Numbers and travel ball

I'm hoping you already know the answer as I would be interested to hear it.

My guess? 95% of college players played travel ball.

Not asking how many college baseball players play travel ball, but what % of 17-18 year old players playing travel ball go on to play college baseball.

How the heck are we supposed to know the answer to this question?

I would say less than 10%.

Okay, I take back my smart aleck answer now that I've thought about this a little bit.

I don't know if I'd go down to 10% but I'm sure it's much less than 50%.

This is simply because of most sports being seasonal, for many kids, baseball is what you do in the summer, football in the fall and basketball in the spring. However, only one of those (if even one) will be a kid's main sport, the one he will work on hard enough to play in college.

My son would be in that 10-whatever% as baseball is a spring, summer and fall sport. At least I hope he gets the opportunity to play after HS.

For 17-18 year olds...and if you take into account JuCo, D3, NAIA, NAIA D2, The Christian College association...
...I'd dare say it's close to 65%.

I don't know if you're only asking about baseball at 4-year colleges, or college ball in general, including juco ball.

If you take all levels of college ball into consideration, I'd think the number will be fairly high, perhaps above 50% for most teams. I can't speak for other programs, but here are the numbers of our players each of the last two seasons, and this coming summer.

2006 team. 23 graduated seniors/rising freshmen. 9 went to D1 teams, and 9 went to juco teams. 1 went to the Red Sox. 19 of 23 moved on. 3 of the 23 were drafted in MLB draft; 1 signed and two went to juco ball.

2007 team 17 graduated seniors/rising freshmen. 8 went to D1 teams, and 7 are went to juco teams. 15 of 17 total moved on. 3 were drafted in MLB draft, 1 signed, 1 went to a juco and 1 went to a Big West team.

2008 team. Smaller number of graduated seniors this coming summer, we'll be a young team. I expect that we'll have only 10 rising college freshmen this year. 5 already have baseball scholarships with D1 teams for next year. I expect every single one of the oher 5 to play juco, if they don't get a late D1 or D2 deal. Unlikely that any will be drafted this year. Interestingly, 3 of our '09s, currently juniors, have already committed to Pac-10 teams a year ahead of schedule.

I know that not every team is alike. Some probably have higher percentages of their kids move on, and many probably have lower percentages. I just offer our statistics to help answer the question. There are some other programs in our region (northern Calfornia) that have similar experience and results with the kids who play with them, and also move on to play at the next level.

I dont know about other programs but I have some numbers on the team my son played on the last two years.

Every player is playing college baseball and every 08 has signed to play.

It would depend on the program the player played in. If its a top level program it would be high because they attract the better players.

quote:

Originally posted by Coach May:
It would depend on the program the player played in. If its a top level program it would be high because they attract the better players.

That's true Coach, I can picture my son's current program where probably 90% or better are on their way to college next fall.

Then there's our local program where the number is probably only 20-25%.

Maybe we do need to find some national, across-the-board statistics for this.

Is it a guessing game? My guess, based on absolutely no data, is 20%.

Coach, if you have tracked down this statistic, I am anxious to see it.

The Central Florida Renegades has had 100 percent of our players in the last seven years get college scholarships or sign with an Ivy League program (they do not offer college scholarships). We have had several players sign professionally and not use the scholarships, but they all had scholarships.

We are the only team in Florida that can support the above claim.

To answer the overall question I'd say less than 5% of players playing travel ball get college scholarships. That number goes up dramatically if the travel team is an East Cobb, NorCal, Bayside Yankees, Florida Legends type of program.

My reasoning is that there are a lot of teams that call themselves travel ball teams that are more recreational type programs or Daddy Ball teams. In Florida we have a lot of Daddy Ball squads where most of the players (except the coaches son) do not get the exposure they need in front of the college scouts.

The Central Florida Renegades website is: www.centralfloridarenegades.com

quote:

It would depend on the program the player played in. If its a top level program it would be high because they attract the better players.

I would agree with this statement. I would say for the teams that hit the Perfect Game circuit, such as, East Cobb and Jupiter, that they would be in the 90% or higher range. I think there are lots of travel ball teams out there, however, that are made up of Coach Dad's kids and friends of friends kids.

Don't have any idea to the overall percentages, but the highest level "travel" teams would be 90% to 100%. In some cases its 90% or more going on to "DI" schools to play.

Someone needs to figure out who the top 200 or so travel teams are (wait! we already do that to a certain extent) Then those teams are in the top category. The rest will obviously be a "much" smaller percentage. Guess its possible, if not probable, that some are at 0%. We just don't see any of those teams and for the most part neither do college recruiters.

If the goal is getting colleges to see you and you never see any college coaches at your games or tournaments... You probably won't accomplish much and you selected the wrong team. If your goal is to simply have fun playing then most any team will be fine.

There's a very good reason why certain teams get the best players nearly every year. East Cobb, Houston Heat, DBat, NorCal, ABD, Dulins Dodgers, Chet Lemon Juice, Dirtbags, Richmond Braves, Midland, Ohio Warhawks, and many many others have a roster full of potential draft picks and DI players. (sorry don't have time to name them all) If you can't play on those teams, your coach should try to play against them. Let them be the drawing card, who cares as long as the scouts and college recruiters are there.

PG should already have the numbers from the WWBA 18 U and WWBA 17 U tournaments at East Cobb Over 100 travel teams play at it, what % of those players on the travel teams rosters go on to play college ball?

East Cobb Baseball has 11 (17-18 Yr old travel teams)

Define travel ball.

PGStaff,

Can you point me in the right direction for any PA/NJ clubs at the same level of teams you mentioned?

Thanks

I'm surprised the TeamFloridaUSA (TFUSA) is left out as one of the top teams in the country. I would have thought their roster was 100% future college player but I seldom see their name mentioned.
Fungo

Fungo,

You are right about Team Florida USA, but they no longer exist to my knowledge. However, All American Prospects (FL) pretty much does the same thing now and I'm guessing they are close to, if not, 100% DI or draft.

Did I read that correctly?
East Cobb has 11 (17-18) teams?

Would love to see the percentage from that 11 teams that go on to play college ball.

Why is it always Division I or pro?

What happened to the Division II, III , NAIA and JUCO players?---do they not count any more?

I don't know if this would help or not, or who would compile it, but perhaps it would help people is somebody would care to compile a regional list of the more highly regarded teams. Doing it for the country as a whole is very cumbersome, and if you live in Texas, you might not care who the best California teams are, and vice versa.

Eventually, if you have some acknowlegement of the top team from each region of the country, you'd have a national list. I can imagine that Florida might have a north and south list, California too. Most other areas could probably have a single list per state, or group of states. It's not difficult to figure out which states generally produce the best teams, so you could start there and then progress to lesser states after that. I'd imagine that most lists wouldn't be all that long, as there aren't that many top caliber teams in any individual state, unless you're talking about a few states like Florida, California, Texas, Georgia and a few others.

Just an idea, don't know if it'd help enough people to be worthwhile. I know Perfect Game did something along these lines in 2006. They came up with their list of the top 25 18u teams in the country. I don't know if this would help people or not, as most of the top teams don't really have much room to bring on new players they aren't already familiar with anyway.

TR, I completely agree with you. There aren't that many 4-year schools out our way that are D2, and almost none at d3; but what's here is pretty darned good. Chico State is D2, and one of the better baseball teams in the country. Lots of good NAIA teams in Southern California and the jr. college ball out our way is very highly regarded. I'm sure there are plenty of high quality D3 schools out where you live, and why more people don't focus on them, I don't know. Out here, it's mostly D1 or juco ball, but there's a little bit of other opportunity also.

TR,

Its not just about DI, but my point was to reply to Fungo's post. At the very highest level of "travel" baseball, the players are usually recruited by the highest level (DI).

The people who run those programs sort those things out ahead of time in most cases. It is very important to them that their players move on to the next level.

That said there is a very high percentage of players from many travel teams that go on to play in college at some level. DI, DII, DIII, NAIA, JC, etc. There are even more "travel" teams that have very few players, if any, who go on to play college ball.

In other words there is a gigantic difference between travel teams. Some who call themselves "travel" teams, don't really travel much.

batdad,

There are several very good teams from the northeast. It wouldn't be fair for me to single out any on here. Probably forget one of the better ones.

I suggest you go to the www.worldwoodbat.com and check out the WWBA and BCS tournaments held in 2007 or 2006. Most of the top teams from the NE will be listed. Also might want to check The WWBA Fall Championship held in Jupiter in October.

06catcherdad,
There are some pretty good D3 schools in California also, although they probably aren't as prevalent as in some other parts of the country.

quote:

In other words there is a gigantic difference between travel teams. Some who call themselves "travel" teams, don't really travel much.

I look at travel more in terms of a quality of ball rather than a distance traveled. This view makes many "travel" teams pretenders.

quote:

I look at travel more in terms of a quality of ball rather than a distance traveled. This view makes many "travel" teams pretenders.

Not saying you're wrong, but would like to give you a few more years and see if you still believe that. Obviously, that method of staying home has worked for some.

Distance traveled probably is not very important in states like Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, etc. After all, that is where most of the big events are held. However, the best teams from those states still travel a lot. If your not from those areas and are looking for the most opportunity, you would need them to come to you. In most cases that will not happen if all the other teams are from one area!

How do we know the "quality" until we compete against the best? My opinion of quality might be different than someone elses. There are teams who travel the country trying to play the best nearly every week of the summer. Staying near home isn't always very productive in many parts of the country. Even if the quality is good.

There have been many excellent players from California play in the east during the summer and end up signing with Eastern schools. Also, vice versa, players from the East signing with colleges in California.

This probably isn't as important at 14 U or even 15 U, but at 16 it starts to become more important to go beyond your geographical area.

BTW, we don’t see very many “pretenders” at the top tournaments. If that happens we won't see them the next year.

There are maybe 4 or 5 travel teams around Orlando with maybe 25 players each, representing maybe 100 schools with 8-10 juniors/senior each. Maybe around 10% are playing top level travel ball, which corresponds with an overall percentage of kids going on to play aftyer high school.

The teams that pick the top players will have a much greater percentage of players move on to play in college. The teams that dont will not. There are more and more travel teams or showcase teams whatever you want to call them popping up. My sons showcase program has never had a player play for them not go on to play in college. But the reason is they pick the top players from the state and some from VA SC and MD.

If you look at the top programs from across the nation such as the ones PG listed I would be willing to bet is in the high high 90% range. If you took all the teams playing this would drop the % greatly.