Houston Area Baseball Players

A comment was made to me a couple of months ago about how deep the baseball talent is in the Houston area. That aroused my curiosity so I decided to do a little checking on that.

Wikipedia lists the Houston-Sugarland-Baytown metropolitan area (10 counties) with a 6.1 million population. It lists the Dallas-Ft. Worth-Arlington metropolitan area (12 counties) with a 6.5 million population. DFW is a little larger but pretty comparable between the two.

For a quick test, I decided to check on the current Division 1 Early Signings. Here are the results of that search:

2012 Texas High School Division 1 Early Signings:
Houston Metro 51 out of 151 total signings (33.7%)
DFW Metro 39 out of 151 total signings (25.8%)

When it comes to players from 5A schools Houston holds a 45-23 edge of player signings. At the 4A level, DFW has a 16-6 edge over Houston.

These things tend to run in cycles but my friend from Houston, though obviously biased, may be onto something. If Division 1 Early Signings can be an accurate measuring stick for such a claim, it does appear that the Houston area is demonstrating a deep talent pool of high school baseball players.

This makes me think though. How good would the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros be if they had first rights to the high school players in their area?

-Tim Baugh