quote:At many schools, there is a constant competition going on at every position and they will bring kids in from all over the nation to battle for those positions.
CD, I think you are exactly right. On this site, we tend to see things from the perspective of the parent and player, since the vast majority of posters are one of the two.
Coaches likely have a much different perspective. The biggest difference is that coaches are being paid to coach and usually to win. If they don't win, they don't keep their job!!!!
I would also suggest that the coach may not be looking at the Dartmouth situation, for example, from the view that he "only" lost 4 to graduation, one to the draft and has 5 "open" roster spots. If I had to speculate, I think college coaches begin a season with the mindset that "all" the roster "spots" are open each year. For all the reasons Prepster described, I wouldn't equate a recruiting class of 14 to be overrecruiting.
Once our sons are out of high school, they enter a very different baseball world. In college, the coaches job/salary/livelihood depends on how successfully his team competes year in and year out. At the professional level, your salary and livelihood depends on how successfully you compete day in and day out.
After high school, whether you are playing college or professional, your baseball experience is one where you win a job and then you show up tomorrow and win the job again. If you are the player who didn't win the job yesterday, you show up motivated to change that situation today.
I realize that on this board we, rightfully, focus on getting that NLI/scholarship and announcing where our son is headed to play baseball after high school. While I think that is great, unfortunately, I believe that too many enter the next level of baseball thinking the NLI/scholarship/recruiting experience/past performance is the culmination of the process, when indeed it is only the beginning. Sometimes the players/parents realize this too late.
I think we as parents can really help our sons by emphasizing that nothing is "guaranteed" in the world of competitive baseball after high school. Our sons need to play, improve and adjust and produce better than the next player at every opportunity because that is what college coaches and professional organizations expect and demand. When they have played, improved, adjusted and produced better than the next player, the coach or organization will then bring in another recruit/draftee and the process starts again.