New NCAA rules to stay..

The :Bear"

"Bear" Bryant used to carry something like 120-130 players on the Alabama roster before the rules were changed. "If I got 'em you, ain't got 'em!"

 

Prepster, I respectfully disagree with your assumption about watering down the sport. As I see it, the players the Top 25 programs don't sign drop down one notch to other good programs. The players "second tier" program would have recruited under the old rules now drop down to the next tier downward, and so on. So the only players that actully get knocked out of collegiate baseball are the LOWEST of all level players which does not water down the D1 teams. I think it just makes alot more teams able to compete at the top level. A good thing IMHO>

 

Prepster
I apologize about the hoarding comment being connected to your comments about injuries. I can see how it might have offended you. You are the last person who would adocate rules which would promote such shenanigans, but I do think it happens in college baseball. Sorry !
As far as quality of play being the driving force in growing the fan base, I'm not sure I agree.
Personally if quality of play is my reason for watching a baseball game on TV, I'm going to watch a MLB game not colllege.

 

Why couldn't they have left well enough alone. If the reason was to improve AGR, then change the way you track it. Geez....something so simple was made intolerable....at least for the student athlete.

I believe once someone does their research on the new rulings you will find a number of incidences that can occur that will make you shake your head.

Look and see how a 5th year senior that only needs 8 hours to graduate will hurt the program if he is on the roster. Or a grad student that takes 8 hours and is still eligible to play. It is a remarkably dumb and silly set of rules with the intention of helping in an area that was not really a problem to start with.

If the college presidents were overly concerned for their student athletes, they could make a point by not allowing a college team's basketball to start their games at 10:00 pm...and the players won't get back to their rooms until after 2:00 am......but nooooo, they aren't going to tangle with that cash cow.

 

007:

I appreciate and readily accept your apology.

Surely, there's a matter of degree at work here. On the one hand, I don't know a college coaching staff that doesn't feel "snakebitten" when it comes to injuries, and it's not unusual for fully 1/3 of the pitching staff to be at one stage of rehabilitation or another. Sad, but true.

Meanwhile, it always seems that there are a few position players who have come up lame, been hit in the eye...whatever. If any of those players' injuries are serious enough to warrant redshirting, they stay on the roster during the year they don't play; and most programs are honorable enough that they don't revoke scholarships while players are rehabilitating injuries. You role all of that together, and you can be pushing a 35-man roster off of a base of 25 healthy players pretty readily.

Where I imagine you and I come together on this topic is the situation involving the program that "over-recruits" year in and year out, bringing in as many transfers as they do freshmen. In the past, it's not been uncommon for their rosters to equal or exceed 40 players (I've even seen 50 in the case of a couple of programs.) That situation prompts bi-annual "reassessments" with individual players; causing scholarship "adjustments" to be made. In most cases, the players transfer out when their scholarship is diminished or removed altogether.

I'm very much against that practice (as your comments suggest you would be) and am glad that most programs don't engage in it. Unfortunately, some who have followed that path have been among the more successful and visible programs. I'm glad that the new rules should cut down on what I consider to be abuses of the current system.


Turning to the prospective dilution of college baseball: I'll be the first to admit that my premise rests on the presumption that a higher percentage of top players will choose to turn pro after high school. There's little doubt that there will be less college money available to entice them with the sort of scholarship percentages they've received in the past. If, as a group, they resist the greater temptation to turn pro, then the game will escape what I fear will be a turn toward mediocrity.

I couldn't hope any more than I do that my premise is flawed in the eventual practice. I'll always be a huge supporter of college baseball, its players, and their inclination to receive an education while they play the game at a high level.

 

I'm glad USC's baseball program is not like that...whew!!!!!!!

 

You will see

many more hs players sign with ml clubs this year than in the past. The juco's will be the big winners.

 

Which USC?

 

I'll never tell...that way I will always have an out

 

Putt, since your statement begs the question, I'll make another that does the same; Part of the reason this proposal does not make sense is because Mike Fox and Jack Leggett disagree with parts of it.