The artist formerly known as David Lipscomb College, nee Nashville Bible School, defeated the might Volunteers of Tennessee 9-6 tonight.
That's baseball.
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The artist formerly known as David Lipscomb College, nee Nashville Bible School, defeated the might Volunteers of Tennessee 9-6 tonight.
That's baseball.
Yeah...they're not that mighty this year. Best team won last weekend.
amazingly its not just us
MLB is evolving their minor league system. Lots of people think there is going to be another contraction of 30 teams or so in the near future even though MLB denies it. Also it seems like MLB is slowly buying up all of the teams in the minors. The Mississippi Braves are owned now by that group - Diamond Holdings I believe it's called. They also own the Memphis Redbirds now too for those that live that way. I believe that group owns 30 minor league teams now so that's roughly 1/4 of all minor league teams not including instructional league teams.
In the Deep South minor league baseball seems to be dying. The M-Braves are moving, the Shuckers draw worse than the M-Braves, the Redbirds aren't drawing well, and there aren't teams in New Orleans, Mobile, Baton Rouge, or Shreveport. Perhaps that's a narrow view because it seems like when I see minor league highlights there are empty seats all over the ballpark behind home plate.
It makes me wonder if MLB has decided to not to compete with college baseball in the Deep South? I also wonder (hope) if we will see a new independent minor league eventually emerge in the Deep South? That could be a good strategic move given how popular some players are when they are in college like Elijah MacNamee and Scotty Dubrule. Could also be a nice place for guys like say a Roy Oswalt to end their career or have a place to play to try to get back into MLB.
What does Tennessee have for mid-week pitching ?
Midweek and if one of these teams gets deep in a regional is where you're going to see the most impact from the portal. Guys that were normally Saturday/Sunday starters for mid majors are now midweek guys for these mid major teams. It leads to results like this one.
I think Tenn has this cockiness about them and sometimes they think all they have to do is show up. I think it's the attitude and demeaner of their Coach. He is good but very arrogant and cocky. Just saying.
No one can convince me Lipscomb has close to the talent Tenn has. Just poor preparation and sometimes things happen but I ain't buying portals help teams in lonqer divisions or conference match Sec teams. Just excuses for not being ready to play, oh I realize there are upsets but damn!! To me it's a team that is lazy at times, I always hated seeing one of my basketball teams do this, but when they did the next day was hell for them! Baseball players and any athlete should play 100% every day.
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. I'm just fortunate that i still have a lot of contacts in the scouting/coaching ranks and with 2 sons involved in coaching and training prospects, you get to see/hear a lot of stuff.
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.