Bad news for college baseball

first college baseball score of the season for us: 31-2.

 

heh heh heh

 

it was a classic college pitching duel.
Second game was only 12-1.

 

Well said.

 

Absolutely correct. College baseball is the NCAA's dirty little secret.

If you think college football and basketball players don't give a shit about their degrees, go meet a couple of college baseball players.

 

Again with this nonsense?

We repeat: A Division I college baseball player cannot leave until after his third year in college (unless, in rare instances, he's a draft-eligible sophomore). If college basketball players couldn't leave until after their junior year, or until they turned 21, like college baseball players, then I doubt there would be any outcry at all.

Not all college baseball players give a rip about getting their degree, obviously. But they at least have to pretend to be a student/athlete for three years, not for six months like most one-and-done hoops players.

 

I've heard that if you really hope to have a career playing baseball professionally, you shouldn't stay all four years at college before going to the draft. If you wait to the end, you have no bargaining power, and you get a bottom-dollar salary and signing bonus.

 

College baseball has no place to complain about college basketball. I've covered too many kids who signed with a major four-year school, flirted with the draft, then bounced to a junior college for one "school year" so they'd be draft-eligible the next summer instead of having to wait three years.

It's a flawed system. If college basketball went to the same draft model as baseball, you'd see the junior colleges with as much talent as the ACC.

 

Media guy, I don't think that would necessarily be the case at all. Remember, the talent pool in JC baseball is altered greatly not by the draft, but by 11.7 scholarships in D-I. There are a lot of D-I players in JC who are there because they can get full rides (or close to it) as opposed to books or whatever partial a D-I school is willing to give. That increases the overall talent pool in junior college baseball and makes it a viable level for a draft hopeful to be have a fair evaluation.

Given that, look at the 2010 draft and throw out the anomaly that is Bryce Harper. Other than Harper, in the first two rounds, I believe you'll find ONE JC player. That's it. Why? At the end of the day, JC players are still harder to predict so they either fall to later rounds or are encouraged to go to a D-I in an effort to improve their stock.

Covering D-I baseball, I used to see these guys all the time and they were college baseball's dirty secret. These are one-year JC transfers who go to the D-I school for one serious fall semester, then do the minimum academically in the spring while they get groomed for June. They are true "one-and-dones" just like John Wall, at least as far as D-I is concerned.

In basketball, there would be more pressure to go to a 4-year college for evaluation purposes. Remember, if they do it like baseball, the John Walls and Jared Sullingers will be going pro right out of high school and not going to college at all. So the JCs won't be filled with those players, just the usual academic non-qualifiers. Every qualifier worth his salt will take the full ride to a D-I because if they were considered serious prospects, they would have gone pro out of high school. I do think some prospects would use JC as a bargaining chip, but I would guess most would either sign pro or sign D-I.

At best, JC basketball talent will be no better than JC baseball talent because where you have some D-I talent on the field in baseball for financial reasons, in basketball, you have a comparable number of D-I players who are there strictly because they are non-qualifiers. The demographics say that's going to happen.

What would be interesting -- and the one thing that might make your observation valid -- is if the NBA had a draft-and-follow rule like in baseball, where a drafted high school prospect goes to JC, then can be offered a contract by his drafting team until just before the next draft after his freshman season. Often you'll see a high school "project" headed for JC get drafted in a late round then, if he shows progress at the JC, he'll be offered a contract comparable to one he'd get if he were drafted where he projects to go in the following draft.

But I doubt if this would happen much in basketball. In baseball, not many major-league quality players start as draft-and-follow guys and those guys are usually filler for low-level minor league rosters (although some have had good major league careers). You don't see many "studs" turn down their high-end draft money out of high school, then go to JC in an effort to quickly get back into the draft pool. It happens, but not often.

Given that basketball does not have a minor league "system" like baseball and there are no low-level minor league rosters (only one associated minor league with fewer teams than there are NBA teams, meaning the NBA only has a "AAA" league) I doubt if NBA clubs would be interested in players who are the equivalent to draft-and-follow baseball kids.

 

Most of the people that try to make a moral issue out of guys going pro early are college basketball fans who want to justify their desire to see the sport have better players.