Episode Transcript
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[00:01:12] Speaker B: Welcome to this week's edition of the Dugout Dish podcast. I'm Andy Kiria Kidis, joined by my Wonderful co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How we doing?
Great.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: How are you?
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Good. We got a, we got a special guest on tonight. Another, another awesome interview on the, on the docket. So I'll kick it over to you for the intro here and we'll get rolling.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Sure.
Tonight we're excited to be joined by Coach Mamula from the University of Delaware. He's heading to his fourth season with the Blue Hens. He's been coaching college baseball for over 25 years. Widely known as one of the top hitting coaches in the country with teams that have had some of the best offensive records and stats at the Division 1 level. Along the way he's developed first round picks. We got MLB All Stars, we got bunch of big league hitters. But we're looking forward to diving into his coaching journey, talking player development, talking recruiting, talking moving into the, the Sunbelt. We got a whole, whole list of things that we're going to be or Conference usa, excuse me, that we're going to be kicking around this podcast tonight. So Coach, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us.
[00:02:13] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for the opportunity, Keith, and for that warm introduction.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Absolutely.
I was super excited. We, Andy and I were, were recording last week and I was like, we should. I'm going to text Coach Manuel and see if he wants to come on the pod. And to my surprise, you were like, I'll come on next week. And I was like, oh, well, there we go.
One thing solved right away.
[00:02:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: So happy New Year to you. As we record this on January 5th.
Again, we're super excited for you to join us, but if you could, before we get going and start talking college baseball, if you just give the listeners a quick rundown of how you have become the head coach at the University of Delaware.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:02:52] Speaker C: I've been all over, well traveled like so many in our profession.
Keith grew up Western Pennsylvania, played at Saint Bonaventure University and warm western New York.
Thought I was going to play professional baseball. And after I hit a buck 70 my sophomore year, I thought maybe I should start to look some different directions. And coaching is inevitably where I ended up. So after playing at Saint Bonaventure, I was a grad assistant at Shippensburg University Division 2 school in Pennsylvania.
From there became an assistant at the University of Delaware.
I was there for five years, then got my first head coaching job at Division 2 Westchester University in Pennsylvania.
From Westchester went to the University of Cincinnati.
After five years at Cincinnati, we got fired and was out of baseball for a year. So self proclaimed first team father of the year that year with my kids at home to get back in baseball, back into baseball. I went to IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. Great experience, was there for a year and was fortunate to get hired at Florida Atlantic.
I was an assistant then at FAU for seven years and then as you mentioned, am now beginning my fourth year at Delaware, is now the head coach. So while traveled 26 years, this will be year four as a head coach at Delaware and I guess year seven overall as a head coach, which I believe would mean 19 years as an assistant coach along the way.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah, you've seen a lot and something I definitely want to get into at some point in here. But you've coached at the highest level of Division 2 with Westchester and the success you guys had there and being at Shippensburg and you've coached up and down the ladder, Division one, you know, you guys are going into Conference usa. But one of the things that I think it gets lost in the sauce sometimes in the whole recruiting landscape is a lot of people don't understand how competitive it is at other levels.
So I'm going to put, I'm going to put a pause on that one. I definitely want to get your pick your brain on that because I think it's an important topic.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: But first question, hold on, hold on, hold on. I would be remiss as we begin this podcast to not mention that my wife's entire family are Bonnie's. So I would be remiss to not mention that my Father in law and mother in law are Bonnie's. They met at Bonaventure, got married. They've been married for 40 plus years. My brother and sister in law are Bonnie's. Same thing. My other sister in law is a Bonnie. So we, while my wife and I are not, we're the lone outcasts in this family not being Bonnie's.
We, we are heavily ingrained in the Bonaventure culture.
[00:05:46] Speaker C: Right.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: And, and the first part of that word is cult.
And as much as I love.
[00:05:53] Speaker C: It.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Is, I love it. But it's, I would be, I would be remiss to not mention that there is a, a very deep Bonaventure connection on this podcast.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:06:03] Speaker C: I'm glad you told me that, Keith. And it's one of those places as you just mentioned. It's like I feel like in class, half the kids sitting in your class, their parents went there and I'm sure now, you know, their kids are students there. It's just one of those, one of those special places.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: It's a fun place. Like I've been there, you know, a handful of times. I've go to, you know, we go to a bunch of basketball games in the winter, you know, but like my, even my brother in law, his father went there and his uncle went there and like everyone, his sister, like everyone loves the place and it is, it's a really cool place that, you know, I don't think it's as cool as Marist, but that said, I didn't go there, but. No, it is, it is a really cool place. I, I think it's a, a very unique place to go to. It's a very similar school to Maris. So it's, you know, I, the vibes are the same, but it's, there's very deep, deep Bonaventure ties here. So I, I would be remiss. My brother in law listen to this podcast. He, he was my, my bench coach in, in Covid when I was at rpi, which meant he just came and watched on the outside and then gave me tips on how we could maybe be a little bit better.
But no, it was, it's, it's been good. So I, I needed to mention that Andy, before we got into this.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: Fair enough. I forgot about how deep the Bonnie, the Bonnie's run in that family. So the first question we usually ask Greg is how do you go about identifying players and ultimately end up recruiting players at ud? The process is different everywhere, but for you guys, how does it start and maybe clue us into some of the things that you really value along the way?
[00:07:40] Speaker C: Yeah, no, great question. And this question has to be answered differently almost every year now, right? As the roles are changing, recruiting is changing and it's so fast. I feel like you just have to be on constant alert for what's going on in the recruiting world and keep a pulse on it at all times.
A couple, I guess, premises for me, Andy. Number one, I do not believe in over recruiting.
As we know, it's popular in many programs, Division 1 programs to commit more kids than you have roster spots for. I just, I can't do that to a kid, to a family.
You know, when we offer a roster spotter scholarship, we're going to have it for that kid. So that's going to set the foundation for everything we do from a recruiting standpoint. And when we operate under those terms, we probably need to move a little bit slower in order to be a little bit sure than most.
So I'm going to then go from that, that part to our ballpark. You know, you guys both played there. It's a very hitter friendly ballpark. Delaware is really flat. It can get really windy in the spring and the wind tends to blow out to right field at our park. So we would be foolish not to prioritize left handed hitters and left hand hitters that have a little bit of juice in their bat. So that's always going to be a starting point for us with position players.
Again, left hand hitters that can drive the baseball. I also like guys that are really good with the strike zone. You know, our goals and offense is to lead the ligand on base percentage and slugging percentage. And obviously if you can do those things at a high level, you're going to score a lot of runs.
Having said that, we're going to need to attract pitchers that can get off the barrel. Right. Strikeouts would be ideal, but if not strikeouts, ground balls work a lot better in our ballpark than fly balls. So the pitchers we're going to chase are going to be guys that can get swing and miss or if not can get guys on the ground.
But that's, I guess in a nutshell there's a lot more to it. I can go on and on, Andy, but kind of point me in the direction of how you want me to go next with this.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: I love the part about playing to your park and I think that that's something that gets overlooked and that's part of the reason we love to have these interviews and talk to different coaches is they're able to peel the onion back on some of the detail that they go through when they're trying to identify guys, and that's something that I think more coaches do than they probably actually articulate, is that, you know, at the end of the day, you play most of your games at home and you want to be good at home. And being able to recruit to your ballpark is, you know, is a huge piece of the puzzle.
I'm always personally curious about.
You know, you identify a guy that you think is good enough to play for you, whether he's on the mound or whether it's a positional guy that's going to be a fit for your upcoming class, he fits a position or does some things that you really value.
I personally am super interested in how guys go through the process to find out if a guy's going to be a fit for your program from a character perspective, from kind of an intangibles perspective. And I think that a lot of times the tangible piece is easier for people to understand. You're 6:3 and you run a 6:8 and you can hit the ball 450ft. But why does that guy get recruited some places and not others? And sometimes it comes down to personality and, you know, ultimately what's going to be a fit for the program?
[00:11:11] Speaker C: Yeah, good question.
I guess I'm going to answer it two different ways. I'm going to start with the high school guy we know, and I'm going to start with the high school hitter. The high school hitter, in my opinion, is the hardest evaluation.
Right. Because the level of pitching you're going to watch them face is going to be almost, you know, always going to be different than what they're going to face when they get on campus. So that's where the most, most of the misses come for us in all programs is with high school hitters. So we're going to do our best to see as many at bats as we can, ideally want to see those in as competitive a setting as we can against the best pitching. And events, tournaments against higher level teams when the scoreboard's on, we're trying to win that sort of stuff.
We're going to get on the phone and talk to the high school coach, the travel coach, if there's, you know, a hitting coach, and just try to learn as much about the kid as possible.
I feel like this day and age, between those phone calls, talking to the kid, you can get a sense for the personality, the work ethic, the type of student, the fit. That part I feel like is easier, especially the longer I get into this profession and do this. The evaluation part of the high school hitter is the hardest.
If we're going to flip it to the transfer hitter, when we're going to go after a transfer hitter, we're going to prioritize the guy that's already produced, right? It's no longer about the ceiling, it's about what, what have they done, what can they do? And we're trying to get somebody that, you know, we minimize the risk that you're going to get with a high school hitter, with the, with the transfer hitter and look at the numbers and again, of course do the, the background, that sort of thing, you know, with talking to as many people as you can about him flipping it over to the pitching side. I feel like the evaluation of a high school pitcher is easier than of a hitter right this day and age, with all the metrics and tools we have, it's a lot easier, I think, to predict what's going to happen with the high school pitcher.
The toughest part for me now, Andy, as I ramble on about this recruiting piece, is the health part. It just feels like so many pitchers that we and everybody are recruiting are showing up injured.
We've probably, since I've been here, have averaged at least one year, one kid a year that shows up on campus within his arm in a sling or about to be in a sling, you know, injured from his last year or two of high school. So that becomes the part where we have to try to do our best to figure out the arm health. Is this kid healthy? And just try to look and follow, I guess, his stream of pitching and when he's been taking downtime and what injuries he's had, that sort of thing. And then obviously the transfer pitcher market is a really tough one for a school like ours, if I'm just being honest, to get a kid that has already produced and put up numbers at the Division 1 level.
So the Division 1 transfer pitchers we've got have typically been kids that maybe were at a bigger program and weren't getting opportunity or kids from a Division 2, Division 3 school that have produced. And actually Keith and I, we had one of his former players, Chris Grohl, a left hander who is a grad transfer from RPI that came to us. So that type of model. Again, rambling on. I'll try to be shorter with your next question, Andy, but there's just so much to unpack with that question.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: No, I think it's.
You're not rambling Because I, I think it's, these are the things that Andy and I love about doing the interviews with coaches is we pull all of this stuff out of the people who are still in the business.
We can sit here and pontificate about this all, all we want while we, we do, but like it when we do this with other coaches. It adds a level of authenticity and truth to what it is that we're saying. Not just like two guys who used to coach and sit here and pontificate about how hard it is to get recruited nowadays. Because the reality is like it is this is probably the hardest it's been to play college baseball in its history. We have less players playing at the Division 1 level and the floor has been raised, you know, to the Division 2 and the Division 3 levels.
And I think that people don't really understand how hard it is to be recruited at A, the Division 1 level, but B college baseball in general where like, you know, I'm really good in my town. Well yeah, that doesn't mean anything. Like you have to be really good nationally for or be in the conversation nationally to have a seat at the table when it comes to the recruiting end of things. And I think it gets interesting when you know, you start talking about your field and you know, you recruit to your field, which is very true. Like you might, you're going to pass on kids that are good players because it's not going to fit what it is that your team does and what it is that your team needs. And I like people really struggle with that in the recruiting process. I think parents and kids alike because it's well, I'm good and I'm better than the kid that Delaware is recruiting. Well, maybe you are, maybe aren't, but you're a right handed kid who runs a 7, 7 60. Like yeah, you got some juice like the other kids. He's a 6, 8 runner who has juice from the left side. That's the player they're looking to recruit. Like that's why you're not being recruited at said school. And you know, I like people struggle with the idea of just like well if I, because I think people always think like if, if you're good enough you can play anywhere. And that's quasi true. Like just because you're good doesn't mean you can play everywhere. There's going to be certain places where you fit in certain places that you don't. And the, I think the other side of it too is that you have the, the character piece and the fit, fit piece that goes with it too, because I'm sure after being in coaching for 25 years, like, you realize in the recruiting process and talking to kids, like, I don't know if this kid, if I'm going to fit well with this kid or, or this kid's going to fit well with me.
And like that. That's a piece of the puzzle too. Like you, like, I passed on kids that I didn't think I was going to be able to be either. A. I didn't think we were going to be compatible enough to be able for me to get the most out of the kid because, you know, maybe I didn't think he was going to be able to handle my style of coaching where I demand a little bit more and I'm a little bit more aggressive and in your face about some stuff, like, And I don't know if he could handle that in talking to coaches and talking to the kid, like, really good kid. But I don't know if this is going to be the good fit, the best fit for him and me.
And I, I think people struggle with that side of it too. Of like, well, why am I not getting, you know, I, I talked to this guy, like, he stopped, you know, we stopped kind of talking to each other. It's like, well, they may have figured out that you might not be the best fit for them. And that's not a negative. That just means that, you know, we're. You move on to another school or another program, another level, whatever it might be. But I think like peeling back the pieces of these onions, like, I don't want you to feel like you're rambling because you're not. Because I'll ramble for, for all three of us on this podcast all night.
But I think that, like, these things are important for people to at least hear and try to and, and understand that it's, it's not always just going to be. It's not as cut and dry as I'm good at baseball and I'm a good kid. That gets you recruited to any and all program. It is that you want to go to because as we all know, in, you know, I coach for 16 years, Andy for 12, you're in for 25.
We all know that the recruiting process for any kid is not linear. Like, very rarely is a kid like, I want to go to LSU and he ends up at LSU or Arkansas or name the sec, ACC program. It's not linear like that there's going to be es and flows and how you develop and Maybe it's early, maybe it's late, you know, so it's. I. People need to understand that it's not just a, it's not a straight line of like, this is where I want to go, that's where I'm going to do. And this is, I just have to be good and a good kid there, there's like, yes, you have to do those things, but that might not be, you know, the good kid part might be good, but maybe you're not good enough for that program or what that program wants, you know, And I think it's easier when it's like, well, hey, we have five catchers and you're a catcher. I, we don't need a sixth catcher.
But when you're. They're in the conversation and it kind of falls by the wayside. It's like, well, why? What, what happened there? And you know, it's not always just, well, you're right handed and he's left handed and all things equal, they're taking a left handed bat over a right handed Batman. Like that's just what it is.
[00:20:04] Speaker C: Yeah, I want to. Good stuff. Keith. I want to add on, like, as we say, everything is evolving in college and recruiting and like when you say fit, there's the fit of what I'm going to call the old school that you and I are talking about or you're talking about with. He fits well into our program. What we want, what we need, who we want to coach, who we want to have. But now we've also added this other level of fit of we have to figure out in the recruiting process is this kid going to stick around once he has success?
If the answer to that is no, then we're probably going to have to move on to the next kid, even though he may fit in the traditional sense. Because we know if we want to win at a high level, we need to get good players and we need to get them to stick around. We can't have, you know, a kid come in, he has one good year and he's going to leave.
That's going to happen. But we need to minimize that as much as possible to have a championship level program. So there's that part. And then now this day and age, the financial piece, the fit of is this kid going to be running into our office the minute he has some success asking for more money?
We're limited. We can't have those players in our program either. We need kids whose families are comfortable with the initial scholarship that they agree to that they can afford that for four years at our place. So just, you know, another, I guess, layer as we talk about what is, what is fit in 2026.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: I think the one thing too, sorry, Andy, I just wanted to add one more bow, I suppose, to this ever evolving conversation. But I, I think the other side and the transfer, the transfer stuff we can get into if we want to at some point. But I, I think, and Andy and I talked about this on a recent podcast where you bring up Chris Chrome, who pitched for me and then ultimately finished his career at Delaware and pitched for you. And I think that in the early, I don't, I guess we're still in the early stages of it, but like the, the very early in Covid. And I think you're seeing the, the mindset of people being like, well, you know, if a Chris Grohm can pitch at RPI and go pitch a Delaware. And I had a Ryan Irby was the pitcher of the year for us who pitched at San Francisco. Like, and there's a multitude of guys who have done this. Like, I can do this too.
And they're looking at it through the lens of like, well, these guys are Division 3 guys who finished Division 1. But you don't see the, the three, four years of struggle and work that they did to produce at the college level to get to where they were to make that jump to go play at the Division 1 level. And I think people think that it's just giving instant success at the college level of like, well, if I'm, I'm going to go to said school because I didn't get what I wanted and I'm just going to jump in the transfer portal and be a Division 1 guy when that's not necessarily the case where, you know, and I, I talked about it recently, so I won't go too far in depth. But, you know, like, Ryan, nearby was a walk on for us at rpi. I saw him throw once. He was from California. He had a really good breaking ball. He was like 83, 84, bumped in 85, 86. And I was like, hey man, if you come to the school, I'll give you the fall.
And he was 86, 87 with a really good breaking ball. It still wasn't good enough to pitch for us even eight years ago, right away where, you know, he was a bullpen guy and then he was a midweek guy. And then he developed into a weekend guy who became pitcher of the year. And by the time he left, he was 89 to 92, running up around 93, Chris Groan was the same way. Bullpen guy into a midweek guy into a conference starter. And it was them working their asses off for three or four years to get to that point, to have the ability to even be in the conversation, to be able to go play at that level. And I think that a lot of people nowadays are like, well, I see all these guys who have done it, so I can do it too. And I think that, you know, those guys, and especially the guys at Division 3 level are outliers, but so are the guys that are going from, you know, mid major division ones into the acc, sec and playing like that's. They're outliers in these conversations. They're not necessarily the norm where I think a lot of guys are like, well, I'm just going to level up. And you know, what. What does that look like? And, you know, you could. And I would imagine you could correct me if I'm wrong, but like, you could be the Friday night guy at Delaware. And yeah, man, you can go to North Carolina, but you might just, you know, you might go from throwing 70 innings for you to 15 innings for them because they got a stable of those guys. And like, I think that people just kind of don't take all of those things into consideration and think, well, not me. And we end up making decisions that maybe aren't the best when we made the right decision the first time.
[00:24:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Yeah. The transfer port is such an interesting thing because I think it's good in a lot of ways.
It gives some guys some opportunities to maybe correct a mistake, maybe find a better fit. But I have to say that I'm thankful that I didn't have to deal with it as a coach when I was at William and Mary, because to your point, Greg, you know, there's guys that, if they're really good as a freshman, like, what's going to happen to those guys and how do you account for that in the recruiting process? Like, that's got to be a difficult thing to really try to sift through. Is a kid really bought into. I want to go and I want to play at Delaware. I want to develop. I want to be a part of that program versus going all right, well, they're going to give me an opportunity, but the first opportunity I have to leave, I'm going to get out of here.
And that's got to be a hard thing to sift through when you're. When you're going through this process.
Am I correct?
[00:25:52] Speaker C: Yeah. And the first part of what you said, Andy, like, you know, as soon as you say transfer portal, I think immediately most people think it's a negative, you know, and I. I just try to get into the mode of it's not a negative or positive. You know, for some. For some kids it becomes a negative or positive. But, you know, there's kids, like you said that we've had many in our program that have come in and it hasn't worked out for one reason or another, and the transfer portal has allowed them to go somewhere else and maybe play immediately, and they weren't going to play for us. So it turned into a positive for that kid. But no, that's. It's all, you know, it's all part of the juggling act and what makes recruiting so interesting and frustrating, you know, at times.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: How is the. How's the portal impacted how you handle high school guys?
Is it.
The timing of it is funky for people to really understand that you're going to go and evaluate portal guys in June for who are going to play for you in the fall.
How do you account for that when you're going through, like, you're working on your 27 class right now, I assume.
Yes. How do you.
How do you guys manage that portion of it where.
I'm assuming you're probably going to try to leverage the portal to some extent, but you've also said that you need high school guys because they're the lifeblood of a program and guys who can go there and really develop. How do you try to juggle that and how has it impacted how you go about your recruiting process?
[00:27:27] Speaker C: Yeah, we're always trying to maintain balance. Balance in classes. Right. You don't want to get too heavy and a freshman class senior, you want to try to balance them out over your four classes as best as possible.
Ideally for us, Andy, we like to think for each kid that's leaving our program as a senior, we want to replace him with a freshman, with a high school kid. Obviously, you have to forecast that out and recruiting a couple years ahead of time.
You know, as you said, we're recruiting 27s now. So who's going to be our. Who are going to be our seniors next year in 27? And then the guys that we lose via the transfer portal or whatever else, we're usually going to replace those with other transfers. So replace the seniors with freshmen and replace the guys that are leaving through the portal with other transfers has kind of been our ideal scenario for us.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: As.
[00:28:18] Speaker C: As you said, we're gonna try to build this Thing with getting really good high school programs and then supplement with transfers when needed.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: How do you factor in the junior college ranks? I know you guys have had some success with some junior college guys. I know specifically at a guy who had a nice little career for you here. I talked to Chris Collazo, you know, here and there and he had mentioned, you know, one of the junior college you guys had that had a ton of success. How does that factor into. Do you lump them more in with the high school guys or would you consider them more kind of akin to the portal?
[00:28:53] Speaker C: Yeah, I feel like the. We've had a lot of success with junior college guys at Delaware the last few years. Our best hitter, our leading hitter the last two years. He's now playing professional baseball for the Angels. Aaron Graber was a junior college kid from Gloucester Community College just over the bridge in New Jersey. But it's been a lot of let's get out and see those guys in the fall.
They seem to be under recruited the junior college players in the fall because a lot of schools don't have roster spots or money at that time. So we're trying to save money and save a roster spot or two to try to pick up a junior college kid in the fall. And then I guess as we get into the spring they're probably going to get lumped in with the transfer portal guy as well that all of a sudden we get in the middle of the spring or end of the spring and we realize we have a returner that's not going to be back and we're going to replace him with a transfer.
It's going to be the best transfer we can get regardless of junior college or four year old.
[00:29:50] Speaker B: Yeah, junior college seems to be on the uptick and I think it's been a thing for a long time with, with coaches who've been involved in the game. But I feel like it's becoming more prominent for high school guys to seek out junior college programs. Getting a chance to develop. You can play a lot more, there's a lot more reps, there's a lot more games. And then I think the rising cost of education has probably played a little bit of a role in that as well. And we try to touch on that is sometimes it gets put off as well. If I don't get recruited, I'll go to junior college. One not really understanding the level of play at some of these schools. I mean, you mentioned Gloucester and they got a pretty strong history of producing some pretty darn good baseball players. But also the value of the baseball path or if there's a financial constraint, it can be such an awesome option for young kids. And you know, I think a lot of schools do actively recruit junior college and you know, sometimes it can kind of get looked down on. But I think it's, you know, you're talking about some of the guys that are in your program that have had a ton of success being junior college guys. I think it speaks to the level of play, but I also think it speaks probably to the development of guys when they get a chance to get in the weight room for a year, two years, get all those at bats that they're able to get there.
I'm shooting player just mentioned graper that he was probably ready to rock and roll when he got to Delaware because of the at bats and everything that he was able to experience at Gloucester.
[00:31:18] Speaker C: Yeah, you hear the term juco grinds and it's a real, it's a real thing, right? Like guys that have moved on to four year schools from junior college have earned, earned it through hard work and as they would tell you, surviving at the junior college and they come out being a much better tougher player competitor as a result.
[00:31:42] Speaker B: Now you were, you were head coach at one of the better Division 2 programs in the country at Westchester and you had a lot of success there.
I think the Division 2 level gets overlooked quite a bit from not only a talent perspective, but just the how competitive it is across the board.
Do you think that that's something that gets overlooked having been a head coach at Division 2 and also a head coach at the Division 1 level?
I think a lot of times people just think that the level of player really linear and that Division 1 is always better than Division 2, but it's better than Division 3.
Maybe take a second to speak on that.
[00:32:24] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I definitely will. And I'm going to speak Specifically about the PSAC, the Pennsylvania State Conference, the Division 2 conference in Pennsylvania, Westchester has won two national championships. You know, out of that conference, Millersville has been to the World Series, I think has a runner up.
You know, a number of those programs have been to the World Series. But in the state of Pennsylvania, Pitt and Penn State, I believe are the only Division 1 schools that are public universities. And I believe both of them are like half, this is not the right terminology, but half public, half private, where their cost is still fairly high even for state residents. So the best option financially for kids in Pennsylvania is to go to these Pennsylvania state schools. It's by far the cheapest tuition we Also know in Pennsylvania, there's a lot of good players, there's a ton of high schools. The kids are spread out, kids are still a little bit hidden. Some kids are still playing Legion baseball, some kids are playing on travel teams you've never heard of that aren't in tournaments where they get exposed. So there's just a lot of talent in Pennsylvania. And those Pennsylvania schools have, you know, just feasted on those in state kids and have gotten really good players and have had really good, you know, teams. And to your point, like, there's a huge overlap, much more than many people know, especially in this part of the country, with Division 1 and Division 2 baseball. There's no question the top teams in the PSAC would have winning programs in a lot of Division 1 conferences.
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If you're looking for transparency, clarity, and a recruiting experience that respects your time and your players future, Diamond College Showcase is the place to be. To learn more, visit diamondcollegeshowcase.com yeah, I think the, the shocking thing for people is how good Division II baseball is, especially at the top tiers.
I was very naive to it. I coached at west Alabama in 2008.
We were like, we were six in the country at one point, but they, we played Southern Arc and Lynn and Tampa and Delta State and the list goes on.
Like our regional was those schools, Florida Southern, I mean, it was just loaded with draft guys. There was future big leaguers in that, in that, in that regional. There was a first round pick, the ninth overall pick, Hayden Simpson. I believe he was drafted with the Cubs. He was like 96 to 98 in 2009 when, like, no one was really doing that.
But I was, you know, I was an upstate New York kid who played Division 1 Millie baseball and I was like, how good could this be?
And, you know, in part, like, it was, it was my, my net, my naivete. But also, like, I, I wasn't exposed to Division 2 baseball enough where I knew how good it could possibly be. And I think in, in large part kind of Pennsylvania is a, as I hear you talk about it, is, is very representative of schools in the south where a lot of the, the public institutions are, you know, bigger giant schools that aren't really that affordable. Where, you know, the University of West Alabama, when I went there, Andy, I think is, I think tuition was like, because I was a student, it was like $7,000 for tuition in 2009, you know, and it's kind of the same thing in Florida with the, with the, you know, your Florida Southerns and your Lynn's and, and those types of schools schools. And like, there's just so much talent and they don't necessarily have to go to, you know, a lot of them do go junior college, but a lot of them don't have to, like, they'll, they're still like, legion is still a thing down there in that part of the country. And you know, the guys are on, are hidden for lack of a better term.
But I, I think it's, I think it's the naivete of a lot of people, but also just like, they don't watch it enough. And I, I get it. Like, the access to watching Division 2 baseball is not as high as it is at the Division 1 level, you know, but like, that's why Andy and I have, like, we implore people, go watch college baseball. You know, if you want to play college baseball and if you live in the, you know, Philadelphia, New Jersey metro area, like, there's plenty of college baseball that you can go find that from Division one all the way down to junior college and see how good it is.
Because I think you'll be shocked at the size of the players and the speed of the game of like, wow, like, these guys are pretty good.
And you know, if you're in the baseball world, you know that the PSAC is absurd when it comes to college baseball with Westchester and Millersville and the like. So, you know, I, I, I have a soft spot in my heart for, and obviously coaching Division 3 for a very long time. But, you know, I, I, my eyes were opened and I, I, I, I, I was very, very, very far under a rock of like, Division 1 is the best and everyone else is not that good. And then I, I went and coached it and I was like, I couldn't have been more wrong. Like, there were guys, there were guys in the Gulf south that would have been all conference Players in the Mac, without a doubt in my mind. And they're playing Division 2 baseball in Alabama because they're Roll Tide fans and they wanted to go to school 45 minutes from Tuscaloosa and watch Alabama play every Saturday.
And leaving the state wasn't going to be an option for them. And there's nothing wrong with that. And they were really good and they still continue to be really good.
You know, I still follow along with what West Al does, but, you know, I think that it's something that, you know, we need to talk about more but as much as we do. But like, you people need to understand like how good of brand of baseball it actually is at that level.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: You talked about it at the beginning and I want to pick your brain on this from a development perspective and then, you know, if you want to get into kind of the evaluation perspective of it, but the swing decision stuff, you know, you talked about guys being able to kind of manage the strike zone. You want to lead in slugging percentage and OB and on base percentage.
There's obviously a lot more data that's available on transfer guys. And I'm sure that is something that you track pretty regularly within your program. But so I guess it's a two part. How do you go about evaluating that for the high school kid?
And then what do you focus on from a development perspective when you get a guy in your program to try to get them to level up, when you know they're going to see better velocity, they're going to see better breaking balls, they're going to see different slots?
How do you focus in on that? Because I think the pendulum swinging a little bit from kind of the binary result of an at bat of like an outs and out, you know, whether it's a strikeout or not. And guys want to get the ball and play more and you know that it's hard to tap into power if guys don't actually have the ability to get the barrel on the ball consistently. So I'd love to hear about how you evaluate it and then also some of the things you might focus on from a development perspective to unlock that from players.
[00:40:29] Speaker C: Yeah, the eyes, and I alluded to this earlier, Andy, the eyes are the hardest thing to evaluate.
What is, what is the hitter seeing? And as I mentioned earlier, you go watch the high school kid and even in a good tournament or good high school games, he's probably seeing low to mid-80s with a high predictability of what pitch is coming.
And now you put him in college baseball where he's going to see a lot of 90 miles per hour with a very low predictability of what's coming better off speed pitchers that can pitch backwards.
Right. So that becomes the hardest thing to evaluate. How do you do it again? You try to see them against the best pitching that you can.
That's not easy.
Then you're charting probably more mentally than on paper the number of swing and misses, the number of chase that the kid has. Right. We're all chasing the three things that we all talk about.
Low, chase, low, swing and miss, high exit, vlo. Right. Like that's what we're all after. So that's what we are trying to evaluate to the best of our abilities. And as I mentioned earlier, the hardest thing in my opinion to evaluate, get them on campus.
And everything that we do and everything that we do, at least under our eyes.
Pitch decision, swing decision, I should say is factored in. How do we do it at Delaware when we're hitting BP on the field? If you take a good pitch to hit, that round is over. If you swing at a ball, that round is over.
I don't like our BP pitchers, let's say it's a round of five. I don't like them to throw five strikes. Let's mix in at least one ball.
When we hit off the machine. Let's constantly change the elevation of the pitches. So again, every round has at least one ball in it. We never want the hitter just standing in there thinking or just, you know, mindlessly swinging at every single pitch because that's not reality of what happens to layer on top of it. We know the two common chase pitches at high levels of baseball are chasing the elevated fastball or chasing the bounced breaking ball. So we're going to constantly, every day we're working on one or one, if not both of those pitches with our, with our BP where our fastball stuff, we're going to try to throw the fastball strikes at the top of the zone and then miss above.
A lot of that is done with machine high velocity stuff.
And then with our breaking ball we, for most of our guys, they're only allowed to swing from the bottom of the knob from their bat to the belt is the only breaking ball they're allowed to swing at.
Because what I have found, that pitch that the breaking ball they think is up as we know is the one that's good to hit, the one they think is a strike is the one that falls below the zone. So we have to change the wiring of the brain and the eyes connection with, you know, retraining most of our guys, what breaking ball, they want to learn to swing at which one they want to lay off of. So a lie can go on and on, but swing decision for me is always going to be king. If that's where we're always going to start our recruiting of hitters and it's always going to start with that's where we're going to start our development of hitters.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: You talked about the swing and miss and then you talk about the swing decision.
And for me, I think they're two separate things.
And I want to get your thoughts on this. I'm going to give you my thought on it and then I want to hear what you think.
Guys who swing on missing pitches in the strike zone, I feel like that's a really tough thing to coach out of them.
Guys who swing decision isn't quite as good as it could be. I feel like information in the reps that you're talking about gives you a chance to close that gap. If a guy understands situation better, the scouting reports and understanding pitch mix what a guy likes to do. You know, in a 1:1 count with a guy on second base, he's going to throw this pitch 65% of the time. We can kind of shrink down what decision we're trying to make. We can look at different slots.
Does the swing and miss stuff, do you feel like you have the ability to help close the gap on a kid with like a mechanical adjustment? Or do you feel more comfortable with a guy who makes good contact but might not make really good decisions quite yet? As a high school guy, if I.
[00:44:53] Speaker C: Had a pick of those two. And I think you agree with, based off what you just said, Andy, I think it's easier to teach swing decision than it is to coach swing and miss.
Many times the swing and miss part is simply a result of lack of talent or you know, like we talked about before, the eyes, just what their eyes are seeing, where their eyes are telling them baseball is going to end up and they can't deliver the barrel there. Right. Anything can be improved when worked worked on diligently. But easier to approve swing decision than swing and miss, in my opinion.
[00:45:27] Speaker B: I wish, I wish we had the data that you guys have now when I was coaching, because the swing decision stuff as a coach at the time, I thought that that was the biggest impact I could have on a college hitter. Especially a college hitter who was pretty good.
[00:45:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:45:43] Speaker B: And really give them good information.
[00:45:46] Speaker C: Yeah. I. Sorry to cut you off, Andy.
[00:45:48] Speaker A: Oh, go ahead.
[00:45:48] Speaker C: I Love. You know, now that we have the track man and the corresponding stat crew stuff, I love having the stat of chase rate with guys. Right. Like, there's no more debate where you can just show them the numbers now. And statistically, it almost always lines up where your guys that chase the least have the most success offensively and vice versa.
[00:46:13] Speaker B: Yeah, we used to track a lot of really cool metrics that the Murph my head coach at William and Mary had been doing for years. And I just feel like with all the data and the information that you guys have right now, like, it tells that story that you're talking about. When a player sees, hey, the guy who doesn't chase much has a really good idea, a really good plan, and over the course of 56 games, your best hitters have those numbers, it just really hammers home the importance of that from a coaching perspective. And I feel like that's where the power and data is a lot of times, is that you can.
You can break through the trust wall with a player by giving them information that maps to what you're trying to get them to do. And I got to imagine that all the data that you guys have now is really empowering as a coach to be able to communicate a philosophy and a style of play.
[00:47:02] Speaker C: Amen. And like to add on to that, we know that that's what professional baseball values, you know, so when we can go in and show them, hey, these are the top college hitters. And I say top as far as where they were drafted last year. And here's their chase rate, here's their swing and miss rate, here's their average exit velocity. Obviously anybody can look at. Here's their ops. You know those numbers, and this is what you need to shoot for. Like, that's an immediate sell. All of our guys want to play professional baseball, so they know that professional organizations have access to that data and that that's where they place the greatest value as well.
[00:47:45] Speaker B: He's talking about the evaluation of the high school hitter.
What do you think the hardest transition is?
Or what are some of the things that guys have trouble with when they first get to school? Not necessarily just from a hitter's perspective, but the jump from high school to Delaware. You guys were in the caa. I'm super familiar with that. You're going, you know, a lot of people would argue, like a step up in the Conference usa.
What's that transition look like? And where do you see guys who come in and are successful? What traits do they show?
And guys who might Stumble a little bit coming out of the starting block. What are some of the areas that you see those young players struggle when they get to campus?
[00:48:29] Speaker C: Yeah, well, we know this. When the high school kid, regardless if it's a hitter or pitcher, gets to campus, he's, it's highly likely he's going to have more failure that first fall than he's ever had at any point in his baseball career. And it's usually astronomically higher. So it always becomes about their response.
How do they respond to that adversity and that failure and how they can overcome that and grow from that and how quickly they can overcome that. We know it takes many of them a full year before they can ever recover just from the failure that fall of freshman year. So there's a lot of mental stuff to talk about there. There's a lot of confidence stuff to talk about there, and supportive coaches stuff to talk about there.
In regard to your, your, you know, the step up in conference we're going from last year, I believe there were 30 Division 1 conferences. The CA usually finishes around about the 10th best conference in college baseball to the 30, which is really good.
Conference USA last year finishes the fifth best conference by RPI.
So you know, certainly in on paper and RPI like a step up in conferences for where we're going.
What do you anticipate or what do we anticipate is probably seeing some more talented arms, but seeing the more talented arms more consistently I think is going to be the separator. What is the separator? We know in college baseball where just about everybody has some frontline arms, but now we're going to be playing teams that probably have eight or nine front frontline arms that you're going to see throughout the entire weekend. The pitching is probably not going to fall off as much from Friday to the late innings on Sunday as it may and you know, some other conferences, so that's what I'm anticipating again. What does that take? You know, it takes the hitter that can stay, stay the course, stay with an approach, deal with failure. Because there may be some more failure. Then stats may not be as great against higher level arms. That's an obvious. But who can stick with it and just keep going and keep plugging away and growing as a hitter, as a baseball player becomes, I think, the step of who can have success. To answer your question, Andy.
[00:50:47] Speaker B: Given the transition, you guys have been in the caa, you know, what type of player can be successful in that conference moving to Conference usa, does that change anything that you do from an evaluation perspective, does it change the type of player you're looking for?
How do you account for that? I mean, they kind of. I know. I'm sure this took time for it all to come together, but, you know, it kind of happened quickly. For you guys to go from the CAA to Conference usa, is there anything that you guys are doing from a recruitment perspective that's going to be different, or is it same approach, maybe looking for a slightly more talented player?
[00:51:30] Speaker C: Well, we have to educate the recruitment, the TR or the. The parent, the travel teams, because I don't think most understand the conference we are going into, and nor should they. Right. Like, that's not their responsibility. So we have to educate them on the level of play and mainly because we need to seek out players and families that want that experience, that want to play at that level.
We're not playing anymore in a regional conference. We're playing more in a national conference. You know, New Mexico State, Dallas Baptist, Sam Houston State, Louisiana Tech. Like, there's a lot of. A lot of travel in this conference. There's a lot of venues.
Dallas Baptist, Louisiana, you know, where you're going to play in front of a lot of fans. And we want guys that want to play in those atmospheres against those type of programs. So it is important that we educate them and seek those players out that want, you know, that experience and that level of competition.
The other part of your question, Andy, a good player is a good player, right? Like, the guys that were good players in the CA will be good players in Conference usa. So it's about collecting as many of those guys as we can get and making them as good as we can, you know, as we can make them. I think there was one more part of your question that I'm forgetting, maybe.
[00:52:54] Speaker B: No, I think you nailed it. It's just, you know, you're talking about the change in the recruiting landscape. Like, that's just another wrinkle for you guys going into a new conference. And it's. I, William and Mary is near and dear to my heart. Three of my most favorite years in college baseball there. But there's a big difference between playing at Plumer park on a Sunday afternoon versus a Friday night at, you know, Dallas Baptist.
Little bit different venue, stakes are a little bit higher. No matter how you want to cut it, playing in front of those fans, like, it takes a.
It takes a.
I don't say a different kid, but it's a different level of pressure. Things are a little bit more heightened when you've got 2, 3, 4,000 people in the stands versus, you know, maybe a couple hundred. And it's not to diminish the CAA in every any way because I mean there's plenty of big leaguers and pro guys that have come out of there, but it is, it is something that you have to account for and it, I find it interesting that that's something that you went to because I do think it matters. Yeah.
[00:53:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:53:58] Speaker B: The other question I have for you, UD is a really good school.
How much does the academic portion and understanding of kids going to be able to get through the course load and the expectation academically, how does that factor in when you go through the recruiting process, in the evaluation and making sure once again kind of back to that fit, that you're going to get a kid who's going to be able to handle himself off of the field as well?
[00:54:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
Probably not going to give you the answer you're expecting and maybe not the answer I'm supposed to give in theory, but something I feel strongly about, Andy, is we, and I'm going to say Delaware again, a very high end academic school. I'm going to say probably 95% of the universities now almost have two different tracks.
We have these, I'm going to call them easier majors and then we have these challenging majors. And I feel like it's a different experience, a different challenge depending on which track that you are on at our university or others.
So I am, it's important to me that our players that come in and the strong majors that I do, we do everything we can academically to support them and to help them get their degree and to stay in those majors because as they get going in their freshman year, they see this is hard. Academically. I don't have nearly as much free time as I was hoping or as many of my teammates and friends do.
And naturally as humans, they want to gravitate towards what's easier. Not all of them, but a lot of them. So it's my job, it's our job to know, stick this out, stay engineering, stay in whatever the challenging major is. It's going to be harder for these four years, but trust me, for the next 40 or 50 years of your life, you're going to reap the benefits from that. So that's that part. And there's nothing wrong with what I call the easier majors with guys, they just need to understand like the challenges of finding a job. This day and age when you graduate from college is a real, is a real thing.
So the level of Preparation, and maybe what they may have to do after their four years of college to get where they inevitably want to get to is different. So my saying that our players get sick of hearing me say all the time is, find something you love. Never work a day in your life. And to me, that's what big part of what college is about, is finding what your passion is, what your talents are, what your interests are, and finding a major that will lead to a job in that career field so you never have to work a day in your life. Sorry, your question put me up on my soapbox. But so I would also add to that, like, I feel like doing this 26 years now. I can look at a kid's transcript and fairly quickly tell if he's going to be able to have success at our university or not. Just looking at the classes he's taking, the grades he's getting in them, does he show up for school? Is he tardy? A lot. Like, that has become easier for me. And obviously our admissions people will make the final decision on that, but that has not been harder.
I also think that grade inflation in college and in high school since COVID is a real thing.
I feel like every semester we set a new program record for team gpa. Grade inflation's a real thing. We have, as most programs do, an outstanding academic advisor that can do a great job of guiding our guys into which courses, which professors to take that's going to allow them to have success.
This day and age of everything being electronic, we immediately know when kids aren't going to class, when they aren't doing well and can right away correct it. Whereas when I first got in this profession, you wouldn't find out till after a semester and the kid got a 0.8 GPA that he wasn't going to class or wasn't turning in his work. We find that out now within the first month, you know, of the. Of the school year.
[00:58:04] Speaker A: So sorry to ramble on, but that's.
[00:58:06] Speaker C: You know, it's an important part for me, obviously the most important part for me of what we do now.
[00:58:13] Speaker A: I think it's so true. And being at RPI for 10 years, that was something that was obviously a huge part of the recruitment process and just the everyday general student life of the kids.
You know, we had 20. If we had 35 guys, we probably had 23, 24 engineers.
And I, you know, I would make no bones about it to those guys. Like, you're gonna get your ass kicked in the classroom, and you're gonna get your Ass kicked on the baseball field, too. So, you know, you really have to love this to do it.
But I, I think in my experience, you know, in my 10 years there, I only had two guys, guys who didn't have a job by graduation, and they were two guys who were fielding like, we're still deciding on multiple offers that they had. And I think to your point about, you know, staying in the harder track, if you want to be an engineer and you want to do those things, that you're going to have the benefits for the next 30, 40, 50 years of your life. You know, there's, I think, a lot of, I would say anecdotally, in my experience, that a lot of companies are.
They seek out athletes who also did challenging academic stuff in college because there's a. It's not, they know that it's not easy to do, like, oh, you're an engineer and you played four years of baseball. And like, they might not know what Conference USA looks like, where you have to fly to Dallas Baptist and fly to New Mexico State and do all those things. But it's a level of like, okay, there's clearly some time management here that this young man can handle in playing, being an athlete for four years and also getting a 3, 6 in engineering, and he can work within a team. And he, there's some leadership there. And there's a lot of things that check the boxes, I think, on younger kids that are going into the workforce that other people likely don't have, having not done that for four years. And I think you become a lot more desirable in the workplace where, if you're looking at, you know, your two finalists are somebody who never played sports and has a three, nine and somebody who has a three, seven and played three, four years of college baseball. It's like, well, I think this guy might bring more to the table and more to the company with what it is that they've gone through, because there, there is going to be adversity when you get to college, especially in, like, whether or not you play sports, there's adversity. But when you play sports, like, you're, you're likely not the best guy on the field the second that you get there as a freshman in college. Like when we talked about a little bit earlier, like, you're going to struggle at some point in your career, and how do you, how do you handle that adversity? How do you come back from that? What does that work ethic look like? And I think that those things play up for student athletes in the. In the workforce. And maybe I'm not the person to, you know, really pontificate about it all the time because I just went into coaching and then now own this company with Andy. So it's not like I went through a whole hell of a lot of interview processes, but, like, in seeing my players go through it, I like, you know, and one of the big things we had at rpi, the vast majority of our student athletes had jobs by the time they graduated, regardless of whether they played baseball or not. Like, talking the entire athletic department. So, you know, I think when there's, there's some challenges from an academic standpoint that, you know, if you're a student athlete and you, you can have success both in the classroom and on the field for four years, that it. It's going to play up for you in the long run, and maybe not necessarily right away, but I guarantee you that the things that you learn on the field and in the classroom are going to help you out over the course of your career, which is probably going to get you further ahead faster than maybe some of the other people that you went to college with.
[01:01:56] Speaker C: Well said. And I bet you, Keith, as you mentioned, at least once a month I get an email or call from an employer asking, hey, do you have anybody with this degree or that fits this? We're looking to hire an athlete.
[01:02:08] Speaker A: I think the other thing too, especially in sport, is there's a. You know, RPI is obviously unique because there's a lot of engineers, but I would get emails all the time from alumni who were like, hey, we're. We're looking to hire athletes who were civil and mechanical engineers.
Does anyone have interest? And, I mean, I had interest. I would just. I literally just forwarded it to the team. It was like, hey, this guy played here for Carl back in 1973. Like, if anyone, you know, just threw your. Throw your resume in, like, you know, you already have an in. And, you know, a lot of our guys got jobs like that over the 10 years I was there, where, you know, like, whether they were emailing Carl or I, and, and then ultimately when Carl retired me, like, I would just send those out to kids. And we had a lot of guys and, you know, maybe not all of them always got jobs there, but there was always interest and like a, A real, A real desire to have a student athlete who was a chemical engineer or a biomedical engineer, whatever it was.
And it's a foot in the door. And I think it's a, It's a conversation starter. When you go on these, you know, on interviews and to job fairs and talk to people like, yeah, no, I play college baseball and, you know, I play second base for the Blue Hens and I'm also an engineer. Like, that peaks a lot of people's interest because I don't think, you know, in my experience in that realm that you see that a whole hell of a lot where it's like, okay, like you're a chemical engineer and you also play baseball.
[01:03:35] Speaker C: Wow.
[01:03:35] Speaker A: Okay, that's, that's a little different. Like, what? Tell me more. And I think that they're. If you can stick it out and you, you can legitimately find success doing it, that I, I think it sets you up, you know, for what you want to do over the course of the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years of your life. You know, you don't have to know right away. I mean, I, I was history major who became a baseball. I majored in baseball. Let's be honest, it was a history history minor and psych minor. But, you know, I, I think that it's, it's so valuable and being in the high academic world, I think that it's, it's, it's changed my perspective on a lot of that stuff where I think that it's, it's, it's more valuable to me that you, you seek out the opportunities from an academic standpoint that fit what it is that you want to do. And maybe it is the softer track, right, like, or easier track, whatever we want to call it. But I think, you know, you want to make sure that the school you're going to fits what you want to do academically as well. You don't want to necessarily make that decision of like, well, I'm going to go to this school because I want accounting, and they don't really have accounting, but they have econ. So I can do econ because I really like. You're likely not going to have as much of a positive college experience as you otherwise would if you, you landed at a place with accounting, if that makes sense.
[01:04:53] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it does. The other thing that stuck out to me, Greg, that I think you kind of touched on a little bit, is this whole coaching thing isn't just swing decisions and wins and losses and, you know, being able to shepherd guys through your program and have them come out the backside and be successful as a young coach. I didn't have that in my head.
As I got a little bit older in it, I was able to kind of step back and realize that that's such an Impactful piece of the puzzle. And it was, I just thought it was, it was poignant for you to talk about how that's kind of another piece of the coaching thing is that yeah, you can run the practices and recruit and do all of that, but you also have a responsibility to the players in your program to hold them to a high standard and give them a chance to be successful. And, you know, the conversation you had around cluing guys into that, sometimes you have to go the hard route in order to get what you really want in the back end of it. I just think it's such an important thing for players and parents to hear that the college baseball experience isn't just about trying to play pro ball.
It's a much bigger piece of the puzzle with the relationships developing, toughness, learning how to fail, how to operate within a team, be a good teammate. It's such an important.
And it's an experience that I think is really hard to quantify because it's harder to touch. But I think that's one of the coolest things about being a college athlete, never mind a college baseball player, is you can be impacted by head coaches like yourself, your assistants, like those people have lasting impacts on myself.
And it's just such an awesome experience if you can take advantage of it and find the right fit.
[01:06:37] Speaker C: Yeah, well said.
[01:06:41] Speaker B: The last question we ask every coach on this is, and I think you'll probably have some good tidbits here with your experiences.
Give some advice to the, the listeners, the players and the parents who are going through the recruiting process. And, you know, what would you want to tell them that you think is important as they try to navigate the, the, the ever complex recruiting process for college baseball?
[01:07:05] Speaker C: Yeah, I think what we're just talking about, it's going to lead into a lot of what I'm about to say, Andy, but first and foremost, if you love the sport of baseball, if you love to compete, there's a spot for every kid to play college baseball. I firmly believe that. And I'll add in, as long as you're an average to above average high school baseball player, better.
But if you love it, there's a place. There's a place for you.
It's not easy a lot of times, as we've talked about in this podcast, to find that place. Some of my tips to find it are, and we alluded to this earlier, go watch college baseball games. Go watch different levels. Typically, for the high school kids, Sunday is an off day during the high school baseball season. Just about every college Plays on Sunday, so get out and watch games.
I think that is a good sign for the kid and the parent where they may fit in.
And as we've talked about, it's not just about fitting in. Like, I look similar to those guys. I think ideally you want to find a place where you look better than most of the guys. Not probably the best, but better than most of the guys. So you have opportunity to get there and play along those lines. Like, to me, the fun of the college experience is being on the field and playing.
So it does no good this day and age to try to find a program that's above you. Even maybe if you can trick the coach and he takes a chance on you and you get there and you can't play. Like, the experience, the novelty of not playing rubs off really quick, usually after freshman year. So I always say, like, find a place where you can be an everyday starter, pitch significant innings as a sophomore, hopefully as a freshman. But as a sophomore, I will add in recruits and parents. Make your decision based off of people.
Not the logo, not the division.
Like every experience we've all had in life, school, team, whatever it may be. When you're surrounded by the right people, the experience will be awesome. When you're surrounded by the wrong people will not be a good experience. So who is that in college baseball? That is your teammates. Find teammates that have similar ethics, goals as you are that are going to push you and make you a better person and baseball player. It's your coaches, as you mentioned. Find coaches that can impact you and lead you where you want to go in life.
Strength coaches, academic advisors, those sort of people can, you know, change the outcome or change the experience for the student athlete. So seek out, learn as much as you can about the people. And that goes back to go and watch the games, go sit close to the dugout and listen to the coach, watch the players or these players that I would want to my son to be with, or these guys I'd want to hang out with six hours a day or if I live with them 24 hours a day. And I can go on and on with these, you know, with. With my advice of this, but get out. The other part of it too, that I'll say is, and I'm not supposed to say this either, because we make money at our campsite, but I'm also a believer, Andy and Keith, of don't put yourself or don't put your son on stage until he's ready to be seen by that audience.
So many kids come to Our camp that aren't ready for us to see them or be evaluated by us, wait until you're ready. And I know it's so hard in the fear of missing out. What do we call that? Fomo? The fear of missing out, where you're seeing on social media all these kids committing. You have teaching teammates committing, and you're not getting offers, you're not finding that opportunity.
But doesn't matter. Getting on stage before you're ready to be seen is never going to do the student athlete good.
And just know, like in baseball, most baseball players don't peak until age 27 or 28. Like, the player you are at age 15 is not going to be the player you are when you're 17 is not going to be the player you are when you're 22 years old. There's so much growth that happens in our sport that patience many times wins out in recruiting from both the player and the. And the college coach, you know, who's evaluating the guy. So, again, I know I'm just kind of throwing advice all over the wall here, but I got. I got so much of it, and, you know, it's just so passionate about trying to make a great experience for our players and help others have the same experience that our guys are having, that I had when I played, when you guys had played at Marist. Like, it just, you know, totally changed my life, the trajectory of my life.
My son is now a freshman at a Division 3 school in Pennsylvania, and, like, just. I'm just thrilled that he gets to have this opportunity in his life to grow, you know, and become a better. A better person and hopefully live a better life because he got to play college baseball.
[01:12:16] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I don't really have much to add.
I think you nailed it. The people thing would be the only thing that I would double down on feeling really good about the group of individuals you're going to play with and the coaching staff that you're going to play with in the support system.
I just think that that moves the needle more than you can possibly quantify on personal, you know, personal evidence of that. I feel like you've. You've reiterated that as well. But the people that you get to associate yourself with and it's. It's just so impactful. So that. That has to be, you know, one of the big pieces of the puzzle, in my opinion.
[01:12:58] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, you spend so much time with each other.
I think that that's. You have to.
You have to be comfortable with the people that you're going to be around and, you know, and I think we beat this horse, dead horse on this pod. Yes. All the time. Just like you have no idea the amount. If you're a high school player going to play college baseball, you have no idea the amount of time you're going to spend playing baseball and being around the people, your teammates and coaches, because you haven't, you haven't done it to this level yet. And if, if you're not comfortable around them in the recruiting process, it's. It's not going to get better when you get there. You know, you want to be very confident in the people that you are going to be around.
Teammates, coaches, everyone. That. That's the right fit for you. Because the.
I don't know if you can really quantify the amount of time, like, you know, and I've said this before, like, you know, I'd always ask our freshman at the end of the year, like, what was the biggest. What was your biggest surprise? And it was always, you know, you always told me it was going to be a lot of time. I didn't realize how much time I spent doing this. And that's at the Division 3 level, you know, and it's not to say that you play like you do play less, but you're still going six days a week. You know, the travel is not as, you know, it's more regional, it's not as travel heavy, but it's just that sheer amount of time from the weight room to study hall to practice to games to all of it where, you know, if you're, if you're not comfortable with those people, it's probably going to be a little bit of a bigger struggle. So I think that you, you nailed that one, Coach. I couldn't have been happier when you said that.
[01:14:34] Speaker B: Throw me your circle and I'll show.
[01:14:36] Speaker C: You your future, as the saying goes.
[01:14:38] Speaker B: No, absolutely.
Well, we really appreciate your time, Coach, hopping on here on, on short notice and giving us, you know, an hour and 15 minutes of your time. I know you're heading out to the convention here soon and getting, getting ramped up for another season, so obviously, best of luck this spring. We'll certainly be keeping tabs. Might even catch me up at a game one of these days. I'll be sure to say hello. I'm not that far. I'm on Northern Virginia, so might shoot up and watch the Blue Hens duke it out. Get a little. Get a little Conference USA baseball in my life.
[01:15:13] Speaker C: Nice.
[01:15:14] Speaker B: But really, really appreciate it.
[01:15:16] Speaker C: No, I appreciate the opportunity and the platform. Keep up the good work. Keith and Andy, thanks.
[01:15:22] Speaker A: Thanks coach. Really appre.
[01:15:23] Speaker C: All right, see you guys.
[01:15:24] Speaker B: Thanks guys.
Thank you for listening this week. 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 em 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.
