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Opportunities vs. Options in College Baseball Recruiting — Why One Right Fit Beats Ten Offers | EMD Shorts · Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball

• 0:02
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• 1:10
  Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball. I'm Andy Kirakidis, joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How we doing, sir?
• 1:18
  Speaker C: Great.
• 1:18
  Speaker D: How are you?
• 1:19
  Speaker B: Good. Today's topic for today's short, we're going to kind of talk about opportunities versus options. And I think there's kind of two angles to this, right? There's the 2027 class that is getting into, you know, the last, like three productive months. From a recruiting perspective. Can it go longer? Yes, absolutely. There's stuff that can happen in the spring for the 2027 class, depending on the type of schools you're looking at and all that. But, you know, for the most part, you're looking at September, October into kind of mid November when cancel start winding down. And for that particular group of kids that are going that are in this process right now who might not have a ton of interest at the moment, one, don't fret. Plenty of opportunity to prove yourself. But I think that oftentimes people are trying to accumulate options when they really need to start by finding the first opportunity. And sometimes the first one's the best one. But I, for me, and this one hits home. And I'm not going to get into the whole background of it because I think we'll probably do a long at some point. But the idea of getting an opportunity hits home for me because it was something that I was afforded in a, in a tough situation during my recruitment process. And I think oftentimes players and families get fixated on, like, wanting to be able to sift through different options instead of really, if you really want to play college baseball. It's about getting an opportunity, and that's your foot in the door. That's your chance to go and prove yourself. That's your chance to get to wear a uniform. And it kind of starts there. Like, we've used the phrase, you need to be recruitable before you get recruited. Well, you need an opportunity before you get options. So just wanted to take a couple minutes to kind of bat that around a little bit. You know how I feel about this topic and being on this side of it. I understand people want options, but, you know, at the end of the day, it's. It's really about getting one, one coach, one program to say, hey, man, we want you to be a part of this, and. And taking advantage of that opportunity.
• 3:44
  Speaker C: I was, but what. That was a nice little Andyism.
• 3:49
  Speaker B: You came up with them every once in a while.
• 3:52
  Speaker D: You need.
• 3:53
  Speaker C: You need. You need an opportunity before you have options. Yeah, I'm gonna write that one down.
• 4:06
  Speaker B: So it's a perfect response given our pre pod conversation.
• 4:12
  Speaker C: No, I, you know, I think that it's the. The obvious thing, right? But it's not something that is discussed or even really thought about. Right. You never really go into this process. I think you go into this process wanting to be recruited. You have the. The grandiose idea that you are going to have multiple offers and options, and sometimes you only end up with one, sometimes you end up with 10. Right? It depends on, you know, the. The school, the level when they see you, all of those things. It also matters what you want. Excuse me, out of your recruiting process. You know, do you want to.
• 4:58
  Speaker A: Are you.
• 4:58
  Speaker C: Do you want to go to a school that has a large roster size or a small roster size? Is academics driving this? Do you want a big school? Small school. Like, all of those things could matter too, right? Like, it. You could end up with, you know, feeling you. Like, you might not have a lot of opportunities or options, but it could also be of your own doing. Whether it's, you know, the. The baseball side of things or the academic, social school side of things where, like, hey, I don't want to go to a school that has 20,000 people and four schools that are of serious interest are that size.
• 5:31
  Speaker B: Right?
• 5:31
  Speaker C: So there's a lot of. There's a lot of nuance to this conversation, but I think the, you know, the opportunity that, you know, is going to be afforded to you. You know, sometimes the first one is the best one. Sometimes it's the only one, you know, but just because you have one doesn't mean you get two. Just because you have two doesn't mean you get three. And I think the other side of it is that you, you know, the opportunity is for you to go compete in college in a program for a spot and then also start to compete for playing time, right? You're not going to be the only catcher on the roster or the only infielder or the only outfielder. They carry more than three pitchers, right? So, you know there's, there's going to be an opportunity there. But what are you, what are you going to do with that opportunity once you get to campus? That allows you to grow and develop and, and work yourself into the lineup to be a guy who is going to be in the top 10 or 12 arms that are going to throw the majority of the innings or the top 10 or 11, 12 position guys that are going to be able to, you know, get themselves in a lineup and play defense. You know, those things are, you know, that's a, it's probably a longer podcast, which I'm going to write down, but you're looking for that opportunity to be able to get your foot in the door, have someone like you and say, yes, now I have the opportunity to go play college baseball. This is what I'm going to go do. And searching for that next option or the next best thing, it may never come right? So, you know, there comes a point in time where you're, there's a point of diminishing returns where you have to go and either take that option or run the risk of not having the opportunity to play college baseball in the long run.
• 7:17
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• 8:20
  Speaker B: yeah, the size thing is the one that always throws me off in this conversation, right? Because I think that, you know, people talk about, well, you know, I'd like to go to a bigger school. Well, the reality is, is that most of the bigger schools are Division 1. And if you're not a Division 1 player, like you've immediately, you, you've immediately put yourself in a category of probably going to a smaller school. Meaning, like, it's definitely, you could probably count on one hand how many schools that are not division one, that are 20,000 plus people.
• 8:51
  Speaker C: There's not many of them out there.
• 8:54
  Speaker B: And the vast majority of Division 3 schools, and for that part, most Division 2 schools are going to be less than 10 and a good portion of Division 3 is going to be less than 5. You know, so take the academic part out of it because I think that's a little bit of a different conversation, right. And we've worked with families and where you get some really high achieving young athletes academically that, you know, they go into this process where like we're, we're not. The goal isn't for them to just play baseball, right? But there's a lot of kids that the goal is to play baseball and to nitpick on size or urban versus city, like you're, you're getting into like, how much does the baseball really matter to you? Type of conversation on my, in my opinion. And that's fine, right? Like, this college baseball thing isn't for everybody. But you know, I've, you know, had people who've scoffed at opportunities that they may not have checked every single box for them, but they checked a lot of them. And it, it gets into one of those things like, well, do you really want to play or are you really just trying to go to college? And there's nothing wrong with either of them. But if you go into this like, I want to play college baseball and you're not one of those high academic kids, you're really just looking for the place that's going to give you the best, the opportunity to do it. Junior College, NAIA, Division 3, Division 2. You know, it's going to come down to who saw you, who saw you play well, and you know, going to visit those places and get a feel for it. Now, if you've got options, right, then you can start to nitpick a little bit and you can say, hey, I like this school a little bit better. It's a little bit bigger, or this one's a little bit closer to home, or I'd like to be a little farther away from home and this school's you know, a plane flight versus a car ride, you know, you get to have those conversations. But, you know, when you're trying to uncover that first opportunity and baseball is a driving factor in what you're doing, then you need to take advantage of that opportunity and kind of lean into the places that want you to be there. Because you'll always be happy. You always be happier at a place where you're wanted.
• 11:17
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, but. And I think that, you know, the flip side of that is that you have people that are chasing schools that have shown no interests at this point in time.
• 11:28
  Speaker B: And
• 11:31
  Speaker C: I guess I could split that even further. There's a difference between having shown no interest because they haven't seen you and don't know who you are, versus I've sent them 15 emails and no one's responded to me at this point in time, like now, end of August, like, they're, they've probably either seen you or seen your video or. And just don't think that you're a good fit. Do I think it's the right way to go about things? No, not me personally, but, you know, it is what it is. But chasing those schools that, you know, haven't really shown anything to you is not going to garner you the interest that you're looking for. It's time to expand your school list and see if you might be able to find some schools that are interested in you as a student athlete and a baseball player and see if you might be able to drum up more interest there. Right. Like, there's still people looking for baseball players. It's going to go on for a very long. It's still going to go on for the next couple of months. They're still out there, but, you know, you, you just have to put in a little bit more work and enter time, energy and effort to, to get that out there, you know, and again, I've said this on here. I don't, I don't necessarily subscribe to the. Like, if you want to play bad enough, you can find a spot. But like, I, you know, I think that if you have the requisite skills to play college baseball.
• 12:44
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 12:44
  Speaker C: I think that there is a spot for you to be able to, you know, if you're willing to go anywhere, do anything, play anywhere. Yeah, I think that there, there's a spot for you to be able to do it. If you, you know, kick down enough trees and open enough doors, it's there that the, the, an opportunity will present itself to you. But it's got to check the boxes for what you're looking for from a student, athlete, experience standpoint and from a collegiate standpoint, an academic standpoint. You know, not to say that, you know, I want to go to a Ivy League school, but I'll settle in a school that's not an Ivy League school.
• 13:28
  Speaker B: Yeah. And it's, it's, you know, it kind of takes us back to, like, if you get an opportunity to play, you're in a small fraternity of kids that get a chance to play college baseball. And I think that gets lost on people.
• 13:40
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 13:41
  Speaker B: I think sometimes it's players and parents go into this process thinking that this college baseball owes them something. Like, you have to take, you have to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to you to play well in front of coaches. And then you need to go and find the right fit and take advantage of an opportunity that might be given to you by a particular coach. But if this was. There's a place for everybody who wants to play, then I think those numbers would probably be a lot higher. I think there's a lot of kids that would love to play college baseball that are not going to be afforded the opportunity to. That would love to go and compete and, and play, you know, competitive college baseball, you know, sanctioned NCAA baseball or NAIA baseball or junior college baseball, not necessarily club, but if that was the case, I, you know, these rosters would be massive. And that 8% wouldn't be 8%. It probably be significantly higher than that. You know, so that's something that I think people need to wrap their head around. And, and not that you need to consider yourself lucky, but if you get an opportunity, you are, you are an outlier in this process. If somebody tells you, hey, I want you to come play baseball in my program and get an my school, you are immediately in a unique class of individual. It's pretty exclusive.
• 15:19
  Speaker C: So, yeah, you know, it's, that's why I don't think that, you know, if you want, if you want it bad enough, right, like, you have to be able to play in college. That's just the bare minimum barrier to entry. You know, if you're going to be 58 to 61 with your, your speedball, there's not a lot of, there's zero places in the country that are going to recruit you as a pitcher. Like, that's just a reality.
• 15:50
  Speaker B: It's.
• 15:52
  Speaker C: Sorry. I'd love to play in the NBA. I'm not good at basketball and play. Love playing the NFL. I wasn't big enough, wasn't fast enough. Wasn't strong enough, like, you know, comes to an end for everyone.
• 16:11
  Speaker B: It certainly does.
• 16:13
  Speaker C: But, you know, it's not to your point that you'd be, the numbers would be way higher if everyone who wanted to do this could do it. And the other side of it too is like, I think a lot of people think they want to do this. And once you get into it, you realize there's a lot more that I need to do in order to do this and I just want to go be a regular college student and that's perfectly fine. Right? Like, there's literally nothing wrong with that. But there, there's a lot that goes into this. On the recruiting end, there's a lot of stress anxiety. You know, there's a lot of it that we try to mitigate with what we do. But on the same hand, like, it's going to be there. That's just a reality. And playing college baseball when you get there is going to be a lot. You're talking about a lot of hours that you're going to spend on a field, in a cage, throwing bullpens, catching bullpens, taking ground balls. You know, you're, it is damn near close to a full time job while also being a student. And there's a lot of things that you have to sacrifice. You know, we've, we've done podcasts on it. I won't beat the dead horse, but there's a lot of sacrifice you have to make if you want to play college baseball or any sport for that matter. And if you want to be good and not everyone is willing to make that and again, that's fine, but like, that's the other side of this opportunity as well. I think that like, if you, if you're opting into wanting this opportunity, you have to be two feet in and understand what this is and how this is going to affect you and how it's ultimately likely going to change your trajectory in life moving forward. Not just, you know, and I'm not talking about like going and playing professional baseball, just saying, you know, the four years of playing a sport and being an athlete is, you know, is very sought after, post grad with a lot of companies. So. My two cents.
• 18:09
  Speaker B: Yeah. Anything else you want to add?
• 18:13
  Speaker C: No, sir.
• 18:14
  Speaker B: All right, well, thank you for listening everybody. Tune in next week, we'll talk to you then. Thank you for listening this week.
• 18:21
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• 18:25
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• 18:27
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• 18:37
  Speaker B: out what me and Keith do to
• 18:38
  Speaker D: 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.
• 18:50
  Speaker B: Thanks again for listening.
• 18:51
  Speaker D: Check in with you next week.