Raising the Bar: Ohio's Baseball Potential

Growing up in Northwest Ohio I was fortunate to have a father who had an undying love for the game of baseball. His love for the game was passed on to me which in turn led me to accomplish many of my goals for the game of baseball. Ohio has always been a somewhat competitive area for high school baseball talent. Most of this had stemmed from the southwestern part of Ohio, particularly Cincinnati. My biggest thoughts and questions were the following: Why does the Cincinnati surrounding area produce such high level athletes, and more specifically baseball players? Can Ohio be a nationally recognized powerhouse, rivaling the south? In this blog post, we delve into the current state of Ohio high school baseball and explore the impact of training facilities on player development.

Current State of Ohio High School Baseball

To get started the first thing I needed to do was get the facts. Where exactly are the top high school baseball players in Ohio going to high school? For the 2023 class, 12 of the top 25 according to Prep Baseball Report reside in the southwestern part of Ohio. This proved what I had already known: the top talent is concentrated in three major areas, with Cincinnati having the most, followed by the Akron/Canton/Cleveland area, and then Columbus, with very few outside those areas. This discovery raises questions about why certain regions excel in producing high-level athletes and whether it is a result of talent or other factors.

Having grown up in Northwest Ohio and having played summer ball in Cincinnati, I can attest that the talent pool across Ohio is not inherently imbalanced. The difference lies in how Cincinnati taps into talent more effectively, and Northeast Ohio is following suit. Although youth programs may play a role, one significant distinction is the prevalence of training facilities, whether it be lifting or baseball-specific work.

Training Facilities as Game-Changers

This is, in my opinion, the single biggest reason for the success in the areas mentioned above. If you look at where the top 25 class of 2023 high school baseball players attend school, and then overlay the location of training facilities, it does not take a genius to see the correlation. The same pattern holds for the classes of 2022 and 2024. I have taken into consideration that maybe some of these players may not even train at these facilities. That may be true, and I just want to be clear: nothing will ever be 100% certain. But I think the evidence is enough to speak on.

The Impact of Training Facilities

I am a huge supporter of training facilities. I went to school for Exercise Science and my goal is to help as many athletes as I can reach their goals. I am such a fan of them because I know how beneficial they can be to athletes in general. The game of baseball has been rapidly transforming over the past 10 years or so and it has become increasingly more competitive. One of the reasons for this is the rise of baseball training facilities and the advancement of technologies and knowledge of the different aspects of improving performance. If you are a baseball fan you have most likely heard of Cressey Sports Performance, Driveline Baseball, and Tread Athletics. These are just a couple that are leading the way in baseball development.

Addressing the Disparity: Northwest Ohio

The biggest reason I went down this rabbit hole is because of being from Northwest Ohio and not having any type of training facility around to train at. There is so much talent and drive in athletes that love baseball. Unfortunately, they are unable to access the same type of high-level resources as other areas of Ohio, and with this they fall behind.

Many people may say there is good baseball, just look at teams that go to the state tournament and even win it. To that I say it is still baseball and a great coach's team always has a chance on any given day. This post is not about teams. It is about young athletes whose goals are to play collegiate and professional baseball. I think this is where some problems lie. Coaches have jobs and that job is to win baseball games, but their underlying job in my opinion should be to put that kid in the best position possible to accomplish whatever they want. And this goes for all of Ohio, all of the country.

Concluding Thoughts

I honestly had so much more to say and talk about but I did not want to split off into things that were only partially correlated. My main goal of this post was to educate the coaches, parents, and players of Ohio that if your son or your athlete wants to play baseball at a high level, the best place to start is by looking at what the best players are doing and building off that.

I wanted to also speak on how Ohio stacks up compared to other states across the country but I will save that for another post. (1 school in the top 50 teams across the country according to Perfect Game and 1 in the top 25 according to PBR.) If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or other thoughts please feel free to send me a DM on any of my socials. If you enjoyed reading this and thought it was beneficial or thought provoking, please share it with others who may enjoy it as well.

Brock Nartker, Baseball Performance Coach