I pretty much laid out what the reasonable expectations are in this thread. 1-12 not likely, 12-20 around 50% chance and 21-40 most likely coming back.
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We've been so bad at retention I think it skews the perception of what would be normal. If people are expecting Cann to keep Dakota Hudson and Brent Rooker then they're going to be disappointed. Of they're expecting to keep Gridley then the expectations are reasonable.
I just put on my tin-foil hat to help me cook up a conspiracy here...I think you have some meathead baseball lovers in Baton Rouge that gave the players some money to stick around. When it comes to LSU-baseball, they are typically fighting with guns and MSU is still with bows and arrows. They don't mess around with winning and the rules we follow are probably a joke to them. Their coaches were juicing players with steroids for gorilla ball back in the 1990's, why not give money in 2010's
Remember MSUs John Harden (155 lbs) vs Lyle Mouton (6-4 240), Gary Hymel? Even Rick Cleveland wrote a David vs Goliath article about it. Back when the CL was not cover-to-cover fake news.
I personally know an ex-Arizona player that had to turn down offers from LSU coaches to get him juiced up for summer ball.
I'm not expecting to keep top 2 round guys BUT I do expect more then one great year out of them. If we can follow the same trajectory as Pilk for all of our top level prospects, that would be a huge step in the right direction. We really only got one great year out of players like Hudson and Renfroe as examples.
But you lose a year of minor league development by coming back as well. So you may advance more quickly once you're drafted if you come out as a senior, but you're not likely to get there even faster than you would have had you come out as a junior in absolute terms.
Graveman debuted late in 2014. Do you think it would have taken him until at least 2015 to see the majors if he had come out in 2012 rather than 2013?
Some of that is due to the kind of player we went after. Generally speaking, if you want to end up with a huge stud in college baseball, you've got to take someone who's really raw out of HS; otherwise, they would be drafted high enough that you won't get them. So those guys will obviously take longer to develop, but once they do, they're huge beasts.
Rooker was the same way. We got two years out of him because he redshirted, but I don't think it's entirely likely anyone would have been able to turn him into a very good college player by his second year.
That's a great strategy for the estimated 10-17% of drafted players who will EVER play Major League Baseball, but the other 83% or so need a different strategy.
Players who get drafted have to bust their ass to get to the show as much as possible. But, they also have to financially plan like they aren't ever going to make it. Because the chances are historically greater than 50% that they won't ever make it no matter how high they are drafted. That means taking the big money when it's available unless you have a very solid back-up plan like a degree in hand in a high paying field (like Kendall Graveman), or really rich parents (like Kramer Robertson).
No- you spend your minor league years at MSU with Cann instead of riding around on a bus playing for the Cedar
Rapids Hot Dogs. And considering that MLB drafted Graveman in the 36th round and having seen him play as a freshman I think had he not gone to college he may not have made it to MLB at all.
You stay for your senior year and you get your degree and you can transition out of baseball a lot easier than someone that doesn't have that.
Seriously?
I'm saying that a guy like Rooker is smart to stay last year, bc he clearly had MLB potential and tools...so he had a higher likelihood of increasing draft status and therefore either increasing signing bonus, or fast tracking to the league where contracts are huge. Meanwhile, a guy like Vance Tatum better get every bit of signing bonus as he can, bc he knows unless something changes in a major way, he ain't going to be on a MLB roster probably ever, so don't leave money on the table.
Cannizaro will get us less projects, and more sure fire future MLB guys. Therefore, you end up with guys that know they'll be in the show, so improving draft stock and fast tracking their route to the MLB by being a top round pick, means more than a few hundred thousand, bc they have aspirations and a likelihood of making millions soon.
Gridley is a great example. If I'm AC, I tell him you should seriously consider going if you want to maximize your bonus and if you do indeed get offered a good bonus, bc millions are not in his future playing baseball. Whereas, I would tell Mangum that unless someone goes crazy and offers him millions in a bonus, he should stay put bc I think you could potentially make millions in the big leagues one day. If you come back and get stronger, and improve to where you aren't as raw, and increase your draft spot to top few rounds, youll get a bigger bonus next year AND you'll be on more of a fast track to the league where your bonus won't matter much anyway.
It's not that difficult imo. Guys that are longshots to be MLB players should take their biggest bonus chance as Juniors. Guys with real MLB potential should stay as long as it takes to get drafted highest. Bc you're going to get to the big show quicker as a higher draft pick, and bonus means less if you're closer to a MLB contract by increasing draft stock.
If I'm Gridley and someone offers me $200k, I'm gone. If I'm Mangum and someone offers me $500k, I'm coming back to MSU.
Why? Gridley doesn't project as a MLB player, so $200k is likely his biggest ever baseball check. Mangum has MLB tools, and could get stronger and become a MLB player, which would put him making way over $500K. Plus, Mangum still has leverage after next year
You can think you're going to make it but still plan for the best in case you don't. It's not like it's impossible to compartmentalize your actual playing future and your financial future. Any one who is smart does that regardless of their chosen career field. And as the historical data shows, it is especially foolish from a financial standpoint to ignore the reality of the game of professional baseball when making big decisions about whether or not to take a signing bonus or return for a senior year, go to college, etc.
I certainly hope this is the case, but we don't really know, and LSU has absolutely not been built on those guys. Their program recently has been built primarily on the tweener guys who are more the strong college player than the guy with the clear MLB future.
Which is fine, I'm more than happy if we go that route if it means we win a bunch of games. I'm just not yet convinced we're going to see this seismic shift in our recruiting and our ability to get high draft picks into school. Our program has been very good recently at producing MLB players, after all, better than most good college programs. It's going to be tough to do an even better job of that.