college baseball & Covid-19
Good article in The Athletic (so buy a subscription)
on college baseball issues with seniors returning, MLB draft down to 5-10 rounds, and:
what if no college football season?
consequences for baseball and other non-revenue sports?
Lots of Bakich quotes:
“If there’s no college football this year,” says Bakich, “that’s kind of the doomsday scenario.”
“We’re talking about 1,000 less kids getting drafted, and that’s unprecedented,” Bakich says. “But we also recognize that 100,000 people may lose their lives because of this virus. And whoever imagined we’d be talking about such a thing? We baseball coaches are very good at perspective-building, so we’ll make sure that will be a topic of conversation.
“Still,” he says, “that’s 1,000 kids, from 18 to 21 years old, who have dreamt of that moment. That’s hard. That’s really hard.https://theathletic.com/1720401/2020/04/03/stark-how-mlb-and-the-ncaa-have-left-college-baseball-reeling/?source=dailyemail
My son redshirted his freshman yr because of TJ surgery and was having a great 2nd yr, even though he only logged 5 innings. His coaches were bringing him along to make a tourney run as their Friday night guy. Now this. He turns 21 in July and has yet to pitch more than 5 innings at the collegiate level. Depression is an understatement for what he’s going through right now.
I sympathize with both you and your son. My son is a sophomore pitcher. Had a good freshman year, and then spent the past 8 months working on his strength. He gained 25 pounds and 10 mph. I mean, this kid worked his ass off. He did all the research himself, changed his diet, incorporated a serious strength and throwing regimen, etc....And then everything abruptly ended. With gyms closed, and being at home, he's had to improvise in order to continue. He's already thinking about a fifth year somewhere. I feel very badly for the seniors who were hoping to get a look from scouts. There were two guys on his team who maybe could've gotten a look. So where to go from here for them? I guess look for a fifth year, but their school is a four year liberal arts school so they'll have to apply to grad school somewhere else to continue. Yes, in the scheme of things, there are a lot worse problems, but in order to maintain some semblance of normalcy, we have to continue to focus on our paths.
Both of you are very lucky to have healthy kids. Everyone struggles with life decisions and if those are some of their toughest, then they're in good shape regardless of ball.
Absolutely. We are very grateful to be healthy at this point.
Yeah tough road for sure. My son played at a juco. His freshman year during fall ball he threw a fastball which came in @92 and his fingers went numb (complete ucl tear) spent his freshman year rehabbing and came back for fall ball his sophomore year and was once again in the 90’s and had offers from several d1 schools , but didn’t commit because he had power fives who were interested who wanted to see him live this season. Never happened. So now that he completed his associates from the junior college the future is up in the air. Hindsight’s 20-20 now. But yeah he’s healthy and so are we, but @20 yrs old he feels like the world is coming to an end for him. Good luck to your son.
And to yours. My motto is, take it as far as you can go. It's a tough road at this level for everyone but the most elite, and even then, those guys have to go and compete with the next level up. The higher they go, the greater the pressure, the harder it gets on so many levels. May your son know that just making it to this level is a huge accomplishment. May my son understand that, too!
Thanks. It seems strange to me that all of Michigan's juniors who might have been drafted this year are just coming back next year. I mean, great for Michigan but it's kind of unfair to the players.
Jesse Franklin, Jordan Nwogu, Jeff Criswell, and probably Joe Donovan would all have been draft-eligible and drafted in June 2020, and at least 2 of them would have been playing in the minors before the end of August.
So now...is MLB saying they aren't draft-eligible until next year? Or that they are draft-eligible but the draft is only going to last 5-10 rounds? If they are draft-eligible, I guess Criswell & Nwogu are still candidates to be selected and signed. Franklin would be, but he missed the 3-week season thanks to a skiing injury, he was slated to be ready to play in April.
I'm not a subscriber to The Athletic yet, but I see a couple of articles every week that make me wonder if I should subscribe.
They are draft eligible and honestly more likely to be drafted as only the truly elite high school kids have a shot without a senior year
Strongly recommend copping the athletic subscription, they usually have a special going so it’s always a good deal, and I value it more than my streaming subscriptions simply because of the overall quality of the product. Remember, even historically, the best journalism was always worth paying for
I’m pretty sure eligibility hasn’t changed, so I would expect at least Criswell to be drafted. I believe, however, some of the bonus money may be deferred to 2021. Also it appears they’re debating how much money would be allocated to signing players NOT drafted. Generally that’s not much of an issue, as almost any player worthy of a bonus has been drafted. If there’s a generous amount allocated, then guys like Franklin and Nwogu could still have the opportunity to sign contracts and get some kind of bonus eventually. Both of them may be better off waiting to 2021 and playing a full season.
Eff Covid
There’s any interesting question waiting to be asked due to what MLB is doing. MLB has been talking of contracting the minor leagues. Upwards of 40 cities may lose their teams. Part of the rationale is that using college baseball as a feeder is more economical. So does the juxtaposition of cutting the rounds and the NCAA granting more eligibility fit with the scenario of using colleges to replace the minors. It would appears so - if the colleges survive the situation.
April 10th, 2020 at 10:40 PM ^
It really is sad that the college baseball season was cancelled. This was looking like one of our best teams ever.
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