There seem to be a good number of nationally ranked D3's and D2's that are in cold weather states. Not so many D1's that are, though. I wonder what explains that asymmetry. Any thoughts?
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Now this is a good question?????
I cant speak for the D2 and D3 but better weather will always have a positive impact on baseball.
Not sure the exact reason but I talked to a D1 coach about players from colder climates being better at the fundamentals because they are forced indoors to work on them. His thought that warmer climate players play more games during the year and don't work as much on fundamentals.
I thought it was an interesting take. Could it be that there are more D2 and D3 schools in colder areas than warmer? My own son wanted to leave the colder climate to play in warm weather year round.
In a thread I started about 6 years ago, the cold weather D3's were discussed.
http://community.hsbaseballweb...cold-weather-schools
ILVBB posted this:
.. The majority of D3 schools are in cold weather locations; it only makes sense that performance follows the numbers. However; you will see that this is not really the case.
When you take a look at how D3’s are broken up by region you will see that the majority are clearly in cold weather locations.
Cold Weather Schools – 271 schools
Mid-Atlantic Region (Pennsylvania & New Jersey) - 57 schools
Mid-East Region (Eastern Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana & Michigan) – 50 schools
New England (CT & north) – 50 Schools
New York (the state is its own region) – 39 schools
Midwest (Wisconsin & Minnesota) – 35 schools
Central (Iowa, Southern WI & Missouri) – 40 schools
Warm Weather Schools – 78 schools
South Region (VA, NC, GA, AL, TN, MS) – 38 schools
West Region (WA,OR, CA, TX,AR) – 40 schools
With this kind of geographic distribution; you would expect far more of the top 30 would come from cold weather states. Yet 8 of the top 30 come from the southern or western region. Given the numbers themselves you would expect only 6 to come from those regions (3 from the south and 3 from the west). This is consistent with other divisions; where warm weather areas have a higher rate of success.
When you look deeper at the numbers 3 of 11 schools in CA are rated; 1 of 4 schools in Oregon and 1 of 2 schools in Mississippi. You have to look deeper into the numbers to get the real meaning of what is going on. D3 is heavily weighted in certain areas; which logically translates into both numbers and to a degree results.
What is important is what this means to kids looking to play baseball in college. Kids in the west and southern regions if you are not finding a place to play in your backyard you ought to be looking in the cold weather states; there are far more team which translates into far more opportunity.
I guess you should always search first ask second on this site. All questions that you might possibly have are probably already answered somewhere or other. 
Pretty astounding distribution!
Pretty clear that if you are a California kid who wants to keep playing baseball and you are not the kind of stud that can nail down one of the highly in demand D1 spots, then you are pretty unlikely to be playing in your own back yard.
Just did a quick search. I think there are 21 D3 baseball schools in Ohio alone. There are also 21 such schools in Washington St, Oregon, and California combined. Those three states have a combine population of nearly 50 million. Ohio has a population of just over 11 million. I guess that's why my California son was admitted to all the Ohio Schools to which he applied.