@adbono posted:If you have read this entire thread you know it’s my belief that John and his parents made a bad decision. He is not ready today for the demands of a ranked D1 program. I believe that he will be ready in a couple of years, but not today. John was a late bloomer that really only experienced great success in his senior year of HS - and that was partly because he transferred to a school that was one classification down. All signs are that John is in for a very difficult freshman year that will test his confidence and his dedication to his craft. I also have concerns about what that will do to his mental state of mind. But that’s really the point of this thread - the unintended consequences of decisions. I could see this coming a mile away and warned John and his father about this particular school. But they didn’t listen to me. And this was after I spent over 3 years developing John as his private pitching instructor - for no money btw. Like you, I hope John can overcome his circumstances. Time will tell.
That is very unfortunate, that the family failed to listen to quality advice. I know that the directors of my son's travel team have given similar advice to some of my son's teammates, but the allure of the "big name" is very attractive to players (AND FAMILY). Last summer, the directors of my son's travel ball team held a meeting with all of the families. The purpose of the meeting was to share with them that college baseball has changed dramatically over the past couple of years. Their presentation showed that P5 programs are dropping players that they recruit a much higher incident than they have in years past. They showed examples of one Power 5 school that dropped four high school seniors in their senior season. These players had been committed to this school since they were 9th and 10th graders and were informed their senior year that they weren't going to able to attend that school. They also presented data about the alarming number of Freshmen that were no longer on school rosters by the time they were sophomores. They claimed that fewer and fewer college programs are willing to be patient and help develop young players, and the instance gratification that comes from transfer portal is leading to many young players being released without fully getting a chance to grow and develop within their program.
The purpose of this meeting was to essentially tell families to be cautious and understand that recruiting and program commitments to players aren't as sound as they were prior to transfer portal. The ability for college programs to go into the transfer portal and get older/experienced players has led to a lot of difficult circumstances for a lot of younger players.