5 Myths About D2 & D3 Baseball (Debunked)

Hey, how you doing? Alex here. Thanks for joining me. Today's episode, we're going to be Talking about the five myths about D2 and D3 baseball. Want to break these down? I almost want to debunk these myths. There's so many great opportunities at these levels, not only for baseball, but really any sport there that you are pursuing. I just know most of my audience is baseball families, baseball athletes, and if you're new to my channel, my name is Alex Swinson. I'm a former college baseball coach, scouts and recruiter. And now what I do is help high school baseball athletes and their parents navigate this college recruiting process and put them in the best possible position to play at the next level. Help guys at the juco level, at the NAI level, at the D3, D2, D1, mid major power five, really all around. There's just so many opportunities out there that if it's a fit for you athletically, academically, geographically, socially, financially, all of those, it is a life changing experience. It was for me, it's been for a lot of guys that I've helped through this process. And if you're interested in learning more, you can go to my website, PremierAthletes co. You can find that down in the descriptions. And if you get anything from this video, please smash that, like, button that thumbs up right down here somewhere around here or subscribe to the podcast. I would really appreciate that. So let's get into the first myth. D2 and D3 athletes don't go pro. This is really wrong. And a lot of people think about this. If you go D2 or D3, that's it, that's the end. Well, right before COVID on average there would be at the D2 and D3 level anywhere from like 70 to 100 D2 and D3 athletes and more. It depends on the year. Every year getting drafted. All right, that's huge. Now when Covid happened, I think it was 20, 20, 20, 21, right around there. The draft got cut in half. It was around 40 plus rounds, if you will. It's a lot of rounds, a lot of athletes. It got cut down in half to 20. Okay, so it has gotten cut down in half. So we're right around that 50 to 60 range. As far as the number of athletes, I think last year D2 had about. There were around 50 last year, D2 athletes drafted in an MLB draft. D3, it was about 15 or so there. So in total, a little over 60. So they definitely go pro. Those guys at the D2 and D3 level could have easily played at the Division 1 level, but that fit for them was a great fit. I mean, and they were able to experience the being a Division 1, Division 2 or Division 3 athlete and play in college and be super successful and also get drafted. Now I wasn't drafted and I had an amazing experience. Most of us are not going to get drafted and that is okay. All right. I don't want you guys to have the end goal of just thinking I'm going to go pro and all that. You can have that goal, but you also need to realize there's a 40 year career after this. Literally 99.9% of us are not going to play at the professional level or even MLB level. Do you know that the life expectancy if you get drafted or you play pro ball is about two years and 90% of professional players don't make it to the show, don't make it to the big leagues. Okay. And again, I'm not here to crush your dreams, but I also want to help you be realistic and manage your expectations and understand, help you think further along. Just from a day to day and baseball world, I kind of fell into a trap as I only thought about baseball. Right. I didn't think about really my career after that as well. So I want you guys to think ahead. You can again pursue baseball and go after it as much as you can. Play at the highest level you can. But also think ahead of what you want to do with your career after baseball. Because all of us stop playing at some point. All right? So the next one, D2 and D3 teams cannot beat D1 teams. This is very untrue. There are plenty of Division 2 teams, Division 3 teams that could whoop up on some Division 1 teams. In fact, it happened this past year Birmingham Southern, a Division 3 school, played a Division 1 school, UAB and beat them 13 3. They whoop them all right. There is so much good baseball at the Division 3 level, at the Division 2 level. And that is just such a big myth that D2s and D3s can't be competitive at Division 1 level. And there's JUCOs that could beat Division 1 school. So that is a big myth there. And then Also the next one D1 walk ons are better than D2 and D3 players. There are plenty of D3 players, plenty of D2 players that could easily have been a walk on at a Division 1. Now the thing is, a walk on is tricky because a true walk on doesn't guarantee you you're Going to make the team. You have to try out for the team. There's preferred walk ons and all of that stuff, but there's plenty of D1 walk ons that could be playing and experiencing and playing more at the D2 and D3 level and getting a great experience there. So this is a big myth to debunk. There's plenty of D2 and D3 players that could play at the Division 1 level, but they're going to have more opportunities to play and they're compete and again have that great experience. A lot of Division 1 walk ons, some have great stories to go on, but a lot of them just sit and don't play that much. All right, so you got to consider all that there. Next myth that I want to debunk, that the D2 or D3 experience is not great. The reason why I do what I do is to put guys and give them an opportunity to experience what I experience. It changed my life and let me kind of dive into that. It wasn't necessarily the baseball and playing at the Division 1 level. I played at the Division 1 level, but it wasn't that. But what my experience was was the brotherhood that I got, the friendships that last. Literally, it's going to last me a lifetime. Okay. And the network that I got, the skill development from, life skills, the leadership, the ups and downs, how to deal with adversity, perseverance, team goals, everything that I could bring over to my career after baseball. All right, you get all of that at any level. That's the juco level, nai level, d3, d2 and of course d1 as well. So the experience is the team is yes, the university and some, honestly, some of us can be really, really good fit at a smaller or mid sized school. It was a perfect fit for me. I went to Jacksonville University. It was a smaller school and I could not have asked for a better experience. Not just from the baseball side of things and things that I mentioned, but just the college experience as well. It was fantastic. You don't always have to go to a school that's 50,000 people and there's 300 people in your class and you're not really getting to know your professor and things like that. Yeah, you can have a good experience, but there's also a lot of bad experiences there as well. All right, so the D2 and D3, yes, they're going to be a little bit smaller. You can have a great experience there, 100% then also a myth is D3 schools can't give aid, can't give money. So it is true Division 3 schools cannot give athletic aid, but they can get academic aid. A lot of them give academic money. And typically for baseball in particular, you can get a lot more money academically than you could athletically, really, at any level. And there's plenty of guys that I've helped and that currently right now that have offers out that are substantial that they wouldn't have been close of getting those kind of offers from an athletic standpoint. So what's an example? At the Division 1 level, on average is around 25% of athletic money can give out. I've never seen a full athletic scholarship given to a player. I've seen full rides in the case, but it might have been like 50, 50% scholarship, 50% academic. Okay, so what I'm saying is you can get a lot more. Typically you can see academic money as half, 75% to 100% academic money as full ride academically. And Division 3 can give that and they can give again a lot of money academically. So These are the five myths about D2 and D3 baseball in particular that I wanted to share with you guys. Let me know what you you guys think. Let me know if I missed any myths. I want to hear about that. And if you guys and parents out there that had great experiences at the D2 and D3 level, I want to get that out to a lot of athletes because a lot of athletes just completely overlook these levels. And there's so many good experiences that you could be having and opportunities that could be presented to you, but they're not even open minded to it. And I get how we can fall into that trap because it's all about D1. It's all over TV and football games and all of that. I get all that. But this is about experience, getting your great experience not only as an athlete, but as a student athlete. One other thing to keep in mind, at the D2 and D3 level, recruiting is going is a little bit later than the Division 1 level. All right. A lot of these guys get on radars. For Division 1 sophomore year to junior year. D2 and D3 is like the end of your junior year. Going into your senior year is really, really when things start happening there. So keep that in mind as we go. If you have any questions, please let me know. Have a good day.