Thanks, all. But, if I had a player, my head would be spinning. So then, should your advice be summarized as:
- if you are being looked at for the draft, go ahead and commit to a P5 (except that if you're a sophomore talking to P5s, you probably don't yet know if the draft will be in the picture?)
- if you are being recruited by a P5 but not draft, then you should commit to a lower-level D1 (assuming that if you do well you can move up) or a juco.
- if you are being looked at by lower-level D1s (unless high academic), then probably you should just drop down to NAIA or D3. Don't go to juco because that will be full of P5/D1 dropdowns and way overloaded with unlimited rosters. D2 is the same. Lower-level D1s either will not be recruiting at all anyway, or will be taking dropdowns and juco players.
All of this also assumes that you think the HC is a good man who will do what he is promising (or that he will even be there).
But in reality, everyone is still going to bet that they are the one freshman who is going to get playing time.
As a note, kids in D3 are getting screwed too, with overloaded rosters and extra eligibility. Eastern Connecticut State (just won the CWS) has two HS '16s and seven HS '17s on their current roster - those guys have 204+197+159+136+165 ABs and 27+75+85+5 IP between them. Wonder what the HS '21s, '20s, and '19s think about that?