How do I know if I’m a D1 prospect?

In reality, no player will know until he plays in College. The question is, has he prepared for the opportunity.

Preparation includes games with and against older players, studying the history of the game, reading the MLB playbook, observing the "inside" of the game {can he read the bat, the ball and the feet ?].

Questions: Will the College program prepare me for the next level? Is the Coach capable of developing talent?

Who is the "leader" on the Team, the coach or a player? What are the Coach's Summer League contacts?

Bob

@Consultant love this!! You can’t always control the outcome but you can control the process. How hard you work. The competition you play against. How you take care of your body. In our case, it was a slow process of challenging himself against the best local competition, then against the best regional competition until the summer after sophomore year where he started seeing the best national competition. As he kept challenging himself, he realized he was holding his own and that’s when he knew he was a D1 prospect. But the gulf between a D1 prospect and a D1 player is bridged not only by the players present ability to produce (being a prospect is based only on projections) but by opportunity, adaptability  (you could be an amazing 18 year old SS but if they already have an amazing 20 year old SS on the team you may have to adapt or wait your turn), and availability (are you healthy and able to play).

My son's club's recruiting coordinator always says, "You'll start getting recruited when its time to be recruited.  Trust the process.  Our goal is not to get you signed somewhere but to get there prepared to actually stick and play."

Re doing your research …

One day I was in the neighborhood near an academy an hour from our home. I thought twice about stopping in. I felt my son should be the lead conversant in a visit. But I had some suspicions about this organization from general baseball conversations I had with some of their coaches from 13u to 16u. I decided to refer to the visit as an in the neighborhood preview and bring my son later.

On the tour I checked out the alumni wall. I noticed a couple of names of sons I played with the dads. They lived 400+ miles away. One of the dads has been a college coach for years now. The other dad was also one of my best friends as a little kid. Then there were a couple of names I’ll discuss in a bit.

When I told the coach I played with the dads the conversation turned to where he started assuming my son had their sons potential. They both played at Vanderbilt. One was a first round pick. He played eight years in the majors. The other flamed out (injury) in A ball.

When I called each dad they told me this academy approached their sons at another PG event and invited them to represent the team at PG at (then) East Cobb. The only cost would be to get there. The academy threw paying customers under the bus (on the bench) to play non paying invited players.

So you respond I played, was fortunate to recognize these names, know the dads and called them. Wouldn’t seeing the names Justin Upton and BJ Upton on the wall raise a red flag knowing they grew up about 300 miles away?

What I learned was this academy’s reputation was based on bringing in a bunch of ringers for PG GA and PG FL.

This place wasn’t in my son’s top two picks. We never went back despite repeated phone calls. I also warned the parents of the other four players on my 16u team they were after.

@RJM posted:

Re doing your research …

One day I was in the neighborhood near an academy an hour from our home. I thought twice about stopping in. I felt my son should be the lead conversant in a visit. But I had some suspicions about this organization from general baseball conversations I had with some of their coaches from 13u to 16u. I decided to refer to the visit as an in the neighborhood preview and bring my son later.

On the tour I checked out the alumni wall. I noticed a couple of names of sons I played with the dads. They lived 400+ miles away. One of the dads has been a college coach for years now. The other dad was also one of my best friends as a little kid. Then there were a couple of names I’ll discuss in a bit.

When I told the coach I played with the dads the conversation turned to where he started assuming my son had their sons potential. They both played at Vanderbilt. One was a first round pick. He played eight years in the majors. The other flamed out (injury) in A ball.

When I called each dad they told me this academy approached their sons at another PG event and invited them to represent the team at PG at (then) East Cobb. The only cost would be to get there. The academy threw paying customers under the bus (on the bench) to play non paying invited players.

So you respond I played, was fortunate to recognize these names, know the dads and called them. Wouldn’t seeing the names Justin Upton and BJ Upton on the wall raise a red flag knowing they grew up about 300 miles away?

What I learned was this academy’s reputation was based on bringing in a bunch of ringers for PG GA and PG FL.

This place wasn’t in my son’s top two picks. We never went back despite repeated phone calls. I also warned the parents of the other four players on my 16u team they were after.

Name dropping is a .....

@CollegebaseballInsights posted:

Name dropping is a .....

IMO in this case the names add weight to the point RJM is making. So it adds credibility to the story. Anyway, that’s my 2 cents.

During the AC games, the Pro Scouts and College Coaches had a name "showcase gypsies"!!!!

Bob

@adbono posted:

IMO in this case the names add weight to the point RJM is making. So it adds credibility to the story. Anyway, that’s my 2 cents.

I agree.  The point was add whatever noun to the end concerning name dropping. Name dropping has always been in play.

Guest players has been and will always be part of the equation.

How else to you get the others to pay the cost for the top 5% of the organization or charge your 9u - 12u pay $$$ for ....

I call it the Pied Piper syndrome

CBI just brought up another point about getting parents to pony up the bucks. When we had a lot of free time between games for amusement I sometimes would wander over to a preteen travel game. The parents were entertaining because many were insane.

One time I engaged some dads who believed since the 17u A team places their players in D1 all their kids would become D1 players. In the meantime they were paying $300 a month for access and training plus the cost of the travel team and travel.

There used to be someone on this board whose son came through that program. He told me in his son’s class only four kids from the 13u A team survived the program to make the 17u A team. Yet these preteenU dads were convinced their sons were future D1 players just by being in the program.

I feel like if you really have to ask this question.....well then....

Ultimately, I stand by the fact certain metrics make you a D1 player. Whether or not the D1 prospect succeeds is a completely different question worthy of another thread.

opinions are like...wait never mind. You will know when you are one.

@RJM posted:

What about kids who stand out playing up in 16u travel ball being recognized and recruited by 17u programs who typically get kids into D1 programs? I would say this is more of an indicator than playing varsity ball. There are plenty of high school varsity players who will never see D1. What a player does in competitive travel ball is more relevant than high school

I would say competitive 16u travel ball is varsity ball without a handful of older 17u studs. I had five of these 15yo kids who were recruited by 17u programs before ever stepping on a varsity field.

My opinion is being pursued by 17u travel programs due to having a quality 16u season is more relevant than playing varsity ball.

To this point - and going back to mine. I think if you're standing out on the 16u travel scene you're probably already a contributor to your HS team.

As you mentioned, 16u travel is harder than HS varsity (most of the time). If you're regularly going up against upper 80 arms or throwing to bats who can handle high 80s velocity, you would probably work the lesser talent in HS ball.

Odds are if a talented 16u travel player isn't playing varsity there is an older player/returning starter ahead of him or he's was not as physically mature as he needed to be when roster decisions were made. Or they just attend a HS baseball power.

In Texas there are a handful of 6A districts, located in (Dallas, Houston, Austin) baseball hotbeds, where at least the top 2 pitchers are college bound every year.  That means opposing hitters are facing a college level arm every Tuesday & Friday during district play. I’m sure there are similar situations in Florida, Georgia & California. Point being, any position player that stands out in those districts is a good bet to be a successful college player. And that’s especially true if they crack the starting lineup as a sophomore. My son’s first HS Varsity hit as a 16 yr old Soph was off a 95 mph fastball thrown by Kyle Moeller who played AAA in the Atlanta Braves org last year and has a good chance to be on the opening day roster next spring. He saw a guy (somewhat) like that every Tuesday & Friday for 3 years so his HS competition was better than almost every travel ball team they ever faced -except for a few games in Florida & Georgia. Getting accustomed to that kind of pitching early on made the adjustment to college easy for him. The same has held true for other, similar players from those districts. The level of competition that you REGULARLY play against goes a long way in predicting future success.

@PABaseball posted:

To this point - and going back to mine. I think if you're standing out on the 16u travel scene you're probably already a contributor to your HS team.

As you mentioned, 16u travel is harder than HS varsity (most of the time). If you're regularly going up against upper 80 arms or throwing to bats who can handle high 80s velocity, you would probably work the lesser talent in HS ball.

Odds are if a talented 16u travel player isn't playing varsity there is an older player/returning starter ahead of him or he's was not as physically mature as he needed to be when roster decisions were made. Or they just attend a HS baseball power.

Four of these players were in quality, large classification programs where a freshman was very unlikely to make varsity. The fifth, my son played for a rookie varsity coach in a large classification program. He didn’t believe in having freshman on varsity. He had been an assistant at a loaded program where it just didn’t happen.

All five players had chewed up JV ball as freshmen. They were varsity starters and all conference soph year. So, the projecting these 17u programs did recruiting them from 16u ball after their freshman year as fifteen year olds was accurate.

Quick thought: a D1 prospect on March 1, 2020 is not the same as a D1 prospect in March 2021 or March 2022.

We went to a camp at a D1 to support a friend who's son was the assistant volunteer coach. Son was a sophomore in HS. The coach was very encouraging of our son and after the camp asked what other schools he was talking to listing off several D1s. I started laughing and said "honestly, we don't know for sure if he's a D1 or a D3 or has any skill whatsoever."

The coach looked at me like I was crazy and said "he's a D1. We'd like him to play here."

We walked outside and son had to sit down for a minute.

"Mom, I always believed I could do it, but it's the first time someone else believed it too."

It was an amazing moment and feeling.

Ironically, never heard from the school again, the assistant coach became a head coach at a D2 a year later and tried to recruit son.

@Iowamom23 posted:

We went to a camp at a D1 to support a friend who's son was the assistant volunteer coach. Son was a sophomore in HS. The coach was very encouraging of our son and after the camp asked what other schools he was talking to listing off several D1s. I started laughing and said "honestly, we don't know for sure if he's a D1 or a D3 or has any skill whatsoever."

The coach looked at me like I was crazy and said "he's a D1. We'd like him to play here."

We walked outside and son had to sit down for a minute.

"Mom, I always believed I could do it, but it's the first time someone else believed it too."

It was an amazing moment and feeling.

Ironically, never heard from the school again, the assistant coach became a head coach at a D2 a year later and tried to recruit son.

Cool story❤️