Recruiting advice?

#1

They’re used to be a specific section for this sort of thing, but it doesn’t seem to be there anymore… so feel free to move and or remove this thread if this topic is misplaced/not allowed…

Anyways, some of you may remember me, I’ve been on and off here with this site for probably around 2 years… so here’s a much abbreviated version of my story (I won’t bore you with all the details, but feel free to ask if there is something you’d like to know)

I play baseball in the north east (MA specifically) and I’m 18 years old. This year I’m on my high school’s varsity team, and it’s my first year playing at the varsity level. I was unable to play at all my sophomore year, and hindered for all but the summer of my junior year, as I had received Tommy John surgery. The date of the surgery was July 1, 2009.

I had the surgery with the hopes of obviously pitching again at the high school level, but also with hopes and aspirations of pitching at the collegiate level. I had trusted and experienced individuals close to me convince me that I did indeed have serious potential to play at the next level.

Rehab process took me longer than I had expected, so I guess it will suffice to say that until very recently I was not able to consistently throw full speed off of a mound. Regardless, it’s back now and its feeling great, so naturally I’m hoping to be able to move forward with the college recruiting process…

But here is my issue, I completely missed the baseball season my sophomore and junior years, and I have not been able to attend any showcases or throw competitively for any AAU teams. As I stated earlier, I’m currently a senior, and flying completely under the radar.

I guess my questions are the following:
-Is it too late in the game for me to be recruited to play college baseball next season?
-What should I be doing at this point to get noticed by coaches, surely most of them aren’t paying much attention to seniors they’ve never seen or heard of?
-I applied to colleges like a normal everyday senior student would, not considering baseball, and all of these schools have deadlines of may 1st that you must deposit money in order to keep your spot at their institution, and commit to attending school there… this is completely unrelated to baseball, but nonetheless important
-Would it be more realistic to look at smaller schools? I would much prefer to play at a larger school with a better known program, but I don’t know if larger schools have already more or less filled their rosters at this point?
-If I did play at a smaller school, is transferring a viable option?

Sorry, I understand that is a lot to swallow, believe it or not that was the abbreviated version… any help or words of wisdom is much appreciated… feel free to ask any questions if I left out important details…

#2

The ace pitcher on my varsity team here in MA is a senior who’s going to Phillips Exeter for 1 year next year in the hopes of having another year to develop before college. Lots of kids do it for hockey out here. … is that an option?

It’s not too late for college teams, but most scholarship $$ is essentially gone at this point for next year. However, you could always walk on and then earn scholarship $$ your sophomore year which is what happens for a lot of kids I played with and know…

#3

[quote=“Steven Ellis”]The ace pitcher on my varsity team here in MA is a senior who’s going to Phillips Exeter for 1 year next year in the hopes of having another year to develop before college. Lots of kids do it for hockey out here. … is that an option?

It’s not too late for college teams, but most scholarship $$ is essentially gone at this point for next year. However, you could always walk on and then earn scholarship $$ your sophomore year which is what happens for a lot of kids I played with and know…[/quote]

prepping out a year is an option, but it’s an option lower down on my list as far as what i’d like to do… My pitching coach has talked with me about it, and he had said he thinks it’s a valuable option to explore… so maybe I will have to at least look into it…

I like the thought more of walking onto a team my freshman year, and hopefully being able to earn a scholarship my sophomore year, but then again it seems there are very few guarantees with that approach… it seems a bit more risky… with walk-ons, do they generally just show up at tryouts and impress the coaching staff, or is there communication before hand in which the coach tells the player he’s interested in having him walk on to his team, and in the spring it’s more or less a foregone conclusion? I would tend to assume the latter, but I’ve got no experience in this field really…

#4

pick a school, call the coach
send email with your stats
dont lie about how hard you throw
be persistent, show interest in going there

dont wait for them to get a hold of you, it doesn’t work unless your that good.

#5

In most walk on cases there is communication beforehand. Most walk ons that make the team are considered invited walk ons, but there are regular walk ons that have made the team. Knowing your situation (with TJ since you and I have been blogging here on and off) it wouldn’t be a bad idea to prep a year, or possibly go to a Junior College. Many Junior College programs take on as much pitching as they can. I know in my situation right now, I am at a very well known and nationally ranked JUCO program and am still recovering from my TJ (1 year 1 month post op) and they have been very understanding and careful bringing me along. I wouldn’t rule anything out though, just because it’s into the spring season, it doesn’t mean schools aren’t looking. It definitely wouldn’t hurt to send out emails from you and to ask your coach to send out personalized letters to schools you are interested in. If you are interested, PM me and I can give you some information on a couple JUCO schools that I spoke with after having TJ.