D3 Questions....

@adbono posted:

This is a great post.  I think the single biggest problem in recruiting (at all levels) isn’t the fact that coaches are disingenuous.  IMO the problem is on the other end. Too many players and parents don’t get a good read on the situation. They (players & parents) tend to not be realistic about their level of talent and think they are bringing more value to the table than they actually are. Some also think they can negotiate their way into a college lineup. When reality hits them between the eyes the default position is to blame the coach. I’m not saying some coaches don’t stretch the truth.  They do. I’m not saying RCs won’t tell you what you want to hear. They will.  I’m saying it’s your job as parent and player to take off your rose colored glasses, make an accurate assessment of your sons ability, and get a good read on how he fits into any prospective program. When all that is done properly better decisions tend to be made and things tend to work out better. 

It’s hard for some players and their parents to be “the man” in high school and grasp every recruit to a college program is likely to be just as good. I tell players and their parents getting an offer is just the beginning of the battle. Players have to grasp the difference from being “the man”  in high school and their talent relative to the region or nationally. I saw a lot of kids not return to their dream school soph year. But the feeling sure was great when they got the offer. What does it matter if the high turns sour? 

Once on campus the game if musical chairs starts with roster spots and playing time. If the kid read the situation wrong during recruiting the coach doesn’t suffer. The player and parents can blame the coach. But the coach doesn’t suffer. It’s the player who’s left without a chair and is eliminated from the game. So blame the coach. He doesn’t care. He’s already forgotten who you are.

Bottom line:

Be prepared whenever you get where ever. Expect it to be tough and competitive. Expect the coach to be tough. Nothing is or should be guaranteed.

Reality though is NO program needs 40+ players in any way shape or form. Coaches cannot practice, evaluate, improve, and build players when there are more players than time in the day.

And there is simply not enough time in the day to work in more than 40 players. There's not enough field space, not enough mounds, not enough cages, not enough assistants, not enough lockers, etc.

@LuckyCat posted:

This gives me pause.  I know it's good advice.  My son has had some positive and negative vibes from some of the coaches recruiting him.  In normal times, I think he would get more information with a campus visit, but those aren't likely to happen now.  As a result, I think his decision may turn in part on those initial vibes.  I've been trying to help him get additional information about the coaches, especially from current and former players, to "cross-check" his impressions so he doesn't regret his decision later.

If you can find them, another useful cross-check is talking to players and ex-players from other teams in the conference.  They will often  know what players at the target school _really_ think of the coach and program, not just when they tell the prospies.  They will also have their own opinions of which teams play the game right and which do not, which coaches are solid and which are d!cks, etc.

I'm not defending coaches doing stuff like that but they also have tremendous pressure and need to win or they lose their job.

It is easy to say coach should focus more on player health (not ride ace too hard), development of back of the roster and so on and that is probably true but if you are not winning doing that won't make you keep your job.

Everyone has an opinion on a coach and thinks he is better but in the end w l record is the judge and a coach who needs to win now likely won't focus that much on the 25-35 ranked kids on the roster.

Some probably still do and that is great but in the end the quality of your 25th ranked player is probably not the deciding factor on whether you are going to win.

Of course for the players and parents those last roster spot decisions are huge but for the coach those are pretty marginal decisions.

To illustrate that here is an mlb example: the 2019 champion nats 25th player by WAR was worth 0.2 war, the 26th 0.1. 

So this last roster spot is a 10th of a win decision so it essentially doesn't matter while for the players and parents it makes a huge difference.

For the coach the top and middle of roster (say top15-18) is really much more important, the last spots are just depth to ensure you have a somewhat competent player in case of emergency.

@BishopLeftiesDad posted:

The biggest thing a player needs to understand is his capablity to actually play at the school. We talked to several people familiar with the program, and familiar with my son. They all confirmed that he had the abilty to start there early. 

 

One of the popular mantras you hear on HSBBWEB is "Go where you are loved." If that is 1A, perhaps what @BishopLeftiesDad alluded to above and "Smoke" earlier in the thread is 1B- make sure you are fishing in the "right pond." Get to a game if possible that involves teams of interest (if Covid allows). You will learn a great deal.

@Ripken Fan posted:

One of the popular mantras you hear on HSBBWEB is "Go where you are loved." If that is 1A, perhaps what @BishopLeftiesDad alluded to above and "Smoke" earlier in the thread is 1B- make sure you are fishing in the "right pond." Get to a game if possible that involves teams of interest (if Covid allows). You will learn a great deal.

As a substitute, given the Covid situation, my son looks for game video on You Tube and the like and watches it to make sure he is as good as (or better than) what he's seeing there.

Great contributions here this morning.  I don’t mind the deviations from the original questions.  In many ways the deviations were even  more informative and helpful than the initial responses, which were also very much appreciated!

There are other schools in the same D3 conference that have expressed interest in my son this summer.  The top dog in the conference that competes for National Championships most years called him in April, but seem to have since moved on.  We get the impression that they are filling their roster with D1 drop downs, especially in these times.  

This particular school I wrote about in the 1st post, is definitely showing the most interest though.  My Kid feels very confident that he can hit well in this conference, especially with another year of development.   He thinks he can hit D1 pitching, but we recognized that he wasn’t going to get on the field due to lack of foot speed.   We attended a few Big Ten games in 2019 and sat in the 2nd Row behind the backstop, and it was very clear that every player on the field could flat out fly, except for a couple of players who were built like NFL linebackers.   That was a good dose of of eye opening reality for my son.

Another D3 school from the same conference just texted him to say they are still interested, and want him to come visit campus next month.   He thought maybe they had lost interest after he went 0 for 4 with them watching a few weeks ago.  I knew that game wouldn’t be a deal breaker because he had great body language, played some strong defense, and came back the next day hitting line drives again.  

@Ripken Fan posted:

One of the popular mantras you hear on HSBBWEB is "Go where you are loved." If that is 1A, perhaps what @BishopLeftiesDad alluded to above and "Smoke" earlier in the thread is 1B- make sure you are fishing in the "right pond." Get to a game if possible that involves teams of interest (if Covid allows). You will learn a great deal.

I went to games and asked questions. Ask a parent how their kid got there, what were the other options and shut up. By the time the parent stops talking it’s two or three innings later. They will tell you the process, how he was treated in the process and how the decision was made. Then they will proceed on to his current situation in college ball. 

@3and2Fastball posted:

Another D3 school from the same conference just texted him to say they are still interested, and want him to come visit campus next month.   He thought maybe they had lost interest after he went 0 for 4 with them watching a few weeks ago.  I knew that game wouldn’t be a deal breaker because he had great body language, played some strong defense, and came back the next day hitting line drives again.  

 

I knew, from being here on the HSBBW, that if a school is really interested, they want to see you fail.  Because Lord knows there will be failure on multiple days in college ball.  They want to see how you handle it.  Would it have been better if he went 3 for 4 with 2 HR’s?  Of course!  But you gotta just keep on rolling...

 

Anyways that was a “real life” example that played out exactly how so many of you have stated here, for years.  I’m very appreciative of this place.

3and2, you and I have been having the same conversations with our sons!

ETA: I think he has to resist the urge to roll his eyes whenever I say "The parents at high school baseball web say . . . ." now!

@3and2Fastball posted:

Great contributions here this morning.  I don’t mind the deviations from the original questions.  In many ways the deviations were even  more informative and helpful than the initial responses, which were also very much appreciated!

There are other schools in the same D3 conference that have expressed interest in my son this summer.  The top dog in the conference that competes for National Championships most years called him in April, but seem to have since moved on.  We get the impression that they are filling their roster with D1 drop downs, especially in these times.  

This particular school I wrote about in the 1st post, is definitely showing the most interest though.  My Kid feels very confident that he can hit well in this conference, especially with another year of development.   He thinks he can hit D1 pitching, but we recognized that he wasn’t going to get on the field due to lack of foot speed.   We attended a few Big Ten games in 2019 and sat in the 2nd Row behind the backstop, and it was very clear that every player on the field could flat out fly, except for a couple of players who were built like NFL linebackers.   That was a good dose of of eye opening reality for my son.

It is very impertant to go to games if possible. And sit as close as possible. You want to understand teh size of the players. When my son was attending these games you could see the size of some of these players. That hit us especially at the higher levels. IF you can get close to the field, you can tell many of these players are MEN. You can usually identify the freshman. It gives you a clue about how much work it takes outside of just Baseball to get where y ou need to be for that program. 

Now at D3 not such an issue. They are still Men but tend to be smaller. 

Thanks

@3and2Fastball posted:

He thought maybe they had lost interest after he went 0 for 4 with them watching a few weeks ago.  I knew that game wouldn’t be a deal breaker because he had great body language, played some strong defense, and came back the next day hitting line drives again.  

My son was playing in a HS Conference semifinal at the field of one of the colleges who was recruiting him. (Son obviously knew coaching staff would be present). He had a nice 2-strike hit over second, played a solid D, but struck out in a key situation and popped up a bunt attempt to move a runner in the extra inning loss. That night he gets an email from the RC telling him how he can definitely play at their level, would fit right in and how impressed he was especially how fast he got down the line. RipkenFanSon shows me the email and says to me, "Was he at the same game?"

College & Pro Scouts and coaches see so much more than the typical parents, or high school players do.   

The head of my son’s travel program played in AAA ball, won a National Championship in college and is highly regarded as a talent evaluator.   I remember asking him about a couple different teenage pitchers, a few years ago and asked him why he rated one higher than the other.   I was thinking he was going to talk about mph, or the movement in secondary pitches, or maybe work ethic.

He said he liked the one kid more because he had more looseness in his shoulder, and a longer neck.

Hmmmm, OK then (staying in my lane)

@BishopLeftiesDad posted:

It is very impertant to go to games if possible. And sit as close as possible. You want to understand teh size of the players. 

 

Here in Georgia, a lot of the high school players look like men!

@3and2Fastball posted:

College & Pro Scouts and coaches see so much more than the typical parents, or high school players do.   

The head of my son’s travel program played in AAA ball, won a National Championship in college and is highly regarded as a talent evaluator.   I remember asking him about a couple different teenage pitchers, a few years ago and asked him why he rated one higher than the other.   I was thinking he was going to talk about mph, or the movement in secondary pitches, or maybe work ethic.

He said he liked the one kid more because he had more looseness in his shoulder, and a longer neck.

Hmmmm, OK then (staying in my lane)

That's hilarious.  I asked the same kind of thing of my kids' travel coach who pitched at  Cal and was pitching coach at UHawaii for a long time.  No pro experience but very well connected and trusted by families and people in the game.  Told me he like this one kid because of the way his shoulders slouched forward about 3/8 of an inch.  OK, then.

@Ripken Fan posted:

My son was playing in a HS Conference semifinal at the field of one of the colleges who was recruiting him. (Son obviously knew coaching staff would be present). He had a nice 2-strike hit over second, played a solid D, but struck out in a key situation and popped up a bunt attempt to move a runner in the extra inning loss. That night he gets an email from the RC telling him how he can definitely play at their level, would fit right in and how impressed he was especially how fast he got down the line. RipkenFanSon shows me the email and says to me, "Was he at the same game?"

Obviously, by now, he knows he was.  

@smokeminside posted:

That's hilarious.  I asked the same kind of thing of my kids' travel coach who pitched at  Cal and was pitching coach at UHawaii for a long time.  No pro experience but very well connected and trusted by families and people in the game.  Told me he like this one kid because of the way his shoulders slouched forward about 3/8 of an inch.  OK, then.

The Rose goes in the front, big guy! 

AD, we coulda used that quote In the elephant thread. Might have calmed things down a bit. 

This one, from the same film, might have helped, too. Not as funny but, given the times, certainly is poignant. 

”Walt Whitman once said, ‘I see great things in baseball. It’s our game. The American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us.’

I was talking to a local HS boy's father the other day. I had pointed him to this site awhile ago. He told me that his son followed and reached out to all the players listed on the rosters for the 4 schools he was talking to on twitter. He told me he was amazed at how many players responded and were willing to talk about the programs except for one program where no one responded (could be a red flag). Some information he received was good, and some not so good. Just another option to get more info.