Do You Want To Play College Baseball? Do These Two Things!

Okay, what's going on everyone? So today we're talking recruiting. Huge time of year coming up now. We're getting close to the summer months. So very big time for college recruiting. I get so many questions from players. What do I have to do? What are the steps that I have to take to make sure that I get recruited? And so I'm gonna give you two tips today. We also have a entire playlist dedicated to college recruiting. And so if you have not done so, go and watch that playlist because I give you every tip, every secret that we've used over the last eight to nine years of running Antonelli Baseball and helping over a hundred players move on to play college baseball. So I give everything I know away in these videos. So today we're gonna talk about two tips and these are extremely important. This is probably the number one and number two things that you have to do in order to be recruited for 99.99% of players. The first thing is you have to be proactive, right? So you have to do work, not just on the field, but off the field. So it is absolutely vitally important that you're putting in the work on the field. I think we all understand that, right? You have to be a really, really, really, really good player to play college baseball, right? Only a little over 5% of players, high school players, end up going and playing college baseball. And so you have to be extremely talented. So it goes without saying that you have to be proactive as far as the work you do on the field. But what a lot of players don't realize is that there is a ton of work that you have to do off of the field to get recruited. And if you believe that all you need to do is put the work on the field and you're gonna get recruited, well, then you will be mistaken and you will not be happy come the end of the recruiting process because you'll probably end up either going someplace that you're unhappy with or not being recruited at all. So it is extremely, extremely important to be proactive and not think, well, as long as I'm good enough on the field, as long as I'm a good enough player, they will find me. People say this, this is not true. There are hundreds of thousands, millions, actually, millions of players that wanna play college baseball and there are very few roster spots. And there is this myth that if you wanna play college baseball, you can play college baseball. And that's just not the fact if you look at the numbers. It is very, very competitive. There are so many players fighting for so few spots. So you have to make sure that you are doing everything that you can off the field to ensure that you're putting yourself in a position to be recruited. Also, every player wants to go to a place that they're going to be happy at, right? And so it's not just about playing college baseball, but it's about playing at the right place, the right fit for you. So that means that limits the amount of schools even more, because you're not just looking to play anywhere. You're looking to play at some place that's gonna fit you academically, socially, and athletically. So now that pool of schools becomes even smaller. So it's even more competitive. So again, you have to be proactive. Let me give you a couple of tips. And the biggest tip that I would recommend is to go through our recruiting playlist and look at exactly what you need to do because I make tons of videos about this. But simple, simple things like doing research on schools, creating a target list, a large target list, where you're gonna really do the research and figure out what schools fit you academically, socially, and then athletically, and getting a coach that can help guide you, someone that has helped players move on to the college level. They will be able to help you with that target list. Learning and understanding the best ways to create exposure for yourself. Learning how to craft an email to coaches. How do you communicate with coaches? Learning how to put a video together, exactly what it should consist of. And then how to get that video into the right people's hands so that they can then make decisions on you. All extremely important. How to continue to keep up with communication throughout the process. Understanding the timeline. Every player's different. And so understanding when these things should be taking place. When should you be sending videos? When should you be communicating? When are you allowed to communicate? There's so many things, right? This is just the beginning. We could go on and talk for hours about this. But if you've never done it before, it can feel very complicated. And it is complicated if you don't have anyone guiding you. So find, again, part of being proactive is finding someone that has experience that can guide you in the recruiting process. So that is my number one thing, is being proactive. Now, number two is extremely important, and this is being realistic. If you look at the numbers, less than 2% of players play at the Division I level. A little bit more than 5% of players play college baseball at any level. And so understanding the numbers and the landscape and being realistic as far as what level you can play at. Where do you fit best? And this can be very, very difficult for players. And probably the number one thing that I see players mess up on is overestimating, not just players, but their families, overestimating the ability that they have and the level that they can play at. And I want all of our players, I say all the time, I want you to have a lot of confidence. There's much confidence in the world, right? Because you have to play the game with confidence if you want to play well. But when it comes to the recruiting process, you can't just say, well, I want to play at Vanderbilt, and that's where I'm going to play. I'm going to be super confident about it if you don't have the ability to play at Vanderbilt. I see a ton of players waste a ton of time, ton of money, resources, energy. They get frustrated because they're focusing on schools that they shouldn't be focusing on. And although you may want to play there, I mean, that could have been your favorite school for your entire life, and you've worked so hard your whole life to play at Vanderbilt or USC or Florida or Miami or wherever it is, right? And that's fantastic. When I was younger, I had dreams of playing all over the place, playing in the major leagues, playing for the Red Sox, playing for, actually wanted to play for UNH when I was younger. That was my goal, right? And that's great. But there comes a time when, for most players, it's probably not going to be a realistic goal. Hopefully it is for you. But for most players, it won't be. And so you have to be realistic and understand that, although maybe I want to go there, that's not the best fit for me. In the end, it's about finding the best fit for you. Again, as a player, so athletically, but then also socially, someplace where you're going to be happy outside of baseball and then academically, which is probably the most important part of the college recruiting process is finding a college where you are going to flourish academically and where it's going to set you up for the rest of your life. So keeping this all in mind and being realistic about this. And how are you realistic? We mentioned it earlier. You have to find someone that can help you because a lot of times what people do is they lean on people that tell them what they want to hear and not what they need to hear. And so if you depend on a family member, your mother, your father, your brother, your sister to help you, well, typically, not always, but typically those people are a little biased, right? They think that you're a really good player and you probably are. If you're going to play college baseball, you probably are a really good player. But have they had experience watching hundreds, if not thousands of players? Have they had experience helping those players move on to those levels? Do they talk to college coaches every single day and understand what each college is looking for athletically and academically? You have to find someone that can do that. And so one of the advantages, a lot of people will say, what's the advantage of playing for a travel ball program, right? And some people say travel ball programs are overrated and this and that. Well, one of the things that I think an advantage of playing with a program, let's say Anson Valley Baseball, it's not just our program. There's tons of programs out there that are good. But we've had over a hundred players move on to play college baseball. And so with that comes experience from myself and our coaching staff of seeing these players play and understanding what they do well and what they don't do well, right? What their strengths are and what their weaknesses are. And then figuring, okay, we have this player, let's say John Smith. And we watched John Smith play for two, three, four years, however long it is. And we know exactly the type of player John Smith is. And we know what schools like John Smith and what schools didn't like John Smith, right? And so now, let's say John Smith's a shortstop, right? Well, now forever, I'm able to compare players to John Smith. I know exactly what they thought about John Smith. So when I see Matthew Berry come around, right? I can compare shortstop Matthew Berry to shortstop John Smith. These are made up people. I'm sure they exist somewhere out there, right? So I can compare these two players and I can say, well, I know that these seven schools love John Smith. And I know that, you know, they were top 50 schools in the country, right? So John spoke to Miami and Clemson and Florida State and Notre Dame, okay, and Virginia Tech, right? They love John. Well, Matt is nowhere close to John's ability. He's nowhere close, right? Matt wants to play at those schools. I'm 100% positive that these schools are not gonna have interest because I've seen these two players. And not only have I just seen these two players, I've also seen these other 150 shortstops, right? And so I saw, you know, Alex and Timmy and Johnny and Jimmy and all these guys, right? And I know exactly what schools like them, what they liked about them, what they didn't like about them. So now I compare Matt to all these other players. And I say, you know, he fits best, I believe, compared to these three guys that ended up going, they were high academic kids and they went and played the NESCAC. This kid went to Colby and this kid went to Middlebury and this kid went to Hamilton, okay? So now I have a good idea. Now, neither of these players, right, they have any clue, right? So like Matthew's sitting over here and he's like, well, I've been told I was the greatest player of all time. So, I mean, my mom loves me. Of course she does. I mean, I love my kids too. But mom hasn't, I'm guessing, maybe she has. If she has, that's great. But typically they've never had these conversations. They haven't seen these players. And so now it's my job to help communicate this. And now I can take that player, Matthew Berry, I think that was his name, and I can give him this information and then I can get him in front of those schools if he's interested in those schools. And then I get feedback from those schools. So now when Colby sees him and Hamilton sees him and Wesleyan sees him and these schools see him, right, in Middlebury, now they'll tell me, you know, I like them, I don't love them, here's where I have them compared to these other players. And so now I can pass that information along to the player, right? And so that's how it works. And so that's why you need someone to help you be realistic. Because it's hard to be realistic without any knowledge, right? And so find someone that has the experience and can help you. And not someone that's just going to tell you what you want to hear. Because a lot of coaches, I see this every day, a lot of coaches, especially in travel ball programs, will say, hey, Matthew, you're playing at Vanderbilt. If you play for me, you're playing at Vanderbilt. I know it. I've seen tons of players play and you're the best, right? And so what happens is that player thinks he can play at Vanderbilt and there's no chance he can play at Vanderbilt. I always pick Vanderbilt because everyone knows who Vanderbilt is. And so that player just wasted tons of time. And they get frustrated because Vanderbilt doesn't like them, right? And Vanderbilt shouldn't like them. There's no chance Vanderbilt's going to like them. And that's okay because not every player was meant to go to Vanderbilt, all right? So again, finding someone that you can trust and that will be honest with you and do your research and talk to players that have played for that coach in the past or played for the program and how was the recruiting process for you and did the coach help you and was the information he gave to you, was it helpful or not, right? And that's part of being proactive again, going back to being proactive. So hopefully that helps you out. Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below. Subscribe to the channel, hit the notification bell, give a thumbs up, all that good stuff. We'll talk to you later. If you've got hitters that you're looking to improve before the start of next season, this is essential for you. Matt Antonelli here, former major league player, first round pick and college coach. 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