M offers son of Todd Van Poppel
I apologize if this too far off base for some of you, but Michigan offered 2023 Texas offensive guard/defensive tackle Riley Van Poppel. If that name sounds familiar, Riley is the son of former MLB pitcher Todd Van Poppel. When I was a wee lad in my first baseball card collecting days, Todd Van Poppel was a huge name as a top draft pick by the Oakland Athletics.
The Braves considered drafting him #1 overall but they sucked at the time and Van Poppel said he wouldn't sign with them, so instead, the Braves took Chipper Jones in 1990. Of course, the Braves became one of the most dominant teams for like the next 20 years, powered largely by Chipper.
Anyway, Riley Van Poppel is a 6'4", 270 lb. guard/defensive tackle with offers from Houston, Nebraska, TCU, and Texas Tech, among others. He's a 3-star, the #45 interior offensive lineman, and #661 overall.
TVP’s baseball cards went from a hot commodity to yesterday’s news way too quickly. Felt like he was in every pack I opened for a while.
And pictured on the box too. He always made me think of Poppels (sp?) the bears that rolled up into balls.
I gave all my baseball cards to the kid next door. Always wonder how much they would be worth now, I had 3 Hank Aaron cards
April 28th, 2022 at 10:29 AM ^
OMG. I had thousands of cards from the '50s and '60s (complete sets of Topps), including a Mickey Mantle rookie card! Mom threw them out when I went off to U of M. Not a big deal? Look up how much a MM rookie card is worth.
I feel your pain. As a kid I collected an entire legal box (the hard way, one pack at a time plus trading with friends), with special emphasis on finding every Tiger possible. In high school our basement flooded, turning the entire collection into a giant paper mache ball. I'm still not over it.
I lost several thousand myself in the mid 70's due to a basement flood. Damn Downriver basements!
April 28th, 2022 at 10:50 AM ^
It’s sad that there is essentially a 10 year period where baseball cards just aren’t worth crap. Once the internet happened people realized the crazy over production. I had boxes and boxes of cards from 1986-1992. Thought they would bring me $1000’s. Most were completely worthless and gave them to the kid living next door.
Reminds me of one of my favorite website names
TVP had a brief stint in Detroit, but well before his kid popped on the scene. It's amazing that he carved out an 11 year MLB career despite finishing with a sub-4.00 ERA only twice.
Oh, there were a BUNCH of pitchers who had a brief stint on that 1996 Detroit Tigers team (the one year TVP was a Tiger). The 109 loss 1996 Detroit Tigers team that is. Their team ERA was 6.39!!!
I suppose that team ERA is actually pretty good compared to TVP's personal ERA that year (11.39 in 36 1/3 innings pitched!).
That was not a good Tigers team.
I remember the 24-11 loss to the Twins. Absolute batting practice for a (not-great) Twins team
It was so bad I'd look forward to Richie Lewis coming into games. "Finally someone who can actually get guys out"
Checking now: LOL, he finished with a 4.18 ERA
Still, pretty much the best one on the team, along with Joey Eischen
April 28th, 2022 at 10:24 AM ^
A sub 4.00 ERA in the steroid era was actually well above replacement level production.
I remember that. I had a few TVP rookie cards. I'm sure I still have them in one my shoeboxes of baseball cards somewhere.
As a born and bred Braves fan, we definitely got the better end of that deal. The 90s were an amazing time as a lifelong Braves fan (although 2021 was also pretty darn special).
In other Braves news, apparently the Andruw Jones' son - Druw Jones - is the top prospect in the 2022 MLB draft. He's currently a HS senior and committed to Vandy for college.
Then I went down the rabbit hole of ESPN's top 150 draft prospects and found that Vanderbilt is basically the college baseball equivalent of Alabama for football. Noting that the top 150 prospects includes both prep and college players, Vandy commits rank 1, 8, 13, 21, 39, 56, 83, 92, and 140. In CFB recruiting terms, they have four 5 stars recruits and four more in the top 100. That's gonzo, man.
Is that Vandy commits only? Or does that include Vandy players as well. That’s a pretty insane recruiting class if it’s just recruits, though I’d expect a handful of them to skip out on college and sign their pro deals.
It's both. And some of the commits will sign with MLB before stepping foot in TN. But they are the Alabama of baseball recruiting.
Those rankings I listed include only high school players committed to Vandy. Doesn't even include current Vandy players, of which there were 3-4, IIRC (not looking at the list right now).
Well they cheat the scholarship limit by giving all their lower income recruits a free ride via other means and save their 11.7 scholarships for the other ones. No clue why nobody else does it but Vanderbilt is notorious for basically having 20+ scholarships instead of 11.7.
Todd Van Poppel. Oh, man. There's a name.
It reminds me that I still have a few dozen Drew Henson rookie cards in my possession. They were supposed to pay for my daughter's college education. It did not work out that way.
If that's true, then shouldn't we offer Chipper Jone's kid and take him instead of Riley so Michigan can be awesome for the next 2 decades?
Nah nah nah, regression to the mean.
Hey Magnus, Notre Dame is wiping the floor with everyone on the recruiting trail, but specific to here, I've seen them beat us head to head for guys continually now.
Thoughts?
Not Magnus but, somebody on here said it was because other schools are using Harbaugh’s flirtation with the NFL as a form of negative recruiting.
I think it has more to do with their new coach smell, plus that he's black and a good recruiter.
April 27th, 2022 at 11:50 PM ^
Marcus Freeman has always been a good recruiter and connects well with players. Al Washington is also at ND.
April 27th, 2022 at 11:30 PM ^
I find it astonishing that a team who actually lost its head coach to another college program tries to negatively recruit against a rival whose 7 year head coach took an interview with an NFL team, but stayed.
April 27th, 2022 at 10:38 PM ^
This may seem dismissive, but...I don't really worry about recruiting until National Signing Day. There are always concerns about Michigan recruiting around this time of year, and Michigan always "rallies" and has excellent recruiting classes.
There is always a team infringing on Michigan territory. A few years ago, it was Penn State. It has also been Notre Dame at times (Khalid Kareem, Daelin Hayes, Steve Elmer, etc.). It was also Kentucky (Marquan McCall, Justin Rogers, etc.).
I think Michigan will recruit like Michigan until they stop recruiting like Michigan. The best predictor of future outcomes is past results.
Notre Dame will get some kids that Michigan wants. That's what happens when you offer 360 kids in a class.
April 28th, 2022 at 10:50 AM ^
But I think it's fair to say we very likely won't end up with a Top 5 class this year. So it's a bit annoying that breaking through on the field hasn't elevated our recruiting.
At the same time, collapsing on the field in 2020 didn't negatively affect our recruiting either. If on-field results aren't significantly affecting our recruiting, how should we as fans evaluate, especially midway through the cycle?
April 27th, 2022 at 10:39 PM ^
They're recruiting well, but still won't be any better than the UGA, TAMU, Bama, OSU tier
Thanks for sharing
invested in his rookie cards, he still owes me money.
I wonder if it's too late to get my high school buddy to reverse the trade where I sent 3 Delino DeShields rookie cards, a Marquis Grissom rookie, a Larry Walker rookie, and a Sammy Sosa rookie card his way... for 1 Todd Van Poppel.
I still remember trading away a Ken Griffey JR. rookie card for a Brien Taylor rookie card....
Ah, the dreaded bar fight
Brien Taylor--that injury still hurts. That kid had a lightning bolt for a left arm. So much promise wiped out in an instant.
I remember he was part of the "Four Aces" in the Oakland A's 1990 draft, but Van Poppel and one other guy - Kirk Dressendorfer, I think - were the only two to see time in the MLB at all.
I do remember that the Braves took Chipper Jones instead ultimately, and yeah, we all know what happened in the NL East after that.
I'm sure I have an Upper Deck card of Todd laying around somewhere.