Over-Recruiting or OverZealousness

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One other thing to consider

I think we often forget that a lot of schools offer sports as a means to attract students to their schools. Every school has enrollment goals and operational budgets that depend on those enrollment numbers.

Over a few adult beverages one time I discussed this with a coach at a D2 school who I know quite well, and I frankly asked him were they expected to bring a certain amount of students to the campus. And I wasn't surprised when he said they had a recruiting goal that was mandated to them.

Now none of this may apply to some of you who read it. But the comments to set realistic expectations and carefully select where your player elects to further his education and athletic career.

UK7Dook3's advice about evaluating whether you can contribute is important.

I say this because I didn't and maybe you can learn from my mistake.

 

Most schools can get players on campus solely based on their academic grades. The higher the GPA, the more academic money that can be found for each player. When a school finds academic money for the student-athlete they are also finding money for the school. That's why college coaches love the high scores. More academic dollars, less baseball dollars. They can use the scholarship money to entice the 5-tool types. The really smart guys may give up baseball, but they still go after that diploma. So, a coach is also recruiting students to the school that probadly won't be playing 4 years of baseball.

 

Interesting reading in this thread on the over-signing/over-recruitment issues in baseball. See the link below for a website I found to be an interesting read as it relates to football recruiting and specifically overrecruiting. This is an issue I know is on the NCAA's radar as it relates to football, and any changes they make there will ultimately affect baseball as well at some point. Enjoy the link and the information, as I did.

http://oversigning.com/testing/

 

Interesting quote about Les Miles: He signs the max players every year and then sorts the bodies out later. In baseball, it is apparent that some programs are signing over the maximum amount of players and then sorting the bodies out later. All you have to do of course is keep track of all the high schoolers who have committed to a certain school out of each class. Even if you factor out the players who may go pro directly out of high school, you're still left with more players than you need. Behind the scenes there are alot of casualties.