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All I know is that if you're not one of the top 20 guys on the roster you're better off going to a school where you will be. Unless of course, academics or cost factor into it.
That has always been true, but the difference is that you had a year or two to develop into that everyday starter. That opportunity is essentially gone, or at the very least an uphill battle.
If I'm a high schooler looking to play, I'm sacrificing program prestige for more opportunities in playing time and a "better" education. At least more affordable.
Your post is very well thought out. The only stat I disagree with is the number of players who didn’t sign. Not everyone who is drafted signs. High school players drafted late head for college ball. A number of college players drafted late decide not to be long shot, single A roster filler. But regardless of the number the point still stands.
I would have to think the transfer portal harms high school players. College coaches will wait until the last minute to see who shows up in the portal. There may be quality starters looking to get out of a team/coaching situation.
video snippets of my 2021’s in game swings did indeed play a big role in his D3 recruiting experience.
All of what's been said here feels and sounds right to me, but there is no doubt an element of time that will factor in. We're making guess (albeit educated) as to what the ripples will be. Not that the story is a benchmark, but I have a 2021 who committed last July to a JUCO after getting some legit interest from a couple D1s. Based on all that I could see last summer, I would have bet a LOT of money that many 2021s around here aspiring to play college ball would be left homeless. But that didn't happen at all. I was/still am shocked with how many kids found homes. Another local 2021 just committed to a JUCO today. The commitments have slowed, but they're still coming in. Blows my mind because it goes against everything I feared and what many predicted would happen. Now, is the carnage for 2021s simply delayed? Maybe. Probably? Time will tell. But thus far, the biggest impact I've seen are just a handful of guys going the JUCO route who had decent shots at D1. I've seen no tragedies to date.
Regarding video, I'll say this. If I see 100 parents shooting video to help with their kids' recruiting, 100 of them are shooting at bats only. I see almost as many unicorns as I do parents shooting defense. Last summer my son got what appeared to be VERY close to getting an offer from a D1 school. All of a sudden - instead of simply watching what my son was sending them and replying to him - they CAME to my son and asked him to send them more video. As much as we could get them. When we asked what specifically they wanted to see more of, they said "everything." They wanted warm ups, they wanted on deck circle, dugout, literally all of it. For those couple weeks, it meant me watching every play through my phone. You can't get good video by mounting a camera to a tripod, hitting record and walking away. I was literally recording every pitch while ensuring my son (SS) was in frame. I followed the ball, the plays as they related to my son. After the game, it meant deleting 100+ videos just to whittle it down to the ones where he got touches. It's laborious and it sucks, but I'd still recommend it. I am lucky in that my kid plays a position with a lot of touches. Parents of outfielders? I salute you for how awful it'll be to shoot good defensive video of your kids. But I still recommend you do it.
Fielding Video was part of the recruiting video that my Kid’s travel program put together. The college coaches just wanted to see general fielding technique. I cannot imagine videoing an entire game just to try to get a fielding highlight or two...
As far as I know the D1 roster will return to 35 in 2022 and there will be 20 rounds in the ML draft.
I think that this year will go down as the most competitive. Seniors are graduating and ready to move on. Coaches have signed their 2021s and will fill in with legit transfers and JUCO guys.
JMO
slightly hijacking. Not COVID but the portal will have an impact that is hard to predict.
I can foresee top programs poaching the best players from lesser teams via the portal. Why take a risk on a HS graduate when you can call a travel coach and get a guy who impressed you on the mound in a non-conference game against your conference rival. All done hush hush.
I wonder If top programs will feed lower tier schools, like they do with some JUCO s. Then cherry pick those who develop. That would hurt JUCO schools
I also fear that the surplus of bodies might result in not valuing players. If you break one, just get another from the bloated roster or the portal.
Money can make people do things. I hope I'm wrong.
@TPM posted:As far as I know the D1 roster will return to 35 in 2022 and there will be 20 rounds in the ML draft.
I think that this year will go down as the most competitive. Seniors are graduating and ready to move on. Coaches have signed their 2021s and will fill in with legit transfers and JUCO guys.
JMO
Rosters will be 40 in 2022
@DanJ posted:Regarding video, I'll say this. If I see 100 parents shooting video to help with their kids' recruiting, 100 of them are shooting at bats only. I see almost as many unicorns as I do parents shooting defense. Last summer my son got what appeared to be VERY close to getting an offer from a D1 school. All of a sudden - instead of simply watching what my son was sending them and replying to him - they CAME to my son and asked him to send them more video. As much as we could get them. When we asked what specifically they wanted to see more of, they said "everything." They wanted warm ups, they wanted on deck circle, dugout, literally all of it.
For players who play SS and 3B, it's been suggested to me to record the between-inning reps. My son has become a vocal leader this season - he's a 2022. Maybe I should start recording some dugout stuff, too.
You don’t need to video games. The coaches aren’t looking for highlight video. They’re looking for video of mechanics. Everything in my son’s video came from a personal workout filmed from the best angles.
Regarding what Danj said about video, I will offer some perspective. The reason for the request is that without being there in person there is no way to see all that coaches want to see. Coaches want to see much more than game plays. They want to see ; what a player looks like when they get off the bus, what kind of warm up routine, how they carry themselves, how they look during in and out, how they interact with their coaches, how they interact with their teammates, etc, ..... when people say that coaches/scouts look at everything they are right - they do!
@RJM posted:I would have to think the transfer portal harms high school players. College coaches will wait until the last minute to see who shows up in the portal. There may be quality starters looking to get out of a team/coaching situation.
The higher the academics at a school (e.g., Ivies or NESCAC), the less the transfer portal is a legitimate option, though. Correct?
@NotMadeOf$$ posted:The higher the academics at a school (e.g., Ivies or NESCAC), the less the transfer portal is a legitimate option, though. Correct?
The concept of the transfer portal (and the one time transfer rule) was supposed to benefit the players. But with Covid (and subsequent NCAA rulings on additional eligibility) it will end up benefiting schools as much (or more) than it will baseball players. Schools will cherry pick the best players and the rest of them will struggle to find a place to play. NCAA wins again.
@NotMadeOf$$ posted:The higher the academics at a school (e.g., Ivies or NESCAC), the less the transfer portal is a legitimate option, though. Correct?
Most of the current college players have extra eligibility years, so HA schools who allow grad students to play are picking up transfers. The D1Baseball transfer tracker currently lists three grad students transferring to Duke.
For undergrads, it's probably a school by school proposition. Some HAs take very few transfers (Harvard, Yale, Princeton), but others are more in line with non-HA schools. I wonder if any HA baseball programs get help with admissions for transfer students. I'm guessing that would be the exception.
I think the other left out and kind of nebulous is the effect COVID has had on schedules. The Big10 has had some four-game weekend pods (an opportunity for a guy to be an extra weekend starter?) but no mid-week games, cutting chances for incoming pitchers to show their stuff.
We know if we get a good lead, the last three to four innings will be a rotation of new guys — freshmen and transfers — showing off their skills for an inning, maybe two. If we don't get that lead, then they go to the tried and true upperclassmen. I feel like it's narrowing opportunities for some of those younger guys to catch the coaches eye in a game situation, which is what my son did during his first year in the program.
@NotMadeOf$$ posted:The higher the academics at a school (e.g., Ivies or NESCAC), the less the transfer portal is a legitimate option, though. Correct?
Players are more likely to leave the game than leave a top high academic like an Ivy or a NESCAC. Transferring in to Ivies and NESCACs isn’t all that easy either. My cousin transferred to Harvard from another Ivy. But he used a 4.0 freshman year, a legitimate reason to be closer to home, running track and an incredible essay on a personal experience to be one of the few who transferred into Harvard.
The HA D3 that my son committed to hasn’t had a JUCO player transfer in, in the last 20 years, and only 1 or 2 transfer players of any kind in that time, as well. There have been countless players who stayed at the school even though they dropped off of the Baseball team.
So that speaks more to what RJM was posting, in terms of the smaller level D3’s. Of course I have no idea if that will change in the next few years.
@3and2Fastball posted:The HA D3 that my son committed to hasn’t had a JUCO player transfer in, in the last 20 years, and only 1 or 2 transfer players of any kind in that time, as well. There have been countless players who stayed at the school even though they dropped off of the Baseball team.
So that speaks more to what RJM was posting, in terms of the smaller level D3’s. Of course I have no idea if that will change in the next few years.
I doubt it changes.