Latest / Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball / Fall 2026 Recruiting Hot Topics — 2028 Class Timeline, Slower Cycles & the 5-for-5 Reality Check | Ep. 187

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Fall 2026 Recruiting Hot Topics — 2028 Class Timeline, Slower Cycles & the 5-for-5 Reality Check | Ep. 187 · Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball

• 0:02
  Speaker A: Hey, parents and coaches, are your kids using the right glove? The most important skill for youth athletes to learn is how to play proper catch. The problem is most youth gloves are made with bad leather and are too big for small hands. They actually make it harder to play catch. That's why former Major League Baseball shortstop Kevin Smith created Cali Gloves. Cali gloves are crafted from 100% Japanese kip leather and are the perfect size for kids. All Cali gloves come with palm slits, finger loops and elastic wrist lacing that encourage proper hand placement. The right closing patterns and give kids more confidence to go make plays. Cali Gloves even allow parents to break in the glove without stretching out the fit. It's the glove Kevin wishes he had growing up and the glove all his teammates want for their kids. Visit caligloves.com to learn more and help your kids play better catch. Cali Gloves K a l I gloves.com
• 1:10
  Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of the Dugout Dish podcast. I'm Andy Kira Keys, joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How are we doing, sir?
• 1:17
  Speaker C: Great.
• 1:18
  Speaker A: How are you?
• 1:18
  Speaker B: I once again have to preface the start of this that we did not plan to match with the black hoodies and the green hats, but here we are, today's episode. Not just one topic that we get to ramble on. Great song by Led Zeppelin, by the way. We got a couple different things that we want to. You see I weave that in there.
• 1:40
  Speaker C: I do. That was, that was, that was good. Yeah. Big, big, big guy.
• 1:46
  Speaker B: Used to listen to get the lead out on 951 and picks 106. You might be familiar with picks 106 from back in the day as a, as an Albany guy. Yes, picks 106 baby or fly 92.3. But we got a couple topics that we want to hit on. I think this time of year is the, is the time of year where it gets. We got Fort Myers coming up this, this upcoming weekend and you're seeing guys committing on Twitter and you're going to see a flurry of them happen here in the next couple weeks. And the general consensus is like I'm late to the party. I'm not getting recruited. I'm never going to play college baseball. And like rule number one, shout out Coach Murph, don't panic. And what I'm about to say is not hyperbolic because when you take a look at all of college baseball as a whole division 1, 2, 3 and AIA and you co 95 plus percent of commitments will happen next spring and next summer. And I would argue that 75% of Division 1 commitments, based on some numbers I've seen posted recently, will happen next spring or summer too. So don't panic if you're not getting recruited. Right now the only schools recruiting are Division 1 schools. And a lot of Division 1 schools aren't recruiting heavily recruiting 2028 anyways. So like a very small portion of schools are actively recruiting 2028 really hard throwing offers out there, and then an even smaller percentage of them are even committing guys. So it's my opening salvo. And I know you have some thoughts on this as well.
• 3:43
  Speaker C: Yeah, the upper levels, the acc, the sec, they're the ones that are committing a ton of guys right now.
• 3:51
  Speaker B: And I don't even know if it's
• 3:52
  Speaker C: a ton, to be honest, but collectively, as a conference, I'll throw out a ton. You know, you're going to see some guys that are going to trickle into some of the lower ish, you know, the mid tier of Division 1 schools that, you know, maybe they have a lot of interest in and you know, they have interest in them and maybe they're overshooting their shot to get those kids. But the overwhelming majority of kids that are going to go play college baseball are going to be recruited next year, whether it's going to be at the Division 1 level, the Division 2 level, or Division 3 level. Like, I can promise you right now that there are probably damn near zero. I'll never say zero, but I would say it's close to 0, 20, 28 that are committed to Division 3 schools. And same thing at the Division 2 level. You know, between the portal, the timelines, the contact rules, all the things that are going on, you know, a lot of these schools are finishing up their 27 classes or in the process of finishing up their 27 classes. You know, most of these, especially at the Division 3 level, you know, you still have a whole month. We're recording this on September 29th, right. So you have until November 1st or mid November, November 15th. Ish, where most of those Division 3 schools are pushing people towards early decision one, you know, so you still have a full month to 45 days before they're even, you know, feeling really comfortable about the guys that are going to be quote unquote, committed to that level and that program. So, you know, those schools aren't even thinking about getting into the 28 class because they're, they want to wrap up their 27s and then they want to, you know, start relationships with 28s and see where that's going to land them. And like anything else, there's a trickle down effect. It's going to go from the, the upper ends of Division 1 to the mid majors of Division 1 to the lower ends of Division 1, down to 2, down to 3, you know, so it takes a lot of time, you know, if you're going to play college baseball and like let's say you want to go to Division 3 school or you know, that's where you're trending. You know, you're probably talking about a full 12 months of you going through this process again or continuing through this process. I shouldn't say again, but going through the, continuing through this process for a full year before you really make a decision on yeah, that this is the place for me, you know, so there's no rush in any of this. And you know, as always, the, you know, comparison is the thief of joy, you know, so run your own race, put your blankers on and worry about yourself and get yourself better. Especially now, right? Like if you live in the Northeast, you know, Midwest to a certain extent you have, you know, October, November, December, January, February, March. Ish, right. Like you have six full months, dedicate yourself to be, you know, really good
• 6:45
  Speaker B: in the weight room.
• 6:45
  Speaker C: A lot of things we talked about in a previous podcast, the non baseball stuff that you do to get yourself better, to put yourself in a really good position come next March, April, May, June, July, August. To be recruitable and get recruited to some of the schools that it is that you're interested in.
• 7:02
  Speaker D: If you are the parent of a high school baseball player with college aspirations, you already know the recruiting process can feel overwhelming. Endless showcases, nonstop emails and big promises with very little clarity. That's why we recommend Diamond College Showcase Camps, the nation's premier academic baseball showcase. At Diamond College Showcases, every college coach in attendance is there with a purpose to coach, instruct, evaluate and recruit. Every player is seen, every player is engaged and every family leaves with a clear understanding of where they truly stand. This is not a mass camp. College coaches run the drills, evaluate every athlete and provide honest professional feedback that you can trust. Diamond College Showcase Camps are built for serious student athletes who value both baseball and academics. If you're looking for transparency, clarity and a recruiting experience that respects your time in your players future, Diamond College Showcase is the place to be. To learn more, visit Diamond Colleges showcase.com
• 8:04
  Speaker B: yeah, I, I think this is a direct reflection of just social media and like how easy it is to get caught up in that. And I just I ask the parents and the players who are listening to this that it's not a zero sum game. Like, because somebody else commits doesn't mean that you don't get to commit. The other thing I want to kind of warn against a little bit is that, and this often happens with travel teams that are good and you, you're playing on a really good travel team and a bunch of the guys who are you're playing with are committed or committing. Right.
• 8:39
  Speaker C: And.
• 8:39
  Speaker B: And this is a tough thing for a lot of people to wrap their head around. But, like, just because you play with guys who are that good doesn't mean that you're there yet. And the. To your point, like the comps. Well, I, you know, so and so committed to name whatever school. And like my son, I'll hit him this summer and he runs a faster 60 time. Like, you can play that game all you want and you might be right, but it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. And use it as fuel, use it as information, right? If you're not getting calls right now and you're not getting a ton of interest, that's fine. There's plenty of Division 1 guys are gonna commit. There's plenty of sec guys and ACC guys and Big 12 guys that are gonna commit next spring and next summer because guys get better. And there's always these guys don't ever stop recruiting. That's the other thing that's like, you're never really done until you're done. And then you're never really actually done because. And here's what I mean by that somewhat incoherent statement I just made.
• 9:46
  Speaker C: You don't score until you score.
• 9:49
  Speaker B: But I was talking, I was out west and we'll get into this a minute. I was out west this past weekend and I was talking to one of these coaches. He's like. I was like, so you guys done with your 27? She's like, yeah, for now. He goes, we got the Arizona Fall Classic. We got other checkpoints for guys. Like, we could have a guy who decommits because somebody else recruits him because he blows up this weekend. This is a really good program, by the way. It's just not a power forward program, but like a really good program. We could lose a guy that way. We could have a guy who just ends up not being good enough that we have to make a decision on. And then you get the portal that comes around in June and we might have to go and try to find some guys who were previously committed to junior Colleges because we want to develop guys in our program. Maybe we can't find the right fit for a college transfer. She's like, we're done for now, but we could lose a guy in the fall. We could lose a player on our current roster in the fall. Somebody gets hurt, maybe one of the seniors who we thought was going to exercise his fifth year isn't going to come back. And we find that out in December and we end up having an extra spot for high school guys. It's always a moving target. So that's the other piece of this puzzle too, is it? These guys don't really stop recruiting. You're going to see some 27s commit to huge programs in the next two weeks because somebody's going to go down to Jupiter, they're going to be uncommitted, and nobody is going to have seen them throw really well. And that kid's going to pop up and be 90 to 93. And I can promise you somebody at the highest levels of college baseball is going to find a way to get that kid on the roster. So don't panic. It really honestly means that you just need to kind of hit the reset button and really focus on development and get yourself ready throughout the off season here. But I, I think it's one of the things that sucks the joy out of this the most. To your point, is it you sit there and you see other people commit and you beat yourself up over it. Like, keep moving, keep moving, as I said, move forward.
• 12:06
  Speaker C: Yes. Yeah.
• 12:09
  Speaker B: As I said earlier, I was out west for a while and did some talks out there. Answered a lot of questions from parents, some really, really good questions. But one of the ones that kept coming up was the 5 for 5 stuff. So I figured we'd take a minute just to clarify that. And then also I'll divulge some info that I got from some coaches because I think at this point nobody really knows exactly how that's going to play out. But you want to give a kind of a quick overview of the change here and then we can bat around some stuff that some of the coaches are saying.
• 12:49
  Speaker C: Sure. Five from five. You have five years to play five years. Whether that is your clock is going to start either the second you graduate high school and enter into a four year university or it'll start the fall after you turn 19. If you post grad or take a
• 13:14
  Speaker B: gap year or junior college.
• 13:16
  Speaker C: I was, I was, I was getting there.
• 13:20
  Speaker A: The.
• 13:22
  Speaker C: The other will be if you go to a junior college, then your clock will start but you have five years to play five years of college baseball. So your juco years will count. But having five, you can now play two years of junior college and three years at a four year school or you can play one year at a junior college and play four years at a four year school. So depends on, on kind of how it all shakes out for you. But under the new rules, that's what it's going that, that is the new rule. There's going to be no, we've covered this a lot but there's no red shirts, there's no gray shirts. The only waivers are going to be military religious exemptions and maternity for the women's sports. So you're going to get five years and use them as you see fit. I think what we'll bat around is what that looks like. Program to program, team to team, school to school, division to division.
• 14:17
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I think the thing that jumps off the page and a lot of coaches mentioned this this weekend was the, the fifth year, like we're still, these coaches are still fundamentally operating in a four year cycle with 34 man rosters at the Division 1 level. You that fifth year, like you're eligible for it, but it doesn't mean that you're going to get to play. And I think that the people need to wrap their head around that, that you get five years but you also have to be awarded five years by the coaches who want you on their roster. And that is, I think that is a key distinction is that you still, when you finish your fourth year and you go to that fifth year, you need to have performed well enough for that program to either want to keep you or for you to go into the portal and be recruited by another institution. And that's the part that everybody leaves out because when you have roster limits of 34, you, you have to make roster decisions and the guy who hasn't contributed a ton up to his senior year isn't the dude that you usually waste a roster spot on or use a roster spot on. Be little bit more delicate. You're probably going to put your chips in the basket of a freshman or another type of transfer that may contribute to the program over time a little bit longer. So that was brought up by multiple coaches and they're not looking forward to having some of those conversations because they're hard. Those are not easy conversations to sit a kid down and say, hey man, you're not going to be here next year.
• 16:02
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think that it's, it needs to be plainly stated that it's not guaranteed. Just because the 5 for 5 is in effect doesn't necessarily mean that you're guaranteed that fifth year programs are going to have to make decisions, especially at the Division 1 level. And to be clear, right now we're solely speaking at the Division 1 level. Division 2 and 3 are very likely in the 90% range to pass this legislation where all divisions in Division 1, 2 and 3 NCAA baseball will be using the 5 for 5 model. You know, so you're not guaranteed it. I think that there's probably more at the Division 2 and 3 level that'll use this more than what was used at the Division 1 level. You might see some more transfers from Division 2 and 3 up to Division 1 for that fifth year. But again, to your point, like, you know, you're, you're going to have to be a really good, to be a one year kind of model roster spot guy. And that's going to be taking a roster spot from somebody else who would be a fifth year guy, you know, so if you're going to a program under the guise of like I'm going to do this for five years, you're going to have to play. Because if you're not playing, the likelihood of you getting that fifth year on a 34 man roster is, is going to be slim. The other thing that I'll throw in there is that the, you know, the Ivies are obviously restrictive on this. They only allow you to play for four years in the Ivy League. So they will be unaffected in this 5 for 5 and in the Division 3 realm and possibly even in the Division 2 realm. When it comes to the NCAA legislation and rules, conferences can be more restrictive than what the NCAA allows. Right. Which is why the Ivy league only allows four year players in their conference. I can see Division 3 programs and especially the high academic ones, where there may be one school in that conference that has grad school and the rest of them don't, where they're going to say, hey, doesn't matter what the NCAA Sundays, you get four years in this conference and if you choose to transfer out afterwards, you, you are more than willing to do that, but you're only going to be able to play four years of baseball in this conference.
• 18:30
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting thing to keep an eye on. I mean with Division 2 having just passed it, like I gotta think Division 3 does, but me and you batted around to this idea kind of talking about.
• 18:45
  Speaker C: I think, I think they have to. Yeah, I think not to interject and I'm sorry to cut you off. Like I think they have to. Yeah, you can't have two thirds of NCAA sports say you have five or five and then a third of it say no because you're going to get into way too many issues. And you know what I mean?
• 19:04
  Speaker B: Like I think the market will control itself. Like I do think that this is like a classic case of like if you're good enough to play your fifth year, you'll play your fifth year or if you even, not even if you want to. But like there's other things that you need to consider is like if you're going to play your fifth year to Division 3 schools, well, you're not getting any baseball money. Correct. And you're also not getting any financial aid or merit money because grad school is, now works with grad school. So like there's financial decisions to be made here depending on kind of where you're transferring. Everybody always locks in on Division one. But you know, there's other decisions that need to be made about paying a fifth year of school and is it going to be worth it, all that kind of stuff. So that'll be another interesting thing to keep an eye on.
• 19:49
  Speaker C: But, and I think it's interesting because there are some Division 3 schools that I know of that have five year master's programs that you can apply to when you're in school where your financial package does stay for five years. But then you're also getting into what we were just talking about at the Division 1 level where some of these Division 3 schools have self imposed roster limits, right? So like yeah, you could be in the five year program but if, if you haven't played in fight in your four years previous, like there's a high likelihood that they are going to be recruiting over you and that, that's going to be a tough conversation for these coaches to have with kids of like, hey, like I know you're here for five years and you're your masters, but like you haven't played man. Like we're, we're moving on type thing. So you know that that's going to create some, some issues in that department. But on the same hand, like you know, if you're a Division 3 school that has a really good player that's in your five year program, like that gives you the leeway to have a fifth year senior who's still in school and, and can be really good for you. So like there's give and takes everywhere. I just, I have a sneaking suspicion now that you Know, I think that this is going to come to fruition that you're, you're going to have more kids at the Division 3 level. They're going to try to play that fifth year and maybe even start there. And it's going to, I don't want to say balloon rosters, but I think you're going to see some more players at the Division 3 level with, with a little bit of a higher roster, you know, kind of like Covid. Because it's like, well, you know, shoot, we can kind of like, we don't have roster limits. We can operate under what we want to do and we can, we can take as many guys as we want type things. So, you know, but I do think that the conferences are going to be restrictive on it. So I'll be interested to see what, what conferences are. You know, my knee jerk reaction. And I don't know this for I have no intel on this whatsoever as I say this, this is literally Keith Lasser saying this. Like, I could see the nescac, the Centennial Conference, like, I can see those two conferences specifically being more restrictive when it comes to that, that rule, should it pass at the Division 3 level? Because most of those schools and those conferences don't have grad school where one or two schools in that conference do. I could see them saying like, hey, every, you get five, but like ain't going to be in this conference. And there's precedent with the Ivy League.
• 22:39
  Speaker B: The other thing I think will be interesting from a, like an eligibility perspective is to see if anybody tries to play the credits game where you can do five years without getting a Masters and just kind of slow roll your undergrad. I'm not, I'm not suggesting that this is going to be popular, but like one way you could get around the expense of grad school is you take 12 credits a semester and it basically buys you another year of full time eligibility. But there are, you know, there are, there's a risk there because if you drop below 12 credits, you're immediately ineligible. I don't believe that they've changed that academic rule, but so there's some risk there. I mean, you need to be a decent student. Let's be honest, college is not that hard. So it shouldn't.
• 23:30
  Speaker C: No, but you're playing fair. You, you get one bad class in there and all of a sudden you're, you're up against it.
• 23:37
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 23:39
  Speaker C: So, and the, the other side of it to, to your grad school point though is like how many people are willing to pay five Years of super high end academic education. You know what I mean? Like, if you're paying 95, 96, 97 grand a year, like, are you willing to do that for five just to play baseball?
• 23:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking more. There's a lot of schools out there that don't have grad schools. Like, how did you know? How do they find a way to be old? Right. It's no secret now. Everybody wants to be old in college baseball. Like, you win with old players, and by old, I mean guys who aren't high school freshmen. Like, it's specifically at the highest levels of college baseball. It is crazy hard to win with freshmen. So everybody wants to be old, ideally. And like, maybe you give those guys a little bit of time to develop whatever it is. But it'll be interesting to see if anybody tries to. Because this is the, the other thing too is that this is kind of like the portal when it first opened. Like, nobody really knows how this is going to shake out.
• 24:47
  Speaker C: Right.
• 24:47
  Speaker B: So I think that there's some people who have some, some theories. There's some people who are gonna kind of go about it with their own methods. I do think that you're going to see an increase in the portal because of it, because everybody's gonna, everybody's gonna try to get that fifth year. Everybody who doesn't get drafted is going to try to go play somebody their fifth year. Yeah. So I think, I think that that's going to make the portal a little bit funky first time around, but we'll see. The thing that I, I think that people need to understand is that the coaches are in a situation where they're having to navigate another, like, new wrinkle in this and everybody's going to attack it a little bit different. But everybody that I've talked to is kind of like, it's not that they don't like it, is that I don't think they're looking forward to some of the conversations they're going to have. Have to have.
• 25:49
  Speaker C: Right.
• 25:49
  Speaker B: Because there are going to be guys and talking to some guys this weekend. They're trying to get out in front of it and talking to their seniors and being like, hey, if you don't get drafted, are you coming back? Are you going to come back here or are you going to go into the portal? Because, like, I kind of got to know like what the deal is. Yeah. Try to get out ahead of it. And that's the best that they can do. But, you know, they might have to change that conversation at the end of the year, they might have to tell a guy like, hey man, I, I, you can't come back here. I don't, it's not that I don't watch it. It's not that I don't think you, you're a good kid. I gotta make the best decision for the program. And I think that that gets lost a lot of times, specifically with all the portal stuff is that I think the coaches get painted in a really bad light that they don't care about kids and blah, blah, blah. And I just think it could be further from the truth.
• 26:44
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, you need to make the best decision for your program. If you have guys that haven't played in three or four years and they're great kids like that, doesn't that like you need to, you, you're paid to win baseball games, so you, you have to go get the better players that a better player, whether it's going to be for a year or two or five, you need to go get the better player.
• 27:10
  Speaker B: That is correct.
• 27:11
  Speaker C: But this is like, this is, this is opting into this hyper competitive environment. This is, this is the byproduct of it 100%.
• 27:25
  Speaker B: I'm sure we're going to talk about this more just because I think we're going to get different information as we get closer to the season. I think you're going to have a better idea of what different programs are trying to do to try to navigate the first time around with this, this fifth year thing. So it'll be interesting. Last thing we want to touch on today. It's good timing because we were recording during the Red Sox, Yankees game, greatest rivalry in all of sports.
• 27:50
  Speaker C: Everybody going on right now.
• 27:52
  Speaker B: Everybody else can shut it. I don't want to hear about Auburn in Alabama. It's not close. It's the only rivalry in sports that matters. Coming from a Red Sox fan here and Keith being a Yankees fan. But I personally love playoff baseball. Not because, not just because it's playoff baseball and you know, the stakes are higher. But as a former college baseball coach, I think this is the closest representation of the highest level of baseball that there is in the world. It's the closest representation of that talent playing a game that more closely resembles kind of what college baseball is in terms of very, very small margins. You don't, what you did the previous 162 games doesn't matter. Right. The Yankees and the Dodgers and whatever organization, like over 162 games, it's going to play out. They're going to win their games. But now commanding the baseball, managing the running game, running the base as well, playing defense, getting the ball in play, grinding on it, bats, getting into somebody's bullpen. Like all this stuff that really gets hammered at the college level. You see it play out in the major league play, major league baseball playoffs, because they're not playing. They don't have 50 games left on the schedule. Like you have to win today. You're not just running a lineup out there. And let's just kind of see, you know, you guys go and compete. If we lose, no big deal, move on to the next one. Like you don't really have that luxury. And that's kind of what college baseball is. Specifically when you get into conference plays that, you know, it's intense and the margins are thin and the little stuff matters more than it ever does. And that's the thing that I love about this part of the year, is that the pressure of every pitch, you're going to see guys doing stuff that they don't normally do. Even, even the way they construct their rosters becomes different. You'll have somebody who hasn't barely played in the big league club come up because he's an elite defender who can run and they want somebody who can steal a base at the back end of a game or a bullpen arm that has really good numbers against like super specific guys that they'll bring up so he can get two outs in the whole series. Like, that's the thing that I love about it is that you're, you, you get to like the most detail oriented version of major league baseball. And it fires me up.
• 30:45
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean even this, the wild card is obviously the most closely represented of college baseball. It's a three game set where you're going to go play three game sets on the weekends where margins are thin and you have 56 games you got to be able to win and have at it. Like I've watched a lot of baseball today. I saw some things that, you know, obviously defense changed games. If you watch the Braves Phillies game today, it changed. You know, there were some plays where they didn't make and the Braves capitalized big time bolt in the eighth, bottom eight, two outs. Like, how can you not be romantic about baseball? You know, the, the White Sox game, same thing. Like there, there were a lot of little things that happened early in the game that got the White Sox a big lead that the Astros couldn't really chip away at. And I've had the Yankee game on all night. I've been watching it as we're recording. So, like, you know, it's, it's a very, very well played baseball game. But like, the margins are so thin. It's one pitch here, it's one pitch there, it's one play here where, you know, you're scoring runs, guys are making plays and you're, you know, it matters a hell of a lot more. You're not guaranteed to get out of this wild card round, so like, you have to do some different things that you probably haven't done since spring training. Like, I saw a handful of bunts today. I've watched a decent amount of professional baseball this year. More than I've probably watched in the last two, two years, I would argue. Like, I saw more buns today than I've seen probably all of this year. And not sack buns, but like guys that are legit trying to bun for a hit and do things like just to, to do something different, to try to move defenses around and make something happen. And it's as close as you're going to get to the college game in, in what's going on right now, right? Like, you have to be able to force things, force action, make things happen. Make defense, make defense, the defenders make plays. You know, it's, it's awesome. Like, it's, it's baseball the way that it's, it's not a, it's not a July 15, Tuesday at one o' clock on a travel day where it's like
• 33:10
  Speaker B: get, get away day where, you know,
• 33:13
  Speaker C: your three best see what happens.
• 33:15
  Speaker B: Yeah, your three best players didn't even put their, their cleats on for the day. You know, four best bullpen arms are, you know, they're, they're axed off because they need an extra day of rest.
• 33:26
  Speaker C: Like, we called up a couple guys because we needed to make some room because our entire bullpen is taxed. Like, it's getaway day. We're just, let's just get through this one and make sure no one gets, you know, killed while we're out there on the field. Okay. You know, like it's, it's playoff baseball. Like everything means something more. It's, it's awesome.
• 33:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's the best.
• 33:49
  Speaker C: Like the one thing that I thought was super interesting today because again, like, I've watched and it's new, right? But like, I've watched more professional baseball this year than I have in the last, like two years. The amount of borderline pitches that like, they legitimately held in their back pocket to not challenge because it was like, oh, like I need to be certain that that was a strike or a ball before I tap my helmet because if I don't, if I'm, you know, even on the cusp of thinking that's that was a ball or a strike and whatever it was, like, I'm not taking the risk because I don't want to put us in a position later where we might need it. Which I thought was like pretty interesting. I thought that, you know, for the most part I thought it was conservative this year, but like there were some games where I'd see where it was, you know, pretty willy nilly of just, you know, tapping our helmets. I also think that might be that we have some better umpires in the playoffs. Higher rated umpires, I should say, in the playoffs.
• 34:52
  Speaker B: Yeah. Playoff baseball. Awesome.
• 34:55
  Speaker C: Check your pulses, which I'm looking forward
• 35:00
  Speaker B: to watching some of it. But anything else you want to add for tonight? Coach? No, sir. All right. Well, thank you for listening everybody. We will certainly keep you updated on anything 5 for 5 related. But good topics for tonight. Enjoyed the discussion.
• 35:17
  Speaker C: Hope you enjoyed listening.
• 35:18
  Speaker B: Talk to you next week. Thanks everybody. 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 players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com 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.