10 Things I Wish You Knew About Baseball Recruiting

Hey, how you doing? Alex here. Thanks for joining me. In today's episode we're going to be Talking about the 10 things I wish you knew about recruiting, in particular college baseball recruiting. I'm A former Division 1 college coach, scout and recruiter with 11 years of experience. So I want to kind of pull back the curtains to help you. The purpose of this video is to help you go through and navigate this college recruiting process. So if you get anything from this video, please smash that like button right down below here and subscribe to my YouTube channel. If you're listening on the podcast, please leave a review and subscribe as well. So you get notifications when I put out a video or podcast which is every single week to again help you go through this college baseball recruiting process. And if you have any questions, please let me know, email me or comment down below and I try to answer every question that I get. With that said, let's go on and dive into number one. Time and roster spots available are what we are fighting in the recruiting process. So again, two things that we're fighting in the college recruiting process is time and roster spots available. There's only so many players a school can bring in and there's only so much time we have in the recruiting process. So start earlier than later. Later. When do I recommend starting the recruiting process is sophomore year is really to get the ball rolling because why a lot of schools in particular Division 1 schools start sophomore year, start getting players on their radars. Number two, over recruitment at prominent schools. So these bigger schools, the power fours, it used to be power fives, now it's power four. The SEC, ACC, the Big Ten, Big 12, hey, these are great schools and great baseball programs. But it's not doesn't mean it's a good fit for everybody. It wouldn't have been a great fit for me. I was able to play at the Division 1 level and it was the best time of my life, best experience of my life for a number of different reasons. But going to a bigger school wouldn't have been a good fit for me. All right. And there's over recruitment at some of these schools. So just because some of these players are committing there doesn't mean they're going to last. They there. Alright. A lot of them don't make it through freshman year, don't even make it through the fall. They either get cut or passed over and pushed to a junior college or a different school. So you need to be aware of this, all right, that everything comes with bigger schools. And just because you might be able to play there doesn't mean it's a good fit. Are there opportunities to play there? Right. Some of these are not. It depends on your caliber of your athletic ability, of course. But you could go to a different school, a mid major or D2 or D3, and have great experience and have a lot of playing time. So you got to think about that as we go. Also, talent is not enough. Just because you're a good baseball player doesn't automatically mean you're going to go on and play at the next level. You need to be proactive at this. All right. The thing that they say is like, hey, if I'm good enough, they'll find me. It is a bad way to go about this college recruiting process. Yeah. Of course, if you're throwing 95 miles an hour, hit 10 to 12 home runs in a season, yes, they're going to find you. But for the rest of the good athletes out there that aren't doing those things, which was me included, I could have easily been missed if I wasn't proactive in this college recruiting process. So talent is not enough to go through and just find a place. All right. And I have another saying that I'm going to come back to here in a minute, but hope is not a good strategy. I'll explain that in a little bit. Number four, travel ball is overrated for recruiting. Okay. I get some slack for this. And not to say there's some good travel ball organizations out there, don't get me wrong. But there's just so many these days. It's completely flooded everything and diluted everything that really finding in college coaches that I talk to on a weekly basis, it's really hard to find players. And with so many, you can go to random tournament in Georgia or wherever it may be on a random field. There's no college coaches any. I mean, you're going to know this as a player or a parent watching this. Are there a lot of college coaches out watching you throughout the summer? Okay. And don't get me on fall. Like fall is completely overrated for travel ball because it's a quiet period and college coaches are in the thick of their fall recruiting or fall practice rather. And so you got to think about that. All right. Think about what the best strategies. I do a lot of videos of the best strategies to go about through this o college recruiting process. But travel ball is good for playing. Absolutely. And hopefully you have good coaches that actually work on development and don't just throw you out there to play games. Again, playing the game is good, but you need to learn skill development and also how to play the game. Number five. Camps and showcases are very important, but they're not all created equal. Okay? There's some camps like, is the school recruiting your position, which we're going to talk about. Is it a good fit for you athletically? Do you have the possibility of playing at that school? Is it a good fit for you academically? Is it a good fit for you socially? Are you gonna have a good overall experience there? All right, Showcases. Showcases are. Oh, man, they're tricky because I know you guys get emails all the time about come to this, come to that, and some showcases are good and some are not. All right? Some will lure you in with a school logo. Say, this school's gonna be here, this school's gonna be here. Sometimes they're not even there, or it's the volunteer that's there or the intern. And nothing against volunteer coaches, but they usually aren't involved with recruiting much at all. Or interns, like a new thing now where these interns are showing up. And it's almost. You almost think that they're recruiting, but it's not. We want to get in front of the decision makers, the recruiting coordinator, the position coach, or the head coach. That's very important as we go through this. So look at camps and showcases, all right? But make sure that you're going to camps, that they're recruiting your position, and then also showcase that we know which schools are going to be there and what coaches are going to be there, and that are the decision makers. Okay? Recognizing the value of D2 and D3 baseball. College baseball is the best it's ever been right now, especially at the D2 and D3 level. There was a Division 3 school that beat a Division 1 school this past year, Birmingham Southern, 13 to 3. They whooped them. They didn't just beat them, they whooped a Division 1 school. Again, a D3 beat a D1 school. And finding schools that fit you athletically, it might not be at the Division 1 level, and that's okay. All right. You getting the great experience of being a student athlete, whether it's D1, D2, D3 is what you should be focused on as we go and making sure that you can find schools that you can have an opportunity to play at, and that might be at the D2 level, D3 level. Nai, maybe juco, if that. That's a good fit for you. So don't take D2 and D3 off the table because there's so many good schools and baseball programs out there that where you'll be able to have a great experience there. Find schools recruiting your position. So not every school is recruiting your position, especially if you're a position player. Find schools that are recruiting your position. Again, don't just go to a camp randomly hoping that they're recruiting your position. Make sure you find out if they're recruiting your position and what their needs are in your class. Hope is not a good strategy. So, you know, I see all the time, it's like, again, if I'm good enough, they will find me. That's hoping. You're just hoping to be found or you're just sitting back and like, hey, you know, this will work out. Again, be proactive in this process. Hope is how you get missed. Okay? Be proactive. Nothing wrong with hope, but you need to take action during this recruiting process to make sure that you are in a good spot and you are strategic with your approach. And again, you are proactive in putting yourself in the best possible position to play at the next level. 9. Look at schools for the overall experience, not just baseball, right? You're going to be a student athlete at this school, at this program. There's going to be, although being a student athletes, you're super busy. You're going to be in the weight room, you're going to be practicing, you're going to be traveling, you're going to have games, all that stuff. But you're going to, you're going to have a social life, right? It's important that you have that as well. It's nothing like being a regular student. But we want to make sure that you have a good overall experience and you're getting a good education as well. So don't just have a focus in a tunnel on just baseball, baseball, baseball. I kind of fell into this trap. Make sure you're looking at the overall experience at the school and the coaching staff as well. A good skills video is the best way for exposure. Think about this, right? The best way to get noticed, to be seen, to start getting communication going, is a good highlight video. And make sure it is a good highlight video showcasing your best qualities of your skill set at your position. Because we can send that out to college coaches, especially if it's a good skills video and get that directly in front of a college coach sitting at their desk and you're across the country in a different state, you're getting exposure right there and they can create some communication with you. They could come watch you play or they could get you invite you to come to a camp. That genuine invite. So that is really really big on this specifically it's kind of a bonus on camp invitations. Camp invites. I know that you guys again get so many inquiries about come to this, come to that and a good response for this about a camp invite is respond back to be like hey coach just wanted to check in. Thank you so much for the invitation. I wanted to check if you are recruiting my position and here's my video, my highlight video would love to have any feedback and if you feel like I could be a potential fit for your program let's see what they say. If they don't say anything and they don't respond there's your sign. All right. Let me know if you have any questions or if you would add anything down in the comments and we'll go from there. I'll see you in the next video. Take care.