D3 Baseball Conference Rankings?

This is from Boyds world. It does not break down by conference. But with a little foot work, it can be figured out.

http://www.boydsworld.com/baseball/isr/d3_isr.html

Massey's also has some info.

http://www.masseyratings.com/rate.php?s=cbase2013&sub=11620

The schools conference listed.So the footwork would be a little easier than using Boyd's.

Also head over to D3baseball.com and D3boards.com

here's mine.

Northwest

OAC

NJAC

Mid Atlantic

WIAC

The SCAC used to be up their as well, but since the spit with the SAA, they have not come all the way back yet but they will.

Be aware even the best conferences have some teams that may not be all that good. D3 schools conferences for other things than competitiveness in athletics. Tgey form with like minded schools in Academics. For instance in my sons conference all the schools must have a Phi Beta Kappa chapter as well as other academic requirements. If baseball success is important, look at schools in a conference with at least 7 teams, and has a chance to win the conference each year. Each d3 conference that has 7 schools competing in that sport sends their conference winner to the D3 playoffs. Then look at the conferences that send a pool C on a regular basis, (OAC). 

Also it depends what position your son plays. In the west and south, they have great weather and start in late January or February and spread their games out, so many times those schools get by using the same 3 or four starters all year. In the east and north they start later and have to get more games in a shorter period of time. Ao they typically need and develop more starters. 

So in the south and west a pitcher is less likely to get as many innings as a freshman. But a position player will get the same number of at bats as players in the North and East. 

I am not sure why you would care much about conferences per se, as BLD has pointed out that some of the top teams that make it to the Regionals and CWS come from a variety to conferences. The most dominant team in the CWS is Marietta OH so in one sense you could say that the Mid East teams are very competitive, but frankly I don't know how competitive the other teams in their region is. You can go to the NCAA and get individual statistics and build up your own ranking system.

http://www.ncaa.com/history/baseball/d3

D3 baseball is not at all like D1 once they get to the Regionals as they do not seed teams and fly them to Regions based on seeding, it is done based on costs, so it is not unusual to get highly ranked teams all in the same region, particularly in the West. What I am saying is that it is difficult to get an accurate idea on regional strength since many times better teams from highly competitive regions like the South and West never make it to the CWS. DIII teams don't travel the same as D1 teams so their OOC games are based on who is close more than anything not based on similar rankings.

It is a long winded answer to say that it is not really possible IMO. I would say MidWest in spots, plus the South and West have the best teams, but it is not really the same as D1 ball. 

Hope that helps. 

Agree with all above, and while there are no real conference strength rankings in D3, one thing you can look at is SOS (strength of schedule) rankings across a conference.  For instance, in both the Massey’s and Boyd’s World 2013 season rankings, the 9 Northwest Conference teams occupy the top 9 SOS spots in all of D3 in Massey, and are nearly the same in Boyd’s.  So, basically those schools all play very tough out-of-conference teams, and win a good percentage of those games.

So, you could look at a school like Willamette, for instance in the Northwest, who ended-up with basically a .500 season record, but beat Linfield, etc. and say they are a very tough team on a National scale.

This very discussion has been hashed out on D3boards.com. Many different view points. Each region has its pro's and cons.

I agree with BOF that the West cannibalize themselves during regional play. But many of the west region teams also have a longer lay off between the end of their season and when the play offs start. As I said earlier they can get by with fewer starters so SOME schools do not have the depth for a playing a lot of games in a short period of time.

In the East and North many schools do not start til the end of February or early march and are playing in cold terrible conditions. Many teams do not practice outside until there first games down in Florida/Myrtle Beach.

Weigh the pros and cons, Make sure the school is a good fit.

BLD is spot on with this one - go where the fit is, forget about the conference, as it really means little, particularly at the DIII level.

One point he brings up that I never thought about prior to getting some exposure to  DIII ball is the schedule compression, particularly for NE teams, as they play up to 5/6 games a week due to their late start of the season for weather, which for some of the more academic rigorous schools must be difficult. These programs also will need more pitching so if your a pitcher then there might be more opportunities as opposed to West/South programs that tend to go with 4 main starters plus a bullpen. 

I would definitely poke around on the DIII baseball site as there is quite a bit of information there in some of the old threads.

Good Luck !

When D3 schools started recruiting my son I Used the D3boards as a reference. I read through the old threads for the conference that each school that was interested in him. It was very interesting reading.

Ivy League baseball is a cut above NESCAC and the like. Many recruits who are not selected by an Ivy "settle" for NESCAC.

I am sure someone could post an anecdote that contradicts what I said, but I am very confident the information I have given you is the general rule.

Any idea whether or not baseball or other athletics can be a "hook" for NESCAC schools?  (don't mean to ask if they'll get a kid in who otherwise would not qualify for admission, just if it will make a qualified applicant stick out among many qualified applicants.  If anybody knows, same question for left coast D3 schools like Pomona, Caltech and Mudd.)

There are hooks and there are tips.

I would describe a hook as a situation where a coach's recommendation gives about a 95+% assurance of admission. It usually occurs in cases where the coach is given X number of slots for admission by the Admissions Office. In other words, if a recruit passes a pre-read of his academic standing by the Admissions Office, and the coach decides to allocate one of the available slots to him....it is virtually a done deal. Ivy schools have slots.

I would describe a tip as a situation where baseball (or tuba, or painting, or acting) can break a tie between two otherwise equally-qualified candidates. Tips come into play at schools that do not have the slot system.

From my small slice of experience, baseball is at least a tip in NESCAC. Maybe more. I believe it was HVDad whose son just committed to Tufts.......he could probably add more.

I also think this is the general rule for D3s.....except maybe Caltech. Caltech is famous for objective, stat-based, academic-achievement based admissions

Thanks.  Not too surprising that Caltech is at the bottom of their conference in baseball.  My eldest is thinking of applying to Harvey Mudd and Caltech for engineering.  While I can't imagine doing engineering at a top school while playing baseball, he's a cross country runner, and I think running between classes and homework might be great for him. My youngest is a baseball player. He's a frosh, so it's early yet, but I'm hoping he'll want to apply to schools like  Pomona and/or many of the NESCAC schools.

"Obviously the gold standard for high academic college athletics is the Ivy League... what I'm trying to get a better handle on in helping to advise son is how schools in confs like NESCAC and others stack up, baseballwise, with the level of play at the Ivies."

Soylent Green, taking this as a main focus for your question and guidance for your son, I think the comments on schools as opposed to conferences makes sense. For instance, the top Ivy baseball schools at this point, like Columbia, Dartmouth and Cornell will/should and do play the game at a level which is measurably higher, over the course of a season, than the top programs in the conferences you have listed.  However, if we were to take Columbia just 5-6 years ago, or those toward the bottom of the Ivy's, the quality of play often won't be measurably better than  at the very top of the conferences you have listed, when the top D3 programs in the conference compete against each other. The other aspect of this is while the top D3's competing against each other won't be distinctly different from the lower level Ivy teams competing against each other, a game between the top and bottom NESCAC programs, for instance, will likely be less competitive with a lesser overall quality of play from the top Ivy and bottom Ivy program. In other words, the bottom of a D3 conference is farther from the top than in the Ivy leagues, speaking in generalities.

Finally, speaking in generalities, the top recruits at the top programs in the D3 conferences you have listed will likely be on the list for recruiting with many of the Ivy's.  However, they probably would  not be the #1 or top recruit at a position.  That being said, if they end up at the upper 1/2 of the  Ivy programs, they will have a bigger battle for any playing time as a freshman and possibly even a sophomore.  If they "settle" for the top level D3 program, most will probably be battling for playing time immediately.

Re. Claremont-Mudd baseball, for what it's worth, only 2 players on CMS' 2013 roster were Harvey Mudd students, the rest were Claremont McKenna.  Not sure how this relates to athletic "tips" at Mudd, as CMC is also highly selective, but I'm betting the academic workload at Mudd is very, very demanding, making it quite difficult to also play ball.

My son did a visit to CMS and came away saying that he did not think he could compete in school with the rest of the kids at Mudd and do baseball at the same time. Some of this is cultural at Mudd, as he said the kids there thought a fun Friday night was watching Star Trek reruns. Baseball at CMS is mid to low level D3, certainly not national ranking range. He is now taking engineering at a very good school as well as one of the top D3 baseball programs in the country and is doing fine, both in school and on the field. Historically there are 2-4 players per year doing this in his program. In can be done, but it is not easy and you just need to have these discussions during the recruiting and meeting with the coaches. Most academically challenging programs have kids coming and going to labs, etc. At his program at least the coaches just want you to get your work in when you can fit it into your schedule. 

As a side note, my son was recruited by several of the Ivy's, received an offer from one, and decided to go where he is. Infieldad describes it better than I could. 

In 2008 Trinity (NESCAC) won the D3 championship. They went 45-1. Harvard went 10-30. Harvard started 0-20 choosing to play too many major conference teams before conference play. At a BC-Harvard baseball game the following year I was involved as a listener in a "Could Trinity have beaten Harvard?" conversation. I was interested from having a couple of friends with kids playing for Trinity.

As it turned out one of the Harvard dads had played college ball with Coach Decker, then Trinity coach (now Harvard coach). Decker felt with his #1 pitcher Trinity could stay in a game with Harvard. His #1 was drafted in the 28th round and made it to AAA. He had two other kids who played A ball.

My son was recruited by both Ivys and NESCACs schools.  In each conference you'll have successful programs and not successful programs every year.   The player difference I physically saw was team depth...mostly pitching depth in favor of Ivys.  Another difference was the training, practice and overall facilities.  The Ivys seem to hold an edge there too.  One of the NESCAC recruiters told us they lose many recruits to Ivy Likely Letters and Ivy ED applications.  For the Ivy recruits, I believe the opportunity to compete against D1 competition at the beginning of the season is a big lure for them.  In my heart of hearts, I love the way each conference does things and I don't think you can go wrong with either.

Baseball can be a "big hook" or a "little hook" in both Ivy and NESCAC recruiting.  The size of the hook depends on the recruits talent, and some other situational factors.  In my son's case I think his acceptance chances went from 50/50 without baseball at two Ivys to 95/5 with baseball.    The number of slots can vary by school and by year with both Ivy and NESCAC.  Each school has to manage the total number of slots for all it's athletes.