I'm not sure you can paint all non-baseball scholarship players with such a broad brush. Yes, some may be slightly behind the scholarship players, but there could be other reasons too:
* They may have gotten on the recruiting school's radar late in the game -- after the school had already given out all its money.
* They may be very talented players with incredibly good grades and the coach decides to have them count as one of the 8 recruited walk-ons because they can get so much academic scholarship money for them.
* They may be diamonds-in-the-rough that need refining in one or two areas before they can contribute.
* They may be late bloomers who cannot necessarily make a contribution their freshman -- or even sophomore -- year, but will eventually bulk up and become impact players.
Remember, there are probably several players on each team who in the past may have been books-only or tiny-scholarshp players who now would receive no monies because of the 25% minimum. I know of one tiny-scholarship player who is headed to the Cape Cod league this summer.
I think a lot can depend on the college program. There are some programs that want to place all of their focus and energies on their impact and scholarship players and see recruited walk-ons as aforementioned "insurance players." There are other programs who place a huge emphasis on developing all of their players and are willing to be patient and wait for their younger players (on scholarship or not) to improve. I even know of one recruited walk-on who was the only player recruited for a certain position. There are a lot of variables to consider.