Depends on the player. I don't believe MLB always offers our guys more money than LSU's. Cann having a reputation of keeping players may cause MLB to not go after our players quite as much as well.
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Not to take away from any of the great points in this thread....but to a college guy making $0.00, a $410,000 signing bonus is life changing money. Hell, that's life changing money to me too. You can pay off a mortgage and student loans (if you have any), and start whatever career you choose debt free in life and have a little nest egg. Is it the type of money where you can go ahead and retire, no...but I think we can all agree that having $400k in the bank would have been pretty great when heading off to work for the first time.
That being said, I bet there are so many guys that leave college thinking $400-$500k is so much money, only to be sitting there without any of it 4-5 years down the road and wishing they had played that extra year. For guys that actually project to MLB, they absolutely benefit by turning down the money and coming back if they're not top 10-12 rounds....but I totally understand guys like Kruger or others that may not project as sure fire big leaguers taking that pay day while they have a chance, bc they know within a few years of sitting in the minors they'll probably be working in the real world after that.
So where I think Andy helps us most, is recruiting more guys that project as MLB guys, which in turn will make a decision like that easier. They will be highly thought of out of HS instead of projects or Jucos, and they'll be on a perennial winner getting lots of pub, playing for a coach with scouting connections to tell them exactly what they should do, which combined is what leads to more guys staying in my opinion. But with AC, another big key will be having a stud to step in behind them if they do go ahead and leave because they're high draft picks. Andy will help bring all of those factors into play in my opinion.
Agreed Todd. Cann's reputation for developing hitters and his scouting connections will help us out tremendously in judging who we can get and keep on campus. Helping develop players like Bregman and Rooker will only help our cause. Bregman credits Cann with his hitting development.
If you really want to take a pragmatic and critical approach to it, it's really only $220k after taxes take a huge chunk, but I digress. If we were taking scholarships away from juniors before they had even decided as was stated earlier in this thread, no wonder we didn't keep many.
That is also about 4 years worth of normal salary in the bank while you go after your dream of playing baseball. If Kruger was good about school then he might can even finish online or at least get close. It would be hard to pass up that amount of money because coming back probably gets you at most $10k signing bonus as a Senior.
I'm a little confused. Are you arguing that we have a better chance of getting the guys with MLB futures, who were highly thought of coming out of HS, to stay for their senior years? I would argue that is incredibly unlikely.
Guys not drafted in the top 10-12 rounds, especially out of college, have a very low chance of making the majors, so they are pretty much always right to take the money if they get an offer close to what Kruger got last year. Once you drop into the $100,000 or less range, you start to have a tougher decision.
When Cann brings his recruits in I think we A) get more players here then we had before, B) get the most out of those players for three years instead of one year, and C) can talk some of the tweener juniors into coming back for their senior season if it means winning a championship. I think Cann can and will do that here. This will make us more consistent and will get us to Omaha more and in fact win a championship. I think Cohen failed at those basic things and why he stated that Cann is his upgrade because he will do those things.