College Baseball Recruiting Goals - Year by Year

What's up, team? Can you tell that I miss baseball? I mean, we're in the off season right now and I am ready to get the ball rolling, pun intended. I am ready for high school baseball. I'm ready for college baseball. I'm ready for it all. And in today's video, we're going to be talking about the college baseball recruiting goals going into this new year. Whether you're a freshman, you're sophomore, you're a junior, you're a senior, we're going to cover them all to give you some goals to shoot for, some plans to go after. So if you get anything from this video, please smash that like button that thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. I put out a weekly video on recruiting and how to just get better on and off the field. And if you have any questions or comments, please comment down below. If you want me to cover anything at all, please comment down below. I'll make sure that I get to them. A lot of these topics that I cover is from you all and I would love to hear from you whether you have any comments at all. So let's get into the video. All right, team, we're going to start with freshman year and then work our way up, as I mentioned. And I have parents call me all the time telling me that their son is a freshman and they would like to learn more about the recruiting process or they have no idea what to be doing in the recruiting process or when to start the recruiting process. And that is totally fine. That's totally normal. Why would you. Nobody really tells you about this. At least the crowd way to go about this recruiting process. And I say hold the phone, okay? Call me in a year so when we, it's sophomore year and we can go over to the strategic things to be doing because that is when it matters. Freshman year. Honestly, I tell people, do not start the recruiting process freshman year. You don't need to be worried about the recruiting process. Freshman year. You don't need to worry worried about colleges. You don't need to be worried about college coaches or college baseball programs. All you need to be focused on is getting acclimated with your high school. Okay? That is high school as far as academics and also your high school team, whether that's baseball. If you're playing other sports, which is totally fine by the way, you can be a multi sport athlete usually. That's very attractive to college coaches. I hear this all the time. Should I just be focused on baseball? No, you can play other sports. It's actually A good thing to give yourself a little bit of a break, break from baseball or whatever sport you're playing, okay? But the number one thing that you can be focused on from an athletic side is development. This needs to be. The number one thing going through high school is development, development, development. Working on your skill set. Okay? Skill set at your particular position, whether that's pitching, infield, outfield, catcher, third base. What skill set are these college coaches looking for? And you need to be improving those skill sets at your particular position, of course, hitting, etc. Get a good trainer, get a good coach that knows what he's doing, whether he's been at the college level, professional level, or just a good high school baseball coach. They're out there. They definitely are. There's definitely bad ones, there's definitely good ones. So focus on development and then be proactive with your high school coaches, with your teachers. What do I mean by that? Proactive? Hey, go out of your way to help the team. Go out of your way to help the coach. You're a freshman, right? You want to be proactive. You don't want to be in a corner just waiting things to happen and hoping you make the team or hoping you become a starter. No, be proactive. Coaches would love to hear from you how you can possibly help the team, how you can possibly help the field. Improve the field, improve the dugout, improve the fence, whatever that is. Be proactive your freshman year. Don't be worried about college. Alright, let's get into sophomore year. One of the most important years in the recruiting process is sophomore year. And that doesn't mean that you need to be committed. Sophomore year definitely not just means you need to get the ball rolling through this because college baseball coaches and scouts are starting the recruiting process sophomore year, most of them are. And again, that depends on the level. And I can get into that in another video. But you, you want to get ahead of the game. You don't want to be behind the eight ball, if you will, starting junior year or definitely senior year, because senior year, it's pretty much over. And as far as the recruiting process, most schools are done by then. And I can get on, I'll get in the timeline of that when we get to senior year. But what can we be doing? Okay, what can we be doing? Goal setting, as far as what we're locking into, and that is starting with a target school list. And think broad right now. Think as many schools as you possibly can that course that you're interested in. Don't just be interested in Their athletic program, look into their academic program, field of study. What are you possibly interested in studying? Doesn't mean that you're going to study that. But hey, look into their programs. Look what they offer. Business, engineering. Okay. Finances. There's a lot of different areas that might interest you and that you can start reading, researching. Okay. Then geographically, what are areas that you're interested? Do you want to stay close to home? Do you don't mind going across the country? And I always suggest, think broad right now. Be open minded because you can always say no and you can always take schools out. Okay. It's hard to like start with a small list and then add as you go. You want to add as many as possible at the beginning and then take out as you go. And yeah, definitely, we'll add some as we go against. My clients do this all the time. We start broad and then we narrow pull that net in. As we go through this recruiting process, the next thing that you can be doing is personalized recruiting video. A personalized recruiting video can be done by you, it can be done by a professional. But these iPhones that we have in our pockets have amazing cameras. Just making sure that you get the right things that these college coaches want. Depending on your position, whether you're a right handed pitcher, whether you're catching catcher, again, middle infielder, outfielder. And getting live game footage is also important. Pulling from a Perfect game video or a PBR video works okay. But some of the video that you have is not always the best. I remember going to a perfect game showcase and I had video there and honestly I did not have the best bp. I just didn't. Okay. And I didn't want to use that bp. And you don't want to use that bp. You don't want to use bad footage of you. You don't want to use footage of you rolling over a ball. You don't want to use footage of you striking out or walking somebody. Think of your video as your digital resume. Super important. We want to show and highlight your best self. So we want to make sure we do that. Get somebody to evaluate you and help you through this process because you're biased and that's totally fine. I'm biased too. Everybody's biased to themselves. But get somebody to help you with that, that if you can, because we want to make sure you're highlighting yourself the best possible way. Then decide if summer baseball is a right fit for you because it's not for everybody. If you're not on one of the top one or Two teams, it might not be a good fit for you. Now if you're going for developmental reasons, you're not going for recruiting reasons, that's totally okay. You definitely want to be playing games in development. Remember I said development needs to be the foundation of every everything. Okay. We need to be getting better on the mound or at the plate or at your particular position. How do we do that? We need to be playing games, of course, we need to be practicing, we need to be training, we need to be doing our own work. So if you're going for summer ball, for development, definitely. But if you're going for recruiting, make sure to know, like are you going to events where college coaches are going to be and you know this, you're going to know it and you might have done something in the past after freshman year, the summer after freshman year. Are there any college coaches around? Okay. And talk to parents that have done these organizations. Is it beneficial in recruiting? There's some that are good out there and there are a lot that are bad that just don't get in front of college coaches unless you're the top one or two teams. College coaches are going to see those teams and this is important going through this, especially sophomore year. Then there's communicating. Okay, communicating with college coaches. Now the thing is, some will be ready to communicate with college coaches, meaning you should be reaching out or some should wait a little bit. Okay. For example, I wasn't communicating with college coaches sophomore year because I just wasn't ready physically. Skill set wise, you don't want to reach out to college coaches if you're not quite ready. Okay. If you're not quite ready, doesn't mean you shouldn't be starting the recruiting process and doing everything that we've talked to this point. But you want to make sure that you're ready. So if they ask for certain things or video that you can give it and provide it to them and that you're ready. But if you're not ready and say you're looking to throw, you know, your right handed pitchers, this is just an example. You're a right handed pitcher and you, you throw 80 miles an hour. Okay. And you're a sophomore and you're looking for a high division one school, probably not a good idea to send that video. Okay. These guys are looking 86, 87 plus, definitely depending on the school. And some are looking 90 plus. Probably not a good idea to send that video yet. Okay. Want to see that jump? Especially if you're a sophomore. Let's get into junior Year. This is an exciting year. This is where things happen because you've set yourself up for success sophomore and freshman year with development starting, really your development all the way through this process. But again, setting yourself up for success sophomore year, and now you're getting recruited. You get an offer and then you commit the. This is where the bulk of commitments happen at the next levels, whether it's division one, even some division two, Division three happen also junior year into senior year. We'll get into that here in a minute. But a good goal is to have a commitment sometime during your junior year or the summer after your junior year. That is a good goal to have. So what can we be doing? Okay, updating our school list. Updating the schools that are recruiting your position. Updating the schools, schools that you're interested in. Updating the schools that you have not heard back from. Okay. Or you haven't got interest from. That's going to happen. That is a part of this recruiting process is people saying, no, we're not interested. Sometimes a no it means it's dead silence. Okay, guys, so if you're reaching out, I've seen this a lot over the years. Is a student athlete. Reach out to a Vanderbilt or a Florida or a Texas or ucla, some of the top programs, the in country. You're just not getting any attention. You're not getting any interest. We need to reevaluate where we're sending our communication. Okay? We need to reevaluate the levels that we're going after to see. Hey, who is communicating with us? Which level are we getting? Whether that's division one, because there's tiers, Division one, there's the top tier, the power fives, there's also mid majors, there's lower division ones. And then of course we got D2s and D3s, NAIA Junior College. Okay, so reevaluate that process. And then, hey, updating our recruiting video, sending that out as we go. And then, hey, getting in front of college coaches exposure is the biggest and most important thing that you can be doing. Your junior year exposure. That's your recruiting video and that's getting in front of college coaches at showcases, at camps, at tournaments, and making sure that you're going to the right showcases and camps because you want to go to the ones that the college coaches are actually at and the specific college coaches that are actually doing the recruiting. There's some college coaches out there that just. They don't really have that much involvement in recruiting. Okay? And that is the volunteer and there's Some camps that most volunteers are at that camp and it can be a money grab. Okay. There's just some out there, but there's definitely a lot of good camps and showcases out there that are good and that do a good job of. Okay, so you want to make sure you're going to the right one. Let's get into the last year. Let's dive into it. This is crunch time. Here we are in late August, early September, starting your senior year and we only have a few more months left of recruiting for the next level. And some schools, some divisions, some Division 1 schools are already done. Of course those Floridas and Vanderbilts, they're pretty much done to this point. There's some division ones that are still recruiting through this. High academic schools and other mid majors, lower Division 1 schools are still recruiting, but there's also a lot done. My point of saying that is if you're going after Division 1 and you're not hearing anything back or you're not getting any interest back, you need to open yourself to D2 and D3. Absolutely. And you need to start reaching out because Division 2 and Division 3 will be recruiting through the fall and even some through the winter of next year. Going into that next year, going through your last semester, if you will, of your senior year, you need to be open minded. Division two and Division three, this is great baseball, unbelievable baseball. Some of these baseball teams. Division two, division three can beat division one teams. Absolutely. And hey, only 7% of high school athletes reach NCAA. That's division one, division two and division three. That's amazing. So if you reach division two, division three, that is amazing. You're part of that 7%. 92% of these athletes did not make it. Again, that's an accomplishment. Be open minded to that. And it's more about playing and continuing your career. So if it's not a Division 1, that's okay. You can continue your career at Division 2, Division 3 level. And then there's also NAIA or junior college, depending on what you're looking for. So readjust your school list, readjust your communication to these college coaches. Update your recruiting video. This is a refresh of junior year and really make sure that you are blasting out. And hey again, getting help if you need it. Having an unbiased opinion where you could be going, where you could be looking, being proactive in this process. I hope you got something from this video. Whether you're a freshman all the way through senior year. If you did, please smash that like button. Subscribe to my channel. It helps me out a lot, and I look forward to seeing you in the next video. Take care.