NCAA Division III

If you have professional talent, scouts will find you. Just look throught the draft list on baseballamerica.com and you'll see pleny of D2, D3, and NAIA players.

The Houston Astro's first pick in the 2003 draft was Jason Hirsh from DIII Cal Lutheran. Two other players from that team were drafted.

Do not underestimate the effort,dedication, and gratification that it takes to be considered as draftable from a DIII program. There were 12 draftees selected on June 7 and 8 from all of DIII baseball and I am pretty sure that each was a senior. Good scouts will find you but not all scouts will find you. Use the summer wood bat leagues to show both you can compete with wood and that you can compete with those playing DI. It does make a difference.

Take this from one who lives in the heart of great Division III baseball--The Northeast

You get just as much "bang for the buck", in some cases even more, playing Division III baseball as you do playing Division I or II

Most of the top Division III programs can hang with the Division I programs after you get past the elite in Division I

TRhit, I respectfully disagree with you. This is not a knock on DIII programs, but I have had a great deal of experience with many of these programs including ones in our neck of the woods. Very few DIII progams can compete with even the most average DI program. Year in and year out there may be a team or two that will be able to, but there are so many factors with DIII baseball - even at its best - that cannot compare to even a sub par DI program. Just look at the number of games played by some of the teams in your area or the fields or the equipment, etc. True, a good ball player will be found, but there were as many drafted with no school affiliation as those from DIII programs.

TR...gotta lean on Buddy's side on this one. Schools like Marietta, N.C. Wesleyan, Trenton State, Ramapo, Wis-Osh Kosh, etc... get scouted by the pros each year, but for the most part, scouts tend to gravitate to high school or Div. I games if they have nothing on their daily plate.

Been an Astros associate for 11 years. The Astros chose the DIII kid in 2003 because he was exceptional. An exceptional player at a DIII school will attract scouts, but they probably knew about him from the prior summer leagues. Not because they happened upon him at a DIII game.

I think people get so caught up with "exposure" that they forget how much of a science scouting is nowadays. Most scouts have their schedule planned out a week or two in advance. They and the clubs they represent really do the ol' homework. If someone can play, no matter where they are going to college, the scouts will be out to see them. I would imagine that most scouts at DIII games are associates like me. The territorial boss asks them to take a look at a team and report back if they see anything interesting that would warrant another look. I think players and parents look for scouts, and if they don't see a radar gun or team gear, they assume they aren't there. My boss tells me to simply blend in with the crowd, and take in the game like an average fan. As soon as you are recognized as a scout, you can't do your job effectively. People want to talk to you, distract you, ask questions...not a good way to evaluate talent on the field.

Thanks, Larry. I'd like to add a little more on this subject. Larry is right about getting caught up with the exposure issue. With budget cuts and scouts spread thin, you're not going to find scouts watching Colby playing Bowdoin in Maine. Take a look at Johns Hopkins - 40 and 4 this year and rated in the top 10 among DIII schools all year. For the first time in five years they had a player drafted - somewhere around 600. The last draftee in '99 was picked past the 30th round if I recall. Now this is a top level DIII team that gets exposure. Nevertheless I can name a dozen high school teams that had more players drafted this year than Hopkins has in the past decade. Again, Hopkins plays great ball, but everything is relative. The best DIII teams can compete consistently with the nation's top high school teams, but regretably will not get the same exposure.

BuddyBaseball

Maybe Colby and Bowdoin did get a look this year since Mark Rogers was right around the corner.........

BUDDY

I do not undertstand your bias--- have you or your son been burned? Seems to be a bit of a narrowminded stance from a "coach"--may I ask at what level you coach?

I also do not agree with thinking-- your analogy is a bit off base-- HS vs Division III -- in this region the Division III schools get way more exposure than the high schools--

As for fields etc-- let me ask you this--have you seen the D-III facilcities here in the Northeast?

For once, I am going to agree with TR to some degree and I'll throw southern maine, Eastern Connecticut, or a good brandeis team against half the D1 teams in the country.

When most people think of D1 baseball, all they think about is Miami, Fullerton, Texas, or LSU, but they don't realize that many small D1 schools that field baseball programs are not much different than very competetive D3 baseball programs. After the top teams in the country, division means very little in baseball and baseball success is more linked to past success of the program which always brings in good recruits year after year and southern maine is a great example of that, and the location of the school...

Larry and Buddy,
I think both of you are way off base here. If the quality of the play at a certain NCAA level were measured by the "draft" then all of Division II must be suspect since the DII player of the year was not drafted this year. I think the fallacy of that approach is obvious. The point TR made is that the high quality DIII programs can compete very well with midlevel and below DI's and I think the point is valid. You won't find many DI programs wanting to test the theory for obvious reasons. This year, DePauw, a better than average DIII played Indiana very competitively before losing 6-3 in an early season game for both. DIII players who are chosen compete very well in summer wood bat leagues. So there are DIII players who are DI in their skills and there are DIII programs at the high quality end which are competitive in the mid to lower DI levels.
Finally, Larry, you will find numerous area scouts, not associates, attending DIII games at least in Texas where there are several strong programs. I know of one game where 10 area scouts and one crosschecker were present. But again, that does not reflect the overall quality of play. They were there to see a small number of players. BTW, the Cal. Lutheran team which had Hirsh selected by the Astros in the 2nd round also had 2 other players selected in the draft. I am not aware of Hirsh, or this year Scott Hyde, playing summer ball.

Interesting topic. I tend to agree with TR to a point. The starting 9 at top DIII programs may be able to compete with mid to low echelon DI teams. But I suspect that depth would come into play after the opening game and things might not go so well after that. On the opposite end of the spectrum, last fall our high school team played one of the DIII teams from Boston and crushed them. Our high school team was decimated from graduation too.

My experience is with both DIII and DI programs. The latter has been with programs in the top ten conferences (as ranked by Baseball America) and the middle level conference programs (15-20). This year Baseball America rated the Patriot League as the bottom wrung of DI programs. Show me a DIII program that can compare competively with talent as well as facilities, coaching staffs (that's plural), equipment, sponsorships, etc. with Lafayette, Navy, Army, Bucknell etc. all of the Patriot League.

Eastern Ct, Trinity (except for the facility)in Ct. NJ, well just about all of the schools. Cortland,Wheaton, So. Maine to name a few off the top of my head.

I think Holden has it right.
It is about depth, isn't it?
Every level has a stud or two or three...
The majority of higher level teams just
have more of them across the board.

The biggest difference I see in the different divisions is the number of quality pitchers that are in DIII vs. DI. Also in DIII you do not run across many LH pitchers or at least LH pitchers who have any velocity. I would say that a good DIII club that threw their ace could compete with any of the mid level DI's if the DI's were to throw their mid week guy.

There are mnay reasons kids choose to go to DIII, for some it is academic , for some it is because of size, etc. The only thing I can tell you is last weekend I seen a DIII player hit two grandslams off of a DI pitcher .

I really don't understand the premise of this topic.
If the criteria for selecting a school is exposure to pro scouts and an opportunity to get drafted, then D3 schools at any level would not be the optimum choice.
However, if getting an opportunity to play and continue to develop and at the same time get a top notch education is a criteria, the D3 schools are the best fit for more kids than you think.
Around these parts, if I'm trying to seek attention from pro scouts I'm playing JUCO ball..

Army, Navy, Layfayette, and Bucknell have really good D3 baseball players on their teams...

ghouse; not bad

TRhit - coached at DIII (8 years; head coach -5 years); DII (head coach 3 years); and DI (17 years - three schools - last four years as assistant head coach) now retired and watching my nephew play.

ghouse

They also have a load of pretty good Division I players

By the way Rollins did well this year didn't they ?--how was it the Boston paper article did not include that part of your career ?-- as well as the golf part of your life

Interesting--


buddyball

thanx--

rt

do you really believe that?

BuddyBall....

I would love to hear about your years coaching and how you moved from one level to the other.
Did you work your way up from D3, or did you find yourself in the right place at the right time etc...

If you feel like sharing.....

TR; Sure, if the Patriot is considered at the bottom of D1 and everyone is equating mid to low D1 to good D3, the Patriot players would be good D3 players. I don't think it was a negative shot at the Patriot talent but a comparison. Which is a big topic here. I am not as experienced as most of you in comparing the grade of talent between divisions, but I know kids locally who are successful in all 3 divisions, and there is not a difference in talent. There is a difference in the level of intensity, games played,media noteriety(the d1,2,3 mystique) etc. What Ghouse said was a spin.

Chill - I didn't move up in progression. Like many coaches, it was a circuitous route. I played in college and when I got out was a high school government teacher. I worked as a walk-on coach at a local DII school. After a year my wife had a job change and we moved to another state. I got another teaching job and after a year off picked up another walk-on job at a local DIII school. I stayed for three years. By this time my wife had quit work as we had three very young children. As luck would have it, I was hired back as a head coach at the first DII school I worked at after college. I stayed three years and was offered a great job at a DIII school across the state which came with a tenured faculty position. I stayed five years in this position and then moved to the DI level where I worked at three different schools in 17 seasons. I never made it to the world series (as a coach), but was part of 7 league championships.

Well, TR, I wrote a 310 page book on recruiting and college selection, so you can only get so much in one small Globe article.

We smoked Army and Navy in College, and I know players who play and played for Lafayette and Bucknell, and no disprespect to them, but they weren't that great. I have also seen a lot of Tufts and Brandeis games and a few southern maine games, and most of the starters on those teams could surely play for any of those 4 other schools, if we are talking pure baseball talent.

I'd like to make a point here. It seems that the rationale which is a common thread in all these posts regarding DIII baseball is the academics. This has been ingrained by the coaches at DIII schools as a recruiting ploy. "Better academics" at the DIII level is nonsense. Academics at the DIII level is as varied as it is at DII or DIII. Yes, there are some fine academic institutions at the DIII level, but there are some where a heartbeat is more than enough to be admissable. When you are forced to file for need based financial aid, pray for an academic scholarship or simply pay to play, a coach has to come up with some sort of recruiting gimmick. "Better academics" works, but it is not universal and is probably no more prevalent at DIII institutions than at DI institutions.

You're right. I was speaking of the top academic D3 programs, sorry. And really, I guess that I am including the Ivy League which is D1 but which is similar in its emphasis on academics, although from what I have read (not what I know from personal experience), the balance is better at D3 even than at the Ivies but I may be wrong about that. Again, I'm not saying this from a prideful place, nor being defensive about D3s, because my son made a different choice.

My brother was recruited by various Div. I and Div III programs in the NE. He ended up getting early "offers" from Tufts, Trinity, an Lafayette. After he committed to Tufts by applying early, he got more heavy interest from UVM, URI, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, and Bucknell. He chose Tufts because he saw an opportunity to pitch right away. He was the #2 pitcher(3rd overall ERA in the NESCAC) and the #1 just signed with the Red Sox.

I was with him for alot of the recruiting process. When he saw the facilities at Emory, he was much more impressed than when he saw the facilities at Davidson. When he saw the level of play at Trinity, he was much more impressed than what he saw at Lafayette. Take out Princeton, and the Ivy League is not much better than the top Div. III programs. Take a look at Bryant and UMass-Dartmouth and you'll see teams that are veyr competetive with URI and UMass.

Buddy, I don't know when you coached, but to suggest that high level Div. III programs aren't as strong as mid/low level Div. I programs is somewhat innacurate. There are plenty of players at good Div. III programs that can play anywhere. Trinity has 3 kids in the NECBL this summer. Amherst and Williams each have a player. Bowdoin ahs 2 players and a 3rd who will probably end up there after his stint on the Cape is over. The depth factor makes DIv. II/III programs weaker than Div I, but the top players will get noticed by scouts. Tufts and Trinity have had multiple kids drafted or signed in the past few years, and not all have been pitchers.

so, to answer the original question, if you want to get exposure, the only way to do it is if you play at a big time level. If you do it at the Div. II/III level, you will still get exposure...just not as much as at the Div. I level.

oops, I meant UMass-Lowell...not Dartmouth

Massfan, my comments were not absolutes. However, I do feel that even the stronger DIII programs overall cannot compare to the mid to lower DI programs. This is my opinion and there are exceptions of course. Sure there are plenty of DIII players playing collegiate ball. However, if you look at the rosters, you'll notice they are in the minority. It's a lot easier to place a player from a DI school on a collegiate team than a DIII player - that's just the nature of the beast. From my experience it's rare to find a player who is serious about baseball that will settle for a DIII school over a DI school. The exceptions are the mature player who knows baseball is not in his future and wants to major in a specific area that the DIII offers or the player who wants to be close to home. It doesn't matter (and I don't disagree with you) that there might be a DIII program out there that can whip the Lafayettes or the Pacifics on the west coast, for whatever reason, DI is a label and it is often the choice for no other reason than it is DI.

Buddy,
We'll just have to disagree. Ask an in-the-know Northeasterner about the quality of play at Hartford, Fairfield, Fordham, Lafayette, Cornell, and Iona, and he will most likely call it extremely similar to the quality of play at Trinity, Cortland, Ithaca, Eastern. CT., So. Maine, and Hopkins.

Or think of it this way. An intelligent high school kid can choose between Georgetown and Emory(or in my bro's case, Tufts and Lafayette). On one hand, he can play for a Div. I team in the 8th best conference in the country. On the other hand, he can compete for a national championship. You mention the fact that only a mature young man will make the decision to forgo weak Div I for strong Div III. This would explain why JHU, Emory, Trinity U.(TX), and Trinity C.(Conn) always have top 25 Div. III baseball programs. I would guess that they attract very mature, intelligent high school kids that not only want to play college ball but want to play alot for a winning team.

massfan; I'm rapidly becoming a "massfan fan",although I admit to my bias. My son is the closer for Trinity and is having the baseball time of his life. His decision to attend a NE D3 school over all other opportunities was the best he has made. I say that because he is truley happy there and does not look back. Upon seeing the schools they compete against I get the feeling that all these kids are having the same experience. By the way, the 3 game series they had in Medford this spring was great baseball.

I know that there are plenty of kids who chose D3, not because they thought baseball was not in their future, but because they liked the school better than a comparable D1, or the school offered a better education, or because they decided to hedge their bets by going to the best academic school they could find while still trying for the next level in baseball.

I agree with massfan.

RT- I know your son. Remember him well. Closed the door in 2 of those games. My brotrher pitched game 2 of that series. Didn't have his best stuff but he went 6 without giving up an earned run. If the boys could have gotten any runs for him, it would've been a big win for him. But those were 3 great games.

I believe your son is in the NECBL this summer, right? My brother is hoping to get there next year. He is currently on the Lexington Blue Sox in the innercity league but is experiencing arm problems for the first time in his life. He loved his visit to Trinity and is pretty friendly with Rappaport from their College Select days. He just saw the chance for more innings (and a pretty good education) at Tufts. He'll be their ace next year now that Newsome is gone.

...thanks Buddy...

massfan; Both Simon and Rappaport should have great college careers. They both have tremendous talent and will certainly get better.
Greg was supposed to play with Manchester, then someone pulled the plug on it. Then he and Rappaport were going to the ACBL,again it was pulled at the last minute.He is having the identical experience as Ben this summer, except in the Hartford Twilight League. At least he is making good money working.

To address the specific question presented of exposure you can get at a D-3, I think one of the factors that I haven't seen mentioned in other posts is the location of the school and its accessibility and ability/willingness of scouts to get there.

My son will be attending a D-3 school in Southern California. Almost all their games are in the SoCal area and we've been to several games of his school and its conference (SCIAC)and there have always been scouts in attendance. We've talked to a few who assure us they regularly follow this conference.

Attendance in general at these D-3 games is often the equal of many of the D-1 schools in SoCal and schools in the SCIAC routinely have players drafted, especially pitchers since, after all, the mound is the same distance from homeplate in every division.

The SCIAC saw a lot of action from scouts in the '03 season due to Pomona-Pitzer's, Jose Cortez (drafted by the Phillies). My nephew briefly looked at a few SCIAC teams and I went to one game with him - I don't think there were more than 50 in the stands. Are they really drawing the crowds now?

There's been a lot of chatter about DI v. DIII, but there are some intangibles that have been overlooked. My '03 son went back and forth regarding his college choice debating between a good academic DIII in the SCIAC and a east coast DI school. He chose the latter and his teammate from high school went the DIII route. Both were outstanding HS players and students. My son's teammate tore up the league in his freshman year - played every game and won all kinds of honors. My son played a third of the total innings mostly as a defensive replacement. He had no trouble finding a collegiate summer ball team to play on - his coach simply passed his name on and he was selected largely because he plays in a good DI league His friend was unable to find a summer league. I can't say it was because he played in a less visible baseball division, but I think it had a part of it. Most importantly, my son enjoyed playing in a stadium in front of a minimum 1000 people a game (one game on the road he played before 7500 fans); he saw parts of the country he would never have seen had he stayed home and played DIII; all his games were broadcast either on radio or tv or both, etc., etc. These are some intangibles that can make a difference. And lastly as he joked to his high school friend recently - he doesn't have to wash his own uniform!