that can make you even better. When I was playing, that did not exist. It was like you were just hoping. I'm not, this was me in high school.
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: When I get done pitching this game, I hope a scout will walk up to me today. That was it. It wasn't like go online, send a
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: scouting profile, like hire a scouting person, none of that. It was just cross your fingers and hope that somebody sees you and asks you to come to their college. So I I know that was long-winded, but I think there's an opportunity
Bobby Minor: No.
Will Armijo: for every kid out there today. If you focus on developing to just ask what the coaches are looking for. You know how many scouts I've talked to that when they're like, Yeah, if we have a kid like a dude, like he's a dude, and we don't know who he is, we're not talking to him or his parents first. We're gonna go talk to his teacher. We're gonna figure out other people that know him, and we're gonna figure out his character and what kind of player he is. Before if he's that big of a deal. That's what we're figuring out first because culture matters in our organization. Like I hear that over and over and over again.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's really, really good. Yeah, I was laughing because, you know, I was thinking of my son's recruiting process versus mine. Like mine, I literally
Will Armijo: Ha ha ha.
Bobby Minor: I mail I mailed five VHS tapes to coaches.
Will Armijo: Yeah.
Bobby Minor: And just kind of cross my fingers and hope somebody's gonna call. and lucky luckily I did get a call. So, all right, man, so let's we'll we'll we'll we'll wrap up with this question. All right, so Will, obviously, like you've been on both sides of this. You play college baseball, now you're working with young players and their parents. What's one thing that you believe about youth baseball that you know a lot of parents aren't going to agree with?
Will Armijo: I mean, I think we've addressed this multiple times. I believe youth baseball should be 100, I would say 90% focused on development, 10% focused on playing games. I believe that parents should look more into how their players, how their kids are developing, and they should allow them to play multiple other club sports and get their bodies moving. And that's that's the reality of this game. And you guys are gonna hear it. If you're not hearing it now, You're gonna hear it later and it's going to instill itself. But the industry will course correct itself and it will do that because you will start seeing 10 times more injuries in high school and it it will fix itself. So my my recommendation to parents is catch it while it's early. Let your kid just have fun. Just let him have fun and develop into whatever he is gonna develop. And once you see the sport that he l actually loves to do. Dump your passion into that. Let him do whatever he loves to do. And it might it might not be baseball. And that's totally fine.
Bobby Minor: So good stuff. Okay, here's a bonus question. Do walks suck?
Will Armijo: I mean if you're a pitcher they suck. I was a pitcher. So I'm going off
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: that. If yes, as a pitcher, who walks suck.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, well John, you know, John thinks that walks suck even when it when his son's batting.
Will Armijo: I will know. It doesn't suck. I will tell John. Me and John can duke it out. I know he likes to duke it out. So me and
Bobby Minor: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Will Armijo: John need to duke it out. We can't, but I would say only for pitchers, walks suck.
Bobby Minor: All right. So Will, real quick, if anybody wants to find out more about LPA, where can they go to find out that information?
Will Armijo: Yeah, head over to legendaryprepacademy.com. You can reach out to us there. You could book a tour there if you're local. Even if you're out of state, we have virtual tours. You could contact and talk to somebody at our organization as well.
Bobby Minor: Okay. And I didn't ask, are you married? Okay.
Will Armijo: No, never married.
Bobby Minor: So so single moms, if you want a personal tour from Will of LPA, you can request that also.
Will Armijo: Amen. Amen.
Bobby Minor: and and then what about you? If anybody wants to just kind of follow you on social media, where can they follow you and find you?
Will Armijo: Yeah, they could follow me at I Am Will Powered. My name is Will Armijo. And you can follow Legendary Prep Academy. It's the whole name. Legendary Prep Academy. That's a tandle.
Bobby Minor: All right, Willman, I really appreciate you.
Will Armijo: Yeah, man, this was awesome. I had such a great time.
Bobby Minor: Take care.
Bobby Minor: And welcome back to Chasing Baseball Dreams. Today I'm joined by Will Armijo. Will played D2 baseball at GCU Grand Canyon University, back before they moved up to Division I. But his road there included Tommy John surgery and some serious setbacks along the way. Today, you may know him as the CEO and co-founder of LPA Legendary Prep Academy in Scottsdale, Arizona, which was just featured on the Paramount Plus reality TV series Team Mom's Baseball. So we're going to talk about his own baseball journey, what he's learned working with young players. and their families and then some things that baseball parents need to think about before going all in on their baseball dream. So Will, welcome to the show.
Will Armijo: Thank you, man. I appreciate you having me on. I've I've followed your stuff for a while, so I've been looking forward to getting on here and chatting with you.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, likewise. And not that anybody would know this, but like Will and I actually connected connected via DMs back in May before I knew anything about the show or anything. And so this is our long overdue Zoom call that we said that we needed to jump on from back in May. So let's talk a little bit about just like when the baseball dream doesn't go as planned. Okay, so like Will, you grew up thinking you're gonna pitch in the big leagues. you know, you throw from the left side, that's always a plus. Then you had Tommy Johnson. surgery, you've talked about doing everything you thought you were supposed to do and still not getting the opportunity that you wanted when you're trying to walk on at at Arizona. So when you're going through all of that, what did you need from the people closest to you and did you get it?
Will Armijo: Yeah, you know, it's such an interesting journey because I think when you're a kid, you you don't want to ask for a lot of help. You know, you want to just like, I can do this, I can work hard. And I'd say, you know, to answer your question, my dad has been my biggest supporter. He, you know, I I I've so I remember being at U of A that you just brought up, and I didn't know anybody there when I transferred down. It was right before the semester started. I was like last pick of classes, I was living off campus, I didn't know anybody. So I would meet my dad halfway in Casa Grande once a week to throw long toss out of high school. So, you
Bobby Minor: wow.
Will Armijo: know, he's always been there for me. He always showed up. that was that was the biggest support I got. But I would say this: I also got a ton of negative support. And that's, you know, that was just as bad. I I vividly remember when I was in high school in Gallup, New Mexico, I was a freshman on the varsity team, and I remember our
Bobby Minor: Mm.
Will Armijo: head coach bringing I was on the mound, I was having a bad day. He brought up all the starters. He must have been having a bad day. And he told me to my face, you will never be good enough to play after high school. You might as well pack up your shit and pick another sport because you're probably not going to make it. And just walked off. So I think all of us have gone through some type of like sports
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: adversity like that. But I look back and I'm like, if none of those things happened to me, I probably wouldn't be where I'm at today. So it's it's crazy to reflect back on stuff like that.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, and it's wild to me that a coach at any level would say that to a player that they should be doing everything that they can to help prepare them for opportunities at the next level. so just curious, so you you're from New Mexico, you're in Arizona now. did you ever have a chance to play in the Connie Mac World Series?
Will Armijo: No, I didn't. I didn't. But I did play at at Ricketts. That was like a a memorable thing for us to be able to go up to Farm because I'm from Gallup, go up to Farmington and play
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: at Ricketts. That was like that was our dream, right? Like dude, I grew up on I remember practicing in middle school and we didn't have lights or grass and there were a lot of I don't know the best way to put it, but like drunk people around everywhere. So we used to have to pick up glass out of the infield, broken glass, before we practiced, so that none of us would slide on glass. Like it was just, it was a rough, it was a rough version of baseball for sure in New Mexico. But then you go to somewhere like Ricketts and you're like, this
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: is that was like our field of dreams in New Mexico.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, it's it's amazing. For anybody that doesn't know, and I know parents, you know, everybody gets so so drunk on the PG Kool-Aid and you know, you all you talk you all you think about is like WWBA and Jupiter and all that. In my opinion, the Connie Mac World Series is the ultimate baseball event for a high school senior. And I know some sometimes you have some you know juniors that play in it, but it's it's not you can't buy you can't buy your way into it. The only way to get there is to qualify. I think it's a twelve team feature. If I'm not mistaken, I was thinking eight, but it might be a 12-team field. And it is, if you go and look at the list of Connie Mac World Series alumni that have played Major League Baseball, that list will blow you away. It's just an incredible experience in Farmington. And my son actually got to play in it with the D Mat D Bat United Connie Mac World Series team back in 2023, and it was just a great time. So and I can see why it would be your field of dreams if you're growing up in New Mexico.
Will Armijo: yeah.
Bobby Minor: So I Let's talk a little bit about what I will just call the D1 obsession with parents. So, like you ended up playing Division II baseball at Grand Canyon before that moved up. I talked to baseball parents who act like anything less than D1 means their son came up short. You know, they think going the JUCO route, their son's coming up short. So, what would you tell a dad who has a really good D2 opportunity on the table, but the dad keeps pushing the son to hold out for a D1 opportunity?
Will Armijo: Yeah, I'd say I've seen this a hundred times. I wouldn't be surprised if I wouldn't have this conversation with myself at that age, if I would have tried to push my parents to the to the D1 side too, just because of the bells and whistles, right? That that's what you see. You see bells and whistles. That's that's college recruiting in a nutshell. Like if you go get rec if you go on a recruit to an SCC school, it is it feels like you're walking onto another planet. Like it doesn't feel real. And the the key is is opportunity, right? Like if you're gonna go to a school where you're an incoming freshman and now you're a shortstop, and their starting shortstop is now a sophomore, you're not gonna play. Like it it's gonna it's gonna punch you in the face so hard, you will be best friends with that transfer portal before anything else. So I think it's looking at the opportunity of your child, who is there? Who are they recruiting? Ask questions. Like it's it's about the opportunity. You need to, as a parent, I think you need to help your kid understand. But behind the bells and whistles, what is your real bell and whistle? It's to play Major League Baseball. It's to walk out on
Bobby Minor: Mm.
Will Armijo: national television, not in double A, single A, triple A. In the big leagues, it's to make it there. None of this matters. And it will never matter to you as long as you make it there. So put yourself put Put your son in the best possible position to give him that opportunity because you could send him to the best school, but if he doesn't get the opportunity, his n he's never gonna advance. So it's like don't, don't, don't set your son up for failure because a school has accolades and it's a it's a nice hat to wear around your friends.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, there's so much there, so much we could talk about. And the the only thing I'll add to that is you would be amazed how many how many former major leaguers that I've talked to that went to colleges that most parents have never heard of, you know? And everybody's path is different. And like I've always told my son, your goal right now is to to do whatever you can to take that next step, you know, and then to take that next step. And if it means going to this junior college, that junior college, this D two school And then you end up, you know, you get drafted or whatever, then that's your path. So now, obviously, like you've been around some some pretty talented young baseball players, including kids with national rankings. you have some of those players at your at your academy. When you're looking at a 13 or 14-year-old, what can you really tell about his college baseball potential at that age? And what are parents getting way ahead of getting themselves way ahead of way ahead on?
Will Armijo: Say, you know, talking about age specific, it there's a weird gap with this 13, 14, 15-year-old, right? Like these kids have hit different growth spurts, hormones, things are happening. So I would say at 13, you're you're you're not gonna know. At 14, you can kind of see some natural potential, but I will say this: I that we have a lot of scouts in our building all the time. We have coaches in our building all the time. We have a lot of MLB guys, people in baseball. There's a very commonality across the board. Nobody cares about a kid's potential until they're sophomore, junior, senior year. Like nobody cares. And I think it's because we've seen it time after time after time after time. These young kids have these high rankings. They're playing all these tournaments. They're doing all these things. And then they don't go anywhere at the high school level. And I I personally, from my personal opinion, is a lot of it has to do with a lack of adversity. So you go, you, you go and you play and you play and you play. They haven't gone through like showing up to practice every day, showing up to development stuff every day, showing up to strength and conditioning every day, and having to persevere through that over and over and over and over again. I that because that that's what they see at the college level. And at the pro level. And I think that that's
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: what get kids caught, that's what gets kids caught up a lot. Is they're so they they could be so good at the club level,
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: even at the high school level, even at the college level. Look at the MLB. All
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: these guys you see at the College World Series and in D1, you don't see a lot of them playing in the big leagues. There's something that happens, there is absolutely something that happens in baseball that. the transition to the pinnacle of the sport, something happens there from the pervas baseball we provide here and in like Latin America. There is a big difference.
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: We see it at the big league level. Just look at the big league level, look at the college level. There's a drastic difference.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, that and I don't think yeah. It it's there's yeah, again, again so much there. And I think you really see the see the gap between thirteen and fourteens even on on your show, you know, with some of the players and you know, some of the thirteen thirteen U players playing up in fourteen U and everything and you definitely see it. So I so LPA, so you built an academy where baseball is a huge part of every player's day. Okay, so so I'm curious, when would you actually tell a dad, hey, your son doesn't need a place like Legendary Prep right now? And what would make you recommend that he stay where he is?
Will Armijo: So one of the key things when we first built this was, and I've said this to our coaching staff, you're not your your jobs are not dictated off of winning a championship or wins and losses. To be absolutely honest, it's not. It's how many kids go to the next level. I don't care if that's the SEC, drafted, division three, NAIA, Juke, I don't care. That is our job. The parents' investment here is to allow their kid an opportunity to play at the next level. Whatever that next level is for that kid, that's where that's where we want to get him that a normal high school schedule wouldn't allow him to get. So the point that we would turn kids down is when they're not showing up enough at the academy. I even if they're good. Like we, I can't allow that to affect the culture in the building. You you just can't allow it. You're middle school through high school. There's a lot of kids in there. There's a lot of testosterone in there. You have to protect the culture in that building. So the only time that it would be we would turn down a kid is if they showed up and they were not prepared. They were not showing up to the workouts. They were not showing up on time. Or they just simply didn't make the team. We we're not at capacity yet. We're we're we're not there. So once we reach capacity, Things spots are going to get limited just by nature. They're going to. So I think that that will come into play at some point, like a tryout process at some point. But at that point, we will build in feeder teams into that to provide opportunity across the board. But that's kind of where it would if if that answered the question.
Bobby Minor: Yeah. I and so and okay, so right now because you're not at capacity,
Will Armijo: Mm-hmm.
Bobby Minor: if I have a I have a twelve year old son, thirteen year old son, and I have, you know, I have enough you know, I have the funds to, you know, to pay for everything, would you pretty much accept my son? Let's say let's say he's only played rec ball. You know what I mean? He's only Yeah.
Will Armijo: Okay, I got you. I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's up to the coaching staff. So that's not up to me. That's up to the coaching staff. So we have this conversation every time. They they'll do a tour with a kid. They'll they'll look into the kid. They'll let us know if the kid is if the environment's gonna be good for the kid or not. Because it could be detrimental to the kid, right? That that's we we lean on the coaching staff for that because I just I'm not in the weeds enough with the kids and their like. I I don't know. So I we lean on the coaching staff and their expertise to let us know if the kids are f a fit or not.
Bobby Minor: Okay. And I I think that's good for people that think like, it's just a money grab, you know, they'll just take
Will Armijo: Mm-hmm. Right.
Bobby Minor: anybody and everybody. Obviously that's not the case because I feel like you do have even with theater teams, you know, you do have a a brand to protect and you know, kind of a rep
Will Armijo: Well and and think about the parents on the other side, right? Like
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: what what I've learned about this industry is parents look at, which has been a eye-opening for us, right? Like the industry has changed a lot. But we're we I'm also from the business side looking at what do families and parents care about? Competition's one of the biggest things, right? Like that's one of the biggest things is like who are you, who's in your schedule and who are you guys playing? That's a big thing. So if if we have kids there that are very, very good and kids that are there getting progressively better and working hard, we can't diminish the the the culture in there, right? And it's like if a kid's not ready to play against the competition that we're at, then it's it's not a personal thing. It's you're not gonna develop at this level yet. You're just you're you're not ready for that. You still need things to work on before you can get here.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's good. So like on team moms, people
Will Armijo: Mm-hmm.
Bobby Minor: get to see just how competitive these parents can be, even even with each other. So from what you've seen, what's something that that parents do because they think they're helping their son, but they're actually making things harder for him?
Will Armijo: Yeah, you know, that's a that's an evolving question there because I first and foremost, I get it as a parent. Not that I'm a parent yet, but I get it, right? You wanna you wanna put in as much as you can to your child. You wanna make him as good as he can, you wanna invest in what you can to make him better. I find this, this might be a little controversial, but I find this to be common as well. Parents who were athletes are a little different. With parents who weren't athletes. They don't sometimes they haven't been there and they don't understand the your kids gotta do other things. You're you're you gotta let your kid rest. You gotta let you gotta let your kid be a kid. Like that's part of his development, is also at that level, middle school of being a kid. So I think that sometimes parents do too much for the kid, right? And I'll I'll give you a perfect example. Right. So we we do we have a physical therapy team that comes in every Monday to work on our kids. We we we partner up, they do assessments on our kids. So what we're starting to find is early development problems in the shoulder.
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: Not from strength and conditioning, this is from playing because this can only happen at game speed, right? I just had this conversation this conversation last week
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: with our PT doctor. Our strength and conditioning coach and our head coach. It's when you're in gameplay, you're at a hundred percent. Even if you're at practice, you're still not at a hundred. You might be thinking
Bobby Minor: Right.
Will Armijo: you're throwing, you're not. It is not the same adrenaline as game speed. And if you look at the amount of games these young kids are playing, they're putting their shoulder in this position, which is a precursor for shoulder and elbow issues when they get towards first, it was like, It was post like late college. Then it was mid-college.
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: Now it's early college. Now it's like high school. Like if Tommy John becomes commonality in high school, that is a big problem. A big problem. That's why I'm such an advocate about development and recovery and PT work. Because what are you doing all of this for? Especially at the middle school level. What are you doing all of this
Bobby Minor: Mm.
Will Armijo: for? If your son gets hurt, his junior year of high school? When he could f actually get recruited. Do you realize that rec recruiters are gonna put an asterisk next to your kid because he's already had Tommy John or he's already had a surgery? Like you're you're you're hurting your kid more than you're helping your kid by trying to do too much.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, that is in incredible information and parents I hope you're listening. I've talked again, I've talked to so many former major leaguers and everyone to a man will tell you, they'll say some version of this, every player only has so many bullets in their gun, okay? And that clock doesn't start once they graduate high school. That clock starts from the time they the time the first time they throw a baseball. And when you're overusing them when they're ten, eleven and twelve, when it means absolutely nothing, that can one hundred percent affect them later because you're I mean, you know, you're you're it's just it's just the reality of it. Man, that that's that's really good. So, okay, I I had a phone conversation yesterday with a mother from the States who actually moved to the Dominican Republic for her son to train and go to school there. Okay. And obviously, you know, people people love to compare in the comments, you know, in the DR, there's a kid, you know, with no shoes, hitting bottle caps that's gonna play in the MLB and all that stuff. I'm very familiar with the Dominican Republic. My father-in-law is from Santo Domingo, I ran an event for four years. in San Pedro, so I'm very familiar with how it works. But here's my question for you. What would you say to like what what makes like what LPA does different but also better than maybe going and training you know in the DR for a couple of years?
Will Armijo: Yeah, no, for sure. I would say, you know, I've never been down to the DR. I hear about this all the time. We we've talked about you know, just how we do a similar thing. And that's why kids go to the level they go at such an early age and why they cy because that's what everybody hears, right? Like I think the first hook to the whole Latin American market is kids are signing at fifteen, sixteen years old for millions of dollars, right? How my God, how is this possible? What are they doing down there? This is crazy. So
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: all we said is. Okay, we can do the same thing here, if not better, more organized, maybe more structured, and you're closer to home. Like that's that's the big thing here. Now you go into cost, things like that. I don't know what it costs to go down there and do that. I know they have summer programs. but I I mean a cost conversation about LPA, this is these are conversations I have every day on cost of this place, right? And like what is the value, etc.? But I think when you're being in the States. You're in the United States, you're going to a program in the United States that is de that is development focused, just like they are down there, that is also focused on recruiting to help you get into college, et cetera. I don't know about college and things like that down there. I mean, I think they're heavily focused on getting kids signed for sure. That I mean, that's it, right? Like
Bobby Minor: Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah. That's that's the goal.
Will Armijo: I I I won't disclose names, but like I had conversations with the parent this year about. Pulling his kid out of high school to sign him in Mexico. I'm like,
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: that's I don't think that's a good idea, right? Like, there's still so much more to be done, and there's so much who knows if baseball's even is even this kid's future. Like, you
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: got to give them time and opportunity to decide if the sport that you're you're on them about 24 7 is even what they want to do in life. Like it's not just about baseball.
Bobby Minor: Yeah. Well and and for any parent that might be thinking about doing that, there's a lot more to it than just saying, Hey, I'm gonna go to this foreign country and then my son's gonna be eligible to sign at sixteen. There's residency requirements and citizenship requirements and there's a lot more to it. So I wouldn't I wouldn't just pull your son out of school
Will Armijo: And also,
Bobby Minor: yet.
Will Armijo: also, let's just talk about the kids that do get signed at that age. Like the level of ability of those, they're one in a million. You hear about the one in a million kid that is getting signed at 16, blah, blah, blah. And you look at his statistics, like his exit belows and his throwing velocity. It's a unicorn. Like it, this is not a normal person that they're signing. It's not normal. It's not like, I could so I could just take my kid down there and then in like a year or two, he's gonna sign for ten million dollars. No, that's not it's not how it works.
Bobby Minor: Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you this, what are your thoughts this I don't know why this even popped into my head. I'm not a fan of it for a lot of reasons. I get it though. Everybody, you know, everybody has to do what's best for their son. What are your thoughts on all of these players? 'Cause it happens a lot in Arizona, reclassifying.
Will Armijo: yeah, that's you know, that's been that's been happening a lot lately. My personal opinion, and I think, you know, I'm not in the weeds on it a lot. I think it's it's individual to the person. I think that some people need to for development purposes, but also let's just call a spade a spade. People are also doing it to just to try to get an extra year to get signed to a college, right? Like I I look at the kid, I look back at myself and I like it's one of the big reasons why I started this place is I didn't have development anything until I got to college. Like there was no develop, there were no drills. There were no like none of that. It was just throw, throw, throw, throw. So I think there are some kids that could benefit from an extra year. I do think there are. That like mature enough to you're you're at, but I think it's also a lot on the the authenticity and integrity of the coaching staff to be like, hey. Your kid can act this is why he will benefit from an extra year. This is why. I think that positive influence on that needs to be forefront and it shouldn't just be a decision made by the player and the parent. Because I don't think you're you're doing it. You don't you really don't know why you're doing it.
Bobby Minor: Yeah. That's good. But let me ask you this, because when you're making that decision when your son's thirteen or fourteen and now, you know, you reclass, he's fourteen and a half playing thirteen U baseball, which to me is is just I mean, insane. When you you're making that decision there when you ha you have no idea what's gonna happen over the next two, three, four years. Would it make
Will Armijo: Mm. Right.
Bobby Minor: more sense if you really like t to me it makes more sense to wait and see what happens in high school and if you feel like he still needs another year, then take a gap year. Go to a post grad academy. You know what I mean? When to me that's just I mean, that's my take on it. So
Will Armijo: Well, no, that that's actually a good point. Cause what I was referencing in your answer was more at the high school level. That's where
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: I see it's more beneficial to be like,
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: okay, you're like, you know what I mean? Like you have a player and it's like, man, you're so close. Like you you have it figured out. You're just not we just haven't fine-tuned you enough yet. You need one more year, but you have it figured out. Like we're in a we're it this is a relationship here. To add another year to we are very confident we can get you instead of here, here. Like we have a high
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: probability that this is gonna happen. Doing it at that young age, honestly, personally, doesn't make sense to me.
Bobby Minor: Right.
Will Armijo: It just I I you gotta show me like statistics or some type of track record. That's the only way I'm gonna influence anything on what we do. Is like you gotta show me some type of proof where I could make informed decision that this is a good decision. I don't think at that age it's super informed yet. I think it's more of like a I don't wanna miss out like a FOMO thing, like my god,
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: my god, this this this gets us another year. Do it, do it, do it. That's where I'm I I don't think the industry and the culture has has fine-tuned that yet.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, I think it's crazy. And I hon honestly I think it's comical when you see like perfect game will post like thirteen U leaderboards and really like hype these players up and then you look at all of their birthdays and they're all, you know, fourteen and three months, fourteen and five months. I I just think it's comical, but it's obviously good for their brand,
Will Armijo: Yeah.
Bobby Minor: you know, when they can show a fourteen year old I mean a thirteen U player thirteen U let me do air quotes, thirteen you player throwing, you eighty nine, but really he's fourteen and a half, so
Will Armijo: Right, right.
Bobby Minor: You know, I just think I think it's hilarious. So all right, so let's let's say I'm a dad. I'm spending thousands of dollars on, you know, travel baseball lessons, maybe even a prep academy. But six months from now, what should I be looking at to know my son is actually getting better, getting better? Because like I think a lot of parents are spending that money without even really knowing how to judge whether it's working or not. Like they don't know. They don't know what they don't know.
Will Armijo: Right. No, that's a that's a great question. So one of the things that we do is we have beginning of the year, mid-year, and end of year meetings with the primary coach. And one of the things that we focus on from a development standpoint is we do use statistics. So we do have a lot of tech, right? We have the hit tracks, track man, rap soto,
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: we have vaulved force plates and strength and conditioning. We have speed, speed metrics, all these things. The only reason we have them is for this specific Situation. So what the coaches do is they sit down with every family and they go over what we call a development report card. Where has your kid actually gotten better? And notes from those, like from the hitting. If your kid's a hitter, there's a note from the hitting coordinator. If your kid's a pitcher, there's a note from the pitching coordinator. There's always a strength and conditioning, there's always a speed note. There's all head coach, all these things. Because that's what I've said from the beginning. Peep if people are gonna pay to come here, there has to be a return on investment. So this is how we show them that your player is developing. Now we're we're in iterations right now to turn this into like a digital app where you know it shows your player on your kid almost like a video game and it shows like all their stats and how much they've improved year over year. But I think that
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: that's where you find your investment and that's what you should always be looking for. Eve even in a club team. Like if I'm paying for this. Where show me how it's making my kid better. Because otherwise, what am I paying for? So that's where we can sit down with a family, especially if a kid, you know, because like our varsity team is a very competitive team to play for. There's a lot of kids on the JV that maybe even could be playing a varsity at another school. And we have to talk to parents about this too. But if your kid is developing and he's getting to a point where he's prepared and ready to go to college. He's going to get opportunities in the right place in time to get him there. That's our job. But the key is that he's developing to get there. Because just look at any incoming freshman. I mean, there's math, there's a math side to anything. Look at the incoming freshman at any level. Don't look at the SEC level unless your kid's ready for that. But talk about SEC. It's six foot, 195 pounds is your average incoming freshman. So
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: there's met I'm not I I will never say baseball is based off metrics. It's not, I believe completely different. But because we have this technology, we can help show you your kid is actually getting better. Like he's developing his speed, his exit v low, his his bench press, his squat, his body weight, his body fat percentage, his muscle percentage. All these things have progressed in a positivity. This is development. So that that's kind of how we show.
Bobby Minor: And that's really good. And I know when I had Joey and Trina Taylor on, that's one of the things that Joey really liked and appreciated about LPA was and again, metrics and stats are just one part of to me, one part of the the puzzle,
Will Armijo: Right.
Bobby Minor: but it is something tangible that you can look at and see progression. And he loved that like since Jet's been going there, you know, you can look back and see all the areas that he's in you know, he's improved. And so I I think that's really, really good. So walk me through. So what what does the day a day in the life of an LPA athlete look like.
Will Armijo: Yeah, so we we try to mimic it very similar to what they're they'll experience in college. So they have a report time, they have to lock their phones in a lockbox when they get there. They have certain things that they have to wear. So we're we're very big like we give them really cool gear. We try to make them feel like they're going to a college. So if we tell them, hey, it's black top, black bottom, they better show up in black top, black bottom. So we we enforce on like daily habit things that prepares them for the college level. But it shows up, it's about eight o'clock. It can change randomly. They're gonna do about two hours a day in the classroom. They're gonna sit in the classroom with an academic advisor. Middle school and high school are kind of separate, first half, second half. And then they they have blocks. So it's skill development in the cages, depending on their group. Pitchers are doing bull pens or skill work with the pitching coaches. Then there's a strength and conditioning. Then there's a speed session. Then there's lunch. So we also cater lunch every day for the kids. So they have a huge food hall. They they have an hour to eat lunch. And then they work on specialty stuff, second half of the day. And then sometimes we'll incorporate like recovery days where kids are required to get in the cold plunge, get in the sauna, get in the red light therapy, do the cupping, do the all the stuff. So we we we schedule it out as like a block that they would see in college.
Bobby Minor: That's really, really good. Smoothies in the morning? You forgot that part? Yes.
Will Armijo: So some so sometimes we we we need to add that in. We actually just put vending machines into our
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: academy because so it was funny. I think it was last year. I think Trina might have been the culprit, actually.
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: So we my mom, she had bought me this really cool candy jar, like this vintage-looking with glass bowls, and there's like seven glass bowls and they spin, and you could fill them with candy, right? So I was like, you know what? This would be really cool at the Academy. So I'm like, hey, do any parents want to volunteer and fill? Because I was filling it from like Costco, right? Like, hey, if you want to volunteer
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: and fill it. So Trina's like, I'll do it. And then what we noticed was all the candy was gone within like
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: two hours. Cleared out. Like we were looking around, like, is somebody walking in and stealing the candy? Because there's no way that this can all be gone. And then the coaches are like, the kids are going off the walls in the batting cages. And then we put it all together.
Bobby Minor: Okay.
Will Armijo: And the kids were like secretly just going in and getting handfuls of candy and just devouring
Bobby Minor: wow.
Will Armijo: it. It turns off I had to cut the candy. I'm like, we can't, this is not healthy for the kids at the end of the day. So we have vending machines. We're getting ready to get them installed. I'm gonna get like fun, healthy snacks for the kids. But yeah,
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: that that was just a funny story that happened with that.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, that is I'll I'll have to I'm gonna have to text Joey and ask him about that.
Will Armijo: Ha ha.
Bobby Minor: so all right, so you you've got families who who are making pretty big sacrifices for their son's baseball future. What's the biggest sign up that a parent might want this more than their son does?
Will Armijo: Yeah, that's probably I would say that would that comes in parent meetings. You know, I sit in a lot of these. I would say, you know, another good person to talk to is RJ, who's our COO. He's our main operator. that that's usually where we find out in parent conversations. You know, we have conversations with parents of like, hey, you know, my my kid is showing up every day. Why why isn't he starting? You know, one, that's not a conversation to have with us, because I really have no idea. But two, you know, that's that's kind of the the reality of the situation, right? But the good thing is, is I'm glad the parents come to us for stuff like this because we tend to help the kids at a different level of like, hey, you're showing up every day, like, are you not fitting in? Is it is this too difficult for you? Are are you ner are you too nervous to ask the coaches for extra help? Usually it comes to that. And we try to help them with with some extra work, but Usually it's the parents that come in and they're like demanding, why is my kid not starting? Why why is my kid not a starter? That's usually the first sign of you. It's not may not be totally your fault, but you don't really know how this works. Like
Bobby Minor: Yeah,
Will Armijo: you're just uneducated on all of this. Like you just don't get it. I'm telling you right now, I've never had that issue with a family. who the parent was a former professional athlete or very high level collegiate athlete. I never get that issue from parents who are former athletes. Never.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, I I and yeah, I agree with you. It's it's just, you know, and it's interesting. You know, parents don't know what they don't know and if you've never experienced it then then you don't then you don't know. So do during the summer do the do the student athletes are they still playing for LPA teams during the summer in tournaments or are they going off and playing for, you know, the Canes or Five Star or or whoever?
Will Armijo: So we we have a summer team. We allow them to play. We also give them the option to go play on some of these club teams because we also know like some of these club teams are beneficial for some of these kids. They like they are, right? Like if scouts are gonna be there, whatnot, and the kid's hot, he's getting looked at. But most of them are not. Like they're not. It's it that it's not worth it. So we offer that, but again, we're going through Trans, I call it a transition change in youth and high school baseball. Like I think a transition is happening, of there's overplaying and not enough development. And I think it might be slow, it might be fast, but I think there's a transition coming. I'm seeing it everywhere, across the board. Of it's it's kind of getting exposed that there's just too much playing going on. There's too much tournaments, there's too much club ball. I mean. I'm we we found out we had one kid, I think this was a couple weeks ago, that we found out he played six games in like three days.
Bobby Minor: Wow.
Will Armijo: And we're like, what why? What was the purpose of that? You know,
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: so I think it's hard, man. It's shifting the the mindset of the parents of like, I get it, I get the attractiveness of the the club teams and these tournaments and all this stuff. But there's and it's that's where it's hard to to transition their mindset of like, well what is this really for? Like is this really are these does this does a tournament develop my kid at this age? I
Bobby Minor: Absolutely.
Will Armijo: I just don't see how it does. I I don't.
Bobby Minor: It it doesn't. And it's it's crazy, but again, that's what parents get so they get so caught up in it and again I'm gonna say it for at least the fifth time during this episode, they don't know what they don't know. And it's really crazy. So over the course of of a school year, the fall and the spring, what would you say? Like what's the ratio of playing versus practicing, like how many tournaments, how many games are they gonna play versus how much they're sp time they're spending practicing?
Will Armijo: Yeah, so in spring, they play a typical schedule of an of a normal high school, I would say. in the fall, our coaches are really good about specific tournaments. I don't know our exact schedule. Honestly, I mean, we've been in an inception going on year three. So our schedule has changed drastically every year, right? Because first, nobody wants to play us. Like that, like what league do we play in? Then we
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: elevated our league. Now we're in a good league. But a lot of that comes with tournament play, right? Like we gotta travel the kids to Texas. We gotta travel the kids to South Carolina and play a tournament thing. Because we we don't play in the traditional high school league here. So we've had to get clever with our schedules because again, what's important that they're playing competition. So
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: there's there's some there's also how long have you been around? What are the who are the kids on your team? Like we've done everything we can to get the highest competition. But I'd say Majority is development. Like that's the majority of it. I think that the the what parents have to understand too is the mentality of the coach, and this is my personal opinion, it shifts the older your kid gets. Like the mentality of the coach is like, I don't care if your kid plays or not when they're young. I don't care. I care if he gets better at hitting, making contact, and throwing a throw the right way and fielding a ground ball the right way and Learning how to run on and off the field. And when the kid cries, learning how to not cry, like learning how to be a young man, then the coaches, once your kid becomes a sophomore junior, the coach shifts. Like, okay. Now I'm thinking about these kids on where are they going to play next. Now things start to go, okay. Well, what is your kid's position? How good is he realistically? And who do we know that needs to fill that gap? Like what parents need to know now, like when I was playing in high school, we didn't know about the 3,000 colleges around the United States that had baseball programs. We knew about ASU, U of A, GCU, and the four junior colleges in the valley. That's it. Like, yes, we had dreams to play at USC or Texas. Because they were big
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: names, but we didn't know all these schools existed. Now you have the transfer portal, you have social media, you can look up schools, schools are looking up your profiles. Like to me, if you're not that great of a player today in high school, you can find a place to play that can make you even better. When I was playing, that did not exist. It was like you were just hoping. I'm not, this was me in high school.
Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.
Will Armijo: When I get done pitching this game, I hope a scout will walk up to me today. That was it. It wasn't like go online, send a
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: scouting profile, like hire a scouting person, none of that. It was just cross your fingers and hope that somebody sees you and asks you to come to their college. So I I know that was long-winded, but I think there's an opportunity
Bobby Minor: No.
Will Armijo: for every kid out there today. If you focus on developing to just ask what the coaches are looking for. You know how many scouts I've talked to that when they're like, Yeah, if we have a kid like a dude, like he's a dude, and we don't know who he is, we're not talking to him or his parents first. We're gonna go talk to his teacher. We're gonna figure out other people that know him, and we're gonna figure out his character and what kind of player he is. Before if he's that big of a deal. That's what we're figuring out first because culture matters in our organization. Like I hear that over and over and over again.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's really, really good. Yeah, I was laughing because, you know, I was thinking of my son's recruiting process versus mine. Like mine, I literally
Will Armijo: Ha ha ha.
Bobby Minor: I mail I mailed five VHS tapes to coaches.
Will Armijo: Yeah.
Bobby Minor: And just kind of cross my fingers and hope somebody's gonna call. and lucky luckily I did get a call. So, all right, man, so let's we'll we'll we'll we'll wrap up with this question. All right, so Will, obviously, like you've been on both sides of this. You play college baseball, now you're working with young players and their parents. What's one thing that you believe about youth baseball that you know a lot of parents aren't going to agree with?
Will Armijo: I mean, I think we've addressed this multiple times. I believe youth baseball should be 100, I would say 90% focused on development, 10% focused on playing games. I believe that parents should look more into how their players, how their kids are developing, and they should allow them to play multiple other club sports and get their bodies moving. And that's that's the reality of this game. And you guys are gonna hear it. If you're not hearing it now, You're gonna hear it later and it's going to instill itself. But the industry will course correct itself and it will do that because you will start seeing 10 times more injuries in high school and it it will fix itself. So my my recommendation to parents is catch it while it's early. Let your kid just have fun. Just let him have fun and develop into whatever he is gonna develop. And once you see the sport that he l actually loves to do. Dump your passion into that. Let him do whatever he loves to do. And it might it might not be baseball. And that's totally fine.
Bobby Minor: So good stuff. Okay, here's a bonus question. Do walks suck?
Will Armijo: I mean if you're a pitcher they suck. I was a pitcher. So I'm going off
Bobby Minor: Yeah.
Will Armijo: that. If yes, as a pitcher, who walks suck.
Bobby Minor: Yeah, well John, you know, John thinks that walks suck even when it when his son's batting.
Will Armijo: I will know. It doesn't suck. I will tell John. Me and John can duke it out. I know he likes to duke it out. So me and
Bobby Minor: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Will Armijo: John need to duke it out. We can't, but I would say only for pitchers, walks suck.
Bobby Minor: All right. So Will, real quick, if anybody wants to find out more about LPA, where can they go to find out that information?
Will Armijo: Yeah, head over to legendaryprepacademy.com. You can reach out to us there. You could book a tour there if you're local. Even if you're out of state, we have virtual tours. You could contact and talk to somebody at our organization as well.
Bobby Minor: Okay. And I didn't ask, are you married? Okay.
Will Armijo: No, never married.
Bobby Minor: So so single moms, if you want a personal tour from Will of LPA, you can request that also.
Will Armijo: Amen. Amen.
Bobby Minor: and and then what about you? If anybody wants to just kind of follow you on social media, where can they follow you and find you?
Will Armijo: Yeah, they could follow me at I Am Will Powered. My name is Will Armijo. And you can follow Legendary Prep Academy. It's the whole name. Legendary Prep Academy. That's a tandle.
Bobby Minor: All right, Willman, I really appreciate you.
Will Armijo: Yeah, man, this was awesome. I had such a great time.
Bobby Minor: Take care.
