Latest / Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball / Episode 135: Slower Recruiting Timelines: What it Means for the 2027 Class and Beyond

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Episode 135: Slower Recruiting Timelines: What it Means for the 2027 Class and Beyond · Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball

• 0:00
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• 1:11
  Speaker B: Welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball. I'm Andy Kittis, joined by my wonderful co host Keith Glasser. How we doing?
• 1:20
  Speaker A: Great. How are you?
• 1:22
  Speaker B: Good. Not sure what we're titling this one yet, but had some conversations with a bunch of coaches of late and thought we would kind of pass on some information around the current state of 2027 recruiting. Full disclosure, I think most of this directly applies kind of to the highest levels, but I do think that a lot of this can be extrapolated down to all different levels of Division 1. We've talked about this a bunch. Division 2 and Division 3. Not super dialed in on 27s right now, but did have some conversations with some coaches at some some pretty high end schools and got some interesting insights and kind of wanted to share that broadly to kind of frame up how things are going. Things that we're hearing from coaches, kind of their mindset, the angles that they're playing in terms of how they're they're going about their process of 2027s. I will preface this by saying I'm sure there are some schools out there that are doing it different. You probably got some schools out there that have got nine or 10 different 2027 commits already. That's fine. We talk about it all the time. You can't account for every single edge case. But what we can do is try to generalize this into a way that these coaches are kind of communicating with us about how things are going. First, things are slow in general and the reason that this seems to be the case and this is coming from several different coaches is the new contact rule that's been in place here for two years now has severely handicapped the coach's ability to get to know players. Right, because you can't talk to anybody before August 1st. So you can do your background homework, you can talk to coaches, you know, you can start to do some recon and get a feel for a kid. You get a feel for watching them in terms of how hard they play, how they present themselves, how they interact with the teammates. A lot of the stuff that we talk about. But the part of being able to get on the phone with a kid, be face to face with the kid, get them to campus, that's become harder due to the new contract rule. So, yes, you can still go to camps, you can get some interface that way. But getting to know the kid in order to make an offer is something that seems to be contributing to things being a little bit slower here. Probably even more than they were last year at this point where guys are waiting to bring these kids on campus, get a chance to meet them in person, get them to a camp in August, maybe get them to a camp in September. But that was one big takeaway, is that things are a little bit slower because of the contact rule. And then the other piece of it is, is that coaches seem to be pickier from a talent perspective. Less projection, more kids that they feel are pretty close to being able to compete at their level versus you go back three or four or five years, a lot of projection was being done. That tall, skinny righty who's 84 to 87 with a good breaking ball. You might see that kid get snatched up this time of year because they think, all right, well, if we don't get, if we don't get our foot in the door now, we're not going to be able to get this kid type of thing. But I think in general, coaches are slowing down. They want better evaluations. They want to feel really good about a kid where he is and what he's going to be. And this new contact period has allowed them to do that. And I think the other part of it is this is the first true cycle where you have to factor in the 34 man roster. So those combinations seems to be slowing some things down at the moment and having an impact on how quickly kids are. Kids are committing how quickly some of these spots are getting filled up. So that's my opening four minute salvo to this discussion. Okay, what do you, what do you got on that?
• 5:58
  Speaker A: I mean, it makes sense Right. Like we've talked on this podcast ad nauseam, how everything's going slower, the reasons why, the contact rule, the transfer portal, all these things. I think at the upper levels, and we can probably get into a little bit of minutia and nuance here, but at the upper levels, I think a good portion of this is going to hold true where you can go into the transfer portal and plug holes that you're losing off of this year's club. Whether it's going to be because of the draft, because guys are transferring, whatever it is, it makes it a lot easier. Instead of counting on the high school kid to develop, it's easier to go find a kid at, you know, a similar level, maybe a level below, but had really, really good numbers to come in and kind of project out what he's going to do in order for your, you know, recruiting of that position. And I think it's, it's true of what you've talked about a lot where, you know, maybe it's not, you know, bringing in 10 high school kids like they used to, but they're going to bring in five and five transfer portal guys. The thing where I think it gets interesting is where the guys that are, I don't want to say going to be missed because that's not the right terminology or passed over because I think those guys are still going to land in good spots. The guys that used to be very projectable at that level, how long do they wait around before committing somewhere else, I guess is the question that I have. And I don't think it matters at that level. Right. Like, if we're talking SEC, Big 12, like, I don't think it really matters to a lot of them. Like they're just going to try to get the best guys they can figure out their roster and go from there because they know that in the back half of, you know, once they get to 34 and then the following year, they're going to have a new roster anyways, for the most part. Right. But like that guy that used to be 6 foot 5 and was 88 to 90 with a fringe breaking ball, what does that guy do now?
• 8:32
  Speaker B: Right?
• 8:33
  Speaker A: Like, and that's. And maybe that guy is not an ACC guy anyways, but they might have taken a chance on a dude with a clean arm action who looks like he's going to throw nitro and we can teach him to spin a breaking ball versus now. It's like, well, is he going to throw harder? Does he, like, can we teach that breaking ball? Because there's a bunch of other guys in the transfer portal that we can go get that can do the same thing. So does that kid end up going down and maybe leveling up later on if he so chooses? But I think it's an interesting way to kind of break down what, what some of these bigger school coaches are looking at. And to be clear, we're talking about the, the majority of Division 1 baseball right now and how it's kind of, I don't want to say flipped on its head, but this, this is, this is a result of the rules and things that have been put in place and how they're adapting to those rules in order to construct their roster that's going to give them the best opportunity to win as many baseball games as possible. It's no more, no less. But I think it's interesting because you can, you know, with transfer portal guys, you can get a bead on what type of kid he is. Right. Like, especially if, you know, the coaching staff in which he's coming from. You know, you can make a phone call and, hey, what is, you know, what's the kid like? How's he fit in, whatever it might be, right? So you're gonna have a pretty good idea. Whereas the high school kid, you're not really gonna have an idea until you.
• 10:14
  Speaker B: You know, you're gonna have to have.
• 10:15
  Speaker A: A handful of conversations with him and a bunch of other people to figure out whether or not he's gonna fit into the, the program in which you run. And I think it makes it, you know, in some ways it makes it a little bit easier for them and maybe a little bit of a cop out to be like, well, you know, I can make two phone calls, one to the kid and one to his coach to see where he slots in and discern a lot more information on that versus trying to get to know a kid over the course of four, you know, in some instances, like three weeks, but, you know, a couple months.
• 10:46
  Speaker B: Right.
• 10:48
  Speaker A: So I don't know. It's interesting, you know, when you brought this up today and we talked about it before we went on, you know, to record this, I had a lot of thoughts about it, you know, but I think it's a, it's more of an adaptation of what is being laid out from a rules standpoint for these coaches and how they're figuring out the best way to roster construct their programs in order to find success.
• 11:14
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that what you're seeing like that that guy who's 88 to 90 with a fringe breaking ball to your point five years ago, that kid's get scooped up super quick. And now if coaches don't feel, especially at the highest levels, ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big 10, so on, if they don't feel like you're an absolute home run for them, they don't have to go on you and make an offer early. One, because there's a lot of other fish in the sea. Two, it's way easier for them to see what's going to happen in the Portal. And you have apples to apples comparisons of kids. Are they able to be successful at a certain level? They've already been in college. You don't have to worry about some of the growing pains that inevitably come with freshmen. Like, and you know, people will demonize the Portal. And yeah, it's having an impact. But most of the people who are demonizing the Portal don't look at it from a coach's perspective in terms of your responsibility is to put together the best roster as you can. The other part of this that I thought was interesting and it makes a ton of sense to me and it might sound really obvious on the surface when I try to, when I make this statement, but I think we'll try to unpack it a little bit more. But with the Portal, coaches are seemingly more focused than ever on athletes who can play in the middle of the field. And there's definitely somebody listening going, well, no, that's what everybody tries to recruit. Yes, but let me finish, right? Hitters used to be something that most programs would tell you. Like you try to bring in at least one dude that you feel can really hit. You don't really care about him positionally, you'll figure that out when he gets there. But like feel comfortable about somebody who can hit. I think in today's age with the Portal, recruiting a guy who's going to play left field, recruiting a guy who's going to play first base, recruiting a guy who, who might be a DH type of player becomes way less important at the high school level because you can go get a proven bat, right? And this is almost specific to bats. And then the other part of it I think is filling out a bullpen, right? Not trying to necessarily go find niche guys or guys who have like one really, really good tool, but that middle of the area of focus, middle of the field focus, it's always been a thing because everybody wants athletes. But I think that it's an even higher priority with high school kids in particular because you need to get your hands on those guys and get them into your program. The kid who can play short or second or catch or play center field, those are where programs are going early on position guys. And if you're just a bat, right, somebody who they profile as a left fielder or somebody that they profile as a first baseman, that bat has to be so top of the line. And I think this goes across all Division 1 levels, right? Not just the ACC and the SEC and so on. But I think you get down to the lower level of Division 1 baseball. They need athletes who can play defense and they can go find a kid who hit.340 in the PSAC, who's looking to jump up and can play in the Mac or play in the A10, you know, the SEC or the ACC. They can, they can go find a guy in the portal to come in and play left field because he's got two years of a track record in, you know, the SoCon or the Big south. And you've seen that that kid's got 350 college at bats and he's got 20 pumps. He played in the summer league. Like that kid can come and play at our level. And I think that coaches are looking more to fill their roster with those type of guys through the portal. Don't get me wrong, they would all love to go get a superstar shortstop out of the portal, right? And those guys are few and far between. But that seemed to be the other kind of common thread across some of the conversations that we've had is that the focus on the middle of the field athlete is even higher than it used to be because coaches are looking at the portal as ways to go and get some of those niche bullpen arms or guys who can help fill out your lineup effectively with some experience and you're not stuck trying to develop a high school kid who's pretty bad dependent. And if that kid doesn't come out of the gate and hit, he doesn't do anything for you. So hopefully I got to the crux of what I was trying to say and got away from the obvious statement of athletes. But it's another impact that the portals having and I think college baseball in general, those one tool guys or two tool guys, it's probably going to take a little bit longer for those guys to come off the board. Now, just given what coaches have access to when you're talking about the portal.
• 16:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it makes a ton of sense, you know, yes, the obvious statement is that people are recruiting the middle of the field, but I think the they're easier to they're easier now more than ever to be able to move all over the field. You know, I think if you can find, you know, those outlier guys.
• 17:10
  Speaker B: To.
• 17:10
  Speaker A: Play, you know, first base, right, like if you're a left handed bat with some serious juice and you can play defensive first, then yeah, you're likely going to find yourself a spot to land somewhere. But at the same time, if you're just a, you know, average defender and a slightly above average bat and you play first like you might like that guy who might have been in the ACC, SEC, Big 12 five years ago, isn't likely, is not going to land there anymore as a high school kid because there's enough data out there for the college guys to be able to kind of sift through and have way more of a predictive measure of what that kid's going to be able to do versus, you know, I don't want to say you're getting away from development, right, because you're not. And I don't think people are scared of doing it. But I do think when we've made and it's great we talk about it every year with Jonathan, when we get into, you know, college baseball in February and then the midway point and then obviously we get into the NCAA tournament and Omaha and such that, you know, this has turned into a rather large business and there's a lot of people coaching at that level that are making a lot of money and their decisions are going to be business decisions. And that's what this is, especially with nil and players getting paid and the like. It's a business in, you know, in the regard of, you know, there's a transaction going on where you're getting paid. So, you know, they're going to go with guys that they feel are though that are going to give them the best chance to find success and if they're going to use any and all tools available to them to do that. And the fact of the matter is it's a hell of a lot easier to predict if there's a guy who has 400 at bats in college and you know, he played in the A10 and he was a 10 player of the year and whatever the likelihood of that young man finding success in the ACC SEC is a lot higher than a high school kid who's going to into that league having never played before at that level. Obviously, you know, and that's, that's just the reality. Like, are there outlier cases? Absolutely there are. We'll see them every year. But for the vast Majority of people, it's going to be easier for the college guy to make that jump and shrink that gap than it is for the high school kid going from, you know, playing high school baseball and travel baseball into one of the best conferences in the country in facing some of the best arms in the country day in, day out. Right. So, you know, I don't think that it's, it's not a panic inducing thought process or statement that's made by some of the guys that we've talked to. Right. They're still going to recruit high school guys. They have to said it a billion times like you can't commit to the transfer portal. They're still going to recruit them. It just is likely to be a little bit less than what it's been in the past because of what's available to them. So, you know, you can be mad about it all you want, but they're, they're trying to use everything available within the rules to their advantage. And if this is what they're given, it's what they're going to do. You know, so again, I go back to, you know, you've said it for a long time. You know, it's maybe instead of recruiting 12 high school guys, they recruit six and bring in six transfers. You know, do I think that number might go a little bit heavier in, in some programs? Yeah, from a transfer portal standpoint. But you know, I also think until the fall number is a hard cap number on the roster, you're going to see a decent amount of transfer guys going to a lot of schools at that level because you're going to bet on yourself. I think some of these guys are going to bet on themselves that they're going to be part of the 34 come December 1, you know, but there's no hard cap on the roster limits in the fall, so you could roll in as many as you want.
• 21:27
  Speaker B: And.
• 21:27
  Speaker A: Then get the 34 by December 1st. So, you know, I think the thought process is not flawed in any stretch of the imagination. I think it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. Usually it's going to take a year or two to kind of see what it looks like and maybe this is where it goes. Maybe some programs are doing this, maybe others do it a different way. I think there's going to be a lot of different iterations of this same kind of thought process based off of what access to data and things that coaches have in front of them. I also think it's, there's going to be iterations Based off of what coaches believe in. Right. Like some coaches, I think, and at that level, you know, they might want to bring in a handful of guys that they're going to develop. And maybe you don't play as a freshman, but as a sophomore, junior, senior, you're a dude very, you know, other guys might not, you know, some players might not want to do that. They might want to go somewhere else and play right away and then try to transfer up. So, you know, I think there's a lot of, a lot of nuance in the conversation around what it looks like and how it ultimately ends up. But I definitely think that this iteration of what we're talking about is, is certainly a viable one for a lot of the coaches. But I do think there's going to be variations along the way of how they ultimately end up with their roster construction. But again, it's a business. They're, they're paid to win baseball games and the players are getting paid to go out there and perform to win baseball games too. So, you know, like it or not, this is how they're going to do it over the, in the very near future for, you know, the recruiting landscape of college baseball at that level. Right. Like, I don't know how much this is going to affect, you know, the lower end of Division 1 baseball where, you know, it did not that. And I'm not, I don't know why I have to always say this. Like, I'm not saying anything negative about it, but like, the fact is, you know, the Mac has far less money to dole out than the sec. So I don't know how much it changes at that level. Does it change a little bit? Sure, I know that it does, but I don't know if it's going to be that big of a difference maker in the recruiting process from what it has been over the last five, 10 years. You know, maybe you're bringing in, you know, two or three more transfers than you used to back in the day, but, you know, I don't know how much it changes there. I think it changes a little bit more at the upper levels of college baseball.
• 23:55
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's changing times. Right. And coaches have to change strategies, they have to change how they go about it. It's different. It is what it is. Like, that's not a cop out statement at all. It's. This is an ever evolving landscape. We're trying to communicate out what we're hearing from some guys kind of at the top of the food chain. And some of the conversations that we've had. So, you know, and this is what we do to try to get a pulse on how this all trickles down. Because what happens in the sec and the ACC might not directly affect the Mac or the A10, but you can start to think about, well, how does that impact the player in terms of where guys end up trying to think. There's a significant trickle down effect in terms of, I think some of these lower level Division 1, Division 2 and then Division 3 programs, like they're getting access to some better kids, better kids than they used to because of some of what we're talking about and kind of the newer, I shouldn't say newer approach, but like the adjusted approach for how to recruit at the highest level. It's changed. It's just, it's changed in. Yeah.
• 25:10
  Speaker A: And I, I think, to be clear, I think that it's very naive to have the belief that everything was going to stay the same in a completely different landscape. You know what I mean?
• 25:26
  Speaker B: Why would you think, why would you think that it wasn't going to change?
• 25:33
  Speaker A: We just instituted, we were the last sport to institute these types of rules, right? So if we're, we're making these, these giant changes in which you can't talk to people until a certain day and you can't extend offers and there's recruiting shutdown periods and the transfer portal and all these things, you can expect everything to stay the exact same as it was three, four, five years ago. Like, it, that's just that, that, that's a naive thought process. Like every, like things are going to change and some are, some going to be very similar. Slash, stay the same. Sure, that, that, of course. But you can't be like, okay, well they can't talk to him. They can't extend offers. There's a roster limit now there's all these other things at play. The transfer portal, like, and then be like, well, it's just going to be the exact same as it was when I was recruited back in the early 2000s.
• 26:28
  Speaker B: Like, or be.
• 26:30
  Speaker A: No.
• 26:30
  Speaker B: Or be mad that it's changing because it didn't, you know, like the classic like old head conversation of, well, back when I used to do it. It's like, yeah, but that's back when we had transfers, we did, we had junior college transfers, we had guys get run out of the program that had to go to a different level because of it. Like, you know, it, it's changed a lot, but some of that stuff's still the same. And like I think the best analogy I can come up with. Right. And you don't have fandom at the college level like you do, you know, the big league level. But, like, you're a Yankees fan. I'm a Red Sox fan. I'd be pissed if the Red Sox were like, you know what? We're not going to go into free agency this year because we just believe in developing the guys that we draft. You know, like, yeah, it. Like, that's the. That's the major league equivalent of. It is like, we're only going to employ the people that we draft every single year. There's no free. We're. We're not going to dabble in free agency. We might be one piece away from winning the World Series, but, you know, we're not going to call the White Sox to see if we can get Garrett Crochet or, you know, we're not going to put a bid in on Garrett Cole, you know, because that's the transfer portal. Like, there's no college coach who's come out and Dabo Sweeneyed it and been like, oh, well, I'm never going to recruit out of the portal. Well, that's not working out so well for Clemson. Sorry, Dabo and you Clemson football fans, but this stance that you're just not going to change out of principle. You don't have to sacrifice your principles as a human being or your program to make an adjustment to the times in recruiting.
• 28:12
  Speaker A: No. Adapt or die. Like, I, you know, and I. Yeah, I just think that it's. It's the same thing. Like, I see it on Twitter all the time, like, it's ruining high school recruiting. Blah, blah, blah. Like, no, it's not. Like, what it might be ruining in some regards is that. I wouldn't even argue ruining it. It's weeding out the guys that aren't good enough that, you know, maybe shouldn't have been at that level and. Or guys that aren't able to actually excel and be really good in college. And keep in mind that when. When we say it like this, and that might sound harsh, but it's the reality. It's. It's 2.8% of people that get to go play college baseball. This isn't. This isn't. Everyone who plays high school baseball shows up and plays college baseball like, it's a given right. You know, you. You have to earn your right. We just, you know, I don't. I think the podcast went out last Thursday. Like, it takes to actually do.
• 29:13
  Speaker B: I thought it was written in the Constitution.
• 29:16
  Speaker A: No, it's not written in the Constitution. It is America's pastime. And maybe it should. As Crash Davis said, there should be a constitutional. Constitutional amendment outlawing the designated hitter and Astroturf. However, it's not in the Constitution that you get to play college baseball. And the point, like my point, is that if, you know, for math's sake, if 97% of people aren't able to continue on into college baseball, it doesn't. That's irrelevant to the argument about ruining high school recruiting. There's still going to be 3% of high school student athletes that are going to go play college baseball. It might not be at the level in which guys were doing years ago, but they're still going to make it there. And, you know, like it or not, there is an upward climb if you so choose to do so in college baseball, right? Like, you could start in Division 3 and end in Division 1. Whereas, not that to say that wasn't a thing years ago, but it was a hell of a lot harder to do than it is now, you know, so, like, you know, you. And part of me is like, you can't have it both ways. You can't complain that, you know it's ruining this, but also have or. And, or use the, the ladder in which has been accessible to student athletes that you can just continually transfer up if you want to with zero penalty. And I don't, you know, I never really believed in the penalty to begin with. Like, if you're good enough to do it, like, I get it right? Like, it was designed so that the rich couldn't get richer, and if they did, there was a penalty in place for them to not continually get richer. Like, I understand why that was there, but like, to sit here and complain that all these things are negative and it's ruining everything. It's just like, I think that it's a, It's a defeatist mindset. Instead of being like, all right, how do I figure this out and get better and be one of the 3% that gets to go do this. Instead, we blame things that are out of our control because that's the easier thing to do. It's easier to blame the thing that's out of your control than it is to look inward or look in the mirror and be like, maybe I'm the problem. Maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I didn't put in enough time. And like, that, like, that mindset fires me up, obviously, but that, like, that's where it. I don't like it because it's were blaming the institution in which is, is trying to change rules for the better and then saying like, well, it's not fair. Well, then go be better. Like it. Maybe you're just not good enough. And, and for some people, that is a hard reality to face. But the re like, it's a reality nonetheless. But if you want to be in the 3%, go out, work everyone and be better and get to a spot where you can, you can legitimately thrive as a student athlete. It might be at the Division 3 level and good on you, but get to a place where you're wanted, you're going to develop, you're going to get a great, you're going to get an education, you'll graduate with a degree and you'll play four years of college baseball and have a phenomenal career, hopefully at one place. Otherwise, you know, ask yourself, what is it that I need to do in order to do this? So I don't blame the rules that are now in place or the response to those rules by the coaches. Right? Like all of this is out of your control. You can't, you can't control how coaches are going to try to use, change their strategies to benefit their program in the recruiting process. I didn't want to say game the system. That's not that, that's what I was about to say. But that's not what.
• 33:10
  Speaker B: But it's, it's just a recognition that things have changed. Right? And you've talked about it. You know, you're talking 2.2 or 2.3% play division one. You know, we've hit those numbers a hundred times, like it's an exclusive fraternity. And it just the new rules that are in place and the transfer portal and some of the things that are infected, not infecting, affecting the environment, like they've made it harder. And I get why people focus on that. I get why you see blanket statements on Twitter about how it's all broken. And you know, there's some, there's some stuff there that I agree with. But there's also some positives to this that I think people neglect to really comment on because it's not, it doesn't get clicks, it doesn't get likes. You get way more likes bitching about stuff than you do about saying, well, hey, have you taken into account that now the kids who maybe show up to a program and don't have the experience that they're looking for, or maybe it's not the right fit for them that they, they now have the ability to move freely. You don't talk about how it's easier for guys to level up, and you don't talk about how the, the new contact rule has slowed things down for high school kids, which is a good thing. Unequivocally a good thing, because you're, you're forcing the process to be longer for kids who previously were 14 years old, making decisions on where they're going to go to college when they haven't even passed their first algebra test. Right. That's a major positive to the changes that have happened. The new roster construction. I know it stings right now, but in the long term, this is a good thing. You're not going to have these bloated rosters at the Division 1 level where every single year 10 kids are going, getting told to go kick rocks. It's. It's a good thing in the long run. We just. A lot of time, the, the conversation focuses on the negative, not the positive. And then you completely neglect the reality of it and being able to step back and just recognize that this is a new landscape that we're in. And oftentimes the coaches, the viewpoint from the coaches is never a part of that conversation because the people commenting on it are completely disconnected and have no skin in the game with how it's going. They. They bitch from behind their computer. They talk about how coaches don't know what they're doing. And the reality is, is that they don't make those decisions. They've never been in those shoes. You've never been a college coach who's recruited their ass off. You've never had to build a roster. Right. You've never had to go and evaluate kids for your program. They don't know what your program is like. They don't know what type of players you value. It's, you know, a lot of people don't know enough to make an educated guess. And oftentimes even I find myself. And I know you find yourself, too. Like, there's a reason that we talk to a lot of our friends and contacts in college baseball. It's not always about players. Sometimes it's just to get a better beat on. Like, what are you looking for? What do you value? How things have changed? What, you know, how are you guys approaching this particular class? Like, and that stuff's super insightful because we'd be naive to think that it's the same way that it was when we coached, because it's not. And that's why we try to have a pulse on it as best that we can because we can't come on here talking about stuff all willy nilly because it doesn't do anybody any good. We try to come on here and give good information, information that's informed. And you know, this is one of those kind of hot topics where I think oftentimes people are making assumptions or making statements with a very limited picture of what the reality of it is. Like we make these blanket statements. You know, you don't know what's going on at the lower level, lower end of Division 1 and how it's affecting them. That's a completely different conversation. You know, the teams that are losing kids that are going up, well, how do they handle it? Well, they got to use the portal in some capacity because when you lose six kids in the portal because they were all conference players, how are you going to fill that gap as a coach? You know, you can't really plan that far ahead with high school guys and just be like, well, I think we'll lose six guys to the portal this year. So I'm going to recruit 14 high school kids instead of eight high school kids. And then you end up going, well, shoot, I don't have enough roster spots for these guys. So a lot of these coaches don't have the luxury of being that flexible. So how are they handling it? You know, some of those guys have to go to the junior college level to go get guys because that process is a little bit later. Some of those guys need to go find that really good Division 3 or Division 2 player that they think could come up and play at the Division 1 level. It's, it's such a more nuanced conversation than is given credit on Twitter and on Instagram where you have these sweeping statements about, you know, what the current landscape is. It's, it's complex. It's different program from. It's different from level to level. And then you get from conference to conference and then you get down to the minutiae of like, program to program how they're handling this stuff. Honestly, I think the only league that it hasn't had a massive impact on is the Ivy League. It even. But we're even seeing, we're even seeing guys leave the Ivy League now. So how do you account for that?
• 39:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I would tend to agree with you. I do think I would say recency. It's affected the Ivy League because you've seen the guys that left because of COVID years because grad guys can't play in the Ivy League that you saw Guys who left the Ivy League now, I should, they didn't leave the Ivy League. They graduated and then had grad years left and went to other places at the upper echelons of college baseball and had a lot of success. You know, that I think kids have said, like, well, I can go do that. I also think that the flip side to it would be that I think coaches have also now realized that it's a really good league as well, where there's a lot of guys who are. We've talked about it before. Like, there's only 68, 70 guys that go into that league every year. Like, they're pretty good players. Right. You know, and it's. I, I would say it's more recency, but yeah, I, I don't think that it's, I don't think anyone's safe if you want, you know, and you add, I mean, look at Conrad from Marist, our alma mater, you know, killed it for two years, then went to Wake and was the first round pick. Like, they're, they're coming out of all conferences, right? So, like, it is what it is now. I also think in, you know, to be clear for everyone listening, like, those are, these are outlier. These are the outlier cases for the most part. Right. Like, not everybody who transfers up is going and playing and becoming a first round draft pick. That's just not true in all cases, you know, Summer transferring up and not playing and, you know, so like it's, it's. You have to look at each and every individual. And this is hard to do in sports, but you have to look at each and every individual case on, you know, how it works out for each kid. Right. You know, and that, that's true for the kid who's going Division 3 to Division 1 or Division 2 to 1 or 3 to 2, whatever it might be. Like, you'd have to, you know, get a little bit more, you know, I don't know how to do it. I'd be interested to know like, what it looks like. But, you know, there's also a lot of guys still left in the transfer portal who didn't find homes.
• 41:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, Wild times.
• 41:39
  Speaker A: It sure is.
• 41:40
  Speaker B: I think that went about 30 minutes longer than we expected. So this might end up being a long, but no, a lot to unpack there. And I'm sure this will not be the last time that we discuss this and you know, we'll continue to report back and kind of what we're hearing from the guys who are making decisions, but I thought this was relevant specifically for the 27 class, just to have some insight into to what's going on and how coaches are kind of viewing this. And then, you know, obviously we took it in a different direction. But I think all that stuff's really valuable for people to wrap their head around and to better understand what's going on from a coach's perspective. From a recruit's perspective, all valuable information.
• 42:23
  Speaker A: Nailed it.
• 42:24
  Speaker B: Anything else you want to add, Coach?
• 42:26
  Speaker A: No, sir.
• 42:27
  Speaker B: All right, well, thank you for listening, everybody. Tune in next week. We'll talk to you then. Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emd. Take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.