This kind of "official visit" seems to have diverged from the original purpose of such visits, which is to see what the school and baseball culture are like so you can make an informed decision about attending. D3s still do actual visits for that purpose, and I think you can learn a lot by staying on campus with a player and seeing how baseball players interact with each other, with parties, etc. Those visits had an impact on my son's D3 recruiting for sure. It seems a shame that there's no way for D1 schools to do them before a kid commits. Kudo's to PF's son for sticking it out and maybe even changing team culture, but I wonder how many players leave if they find they don't fit in?