On Tuesday, the North Carolina Scouts for PBR released the updated and expanded Class of 2024 Rankings.  The list features the top 200 players in the 2024 class in the state.  After an extensive spring and summer, with PBR Scouts seeing a ton of high school games, club team tournaments, PBR workouts, Team Carolina Events, Organizational Scout Days, and more, the revamped rankings give college coaches and scouts a peak at names to follow as they begin to descend on the 2024 class.

+ 2024 Rankings
+ 2024 Rankings Release Story

Today we continue to dive into the 2024 rankings by looking at some of the numbers and trends in the class.  As we review these numbers, keep in mind that PBR typically tracks between 400-475 college bound players in each graduating class.  Since the inception of PBR in North Carolina, more than half of the players that commit to play college baseball, do so after the early signing period during their senior year.  While coaches and scouts are working, and there are some players coming off the board, we are still very early in the process of evaluating the 2024 class.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS: CLASS OF 2024 RANKINGS

 

200
The Class of 2024 Rankings expanded to 200 players. The PBR Scouting staff filtered through players seen in the high school season, at PBR events this summer, and players seen with the club organizations.  PBR’s team of scouts work to put player grades on players that they gather enough information on while evaluating.  As players receive a player grade from a PBR Scout, they are entered into the Rankings Database.  From their, players are sorted by their player grade and through scout review.

60
While PBR Scouts did a little scrubbing on the rankings in July, the last big lift on the rankings list was in March.  The list expanded from 175 to 200.  That opened up 25 slots on the list, but PBR scouts also added another 35 newcomers to the list for 60 total players in North Carolina debuting in the 2024 Rankings.

31 / 169
The recruiting world seems to always be running very fast.  When we take a deep breath and look at some of the trends, we see there are pockets of players committing early, but most players nationally will commit during their senior year.  For the 2024 class, and those ranked in the Top 200, 31 players have committed, while 169 players remain uncommitted.

31
As expected, most of the heavy lifting in the now Junior Class’s recruiting has been done by clubs at the Division 1 level.  Of the 31 players committed in the 2024 class, that are in the PBR Top 200, all are committed to Division 1 teams.

12
Of the committed players on the list, 12 are committed to programs that reside in “Power 5” conferences.  As we know, the Power 5 “line” is not as strong in baseball as it may be in basketball or football.  There are teams, several in our area, that are not in Power 5 conferences that are able to compete at a national level year in and year out, but the “Power 5” moniker does give us a reference point when looking at how the rankings shake out. 

Of the 12 players committed to Power 5 schools, 11 are committed to play in the ACC and 1 is committed to play in the SEC.  North Carolina State leads these schools with 5 commitments from their home state.

25
Of the 31 committed players in the updated rankings, 25 are committed to continue their playing careers at an in-state school.  Of the players committed to schools outside of North Carolina, all 6 are committed to schools in states that border North Carolina.

Positional Breakdown
Working off the player’s primary position, the top 200 in North Carolina consists of:

+ 76 Pitchers
+ 26 Catchers
+ 35 Middle Infielders
+ 22 Corner Infielders
+ 39 Outfielders

 

CLICK HERE to see the full 2024 North Carolina Rankings.