Measurable benchmarks by division
You came here for a table showing what a D1 pitcher throws and what a D2 catcher pops. We're not going to give you one — and this page explains why that's the more useful answer.
Nobody official publishes these numbers
There is no NCAA benchmark table. No NFCA one. No NAIA or NJCAA one either.
The measurable benchmarks that circulate online aren't official standards from any governing body. They're estimates published by recruiting services — which is a different thing, and worth knowing before you measure your athlete against them.
One of the sites with the most detailed benchmark table says so in its own footnote: its figures are compiled from six other recruiting services.
Those services, in turn, compiled theirs from somewhere. Follow it far enough and there's no study, no dataset, no governing body — just services citing services. The numbers feel authoritative because they're specific and everyone repeats them, which is not the same as being sourced.
Three sources, three different answers
If these were measurements of something real, they'd converge. They don't.
Gives one pitching range for D2 and a lower one for D3 and NAIA together — a simple four-tier picture.
Runs eight tiers, splitting D1 into Power 4 Elite, Power 4 and Mid-Major before it ever reaches D2 — with different numbers at each.
Gives exit velocity and pitching thresholds with no division attached at all — just "what softball coaches look for."
These aren't small discrepancies at the margins. They're different models of how college softball is even structured. That's what disagreement looks like when the underlying thing isn't being measured — each source is publishing an impression, formatted as data.
Everyone publishing a benchmark table is selling something
A free score that tells you your division fit. A monthly platform. A national recruiting service. A metric-testing business.
In every case the table is the way in — the free thing that produces the anxious question the paid thing answers.
And there's a structural problem underneath it: a business selling "we'll help you get recruited" does better when families believe they're behind. That doesn't make anyone dishonest. It does mean the incentive runs one direction, and it isn't toward telling a family their athlete is fine.
AG2C sells a membership. So hold this page to the same test you'd hold theirs: we're the ones telling you a table you might find useful doesn't exist, which is the opposite of the commercially convenient answer.
If we published one, it would be the same aggregated guesswork with our logo on it. How to judge any recruiting service, including this one →
Measurables matter. The precision is what's invented.
None of this means measurables don't count, and a family that leaves this page thinking "numbers don't matter" has been misled in the other direction.
The rough direction is real. D1 pitchers throw harder than D3 pitchers. Faster athletes cover more outfield. Exit velocity separates hitters. Coaches genuinely do measure these things at camps and events, and they genuinely do use them.
Levels differ. Measurables are part of how coaches evaluate. Improving yours improves your options. Tracking them matters.
That the line between D1 and D2 sits at a specific number. That a published figure applies to a program with its own needs, region and philosophy. That a table can tell you where you belong.
A benchmark table is a rough orientation, not a filter. Used as orientation it's harmless and mildly helpful. Used as a filter — "she's two miles under, so D1 is out" — it makes a decision no table has the standing to make.
Three things that actually answer the question
All three are free, and all three are better than a table because they're about your athlete rather than about an average.
Not "is she good enough?" but: "what level is she realistically competitive for right now, and what specifically would need to change?"
They've watched her play against known competition. That's an evaluation of her, by someone who has seen a hundred athletes at her position — which is exactly what a table is a poor substitute for.
Public, free, and specific. Who plays her position, what years they are, and what's opening in her grad year. A benchmark tells you about a division; a roster tells you about a program — and coaches recruit for programs. How to read a roster →
Which levels reach out and which don't, across a season rather than a weekend. Imperfect and noisy, and still more accurate than most families credit — because it's a hundred coaches evaluating her rather than one number evaluating an average.
Your athlete's own trend. 52 to 55 to 58 across eighteen months says something no benchmark table can — it's measured on her, dated, and it answers the question coaches are actually asking, which is where she's going rather than where she sits.
That's the number to build the profile around. How to track and show a trajectory →
Four rules that make it safe
Plenty of families will find one and use it, and that's fine — with guardrails.
- Treat it as a range, not a line. If a number is within a few units of a tier, that tells you nothing at all about which side she's on.
- Check who published it and what they sell. Not to dismiss it — just to read it knowing which direction the incentive points.
- Never use it to remove a level from your list. That decision belongs to a coach who has watched her, or to the market. Not to a table.
- Use it to set a target, not a verdict. "Here's roughly what we're working toward" is a good use. "Here's what she isn't" is not.
Used that way, a benchmark table is a reasonable orientation tool. The harm isn't in the numbers existing — it's in a family treating an aggregated estimate as a judgment about their daughter.
Real data. If we ever gather measurables from our own members, from coaches directly, or from a governing body that decides to publish them, this page becomes a table — a sourced one, with a method you could check and a date on it.
Until then, publishing numbers here would mean passing along the same unsourced estimates with our name attached. The whole reason this site exists is to be the one families can trust on the details, and that has to include the details we'd rather have.
If you're a coach with real evaluation data and you'd be willing to share it, we'd genuinely like to hear from you.
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Recruiting rules change and vary by division. Always confirm current rules with the governing body: NCAA.org · NAIA.org · NJCAA.org