3 Things every baseball player should know about the college recruiting process. | Episode 101

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Host Ross Hawley and Baseball Forward recruiting advisor Aaron Cunningham use their monthly Recruiting 101 segment to work through three things every baseball recruit should know: when the process actually starts, how to weigh college options honestly, and what real recruiting interest looks like.

Both men were recruited in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and both say almost nothing from their own process transfers to a high school player today. The calendar has moved later, rosters turn over year to year, and college staffs are no longer in the business of projecting a 15-year-old. Cunningham, who works with players at his academy every day, keeps returning to a simple instruction: slow down, because the coaches are not in a hurry either.

The highlights:

• Why a player working the recruiting process before junior year is probably too early
• The contact dates that matter, and why junior college and NAIA are the wild west
• Physicality first: the weight room around seventh grade, not exposure at 13
• How roster turnover pushed most commitments into the fall of senior year
• Being realistic about level, academics, and where you will actually be on the field
• Why the degree and the network outlast the playing career for nearly everyone
• The difference between a profile view, a follow, and an actual recruiting conversation
• What Cunningham would tell his own 17-year-old self

When Recruiting Actually Starts

Hawley's first point is blunt, and it is aimed at the misleading noise families hear from every direction.

"If you're doing much of anything for the recruiting process until your junior year, you're probably too early."

The rules line up with that. August 1 before junior year is when NCAA Division I programs can initiate contact and invite recruits to campus. Division II can reach out after June 15 following sophomore year, though Cunningham notes those staffs almost never use the date that early. Junior college and NAIA have no contact restrictions at all. The small group whose process genuinely opens on August 1 are the known Division I prospects, and everyone already knows who they are.

For everyone else, the summer before junior year is when scouts start appearing in real numbers, and the activity that leads to offers usually comes later still. By Cunningham's count, the fall of senior year is now the most fruitful stretch in recruiting, because that is the point where a coach can finally see who is leaving and what the roster needs.

Get Physical Before Anyone Is Watching

Cunningham's advice for a 13-year-old has nothing to do with exposure. Be an athlete: get big, strong, and fast, because programs will not recruit a body that is not ready to compete. He tells players to get familiar with the weight room around seventh grade so the work is banked by the time evaluations matter, since nobody becomes physical overnight.

"Not every kernel in a bag of popcorn pops at the same time. You might pop late."

Popping late is fine — it may even mean playing longer than everybody else — but it does change the timeline. Hawley connects it to what college staffs tell him, including West Virginia head coach Steve Sabins in an earlier episode: at that level there is no time to build confidence or physicality after a player arrives. In an era when a coach can fill a hole with an experienced transfer, the expectation that a freshman will develop for two years before contributing is gone.

Why Coaches Decide Later Now

Ask a college coach to project his roster two years out and the honest answer is that he cannot. Between transfers, junior college players, and incoming high schoolers, Cunningham says rosters are now built one year at a time, all the way down to the lowest levels, and Division I staffs are working against a 34-man limit while they do it. If a coach cannot know what two years from now looks like, there is no point in a 15-year-old trying to.

That reality changes what a family should be doing. Hawley's framing is to start from the end goal and work backward: a player who says he wants to reach the big leagues is really planning for age 24, 25, or 26, which means the question is never "who can I commit to fastest" but "what is the next best decision toward that goal." The culture pushes families to race to a decision; the long-term goal rarely rewards it.

Know Your Options, and Be Realistic

The number Hawley keeps coming back to is the average age of a Division I baseball player, which the show puts at roughly 21.9, up from around 20.1 a few years earlier. Rosters are older, which means an 18-year-old cracking that level is the exception rather than the plan.

Knowing your options starts with knowing your own profile: your ability, your academics, your finances, your preferences, and how many steps it will take to get where you want to be. That means taking all the levels seriously — Division I, II, and III, NAIA, and junior college. Cunningham's point from the player's side is that the weights, the study hall, and the grueling practices do not get lighter for the guy who is not in the lineup. Nobody lifts all winter to sit in a nicer stadium.

There is nothing wrong with betting on yourself and shooting high. The thing to be honest about is fit — athletically, academically, and socially — and whether you will actually get on the field somewhere you are wanted.

The Degree and the Network

Both hosts spend real time on the part of the decision that has nothing to do with jerseys or stadiums. Most players in a big Division I game are not going to make a career out of playing baseball, and a decision made only on record, uniforms, or facilities skips past the thing that lasts.

"Keep the main thing the main thing. You're going to college baseball to get a college degree."

Cunningham played independent ball after college and made almost no money doing it. What he carried out was the network.

"The network that I got out of my college and pro career is why I have a career in baseball."

Hawley's version of the same lesson is what he did not understand as a player: at 21 or 22, convinced he was the best player alive, he had no idea what relationships would mean to his life. His advice to young players is to worry less about batting average, ERA, and draft round, and more about serving the people around them — because the network is what keeps you in the game. He adds one more caution on being realistic: being physically capable of playing at the highest level does not mean a player should. The question is what your own gut says, not what a parent or a coach thinks you should want.

What Real Recruiting Interest Looks Like

The third point is the one Hawley thinks families miss most often, because so much of the industry is built to sell activity. Recruiting starts with a personal interaction — a phone call, a real conversation — not a profile view or a rumor that somebody was at the game.

He makes it with a dating analogy: a 16-year-old is convinced a girl likes him because his friends said so, but she does not talk to him, text him, or make eye contact. If she is not talking to you, there is nothing there.

"If they're not talking to you personally, they are not recruiting you."

Cunningham adds the one real exception. Contact through a third party counts, and often comes first: a coach calls your high school or travel coach and asks about you. That is genuine interest, and it is worth knowing about.

Social Media Is a Resume, Not a Relationship

Both hosts are bullish on X as a recruiting tool. Cunningham calls it one of the best resources in the process, and Hawley tells every recruit to treat the profile as a resume: relevant information in the bio, video available, contact details easy to find, and the link ready to share with a coach.

What it is not is confirmation. A follow means a coach saw something he liked and wants to keep watching.

"That doesn't mean he's about to call you. That just means he saw something he liked and he wants to keep watching."

The trap is comfort. A longtime coaching friend of Hawley's calls it the fluff, and families get lulled to sleep by it — a follow, a profile view, a notification that feels like affirmation while nothing is actually happening. The fix is to convert the signal. When a coach at a school you care about follows you, send a short, professional message within a couple of hours thanking him and saying you would like to talk. If he does not reply, you took your hack. Cunningham's read on the response is straightforward: if a coach writes back, he is probably interested; if he leaves you on read, he is telling you he sees you but is not ready for more. Either way, the question after every touchpoint is the same — what is the next step?

Advice to His 17-Year-Old Self

Asked what he would tell himself at 17, Cunningham does not hesitate: go to junior college. He signed with a small Division I program out of high school and enjoyed it, but he was underdeveloped, grew and put on weight as a freshman, and saw his velocity as a left-handed pitcher climb at 19 and 20. Two years of junior college reps, a full scholarship, and no limits on practice hours would likely have made his path more linear and given him a better shot at a bigger program and the draft.

He ties it back to the 21.9 number. Programs are not looking for 18-year-olds, and the ones who do get in at that age are usually talking to major league teams while they are still in high school. Hawley says the same thing about himself: given the arms he watches in Division I now, he would take a couple hundred junior college at-bats first.

Cunningham closes on a letter Paul Skenes wrote to little league players, which came down to the absence of any secret sauce. You have to outwork people. At every level up the pyramid, everyone around you has already done that, so the work ethic is the non-negotiable — talent runs into its ceiling without it.

Episode Timestamps

Tap any timestamp to jump the player straight to that moment.

• 0:00 — Introduction
• 2:22 — Number one: when the recruiting process starts
• 3:36 — Contact dates, and the junior college wild west
• 5:35 — Get big, strong, and fast before anyone is watching
• 7:34 — What a top-25 program expects on arrival
• 8:47 — Why college coaches make decisions later now
• 11:02 — Start with the end goal and work backward
• 12:45 — Number two: know your options and be realistic
• 15:21 — Go where you can play and make an impact
• 17:28 — The degree, and why you are really going to college
• 19:41 — Why the network is what keeps you in the game
• 22:38 — Being able to play Division I versus choosing it
• 23:34 — Number three: what recruiting really looks like
• 24:46 — The dating analogy, and personal interaction
• 27:40 — Using X as your recruiting resume
• 30:35 — Getting lulled to sleep by the fluff
• 31:32 — Turning a follow into a conversation
• 35:04 — Advice to his 17-year-old self
• 36:26 — Why he advocates the junior college route
• 40:24 — Outwork everybody: a letter to little leaguers

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Aaron Cunningham is the Baseball Forward recruiting advisor and joins Ross Hawley each month for the Recruiting 101 segment. Subscribe to the Baseball Forward Podcast for more conversations with the players, coaches, and leaders elevating the next generation of the game.