College Search for baseball

How Playtime works for batters and pitchers, what the roster positions mean, and how to read a program’s stats.

This guide covers the baseball-specific parts of College Search. If you haven’t yet, start with Finding your best-fit schools in College Search for the filters and tabs every sport shares.

Step 1Use Playtime to see where you could play

Playtime answers one question: at this program, how much of the team’s playing time goes to players in your class year? It adds up to the five most recent completed seasons under the current head coach, then compares the program with every other program.

1. 1Class year: pick the class you’ll be in, like Freshman.
2. 2Whose playing time: Batters measures each class’s share of the team’s plate appearances. Pitchers measures its share of the team’s pitching, shown as a share of team pitches.
3. 3Season: Conference counts only conference games (the default); All Games counts every game.
4. 4Read the bands under Compared with other programs, or drag the slider to set your own range.

Plays regularly means the class gets more of the team’s playing time than at three out of four programs. Rarely plays means it gets less than at three out of four. Plays occasionally is everything in between. Programs are always compared for the same class, role and season type.

Sort by Playtime to see each school’s number right on the list. “Freshmen get 14% of plate appearances · last 5 seasons” means freshmen took 14% of that team’s plate appearances over those seasons.

Step 2Read the positions on the roster

In the Roster card on a school’s Athletics tab, Positions uses these labels:

1. 1RHP and LHP: right-handed and left-handed pitchers.
2. 2C: catchers.
3. 3INF: infielders.
4. 4OF: outfielders.
5. 5Two-Way Player: players listed as both a pitcher and a position player.

A player listed at more than one position counts in each, so the position counts can add up to more than the roster size. To see your competition, click your position. Pitchers can click RHP and LHP together to see the whole staff. Then check Class balance: lots of seniors at your position means spots opening soon.

Step 3Read the roster stats

1. 1Batting Playtime and Pitching Playtime show each class’s share of plate appearances and pitches at this school, with how many seasons were analyzed.
2. 2Stat scope switches the numbers between Overall and Conference only.
3. 3In the roster table, B/T is how a player bats and throws, and the Stat groups chips choose which stats to show.
4. 4Expand stats across all seasons shows each player’s history at the program, not just this season.