There are probably as many different answers to this question as there are coaches. I'll attempt some generalities. The Mr. Nice guy stuff often tends to go away when the kids show up on campus. The coach never recruits just one player - "your son" for a position. They pick the best possible guys they can get at every position and then let the competition decide who plays. They would recruit three All-Americans at every position if they could. Every guy on the team got the if you come here you can be a star story. Reality is, hard-cold in your face competition decides if what the coach said to get you on campus becomes reality after campus. The better someone plays, the better the treatment and the reverse of that is often also true. If you don't play as well as you thought you might when you were a star in high school, cold, harsh treatment may be returned. This is big boy baseball and the principles of Athletic Darwinism apply. Life isn't fair however. Politics can still affect things. They'll sometimes make excuses for some players (i.e., coach's son, someone highly recommended by friendly pro scout, a former major leaguers son, son of another college coach, etc.).