A lot of schools, mostly the "big timers", don't decide on where or if to send their pitchers until the spring as they want to see how they do, how much they throw, etc. Freshman position players are harder to place if they are not from traditionally successful college programs as there's no track record and high school numbers don't mean much; with pitchers, 94 is 94 everywhere so it's easier to place frosh pitchers with velocity. While there is lots of talent at D III schools, D III batting averages are "factored" a bit as they just don't consistently see the same level of pitching seen at D-I programs. Hitting .390 at a D III isn't the same as hitting .390 in the ACC or SEC. Coach recommendations are still the biggest factor-summer teams develop relationships with certain colleges and can trust what they say. We get some amazingly detailed and honest evaluations from a few programs about the players they have available. One coach sent us an e-mail this week saying he only had one guy that he thought would be a good fit; another told us a kid we were interested in (a freshman) really wasn't going to be ready for our league by next summer.