Lipscomb downs Vols

[BrunswickDawg]

It really is. Theres more talent available all the way around. Even in the juco levels now it's common to see every team with kids throwing low to mid 90s and tons of guys that can mash the baseball. It used to be rare to see that kind of talent in juco, now it's common. Heck my sons last year at Gulf Coast they had 6 D1 transfers come in and that's happening all over, Jones, PRCC, Hinds, it's all over. There's just more high end talent to go around especially with the cut in mlb draft, nil, covid extra years. It's been a trickle down effect. Most average fans don't realize this, but if you're connected and involved in it at every level, you see it everyday.

It's interesting to me how long it has taken MLB to realize that they had a huge cost savings opportunity for player development via College Baseball and their Caribbean academies. MiLB will never go away completely - but I think in the next round you will see it parred down to 3 MiLB teams per franchise; a development academy at their Spring training sites; their international academies. As MiLB players have pushed for more money - the reduction in teams became inevitable. College and JUCO will fill that Low-A gap, and fewer and fewer High School guys will be getting drafted.

[Commercecomet24]

It's interesting to me how long it has taken MLB to realize that they had a huge cost savings opportunity for player development via College Baseball and their Caribbean academies. MiLB will never go away completely - but I think in the next round you will see it parred down to 3 MiLB teams per franchise; a development academy at their Spring training sites; their international academies. As MiLB players have pushed for more money - the reduction in teams became inevitable. College and JUCO will fill that Low-A gap, and fewer and fewer High School guys will be getting drafted.

I always wondered that myself. Heck back in my day there were over 60 rounds of draft picks and a gazillion MiLB teams. You had all these guys in MiLB making $500 a month and then realizing after a year or two they weren't ever gonna make it and bailing out to try and start a career. It always seemed like kinda of a waste of resources and so many of those players were HS kids and many never went on to college and wound up scraping by for the rest of their lives. There's only so many Mike Piazza stories out there.

[StarkVegasSteve]

It's interesting to me how long it has taken MLB to realize that they had a huge cost savings opportunity for player development via College Baseball and their Caribbean academies. MiLB will never go away completely - but I think in the next round you will see it parred down to 3 MiLB teams per franchise; a development academy at their Spring training sites; their international academies. As MiLB players have pushed for more money - the reduction in teams became inevitable. College and JUCO will fill that Low-A gap, and fewer and fewer High School guys will be getting drafted.

The international academies was the first break in the dam. They figured out they could get these kids at 16 for pennies on the dollar, lock them up early, and then their first extension is coming at 20 or 21, when most of them have made their ML debut, instead of 26 or 27. That's a 100 million to 150 million dollar savings from the club's perspective.