The Recruiting Parent

Helping families navigate college recruiting w/ practical insights, smarter decisions, & resources. Author of The Recruiting Parent. Don’t Wait to Get Informed.

[The Recruiting Parent @RecruitParent1]

⚾ Excited to develop The Recruiting Parent—an e-book packed w/ practical strategies, tools & resources to help families navigate college baseball recruiting, w/ lessons applicable across college sports.

Targeting January 2027! Stay tuned!

#BaseballRecruitDad @BaseballDad2028

[The Recruiting Parent @RecruitParent1]

#BaseballRecruitDad
#BaseballDad2028
@BaseballDad2028
#TheRecruitingParent
@RecruitParent1

[Baseball Recruit Dad | The Recruiting Parent @BaseballDad2028]

I am finding through my due diligence the extent of all the baseball opportunities out there after HS. If you love baseball, I find it hard to believe you can’t find somewhere after HS where you can play. Between D1, D2, D3, JUCO, NAIA, NJCAA, specific community college systems, and our nation’s military. There is somewhere for you! I will cover in my e-book due out by February 1. #BaseballDad2028 @RecruitParent1 #TheRecruitingParent

[Baseball Recruit Dad | The Recruiting Parent @BaseballDad2028]

Another X profile I want to uplift is @jaketopooo. Jake understands the process and has LIVED the process. Check him out and contact him if you need help. @RecruitParent1

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

4 to 8 weeks. That's the shelf life on your video.

It doesn't have to be a whole new highlight. 20 to 30 seconds of new reps is enough.

A 5 month old video tells a coach one thing. Nothing has changed since then. A keeper sending October clips in March is just asking him to guess whether you got better.

The other half of it is that new clips give you a reason to email the coach who went quiet. "Added 25 seconds from last weekend, new clips start at 0:00." That's a real email.

Silence in December doesn't have to stay silence. Sometimes it just means there was nothing new to look at.

Tonight: pull your last 3 games, find 6 clips, cut them to the front. That's the whole update.

When is the newest clip in your video from?

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

A dead period doesn't mean coaches stop working.

In a dead period a coach can't watch you play in person. They can't have you on campus either. That's it. They can still open your email. They can still watch the video you sent Tuesday night.

And if you're a freshman, most of the calendar doesn't touch you yet anyway. Freshman year is grades and paperwork. Your grades at 15 go into the same GPA a coach pulls up when you're a junior.

So the freshman job is small. Know your GPA to the decimal. Get one usable clip on file so there's something to send the day you need it. Learn what the periods actually are so you're not guessing later. Then go play.

Freshmen, what's your GPA right now? Not a trap, I just want to know if you know it off the top of your head.

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

If your plan is to walk on at a big D1, you need to know the new number. It's 34.

That's the roster cap for opted in D1 baseball programs after the House settlement. 34 spots. All of them competitive.

Walking on used to be real. A coach could carry a walk-on and see what happened by March. That room is nearly gone.

So here's what to do tonight. Pull up the roster page at a school you want. Count the seniors at your position. If it's zero, walking on there next fall is a long shot. If it's two, now you have something specific to put in an email.

Do that for 20 schools and your list looks different than it did this morning. Some of the names you were dreaming about drop off. Some of the ones you never looked at move up.

The roster page is public. Coaches know you can read it. Most recruits never do.

What does the roster page say at your top school?

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

Read the rosters. Email the 50 that need you. You'll get more replies than 200 sent blind.

Generic blast emails get answered about 3.4% of the time. Emails written for one school, by name, get answered around 18%.

So 200 copy-paste emails buys you about 7 replies. 50 real ones buys you about 9.

More coaches writing back.

The whole difference is usually one line in the email that proves you opened their roster page. Count the seniors at your position. Say the number. "You've got 2 seniors at catcher and I'm a 2027 catcher hitting .340."

A coach reads that and knows you picked him on purpose.

Tonight: pull up one roster page. Count. Write one email. Send it. That's the whole job for today.

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

Starting late mostly costs you the top of your list.

It costs you the slow pace too. You don't get a year to sit there thinking about which 30 schools to email. You send them over the next three weeks.

Tonight: open 25 roster pages. Count the seniors at your position. Each one graduating is an opening next year.

Email those coaches first and put the number in the email. "You have 3 seniors in the outfield. I'm a 2027 outfielder."

What grad year are you, and how many emails have you actually sent?

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

Three stops since high school. Wagner, then Tulane, now independent pro baseball in Missoula.

Every level restarted the process. You never graduate out of it.

Nobody hands you the next spot. You go ask for it.

If you knew for a fact you'd get a reply tonight, which school are you emailing? Say the name.

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

If you're a 2029 and you've gotten three different answers this month about what you should be doing, you need it written down in one place.

Every tournament somebody's dad has a new rule. Email now. Don't email until junior year. Wait for the next showcase. That division doesn't look at you yet. All of it sounds right when you hear it out loud.

Easiest way I know to cut through that is to stop trying to plan two years and only look at four weeks at a time.

Week 1, build the list and send emails.
Week 2, follow up and get film where it needs to go.
Week 3, widen the list. Add schools you hadn't thought about.
Week 4, read it honestly. Who replied, who didn't, what you'd change.

Then it starts over the next month.

You only have to know what you're doing between now and next month, and you can keep that on one page.

Which of those four weeks are you actually on right now? Comment CYCLE and I'll send the page over.

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

Read the roster page before every email you send. That's the part nobody sees.

Count the seniors at your position. Check what grad year the players ahead of you are. Then write one sentence about it.

The wording of that sentence matters.

Don't write: you're losing two seniors at my position so you'll need somebody next year.

Write: you've got two seniors at my position and I'm a 2027, that's where I think I'd fit.

Same facts, and the second one is the only one that gets read as interest. The first one reads like you're telling a coach how to run his roster.

A coach will read your homework on his program all day. He just doesn't want to be told what his team is missing.

So the fit line is about you. Why you think you fit there.

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

Emailing 40 schools in one weekend is a plan with nothing after it.

You send the blast. By Sunday night there's nobody left on the list.

Run it in 30 day loops instead.

Every month, add 3 to 5 new schools. Follow up with every coach who hasn't answered.

The weekend blast is 40 and then nothing.

Comment CYCLE and I'll send you the full loop, week by week, on one page.

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

A coach at the program you want will get somewhere between 100 and 300 recruiting emails today.

Most of them say the same thing. Hard worker, love your program, here's my film.

Your subject line has to survive a two-second scan. Grad year, position, club, and the one number that sets you apart.

That's the whole edge. A coach going through 200 emails can tell in seconds which one was written to their program and which one went to a hundred schools at once.

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

Coaches can still call you during a dead period. They just can't watch you play.

Calls, texts, emails all keep going. The in-person part stops.

So if you're a senior, that's the week to have the conversation you've been putting off. Three things worth asking on the phone:

Where do you see me on the roster next fall?
What does the money look like, athletic and academic?
What does admissions need from me to clear?

Don't skip that last one. An offer admissions won't clear is not an offer.

Senior year the list is supposed to get shorter. Four schools you've actually talked to beats forty you emailed once.

Which of those three do you not know the answer to right now?

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

If a coach wrote back "we're full at your position," you just got real information.

That sentence has a date in it. The class filled. Your timing was off, and now you know it, which is more than the players still waiting on a reply have.

So answer it the same day. One line:

"Thanks for letting me know. What are you recruiting in the class behind that one?"

Two things come out of that. You find out if there's a lane a year back or anywhere else on the roster. And you're in his inbox as the kid who answered instead of the kid who went quiet after a no.

Then go look at the schools that sit right next to that one on your list. They probably filled around the same time. Same question, all of them.

What did the last no you got say, word for word?

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

One row every time you contact a coach. That's the whole tracking system.

Date. School. Coach name. How you sent it. What you sent. Did they reply. Interest level. Next follow-up date. Notes.

Coaches forget. Emails get buried. A coach who liked you in September has a different roster problem in January. None of that is a verdict on you.

Update the sheet once a week. Then sort by next follow-up date and you can see who is owed something from you this week.

Without it you're guessing. You think you already emailed the guy who runs keepers there. You're not sure. So you don't send anything, and the silence starts feeling like an answer when really you just never followed up.

The one column to be careful with is interest level. Be honest in it. Replied in 2 hours is not the same as a form response, and you should be spending your time accordingly.

Comment TRACKER and I'll send you the sheet.

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

Go to your sent folder and count how many coaches you emailed exactly once.

That number is the problem.

Most kids send one email, hear nothing, and decide the coach isn't interested. The coach probably read it on a bus at 11pm and got to the next one.

A follow up only works if it carries something new.

"Coach, I emailed you in September. Since then my pop time is down to 2.02 and I'm catching every inning this fall. Updated video from last weekend is below. I play Nov 8 and 9 if you can get out to see me."

That's it. Send one only when you actually have something to report. New video, new time, new grades, new schedule.

The kid ahead of you on that coach's list is often just the one who followed up.

How many coaches on your list have you emailed more than twice?

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

If you're a sophomore and you don't have a list of schools yet, start it tonight.

60 schools researched right is about a year of work. That's 5 a month. One on a Sunday afternoon and you're fine.

Researched means you opened the roster page and counted how many players at your position graduate the year you'd show up. Keeper looking at a roster with 3 keepers and the oldest one is a freshman? They probably don't need you in your class. Write the school down anyway with that note next to it, because rosters move.

Junior fall comes fast. You either email off a list you already built, or you spend October building it while other kids are already getting replies.

How many schools are actually on yours right now?

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

You don't need your whole recruiting timeline planned before you send an email.

A two year plan is too big to start on a Tuesday night. Start with 30 days.

A year is 12 of those. You just have to know what week you're in. Sophomores run the same 4 weeks seniors do, the school list is just different.

It's one page. Comment CYCLE and I'll send it over.

[Jake Toporek @jaketopooo]

A DM to a college coach should read like a stat line.

Grad year. Position. Height. Club. GPA. Film.

2027 LHP | 5’11” | Club Team | 3.9 GPA | Film Link

That’s it.

Save the long explanation about why you’re a good fit for an email.

The goal of a DM is to get your film opened, not tell your life story.