Last week I spoke with a family who insisted their son would not attend any college unless he plays NCAA D1 baseball. While I don’t agree with these parents, I understand where the frustration comes from.
Many of today’s high school baseball players have been in the world of pay-to-play travel baseball for 5–10 years. In my book The Process I call it the hamster wheel of travel baseball. You’re running but you’re not getting anywhere. Players go year-by-year through a program’s system. They get slotted into a position that makes sense for that club but doesn’t necessarily make sense for the child’s long-term development in the sport. They play against teams of the same skill level (or a lower skill level) because winning is good for the program’s business. Team names that contain words like “elite,” “select,” “showcase,” or “college prospect” may convince parents that a future in college baseball is a given, and the time and money they’ve spent may lead them to expect a return on their investment.
After all that, it makes sense that parents are frustrated when they hear an honest, neutral evaluation of their child’s readiness for college baseball.
To help you understand how competitive college baseball truly is, I encourage you to take your son to a local college baseball game. Show up early so you can watch warmups. Take notice of the physical size and strength of players at those levels and the focus and discipline with which they approach their pregame drills.
Another thing you and your son can do is find the roster of a school he’s interested in and see the heights and weights of these college student-athletes. Recently on social media I saw an image showing the average MLB player size by position. I decided to research the same thing for the starting lineups of the 2024 NCAA D3 College World Series finalists.
- Starting Pitcher. 5’ 11 ⅞”, 179 pounds.
- Catcher. 6’ ¼“, 193 pounds.
- First Base. 6’ 1 ½”, 215 pounds.
- Second Base. 5’ 10 ¼”, 180 pounds.
- Third Base. 5’ 11 ¼”, 193 pounds.
- Shortstop. 5’ 10 ½”, 178 pounds.
- Left Field. 5’ 11”, 188 pounds.
- Centerfield. 5’ 10 ⅜”, 187 pounds.
- Right Field. 5’ 9 ⅞”, 183 pounds.
- Designated Hitter. 6’ ⅜”, 201 pounds.
Note: All heights and weights were from school websites except for Pomona-Pitzer, which were from Baseball Reference. Weights for the Pomona-Pitzer right fielder and catcher were not available.