I have received thousands of emails from players, talked to hundreds of recruits over the phone and in person. They are all hitting .400. You may think your son’s stats will set him apart from the rest of the players emailing and communicating with coaches, but it doesn’t. I get asked all the time, “should I include my stats in my email or conversation with the coach?” My answer is always “yes, but understand, in the grand Scheme of things, your stats don’t matter to the coach because everyone he hears from is hitting .400.” As a recruit, you need to know what the college coaches are looking for. Here are 5 reasons your stats don’t really matter and why they shouldn’t be your “go-to” sales pitch.
Depends Heavily On Your Competition
Your statistics depend heavily on your competition, and lets me real here, your competition level, now, is nowhere near what it will be in college. Coaches EXPECT you to hit .400 against your competition because on a daily basis you aren’t seeing what you would see on a daily basis in college. The game speeds up from high school to college, so while some batted balls are hits in high school, they may turn to outs in college. On the flip side, pitches that are swing in miss in high school get hit in college.
They Don’t Translate To The Collegiate Level
I’m going to be blunt when I say this. Hitting .400 against pitchers throwing 70-80mph is not very impressive. Pitchers at the collegiate level are not throwing 70-80 on a daily basis…you may see that once or twice throughout the season or from a sidearm specialist. Coaches want to know that you can hit .400 against 88mph+, and they can assess your ability to so based on your swing mechanics. I’ve seen plenty of athletes win Power Showcases or PG home run derby’s in high school and have a hard time getting on the field in college. It’s about projectability.
Stats Don’t Say Anything Projectability
The next two items on this list are the two most important aspects to recruiting, in my opinion. College Coaches are more concerned with your raw tools including, athleticism, physicality and baseball IQ then they are your statistics. Coaches don’t see any of these attributes in a stat line. Often times, these three areas of your game tell a lot about who you have the potential to be when you get to the collegiate level. The good things about these attributes is they can be trained. Realize coaches are looking for projectability and these areas of your game need to be emphasized just as much as the fundamentals of playing the game.
Your Stats Don’t Show Intangibles
From a College Coach’s perspective, when he looks at your stat line, he doesn’t know anything about your character, baseball savvy, awareness, ability to think ahead, etc. These are known as the intangibles. How many cutoffs did you miss as an outfielder? Do you play the game fast? Are you two steps ahead of every play? These questions aren’t answered in a stat line. What separates the players who make it to the college level and the ones who don’t, often, boils down to your intangibles. Did you know a metric used to measure MLB players is their Intangibles? If the Professional level is measuring it, you know the college coaches are looking at these as well.
There Are So Many Stats
Its just too much to look at. There are roughly 85 different stats tracked on players. Breaking it down, there are roughly 28 different offensive stats tracked, 42 pitching stats tracked and 15 different fielding stats tracked. How could a coach possibly look into all of these when evaluating a player? They don’t they only look at the important ones to them. I will give you the stats I, and most coaches, really look at and what each tells us.
Offensive Statistics
- Walks – Shows how patient you can be at the plate, are you willing to go deep into counts to up the pitchers pitch counts, are you looking for pitches you can HAMMER early on or just hit?
- Strikeouts – This shows how much swing and miss you have in your swing, coaches want players who can put the ball in play. A good strikeout percentage is 15% or less (this was our goal when I was playing at the University of Florida).
- Stolen Bases -Shows how fast you are, or if you aren’t fast, it shows a coach the ability you have to run the bases with intelligence.
- Doubles/Home Runs – Shows the potential for power that you have and where we see you fitting in the batting order
Pitching Statistics
- Walks – shows a coach what type of command you have, how many pitches you throw in an outing
- Strikeouts – shows a coach how much swing and miss you have
Want Some Help With the Recruiting Process? Join Some of Our Facebook Groups!
- Play College Baseball
- Undisc2overed-Athlete
- Sports FUNdraising