Playing college baseball is an impressive accomplishment. Only about 7% of high school baseball players have the opportunity to continue playing at an NCAA institution. Every year, there are a little over 120,000 high school senior baseball players. In contract, there are only about 9,000 open roster spots within NCAA baseball programs. Understanding that the odds are stacked against them is crucial for prospective college baseball players. Players can better gauge the level of recruiting effort needed to play college baseball by understanding this.
Some players think that they have enough skill to get recruited without putting in much effort. It may be true for a small percentage of players, this mind set will lead many down the wrong path. To succeed in college baseball recruitment, players must engage and take proactive steps to build exposure to college coaches. Programs no longer stumble across talent at a high school baseball game to recruit players. Even in the rare circumstances where a player experiences this, exposure building events usually generate several other college options for the player.
The college baseball recruiting process can be very challenging and time consuming. Along with athletic responsibilities, players must maintain a solid GPA. They also have to earn sufficient scores on standardized testing to be academically eligible. The college baseball recruiting process will be time consuming and even frustrating at certain point. With this comprehensive guide to college recruiting for baseball, you’ll be able to plan your path to playing college baseball.
College Baseball Recruiting Rules and Timelines
The college baseball recruiting process often poses a challenge for players and parents who lack knowledge about its fairly complex components. Therefore, covering the recruiting rules that govern NCAA institutions is the most logical place to start. By understanding these guidelines, players can ensure a smoother college baseball recruiting journey.
An important piece of the rule book is the NCAA recruiting calendar, which establishes recruiting timelines. The recruiting activities depend on the calendar, which determines the parties involved and the types of activities that can be conducted. The NCAA contains a variety of schools with varying athletic budgets and recruiting resources. To level the playing field from a recruiting standpoint, the NCAA holds baseball programs to these timelines.
Prospective college baseball players have limited in-person contact with coaches during certain times of the year. There are also periods where coaches can meet in person, but only if it occurs on the university campus. It is obvious that these timelines affect a player’s recruitment efforts. With this information, players and families can better plan their contact with coaches and a schedule for attending camps and other events. To learn more about contact periods, quiet periods and dead periods, check out our NCAA baseball recruiting calendar post.
Academic Eligibility
Often, college baseball recruiters overlook the academic eligibility of potential players during the recruiting process. Players can forget about the academic component when they get wrapped up with building exposure and handling other recruiting responsibilities. All too often we see players land their top school, only to learn that they won’t be academically eligible. The eligibility guidelines vary by NCAA division, so you’ll definitely want to find out more about the academic eligibility requirements broken out by each Division.
Academic eligibility for a player is determined by two main pieces. First being the core courses taken throughout high school. Second being an assessment of academic performance on a floating scale. To be eligible to play their first year in college, players must have completed 16 core courses in high school. The NCAA identifies core courses as those that fall under areas such as English, Math, Natural/Physical Science, Social Science, or other courses that it specifies.
The floating scale factors in GPA and standardized testing scores. If a player typically receives lower scores on standardized tests, he must earn a higher GPA. Similarly, if a player struggles to maintain a high GPA, he will have the opportunity to balance that out with high standardized testing scores. For a comprehensive guide to academic eligibility with more information about the core courses and floating scales, check out our academic eligibility post.
Baseball Scholarships
Another key piece to the college baseball recruiting process is understanding the likelihood of receiving a baseball scholarship. People spend a lot of effort seeking baseball scholarships, and for good reason. With the rising costs of attending college, a partial scholarship could represent tens of thousands of dollars in savings. Through the National Letter of Intent Program, players can lock in their athletic scholarship for their first year of college. After the first year, the scholarship money isn’t guaranteed. Both Division I and Division II institutions are allowed to offer athletic related financial aid. The regulations vary between the divisions though. While the key details are covered below, you can learn more through our baseball scholarship post.
Division 1 Baseball
At the D1 level, baseball programs can offer a maximum of 11.7 scholarships across their roster. The NCAA categorizes baseball as an equivalency sport, which enables coaches to provide partial scholarships to players. Coaches can spread out their scholarship money across more players because not every program fully funds their programs. Specifically for D1, the minimum amount a player can receive is a 25% scholarship.
Division 2 Baseball
D2 baseball programs can offer a maximum of 9 athletic scholarships. D2 does not have to offer a minimum percent for a single player, unlike D1. As a result, some players could receive a few hundred dollars to help out with books or other costs. Something is better than nothing. Some schools are forced to stretch 2 full scholarships across a 35 person roster in Division 2 programs because they typically have smaller athletic budgets.
Division 3 Baseball
D3 programs are not allowed to offer their players athletic related scholarships. Players will still have opportunities for academic related scholarships though. Student-athletes can often access competitive academic related scholarships that D3 institutions offer. These packages are typically dependent upon academic performance, so it’s important to maintain a solid GPA through high school and college.
Generating a List of Schools to Pursue
After a player has spent some time learning about college baseball recruiting rules, recruiting timelines, academic eligibility, and scholarship opportunities, it’s time to shift gears. At this point, players should start formulating a list of schools that interest them. When developing this list, the player should consider the following items:
- Location of the school – is the school a drive or a flight away, and how does that impact your family’s ability to visit during the semester/season?
- Academic majors – does the school offer your major? If you are undecided, are a variety of majors offered that could potentially interest you?
- Level of academics – are the school’s academic standards and expectations aligned with your academic abilities?
- Type of campus – do you have a campus setting preference (city, suburbs, or rural)? Are you expecting the athletic facilities to be on campus?
- Budget – are there certain schools that you wouldn’t considered based off the price tag alone?
- Student Enrollment – are you looking for a small, medium, or large school experience?
- Student life – would you like to attend a school that has a variety of opportunities for involvement, outside of baseball?
Finding the Right School
There are a several websites that offer a thorough analysis of colleges based off of the items mentioned above. By using these tools prospective college students should be able to to accurately pinpoint a variety of schools to potentially pursue.
When generating this initial list, players should focus on academics, admissions, financials, student life and other non-athletic characteristics of a school. These should be the primary reasons for selecting a school. A player should never settle on a college that isn’t a great academic fit for them because the baseball aspect worked. All too often we find players changing their majors because of their athletic circumstances. If that is something you’re considering, you should go back to the drawing board.
As the name suggests, student-athletes are students first. A small percentage of college baseball players make it to the next level, and an even smaller percent make a career at the MLB level. Players need to focus on their academics first, so when their baseball careers ends, they can quickly transition to their professional careers outside of baseball.
Baseball Program Characteristics
Once a player has generated this initial list, they should start to evaluate different components of baseball programs. By examining some of the items below, players can quickly determine if a program aligns with their athletic experience preferences.
- Players graduating by position – gives players a better idea of the positions that a program is in need of and is likely recruiting for.
- Current position depth – get a feel for the number of players that are typically stacked up at each position.
- Roster size – an indicator of competition for playing time and the need for multi-positional players.
- Player retention – when you see a pattern of poor player retention, it should be identified as an area of concern.
- Incoming transfers – does the coach rely on a replenishment of transfers, or do they develop the underclassmen to become contributing players?
- Red shirts – many recruits don’t realize that there is a real possibility of sitting out a year to develop athletically.
- Player profile by position – some coaches have a tendency of recruiting big, physical players, how do you stack up?
- Breakdown of handedness and batting side – at the collegiate level, coaches are mindful of handedness as they build their rosters.
- Player home states – understanding the locations where a coach typically recruits is extremely valuable.
Finding the Right Baseball Program
We offer a tool which allows players to quickly analyze the items mentioned above. We advise all our players that they should use college baseball rosters as one of the most valuable resources for their college baseball search. The roster provides objective information and accurately summarizes a program. The downside is that it can be time consuming, especially if you are considering a wide range of schools. At TeamFacts, we offer a tool that streamlines the work of analyzing individual college baseball rosters.
If you don’t find any suitable baseball programs within your initial list, you might have to revisit the first step. Are there certain aspects of your college experience that you are willing to tweak? If you feel strongly about playing college baseball, you might have to sacrifice school size or even how far it is from home. By expanding these two areas, you would be surprised with the number of additional colleges it opens up as opportunities to be a student athlete athlete. Just don’t sacrifice any of the academic aspects.
Building Exposure to College Baseball Coaches
We hinted at this in the introduction, but players must actively pursue college baseball programs to make meaningful progress with their recruitment. This mean that players will have to attend a variety of showcase events, tournaments, and college baseball camps to get themselves noticed. Players should take a calculated approach as they decide what exposure building events to attend. These events are typically pretty expensive and can be a few hours away, sometimes requiring an overnight stay.
By putting a plan together, players and parents can ensure that they are getting the most for their time and money. Most events contain a list of college coaches that will be attending the event in person. With the core list of the schools from the previous step/section, players should be able to target events that have several programs of interest in attendance. These events are posted online several months in advance, which allows players to create a schedule of events to attend throughout the year. If there’s a showcase that only has one program of interest, it might be worth looking elsewhere.
Perfect Game and Prep Baseball Report
For organizations like Prep Baseball Report and Perfect Game, players attending their events receive an online player profile. These web hosted profiles house a variety of the player’s information including basic player details, performance data that is collected at the event, scouting reports, video footage from the event, and state/national rankings if applicable. Unlike a traditional showcase, the player promotion platforms these organizations have developed allow for continued exposure to college coaches well after the event ends. The hundreds of college coaches that are a part of their networks have the ability to search through these player profiles for college baseball recruiting purposes.
While these organizations may charge a little bit more to attend one of these events, players need to keep in mind the level of exposure they will benefit from as a result of these events. In addition to receiving an online profile, players will also benefit from additional coverage through the variety of multimedia channels they operate.
