Update on 2013 U-M Baseball Recruiting Class
Daily has an article out on the 2013 Michigan baseball recruiting class. They claim the class is 16-strong, with two signees not previously mentioned on mgoblog—both junior college transfers from California:
- Jason Deitrich: 6-7 right-handed pitcher. Junior college transfer from Golden West College. His profile page there says he went 5-4 with a 4.57 ERA in 2013. He started out at Long Beach State, before his one year at Golden West.
- Jackson Glines: 6-0, 185-pound outfielder. Junior college transfer from Fresno City College. In 2013 Glines batted .373 with 4 HR and 29 RBI. This article on his commitment to Michigan has more details on his two years at Fresno City.
The Daily article also says Michigan has 30 players returning from last season, plus the 16 newcomers, which would put them well above the 35-man roster limit (which needs to be reached by the day before the first scheduled game). Anyone know if this is unusual? It's possible that several of the returning players are walk-ons, so it may be that the number of players on some type of scholarship is well below 46.
Where is the guy that is on here everytime we get a commit complaining we will never compete till we get cali kids? He's probably going to be thrilled.
Also, almost all scholarships are partial in the Big Ten too. So a CA kid can pay out of state tuition (prob half scholarship) and lose his negotiating leverage w MLB, or he can pay CA in-state JUCO tuition and drive his own signing bonus up?
Lastly, I certainly played against a lot of Major Leaguers in the Big Ten. Many of these So Cal kids falling through the cracks are not as good as Nick Swisher, Joe Girardi, or Alex Gordon. A kid who fell through the cracks was really Curtis Granderson and he's from Chicago. No CA kid I ever played against was as good as he is.
Coach Kenny coached me at University of San Diego, and then he coached at Pepperdine for several years. He still has some strong California connections. With 11.7 scholarships to dole out, there are probably several guys on academic or nothing at all. Full schollies are rare these days, and if the number you speak of is true, fall ball will be a heck of a battle! The team will be a national contender soon if these coaches stay.
I dont know about the roster limit, but I'm sure a lot of the guys get little or no financial aid. I know someone who attended a D1 school for baseball and he just got a half scholarship plus a lot of "academic scholarships" to make up most of the rest. I think a few other places might've just offered him a quarter scholarship or a walk on spot
At NU we only had 28 on the team ever because admissions would not allow us more than that for academic exceptions and we rarely had more than a couple tryouts for kids who weren't recruited.
This is off-topic but related to Michigan baseball, and probably not worthy of its own thread—an SI article on Michael O'Neill, in which he has high praise for Erik Bakich:
New coach Erik Bakich came to Ann Arbor from the University of Maryland and fit right in. O'Neill meshed with Bakich's "egalitarian" approach. He put up the best numbers of his career in his junior season at Michigan: in 56 games, he hit .356, slugged .498, and stole 23 bases, placing him in a four-way tie for most stolen bases in the Big Ten that year.
"As far as my development, he was the best coach I've ever had," O'Neill says. "It was my best year playing baseball."
One item that is related to next year's roster is that the article touches on how close O'Neill came to returning for his senior season (as has been discussed here before) and that Bakich said he'd have a full ride if he returned.
A good friend just asked if I'd like to use his extra ticket for the Staten Island Yankees tomorrow night (with Michael O'Neill, conveniently against the Brooklyn Cyclones, with Patrick Biondi).
So the program finally announced the 2013 recruiting class, listing 13 incoming freshman and two junior college transfers. Jason Deitrich is not mentioned, so it looks like the Daily got that wrong. When I did a search for info on him, I never found any evidence that he was headed to Michigan.