Team research

Teams aren't going to have only twenty-five players. D1 will have 35. D3 and JuCos have unlimited rosters. They could have fifty on the team. I'm not sure if D2 has roster limits. Typically half the roster will be pitchers. About 18-20 players will get adequate playing time. An important thing to look at on D2 rosters is previous school. Some D2s take a lot of D1 players transferring down. If you see a lot of D1 tranfers and former JuCo players on the roster a freshman or sophomore is going to have a lot of difficulty getting on the field. There is a site that lists how funded programs are. I don't know the name. Someone posted it here in the past.

To add to RJM's post, D2 does not have a roster limit. I know guys who went to solid D2 programs and were 1 of 80+. Programs in D2, D3 & NAIA with large rosters will name a travel roster of 35 or so that will be the team come spring time. Some programs will list every player and the numbered ones will be the "team" whereas some programs will only list their traveling players on their roster page, which may end up creating a less transparent situation for prospective newcomers.

I cannot stress enough, as a high school guy coming in, make sure to see if a program is big on transfers. If a programs likes to bring in transfers, that will essentially be a blockade for multiple seasons for incoming freshman unless they are college ready immediately. Best of luck in your search and final decision!

I would say that in general a player needs to be very cautious when it comes to "red shirts" and D2's. Obviously you have to do your homework on a program, but there are a number of very successful D2's that really churn their rosters, primarily because they can (and do) pick up D1 "drop downs" at the last moment and what could seem like a good position on the team can be upset at the last minute with new arrivals after roster finalization at D1's. Look at the previous years for players on a roster and if you see a number of former D1's then this is a red flag. Talk to current and former players also. 

Maybe it's just me, and maybe it's just because it's such an easy number to track, but when I look at a college team's website, one thing I always do is count the number of position players whose number of at-bats was at least equal to the number of games the team played.  I figure anybody reaching that threshold is getting enough playing time to have fun and feel like they are contributing.  Seems like there are two groups  of teams.  Just at a guess, on about 40% of teams 11 or 12 players get that amount of at-bats.  On about 60% 13-15 players do.  I don't compare this against the team's success but there do seem to be plenty of very good teams in both groups.   The ratio doesn't prove anything, but it suggests to me that the coaches of the latter group are a bit more interested in getting the whole team involved.  Or maybe they just have better players on the bench.

I'm sure you could come up with an appropriate parallel for pitchers.

We did the same analysis years ago with pitchers when we were interested in a program or considering offers.  Most D1s had 16-18 pitchers of which 3-4 were starters depending on the conference, 1-2 for long relief, a specialist, set-up and closer.  When all was said and done typically 7-8 pitchers were getting the lion's share of innings on the weekend or conference games.  Those that pitched mid-week were trying to work themselves up to the weekend rotation.  It was essentially the same proposition for the D3s we considered.

When my 2015 RHP was in the process, I used rosters to get a feel for how many pitchers on the roster, how many innings they were seeing, starters versus relievers, etc.  Some schools you could see trends that most starters were Jr/Sr with Fr/So working their way up as relievers and other schools would start a Fr if he earned it.  We also looked at number of pitchers getting drafted across the program as well as a potential benchmark for success.  I did this and looked back at about 5 seasons.  Also looked at the typical physical make-up, PG velocity if known in HS and states they recruit from.  The States thing can be eye opening for some programs when you're looking at playing out of state and out of "region".   Some programs recruit very heavily from in-state versus others.  All of this can gave me a relative pitching "profile" of a school.  Was insightful but then again I can be overly analytical as well!

Patterns. How many players transferred in each year? How many players stay after freshman year? Height/weight of players at different positions. Hometowns (mostly local kids or from all over). Remember, you can throw all that out the window if the staff is new.

Also, JCG makes a great point about looking at stats. Stats are more accurate than rosters, and they give you better idea of who plays, and how much.

 I don't think this information is published anywhere. This is a perfectly acceptable question to ask the head coach.

At this late point in the process, your son may not get any athletic scholarship offers. Some schools may tell him "next year", but there are just too many things that can go wrong to count on that. Unless he gets a late offer for this year, I would make the decision assuming that he will not get athletic money. Most JuCo's are less expensive than universities. And if he does well at the JuCo, he will be in a better position to earn a baseball scholarship at a DI or DII in two year.

http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/Ge...InstitutionData.aspx

This will tell you about the funding.

Are you looking at a current roster on the school website, that may not have added the incoming freshman yet?  (The seniors and those not coming back have been deleted).

This is the case at the moment for my son's school. 

Go back several years and look for patterns.  How many played all 4 years?  Who showed up as a junior/transfer?  Did freshman get playing time (see the stats section)?