Episode Transcript
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[00:01:12] Speaker B: Welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball.
[00:01:16] Speaker C: I'm Andy Kidis, joined by my wonderful.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Co host Keith Glasser. How we doing?
[00:01:21] Speaker D: Great. How are you?
[00:01:24] Speaker B: This is one of my favorite topics that we have to explore every single year because our job is to educate and to make people think critically about this process.
And I find that we have to continue to circle back to this specific topic because for some reason people can't get it through their heads that Division 3 baseball and junior college baseball are not fallback plans or places where bad players go.
This idea that there's a fit for everybody, I think me and you have talked about this, that there's a program out there for everybody. I don't think that's true. When you're talking about 8, maybe 10% of kids playing in college, the filter is pretty fine. It is very difficult to play baseball at the collegiate level, regardless of what division you go to or junior college or naia.
And this one, honestly, having coached and played at the Division 1 level and coached at the Division 3 level, this one kind of pisses me off when I hear people talk about, oh, well, you know, name Division 3 program. Oh, well, he's better than that.
No, he's not.
Like most of the people who have this opinion. And I might, I might ruffle some feathers with this.
There's a lot of people who have this opinion that Division 3 baseball is not good.
Most of them have absolutely no idea what they're talking about.
And this comes from people who are in the baseball world and they don't know the level of play that happens at those institutions.
And it's frustrating for me being in this position. We are now trying to help families navigate this, that you have to constantly combat this idea that Division 3 sports is like intramurals. And it couldn't be further from the truth.
And I think the quicker that people realize that in order to play college sports, it's hard enough and to seriously take into consideration Division 3 and Junior Colleges, specifically junior college, I think is something that's extremely overlooked.
It's frustrating to me that people view these as fallbacks in a place that like, well, I'll just go and they'll let me on the team. Like, it's not how it works, not how it works at all.
I'm done.
[00:03:54] Speaker D: Sorry, sorry for the pause there. I was, I was fighting for my life to get back to the unmute button there.
Yeah. You know, I, I fought this for, for years. Right? Like, I spent 10 years at the Division 3 level. I spent a year at the Division 2 level.
I've said this on here that I think that no one, you know, no one really understands how good you have to be in order to play college baseball at a high level.
You know, the fact of the matter is that, you know, 8% of high school student athletes that play baseball are going to play in college.
That means 92% and you know, said this before, I'll bump it to 10 for NAI and JUCO, but 90% are not going to play. So if you're on a high school team and you have 20 guys, there's two guys on that team that could potentially play college baseball.
It's a low number.
And this idea that, you know, everyone is a Division 1 baseball player is just a, a fallacy and B, not, not realistic.
There's only 34 spots on what, 300ish programs in the country.
Right.
What are we up to? It was like two now. I think we, I think we jumped till about 300.
So, you know, you're talking about 10,000. 10,200, if my calculator is correct. Ish student athletes that can play college baseball at the Division 1 level at any given time. At any given time.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: So you're looking at what roughly, you.
[00:05:37] Speaker D: Know, we'll call it, divide that by four. It's 2500. Yeah, 2500 high school seniors and junior college guys that are going to go play college baseball at the Division 1 level if we, if everything is equal, but you know, give or take, it's going to be about 2500 a year and it's something like 400 plus thousand high school seniors play college baseball or play high school baseball.
So like the, the numbers don't bear it out that everyone is a Division 1 baseball player and it, it's just simply not true.
Right? Like, if you watch enough of this, you know who they are and if you're objective, you can look and be like, yeah, no, that's, that, that's likely a Division 1 guy.
And as we've talked about on here, the floor has gotten higher. It's harder to be a Division 1 guy nowadays than it was 10 years ago.
And that's good for the game of baseball, it's good for college baseball.
But also understand that if the floor to play college baseball at the Division 1 level has been raised, it's been raised at the Division 2 and Division 3 and Junior Junior College levels as well.
Because the guys that used to be able to play Division 1 baseball are now playing Division 2 and Division 3 baseball. And those guys that used to kind of be roster fillers at the Division 3 level aren't there anymore because the guys they, you know, they're now playing, you know, either at a high end Division 3 or, you know, maybe up.
So, you know, junior college and, and Division 3 are not a fallback of like, well, you know, if I don't play Division 1, I can certainly make a Division 3 team. Like, nah, that's not the case.
Like, if you're not a Division 1 guy, like, there's probably going to be some deficiencies in your game and depending on how bad or how big those deficiencies are, you might not be good enough to play at the junior college level or the Division 3 level because they have guys that can do it.
And you know, hey, maybe you may make a roster like, but you ain't walking in there and starting day one.
Right. Like, there is a steep learning curve in college baseball. So, you know, in the junior college level, like, you know, there's dudes getting drafted out of junior college every year.
Go look at the rosters of the LSU is, the Florida states, the Arkansas, the Texas is the go look in the SEC and the, in the acc. They're littered with junior college baseball players, which logically would then tell you that the junior college baseball that these guys are playing are likely pretty good.
If they're good enough at that junior college to end up in the ACC or the sec, they're probably pretty good baseball players and the level of competition that they're playing against is probably pretty good.
So you know, it's, and it's, it's not just Division 1 too, right? Like I, we talked about this with Fuller a couple weeks ago and I've said this before, you know Division 2 baseball in the Southeast is, is big boy real deal baseball. I mean we were junior college heavy recruiting when I was at West Alabama, but I mean we were as high as 6 in the country under Gary Rundles and you know we had dudes, we had guys with serious draft interest. We had all Americans, we played in a regional with you know, a bunch of guys that got drafted. Tommy Kanely was a big leaguer, you know like there, there were dudes all over that. The Southeast Division 2 in the Tampa's and the Nova Southeasterns and the Lynn's and the West Alabamas and the Delta States and the Valdosta States of the world. And I'm probably leaving some out but like there's dudes down there that can flat out play and you know, kind of this idea that like well if I'm not a Division 1 guy I can find a spot. Like I'm not, I'm not of the belief that there is a spot for everybody. I am of the belief that if you have the requisite, the requisite skill set to play college baseball, you can likely find a place to be able to play it. Obviously it's going to have to match your academics and the stuff you want to do. But the idea that just anybody can play college baseball if you want it hard and bad enough, just I don't subscribe to and that might fly in the face with some people but you know, if you're a 5 foot 9, 130 pound right handed pitcher who's 68 to 70, I.
There's not a lot of places for you out there, if any, to play college baseball.
And that's just the reality, right? Like I can't play in the NBA as a 6 foot, I never played basketball. So I, that's probably a bad comp. But like I can't play in the NBA, I'm not good at basketball. That's just the reality of the situation. Like the, your path is eventually going to end unfortunately. And you know, sometimes it's after high school, sometimes it's during college, sometimes it's after college for me. For you it came when we graduated college. Like we didn't go play beyond college. That was when I hung up my cleats and I never played baseball again.
And that's just what it was. I was fortunate enough to be able to do that. You were too you know, and I don't take that for granted that we were, you know, looking back on it 20 years later, that we were. We were fortunate enough to be able to be Division 1 baseball players and, you know, have play in a regional and have a lot of success and be very proud of our alma mater as I'm repping the Foxes tonight.
But I never really had, like, I never thought that I was just going to fall back into Division 3. And I think the more that the older I've gotten, the. The more I coach, the more, especially now I realize that, you know, to be in that 8%, you have to be a pretty good baseball player in order to find yourself in that 8% to play Division 1, 2 or 3.
And, you know, I would encourage many people to shift your mindset away from like, I'm settling for Division 3 to I am fortunate enough to be able to be good enough to play at this level, because I think you're going to be very surprised if you make a Division 3 roster how good a.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: Lot of those guys are and how.
[00:12:08] Speaker D: Good the competition is that you're going to roll out there and face.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: Well, and I think we've seen this firsthand, and I think that that's.
It's an. It's important context as a part of this conversation is that we've lived this, right? We're not making these statements without having seen it. And I think that that's the troubling thing for me is that there's people out there who bark from, you know, from above about, well, that kid's better than that program or he's better than that level. But you don't know anything about that because you've never seen it.
You know, your only reference is, well, I've seen some kids who've played at certain levels. Well, yeah, well, one, this is a constantly evolving process, right? The kids who were Division 1 players 10 years ago, a lot of them aren't Division 1 players now, right? But it's constantly evolving. It's a moving target at all times.
And there's, there's nuance to this conversation because we like to throw these convenient, easy labels on top of this conversation that Division 1 and Division, Division 2 and Division 3.
But you're not digging deeper into the quality of a program, right? And sometimes it's not judged purely by velocity and exit velocity. And 60 times it's, does a program win? What are the pillars of that program? What does the coaching staff look like? And me and you know this, there's Division 3 coaches that are as good as anybody in the country, and there's Division 1 coaches that it's laughable that they get paid what they do, to do what they do, and everywhere in between.
And.
[00:13:41] Speaker D: And to be fair, that's true in every walk of life.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
But. But me and you, we've lived this, and I think it's important, like. And I'll reference this back to coaching in the Liberty League, which you're obviously intimately familiar with.
There was guys in that Liberty League every single year who were the better players in that conference that were 100% good enough to play at Division 1 baseball.
[00:14:06] Speaker D: Thousand percent.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: Every single year. I had guys at Vassar who could go and play at the Division 1 level.
I mean, I think back to, like, some of the really good RPI teams that. Really good.
Ron had it going at Skidmore while I was there, and they're running out dudes who are 87 to 89 at the time.
[00:14:24] Speaker D: You know, Ron had a.
Ron had, like, a 12th round draft pick two years ago.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Joe Rain has had draft picks coming out of Rochester.
[00:14:32] Speaker D: Nolan Schultz just got popped two years ago. He was 94 to 96 and absolutely electric on the bump.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And this. It's.
We speak this because we've seen it and we know it, and. Can all Division 3 players play at the Division 1 level? No, that's not what we're saying.
[00:14:49] Speaker D: But they're there.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Estimating the quality of play is where people get lost in this process, and they skip the fact often that you need to be a really good high school player to play in college. Period.
[00:15:02] Speaker D: Mm.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: At any level.
In.
But the. The nuance of that conversation is being a good high school player doesn't qualify you to be a Division 1 player.
[00:15:14] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: Hitting.400 in high school doesn't make you a Division 1 player just because the Division 1 player on your team hit.390 and you hit.400. That's not how this works. It's not that simple.
So.
[00:15:29] Speaker D: And I think that, you know, it's.
You saw it, I think, during COVID too, right? Like, you know, there's guys from Rochester, the Whitley kid who ended up having a really good career at Richmond.
You know, I had Ryan Yerby, who had a great year at San Francisco, and Chris Grohl had a good year at Delaware.
You know, there's a lot of guys who had jumped, you know, because they had the capability of doing so, and had a really good year or two at the Division 1 level. You know, now, that said and this can go into a, devolve into a longer thing that we're probably going to talk about here in like five minutes on a different podcast. So stay tuned.
You know, but those guys had developed into that over the course of four years at the school where they, you know, eventually got to the point where they were that good. Not to say that, like, they were not that good when they set foot on campus. But by the time they graduated with the amount of playing time that they had, the amount of innings they logged, the amount of at bats they had, like they were able to make that jump, that's not the same for everyone. It's not to say that. My point is trying to emphasize what you're saying. It's not the same for everybody. But there are going to be guys that are, have that capability after having the amount of time they play at that level of being able to do that. It's not going to be everyone. They're outliers amongst outliers.
So, you know, there's that too. But, you know, I just like, it's riddled with talent. Like, you know, show up and watch some of the top 25, if you live in Florida, go to the Russ Matt tournament, see some of the better teams that are playing down there. Like, there's dudes all over the place that can flat out play.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: 100.
Don't, don't sleep on it. Don't consider it to be a fallback plan. And honestly, if you're too, if you're too high and mighty to play Division 3 baseball, then you probably don't want to play baseball bad enough.
I'll say that if you're. But if you think you're above junior college baseball, you don't want to play baseball bad enough.
It's not for the. And that's the other thing. We'll talk about this later. But like, I'll leave it at this. College baseball is not for the faint of heart.
If you don't want to work at it and you don't take it serious and you think that you're above a certain level, then you're going to have a tough go of it anyways.
[00:17:56] Speaker D: Yeah. And to be fair, I don't even know if it's to be fair, to be honest. That's true of any sport.
You know, if there's parents are listening, have kids and not playing baseball, they're playing other sports. Maybe one of your kids plays baseball. But that's true of every sport. Like, the time commitment alone is a lot.
And what you're going to be asked to do is, is more than you've ever been asked to do before in your life. So there's, there's a lot that goes into it that is, you know, if, if it's not really ultimately, what if it doesn't drive you and it like, if you, if you struggle as a younger kid to really find a drive to do it, you're likely not going to last that long in college athletics.
That's just the fact.
And it's sniffed out quick.
We know as coaches, the guys who did nothing over summer break or winter break, it's readily apparent the second I see you at practice.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: I mean, we lived it. Yeah, we, every single year, Emerson, we would have a freshman come in and go, you know what? I don't, I don't want to work this hard at it. Almost just going to go to school.
It's not for everybody.
As it should be. It shouldn't be. You know, this is a, it's a privilege, not a right to play college baseball. And you got to earn it. So.
All right. Thank you for listening, everybody. Tune in next week. We'll talk to you then.
Thank you for listening this week.
[00:19:30] Speaker C: If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.
