Last summer Francis7 started a thread called College baseball reality. It got me thinking about what really happens when players get to college. My son is a college freshman, and he had lots of friends from his high school and summer teams who are also playing in college. I made a list of 33 of them, who are at everything from JUCO to P5. I had planned to track how things went for them during freshman year; now, of course, those brief seasons are over, so I thought I'd share what the results were.
Of course, we have no idea how things would have played out over a long season; some players were not playing well and might have been benched, some were playing well and might have moved up. Some of these teams had played fewer than 10 games when all was cancelled. So, all this really tells is what had happened 2 weeks to a month into the season.
Total players starting college in fall 2019:
7 at P5
10 at mid-major D1
7 at D2
6 at D3
1 at NAIA
2 at JUCO
# of players NOT on spring roster: 8 out of 33
(some cut after 40+ fall rosters, some no idea what happened):
5 P5 players
2 D1 mid-major players
1 D3 player
Playing time for players on spring rosters:
P5: 1 starting (fielder)
1 not playing
D1: 3 played in more than 50% of games or 10+ IP
2 played in a few games, less than 7 AB
3 played in 0 games
D2: 2 getting two-way playing time, playing every week
3 played in one game, 1-2 IP or 1 AB
2 played in 0 games
D3: 1 getting two-way playing time, playing every week
1 getting a few IP each week
2 played in one game, 1 AB
1 played in 0 games
NAIA: 1 starting
JUCO: 1 played in half of games (10+ AB)
1 pitched in one game (out of 15)