kevkev29,I'll give you a real life example of this that played out last month.My son's friend and teammate was recruited by a NESCAC school in Maine.His ACT score and cumulative GPA are much lower than the mean for this particular school,but his high school's profile is very strong.
The head coach ranked him as his number one recruit and told the boy and his dad that with this designation, and from his experiences dealing with admissions, he would be admitted as long as he applied early decision.The coach went on to explain how he ranks his recruits 1-6.
My son's friend was admitted to the Class of 2018 on Dec.20th 
In my son's case,his ACT score,cumulative GPA,and high school profile are equal to the mean.Amherst,like all of the NESCAC schools is a tough nut to crack.There were more than 8000 applications this year for 450 spots.Would he have been admitted without baseball ? Maybe.Maybe not ! No way to predict since ALL of the 8000 applicants are strong candidates for admission.
There are off the chart kids who get denied by NESCAC/Swarthmore/Haverford/Hopkins schools every year. Being a recruited athlete at any of these institutions definitely has it's advantages as far as being admitted.