Baseball Percentage Transferring at D1 Level

So, is it safe to say that ~25% in D1 are transferring every year?

@CollegebaseballInsights - you have any data on this now?

@Francis7 posted:

@CollegebaseballInsights - you have any data on this now?

Rosters are not official. normally wait until season is one week in before we start our process.

I love college coaches, some day i want to live in that world.

You recruit 10 20 new players every season for a roster of 35 on a team that actually plays 20. you treat them a step or 2 above dogs or however you see fit, you demand year round 100% commitment to the team with limited to none back from the program for 25% ride (or less, mostly less)...then you bitch about kids transferring if they aren't happy but you as coach have the right, the expectation and support from school to do whatever the hell you want with the roster just win baby....delusional comes to mind.

Hey coach I got an idea for you, you can make much better money if you are as good as many think you are. Come to the business world and see how your management methods treat you.

@oldschool  Its been my experience that kids with real athletic potential are told at an early age to give up baseball and focus on something else. I don't necessarily blame the "college baseball coach". I just believe he is part of a broken system. 

@Francis7 posted:

So, is it safe to say that ~25% in D1 are transferring every year?

Sorry, I'm not buying ~25%.  Can't do it.   My ears and eyes told me 33-50% 10-years ago.  I believe the number is even higher now with the transfer portal and no requirement to sit out a year.

@fenwaysouth posted:

Sorry, I'm not buying ~25%.  Can't do it.   My ears and eyes told me 33-50% 10-years ago.  I believe the number is even higher now with the transfer portal and no requirement to sit out a year.

It does seem low when you figure that 25% might just be the overall number of kids who transfer out in a year not factoring in if they were baseball players or not.

Every college coach my 2024 son talks to one of his stock questions is, "How many kids have transferred in and out the past year?"  Its fascinating to see how every coach answers it compared to the numbers in/out.

"From 2004-19, the number of transfers went from 27.7 percent to 24.2 and peaked at 27.8 in 2006 and dropped as low as 21.1 percent in 2016. Transfers from one four-year school to another went from 8.1 percent to 2.3 while transfers from a two-year school to a four-year school rose from 19.6 to 21.8."

Unfortunately, there is no citation and no definition to support this statement.

Does the 21.1% include all transfers to and from D1? It's likely to include juco to D1, which is an entirely different animal than the others. There's nothing "wrong" with a kid starting at juco then transferring to D1. That is, it's not a sign of a problem. Conversely, D1 to juco to D1 is not ideal for anyone. And D1 to D2/D3 isn't great either. I know many kids survive and prosper taking those non-traditional routes, but most people would rather not have to deal with the disruption.

The recent rule change will mean more D1 to D1 transfers, but less D1 to juco transfers. I don't think it will change the overall transfer numbers much. Depending on how you measure it, the rule change could reduce overall transfers because many 4-2-4 kids will change to 4-4 (one less transfer).

I looked at son's freshman class, 2019,  to now three years later.  Son's class is 33% gone from 2020 roster to today.  All 4/12 were pitchers.  2020 class 5/16 so 31% with all but 1 being a pitcher.  2018 class was 25% with all being pitchers.  Couldn't tell before that and would be affected by new staff coming in.  I think it will be about 35-40% now with one time transfer.

I would be interested to know if the numbers are consistent at other schools with more pitchers leaving than position guys.  I think if you are not getting any pitching time after your sophomore year you probably are not going to get mound time at any given school.  I also think that coaches take more chances on pitchers than they do position players.

I also noticed something that I should have caught but I reckon I just missed it in the transfers.  Of the 4 my sons year 3 were local kids.  My son who coaches juco has to take so many local kids each year.  Of the 5 the previous year, 4 were local/in state kids.  All the year before were in state kids.  These are the ones that I think coaches are pressured to take because they have success in high school and it doesn't cost them anything.  Willing to bet none of them were on scholarship.

I looked at several in state P5 schools and they were not much different.  The majority of kids leaving were pitchers, except this year at USC, and were in state players.

@fenwaysouth posted:

Sorry, I'm not buying ~25%.  Can't do it.   My ears and eyes told me 33-50% 10-years ago.  I believe the number is even higher now with the transfer portal and no requirement to sit out a year.

It’s been a few years. My son is twenty-eight now. About ten years ago I read about 50% of D1 players transfer by the end of soph year. The number may be from before the “sit out” rule. It wasn’t it in place when my daughter played softball. The data may be from those years. She’s five years older.

We have 5/15 gone from our 2020 class (that made it to campus) and 5/15 of the 2021 class transferred at Christmas this year.  I think the JUCO still plays.  A lot of kids that are told they won't play in the spring are also told they can work hard at a juco and find their way back.  Not sure how often that actually happens.

Here is a link to CBI Team Roster Turnover Insights

Note, just to provide context all information is based on spring rosters (point in time)

Players that are were never on their previous schools spring roster but are list on the new schools roster may or may not be accounted for.

This is most notable with fall dropdowns to jucos, as for the player never officially made the varsity team.

Note, JUCOs are notorious in not documenting the player's previous school, we've tried to fill in this blanks were possible.

Data from PG, PBR Fieldlevel, NCSA on commits would probably fill some of the HS Fall semester transfer holes, but the disclaimer, for example PG is that commit data is not 100%

Outgoing moves are based on

2021 Season (compared against 2020, all divisions reconciled)

2020 Season (compared against 2019, D1 90% reconciled, other division ~ 75%)

2019 Season (compared against 2018,  probably 60%)

So you can use the tool to get a baseline number by year and then add a percentage above for the fall transfers

Note, we uploaded the 2021 Fall Roster (as 2022), so you can get a baseline of potential turnover.

Note, this is raw data, so the numbers are skewed. Secondly, not all schools published the fall rosters.

I've heard a lot of numbers thrown around. I'm curious about how they work

Are those NCAA to NCAA transfers or do they include NJCAA and NAIA?

What would the numbers look like if you included kids who remained at their school but chose not to pursuit baseball any longer?

In talking with people - it seems the number is in the 40% range. It would also probably be in the 60-70% if you go by kids who start at a program and transfer out or do not use all their eligibility.

This is part of the reason it would appear I'm in a dark place regarding college baseball.

The teams that are high are eye opening.  If you are looking at schools, you need to look at this list.  Many of the top ones are coaching/administration problems.

More transfer data coming in.

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.c...D1Council_Report.pdf

https://twitter.com/ksu_cojac/.../1511541591017730049

Basketball is insane right now. Around 2000 players in the portal (only 15 players per team). They are estimating 250 more women in the portal than open roster spots. Half the U. Maryland team just went in yesterday.

@Francis7 posted:

So, is it safe to say that ~25% in D1 are transferring every year?

If my math is right based on the chart below, it was 20% of D1 baseball players went into the transfer portal in 2021.

@Francis7 posted:

If my math is right based on the chart below, it was 20% of D1 baseball players went into the transfer portal in 2021.

Read the fine print at the bottom. The 20% is for those who found a new school. I would imagine that number is significantly higher when you consider those who did not move on.