Baseball Recruiting

It's really kind of hard to know what direction college baseball recruiting is going to go in general for everyone.

The only thing anyone knows is it's going to be very different in the next 2-3 years. No one knows what the roster sizes are going to be even. I've heard everything from 30 to 40. The 11.7 rule is going to go away and for us it's really not even a thing anymore. I'm sure we dole it out to make the NCAA happy but then fill in the gaps with NIL. Odds are we are going to see full scholarships to match whatever roster size they decide on. That's going to give our NIL even more power.

You also have more prospects going to college now for a variety of reasons. Unless you are a prospect like a Konnor Griffin and a sure fire first round draft pick the odds of an elite player going to school are higher than ever before. We saw that with our last class with Dylan Cupp and Makhai Grant who are two guys that I was told would not step foot on campus at various times and in years past probably would have signed. They're also trying to encourage schools to sign players later rather than when they are in 9th and 10th grade although I don't think that will really totally go away. If Konnor Griffin came to our camp as a 9th grader and wanted to commit we would take it on the spot because we would be stupid not to.

Then you have the portal factor in all of this. You're probably going to see a lot of guys playing for Memphis, USM, and MSU. We're already seeing that happen some. The path for many to play at MSU is going to be to go somewhere like Memphis or USM and develop and then transfer if you are good enough to do so. If they're not good enough they're going to have to make a business decision to stay where they're at or quit. Whatever the roster size teams are going to have to plan to have space for guys out of the portal. Our bullpen roles that we're filling with JUCO's are probably going to have to come from places like Tulane in the near future.

No one is ever going to hit 100% on high school recruits and then you have the Tommy John epidemic hurting a good percentage of the pitchers anyway.

It's getting to be almost like MLB where I think you're going to have to develop a core group of players from your minor league system (recruiting) and then fill in with free agents (portal). Hard to say what percentage of each without knowing the roster limits but to be honest the make up of our team right now is probably pretty close to what the future is going to be going forward if I had to guess.

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Originally Posted by HoopsDawg

It's already happening. AU plans to sign 5 HS pitchers and 5 HS position players beginning with the 2025 class. Portal for the rest.

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If it were me- again just guessing what the roster size will be- I would go with 8-9 position players and 7 pitchers. That's about 15-16 players. Our current class has 21 players in it high school and JUCO. Inevitably some won't pan out. And with only 5 position players odds are only 2-3 will pan out. Even with the portal it seems like signing that few of players is a bad idea.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

If it were me- again just guessing what the roster size will be- I would go with 8-9 position players and 7 pitchers. That's about 15-16 players. Our current class has 21 players in it high school and JUCO. Inevitably some won't pan out. And with only 5 position players odds are only 2-3 will pan out. Even with the portal it seems like signing that few of players is a bad idea.

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This is a great point. The polar opposite of what UT (and others) is doing of have 50 plus kids in the fall with about 30% getting cut before the fall ends and sent back home. I hate this strategy and theres got to be a happy medium in their somewhere. But as major D1 teams are becoming the true MLB farm system, it will ripple down to smaller schools and other levels of ball. Heck, even MLB hates this HS class outside of Konnor Griffin. Recruiting from a kid's perspective is musical chairs, just make sure you've got a seat, ANY SEAT, to keep playing and prove your worth.

AU has some stud HS arms coming in, if they all make it, which they probably will.

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Originally Posted by ScooterDog

So, we only signed one Dandy Dozen. That means we didn?t like the other 11, or could not afford the others, or we plan on hitting the portal real hard. We are not going to be in very good shape if we don?t get some portal players. Let?s hope Lemo has some players targeted.

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Again, it was a down year in the state for srs. I'm not mad at all we didn't get many of them.

I don't believe this staff is capable of recruiting the way it should at State. I've seen their classes and I see what they're recruiting and it's poor. At least Parker can develop arms. But again, this is the path leadership/boosters have chosen. It's become more about the outfield party & attendance numbers than great baseball. Lets see where things go if that outfield rig gets expensive next year.

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Originally Posted by Cooterpoot

I don't believe this staff is capable of recruiting the way it should at State. I've seen their classes and I see what they're recruiting and it's poor. At least Parker can develop arms. But again, this is the path leadership/boosters have chosen. It's become more about the outfield party & attendance numbers than great baseball. Lets see where things go if that outfield rig gets expensive next year.

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I don't really know how one correlates with the other in your comparison. I think we've recruited fine. We've missed on some, but you have to wonder with what we've seen from Parker if the misses were more on Foxhall than the players. We've hit on a bunch of portal pieces. I'll agree with you on the outfield, but that's not a new thing. It's been like that for a very long time. I think the culture is more prevalent now but that culture has always existed out there.

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Originally Posted by Cooterpoot

I don't believe this staff is capable of recruiting the way it should at State. I've seen their classes and I see what they're recruiting and it's poor. At least Parker can develop arms. But again, this is the path leadership/boosters have chosen. It's become more about the outfield party & attendance numbers than great baseball. Lets see where things go if that outfield rig gets expensive next year.

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I don't follow baseball a ton, but I've always said we seem to care more about attendance than actually being elite on the field. It's come up in my circle of friends (granted mostly just football and basketball people) on several occasions over the years. It's always been a little odd to us.

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Originally Posted by gtowndawg

I don't follow baseball a ton, but I've always said we seem to care more about attendance than actually being elite on the field. It's come up in my circle of friends (granted mostly just football and basketball people) on several occasions over the years. It's always been a little odd to us.

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I thought when we won a national championship that caring about attendance records were over since we had a national championship to hang our hats on.....I was wrong.

Actually, they (the administration) care more about money than actual attendance. In the LFL, club level seating and probably the grandstand, if you do not re-new your spot, it WILL get taken by somebody else so as long as they get your money, they don't care if you come or not. I'm guessing it would take a 5 or 6 year stretch of seasons like '22 and '23 with no change in sight before people would start dropping out.

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Originally Posted by Mjoelner34

Actually, they (the administration) care more about money than actual attendance. In the LFL, club level seating and probably the grandstand, if you do not re-new your spot, it WILL get taken by somebody else so as long as they get your money, they don't care if you come or not. I'm guessing it would take a 5 or 6 year stretch of seasons like '22 and '23 with no change in sight before people would start dropping out.

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The administration....yes. Our fans.....no. Most of the fanbase still cares about attendance records for some reason.

it looks like he is 20 yrs old, so he is already closer to maturity than most hs seniors.

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Originally Posted by Homedawg

Again, it was a down year in the state for srs. I'm not mad at all we didn't get many of them.

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This, look at the '25 class. We have 4 of the top 5 players in the state coming in next years class. As Homedawg said, this is a down year. One kid who i saw play a lot last week that's in this years class is Topher Jones. Ball jumps off the kids bat and he's a slick fielder with a good arm and can run. Also the kid has a great attitude and work ethic.

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Originally Posted by Commercecomet24

This, look at the '25 class. We have 4 of the top 5 players in the state coming in next years class. As Homedawg said, this is a down year. One kid who i saw play a lot last week that's in this years class is Topher Jones. Ball jumps off the kids bat and he's a slick fielder with a good arm and can run. Also the kid has a great attitude and work ethic.

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So CC, with a kid like the one mentioned in OP, what is the reasoning behind not getting in contact with him? Is it an evaluation thing? Not playing travel ball in the right places? Or do you think it's something else?

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Originally Posted by StarkVegasSteve

So CC, with a kid like the one mentioned in OP, what is the reasoning behind not getting in contact with him? Is it an evaluation thing? Not playing travel ball in the right places? Or do you think it's something else?

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Not CC - but it looks like a numbers game as much as anything. We have 9 Seniors/Grads on the roster. We only have 13 commits in this class. 5 are RHP. There is just not much room there to take a maybe RHP - especially if you are looking to fill holes with the portal.

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Originally Posted by StarkVegasSteve

I don't really know how one correlates with the other in your comparison. I think we've recruited fine. We've missed on some, but you have to wonder with what we've seen from Parker if the misses were more on Foxhall than the players. We've hit on a bunch of portal pieces. I'll agree with you on the outfield, but that's not a new thing. It's been like that for a very long time. I think the culture is more prevalent now but that culture has always existed out there.

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Recruiting "fine" is the problem. We are getting lapped on the evaluation side of things for depth especially and seemingly just taking what we can get on some takes and hoping for the best outcome.

We've hit on a few and lost a few to the draft but that's part of it for everyone.

And then they don't develop really. Parker has developed arms this year so I'll acknowledge that.

This offseason will be a major turning point for Lemonis. He could win a lot of people back (including myself) or he could lose big time. Starting with the offensive side of things. He seems to have the pitching side of things fixed as long as he can hang on to Parker.

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Originally Posted by StarkVegasSteve

So CC, with a kid like the one mentioned in OP, what is the reasoning behind not getting in contact with him? Is it an evaluation thing? Not playing travel ball in the right places? Or do you think it's something else?

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I'm not sure that he played much travel ball. Also unsure if he went to camp. I don't think we would have offered him anyway to be honest. Now 5-10 years ago we probably offer him and I don't want to trash the kid because I do think he is a good player and I think we may get him in the portal down the road.

I think his path to Starkville is through the portal.

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Originally Posted by Commercecomet24

This, look at the '25 class. We have 4 of the top 5 players in the state coming in next years class. As Homedawg said, this is a down year. One kid who i saw play a lot last week that's in this years class is Topher Jones. Ball jumps off the kids bat and he's a slick fielder with a good arm and can run. Also the kid has a great attitude and work ethic.

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Some of them are in your neck of the woods. Landon Harmon is probably the best IMO. I think he could be a SEC ace. The Parker twins look good and Miller from Oak Grove I like a lot. His Dad played pro baseball. Not sure if Tanner Beliveau is a pitcher or not but my guess is that's what he will do in college.

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Originally Posted by StarkVegasSteve

I don't really know how one correlates with the other in your comparison. I think we've recruited fine. We've missed on some, but you have to wonder with what we've seen from Parker if the misses were more on Foxhall than the players. We've hit on a bunch of portal pieces. I'll agree with you on the outfield, but that's not a new thing. It's been like that for a very long time. I think the culture is more prevalent now but that culture has always existed out there.

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Our lineup doesn't scare a damn soul. Our leadoff was a walk on. We hit on HugeSack. We've got two bats in our order around or below .200. But go look at the previous classes and how many aren't even here anymore. We recruited poorly. It's going to show up big next year. Parker can hold things together but the rest is a big ole nothing. The portal has to be elite if everybody goes that's rumored to be going.

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Originally Posted by StateDawg44

Recruiting "fine" is the problem. We are getting lapped on the evaluation side of things for depth especially and seemingly just taking what we can get on some takes and hoping for the best outcome.

We've hit on a few and lost a few to the draft but that's part of it for everyone.

And then they don't develop really. Parker has developed arms this year so I'll acknowledge that.

This offseason will be a major turning point for Lemonis. He could win a lot of people back (including myself) or he could lose big time. Starting with the offensive side of things. He seems to have the pitching side of things fixed as long as he can hang on to Parker.

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Lemonis blamed injuries for our early season OOC losses which cost us a regional hosting spot. It bothers me that our lack of SEC talent and our lack of depth caused us to be unable to win these mid-week games. You would think/hope our subs are better than Quad 4 teams that we scheduled and couldn't beat at our place. Keep in mind, these teams come in with nothing to lose and an opportunity to play in "The Dude", a maybe once in a lifetime event in their baseball career. You better have our team ready. A win by these OOC teams is something they will never forget and tell their grandchildren about. After the results of the two seasons after our NC, I doubt many teams feared playing us at all, many probably looked forward to the trip.