It is hard for a teenage boy to not jump at the first offer. If your goal is to play D1 baseball and a college coach offers you that opportunity (verbal), it's tough for kids to say no. They have to "bet on themselves" that there will be other offers coming . . .
My son knows two kids who committed to very top P5 programs (one PAC12 and one SEC) about December of freshman year. At the time, it was a big deal for those that knew them. Well, they're all rising seniors now, and one of the two has already been de-committed by the school, and I ran into the dad of the other kid at the WWBA and he told me his son (although still officially committed to the school) probably wasn't going to end up there.
I do think the schools would think twice about offering so early if it entailed signing an NLI at that time. Sure, they could still pull the "we don't see you getting on the field" card, but having a signed NLI would create more risk for the school, and probably curb some of the early offers.