The top 500 is the marketing list. Roughly 500 position players and 500 pitchers per class, plus a handful who filter back in after the MLB Draft pulls the top tier off the board. That whole group covers most of the Division 1 commitments and then the music stops.

If you are sitting outside the top 500, the assumption is that the recruiting world will sort itself out for you. It will not.

You are in the middle of a circuit. You can finish it. It just hurts. Your brain starts negotiating. Sometimes you push through and you are proud. Sometimes you bullshit your way out and you get in the car and the drive home is the worst part of the day.

You always could have gone harder. You always know it on the way home.

In my fifth year of college baseball. I was at a D2 program in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, finishing my career under a coach who treated conditioning like a religion…Practice often started with the coach running us through bodyweight tests on the gym floor. Find a spot in the circle. Hold a plank. Shoulder taps. Pushups. Whatever he called out next…I was 160 pounds and in the least fit shape I had ever been in. Three lifts a week, garbage diet, doing nothing on my own…While the coach bellowed corrections about keeping a flat back, I glanced around the room. I could not believe what I was seeing.

Stay tuned for next week’s newsletter. Get better everyday and embrace consistency.

Anyone can play college baseball if they do the right things.

The Athora Lab Team