Was just looking at the stats of a player who attended one of the better D2 programs in the country and played in one of the strongest D2 baseball conferences around.
He was a 4 year starter and had around 900 career plate appearances at the D2 level with a career OPS of .950 (give or take a few points).
Never played pro ball at any level after college.
Is this the norm or the exception at D2?
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Add on: All four years where the player posted those numbers were with BBCOR rules in effect. This was not in the days of the rocket launcher bats.
Did you look at recent milb players who came from D2? Seems like you could do more research on the matter
Re-read my reply and it seemed pretty snarky, not my intent. Anyways I think the scouts/pro ball gate keepers know who has the talent to go pro. Your D2 stats stud may have had hitting warts to the pro talent evaluators.
@2022NYC posted:Re-read my reply and it seemed pretty snarky, not my intent. Anyways I think the scouts/pro ball gate keepers know who has the talent to go pro. Your D2 stats stud may have had hitting warts to the pro talent evaluators.
I think your reply was reasonable. Google confirms what should be common knowledge here: that only a small number of D2 players are drafted, and that of those, most are pitchers and most got noticed playing in big time summer leagues, not in their college games.
If a guy with stellar numbers was not drafted my guess would be that he didn't play or didn't play well in summer leagues, and/or he hit well but with no power.
Part of the problem with playing at a lower level is playing lower level competition, especially as a position player. 95 is 95 in the SEC and D2, but an OPS of .950 is not the same when you look at SEC pitching vs D2 pitching. You can kill pitching all you want, but if you were murdering mid 80s pitching it's pretty meaningless.
About 80ish D2 guys get drafted each year (40 rd draft) with maybe 10 or so coming from the top 10 rounds. I'd also say the the majority of these guys are coming from the same conferences where the baseball looks more like D1 ball than some D1 conferences (sunshine, peach, etc) or they come from the same handful of schools (UCSD, Mesa, Tampa, etc).
I would probably say it's a safe bet that most D2 draftees were either late bloomers (specifically arms) or D1 dropdowns/juco transfers
But to answer your question I wouldn't say its the norm or the exception. I'd say the kid either killed bad pitching or had no pro tools.
Thanks guys. I appreciate the explanation.
Generally it is easier to make it from D2/D3 as a pitcher because velo is velo and hitting is dependent on competition.
Hitting performance from lower divisions and even weaker D1 conferences will be taken with a grain of salt by pro teams.
It is still possible to make it but while performance is a good start a high OPS is usually not enough to get drafted out of lower divisions.
So if you want to get drafted out of d2 or d3 you better perform AND you also show some measurable tools.
With more and more teams getting trackman for example exceptional exit velocities (plus good hitting performance of course) might get you noticed.
But if you just have a good ops with high average, lots of walks and a few homers that might not be enough from D2 if your measurables are not outstanding.
Here are some d2 players in mlb
I guess a guy like Alex Wojciechowski is an example here. He destroyed D2 pitching in his college career but struggled significantly in his one season of pro ball in Low A.
I also guess this means that most of the dominant pitchers end up at D1? Related, is it safe to assume that the kid who doesn't hit playing D2 would have certainly been over matched at D1?
Francis;
have you observed a game thru the eyes of a pro scout. The scout does not have a list of measurables" to effect his judgment and evaluation. He talks with the teammates, watches his parents at the game and his coaches before and during the game and after the game. The Scout does his "home work".
His eyes have to determine, if the player can play every day in pro ball, bat with the bases loaded and a his team losing or pitch in a 9th inning with the winning run on and no outs.
He is watching the player one hour before the game. How does he prepare for "battle".
He reports will contain words plays like "Joe Morgan", walks like "Pete Rose" and other descriptive words that are recognized by his Director. He does not differ from D-2 or D-1.
He is "prospecting" for GOLD! Looking for the Special "6th Tool".
College Coaches perform the same analysis + the added Academic asset. "the game has not change, only the evaluator.
Questions are the same "can he play!" Can he help us win!!!!.
Bob
@Francis7 posted:..... Related, is it safe to assume that the kid who doesn't hit playing D2 would have certainly been over matched at D1?
I'd say that is a generally correct assumption. Some exceptions apply. An example would be a coach who insists on a change of mechanics or approach that the hitter can never get comfortable with.
I always liked the scouting report ... Runs like a deer. Unfortunately hits like one too.
Related, if it's fair to say that few players from D2 play professionally, is it also fair to say that few from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, Northeast Conference, America East and Patriot League end up in professional ranks as well?
@RJM posted:I always liked the scouting report ... Runs like a deer. Unfortunately hits like one too.
This Deer would have fit in nicely with the current brand of MLB play
@Francis7 posted:I guess a guy like Alex Wojciechowski is an example here. He destroyed D2 pitching in his college career but struggled significantly in his one season of pro ball in Low A.
I also guess this means that most of the dominant pitchers end up at D1? Related, is it safe to assume that the kid who doesn't hit playing D2 would have certainly been over matched at D1?
Yes the majority of dominant pitchers end up in D1. Because of this D2 is more of an offensive division, hitters can dominate. That goes for most D1 programs, with exception.
I wouldn't assume that a D2 hitter would be overmatched in D1, as I feel that D2 has a lot of really good hitters, but just not enough room for them at D1.
Also, most dont realize how incredibly hard pro ball is for both hitter and pitcher, no matter what program that you came from.
JMO
TPM;
yes, that is correct. A few [quite a few} years ago a scout friend and I watched our local D-2 play and during the game I asked what was his opinion of the team's #1 hitter, who had 15 HR's in 34 games and the LF fence was 340' and alleys at 365'. CF was 404'.
The pro scout related that with wood bats the majority of the HR's would be outs at the "warning track". The majority of scouts take a 40' deduction of HR distance with players using metal.
This was one of the reasons I created the Area Code games in 1987 using wood bats.
Bob
@Consultant posted:TPM;
yes, that is correct. A few [quite a few} years ago a scout friend and I watched our local D-2 play and during the game I asked what was his opinion of the team's #1 hitter, who had 15 HR's in 34 games and the LF fence was 340' and alleys at 365'. CF was 404'.
The pro scout related that with wood bats the majority of the HR's would be outs at the "warning track". The majority of scouts take a 40' deduction of HR distance with players using metal.
This was one of the reasons I created the Area Code games in 1987 using wood bats.
Bob
Bob,
Nice post, I never thought of that!
Happy New Year!
@Ripken Fan posted:This Deer would have fit in nicely with the current brand of MLB play
Sad commentary on the game. Joey Gallo is Rob Deer reincarnated.
@Francis7 posted:Related, if it's fair to say that few players from D2 play professionally, is it also fair to say that few from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, Northeast Conference, America East and Patriot League end up in professional ranks as well?
I don't understand what you're asking. You know it would be a safe assumption to make that there would be less pro players coming out of some of the weaker conferences in D1. That information is also public, just look up SEC draft vs MAAC draft.
The D2 guys getting drafted are often coming from the same set of schools/conferences. Just like D1, D2 baseball is not created equally. I would say the kids committing to Patriot type D1 conferences aren't pro prospects either
Odds are that if you aren't looking at the top 1/2 of D1 baseball or getting looks from Tampa, Mesa, UCSD or the like I would give more thought to college beyond a baseball fit
Ripken fan
when Rob Deer lived in Santa Rosa, we conducted hitting clinics at the SRJC. He has “bat speed”!
Bob
