Prep Baseball Report

Recruiting Essentials: Where N.J. Baseball Players Are Playing in College


TJ Hunt
Director, PBR New Jersey

It seems like year in and year out, every baseball player who wants to play in college from New Jersey has one goal in mind:

"Play somewhere down south."

I hear it all the time. From tournaments, to showcases, to just interacting with players during some down time at events, it's quite often the one answer I get.

However, recently I was inspired by a post from our friends at @PBRPennsylvania on Twitter. It gave a breakdown of where Pennsylvania players are playing college baseball today.

I thought about doing the same. So after 19 hours of scouring the internet of all Division I, II, and III schools from Maine down to Florida, I came across some informative data for the New Jersey High School Baseball Player.

*Note: Junior College Baseball, although extremely talented in New Jersey and in the Northeast as a whole, does not finalize their rosters until just before the season. And even with the 'finalized' version, I have found that there are still some players that are not on the roster any longer, or players that have dropped out for various reasons. For these reasons, I did not include JUCO in my data analysis.

Data Analysis

All in all, I counted 15,197 active players on DI, DII, DIII rosters in the following 17 states:

+ Maine
+ New Hampshire
+ Vermont
+ Massachusetts
+ Connecticut
+ Rhode Island
+ New York
+ New Jersey
+ Pennsylvania
+ Maryland
+ Delaware
+ Virginia
+ West Virginia
+ North Carolina
+ South Carolina
+ Georgia
+ Florida

- New Jersey led the 17-state selection with the most New Jersey players, at 539/733 of roster spots (73.53%). State schools like Rutgers and the DIII schools in the NJAC have competitive baseball and are an affordable option with in-state tuition costs. Purely from a monetary standpoint, this should be no surprise. Out of the study, the NJAC conference reigned supreme: Rowan has the most NJ players with 39 out of 40 playing on their home turf. Montclair State (37/41), New Jersey City University (35/35), Stockton (34/34), College of St. Elizabeth (34/39), and Rutgers Newark (33/34) were all among the top schools with the most NJ personnel. Of the Division I's, Seton Hall has the most (27) while Rider (23), Rutgers (22), and Monmouth (19) are all heavily recruiting the state. In an interesting tidbit, Princeton has just 2 New Jersey players on its roster of 27.

- Coming in a close second was Pennsylvania at 407 total New Jersey players out of 2,865 total roster spots (14.21%). From a pure numbers standpoint, Pennsylvania has 87 DI, DII, and DIII schools combined - compared to New Jersey's 25. Of the 87 total DI-DIII schools, just nine are Division I - which means Pennsylvania is certainly a viable option to play DII and DIII baseball, and the numbers show. Of the 407 NJ players on PA college teams, just 56 are Division I. And of the DII and DIII schools that have NJ players, University of the Sciences (18), Dickinson College (18), Alvernia (16), and Muhlenburg (14) were at the top. All in all, there were 16 DII or DIII schools in PA that have double-digit New Jersey players on their rosters.

- Coming in third is New York with 200 NJ players out of 2,538 possible roster spots (7.88%). Again, purely from a numbers perspective, New York outnumbers New Jersey's total college in the pool by almost three-times (78 NY DI-DIII schools). There are 18 total Division I schools in NY, which account for over half (103) of the players attending/playing baseball at NY schools. Iona leads all divisions in New York in New Jersey talent with 15 total players, followed by Wagner (13), Marist (12), St. John's (11), and Pace (11). Binghamton (10) and Dominican (10) rounded out the double digits. Other than Pace and Dominican, the sub-DI schools that had the most NJ players are Hamilton College (8), NYU (7), and St. Thomas Aquinas College (5). 

- Massachusetts (65), Maryland (57), and Connecticut (39) rounded up the rest of the top 6.

What Does This Info Tell Us?

- The 'Northeast' - which I determined to be Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Maryland accounts for 93.55% of where New Jersey high school baseball players are playing in college in 2020.

Out of the total New Jersey players currently on East Coast rosters (1,458), 1,146 or 78% of NJ residents are playing either in New Jersey, New York, or Pennsylvania.

Purely based on statistics, the aforementioned "play somewhere down south" seems misguided.

Stay tuned for more insight from this data collection. I am certainly up for questions about the data and will be responded via Twitter (@PBRNewJersey and @TJHunt_PBRNJ). Fire away.

In my next installment, I will tackle what the 'Power 5' conferences look like.

 

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