At the Letters: What college baseball needs

College baseball needs many changes and we wrote about them last week.

Now it’s the readers’ turn to give their thoughts and suggestions in addition to asking questions to yours truly.

To ask a question for next week’s feature, email Kendall Rogers.

As always, I defend your letters in the italics that follow.

I agree with all of your proposals and I agree that the schedule for 2010 will be an improvement for team scheduling. However, I cannot agree with your proposal for wooden bats. The cost for a school to support an Omaha-class team is already beyond what most schools can provide.
Glenn
Houston

Sure, the current recession and the costs associated with running a baseball program are high. But wooden bats likely wouldn’t put an additional financial strain on programs if done right. For instance, many programs currently don’t pay for aluminum bats through contracts with Louisville Slugger, DeMarini and other bat companies. Wooden bats would be provided in much of the same way. And for those programs that can’t afford them because they don’t have rock-solid bat contracts, work with Major League Baseball to subsidize a wooden bat program. It wouldn’t be that difficult. It’s just a matter of doing it.

I agree with everything except the All-Star Game and the MLB draft. The timing is difficult for MLB and its minor league teams.
Danny
Chicago

Honestly, when it comes to the All-Star Game issue, who really cares if the MLB organizations don’t like it. I’m sick and tired of college baseball worrying so much what MLB thinks. It’s time the NCAA put the All-Star Game in play. If some players don’t want to play in it, so be it. But have the game during the College World Series. As for the draft, it’s out of the NCAA’s hands. However, a source told me that sweeping changes could be coming in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement for the big leagues. There’s a decent chance some dates with the draft will be changed.

As a former Division 1 baseball player I have to ask, shouldn’t college baseball coaches be held to higher ethical standards when getting recruits to sign with their school? Unlike other major sports (football, basketball) scholarship offers can be revoked from year-to-year and rosters are filled with non-scholarship and walk-on players who can be cut at a moments notice, often at the end of the fall when making it on to another team is difficult.
Ryan
Anaheim, Calif.

With the new APR and other academic rules in place, the days of running 10-15 players off at the end of fall workouts are over. I’m not going to name any names, but there are at least three programs in major conferences that would engage in this practice. They’d bring in 45 players in the fall, then cut 15 of those guys to make room for the roster. This is yet another reason why we have the new roster limits. As for the ethical standards, there are plenty of coaches that took advantage of the one-time transfer rule in the old days. However, I still believe the transfer rule should be brought back in some shape or form. Again, there will come a day when a student-athlete will sue someone for giving them financial hardships. That is the day the current transfer rule will come to an end. I’m kind of in the middle ground on this issue.

Kendall, one thing you didn’t discuss in your article on NCAA Baseball is stopping MLB from drafting baseball players straight out of high school. This is nothing short of criminal. A potentially good player out of high school with great college potential is waved a $100,000 or more and signs with a pro team, only to be assigned to a single or double A “farm team” that pays “peanuts”. After his signing bonus is spent, if he is not good enough to make it to the pros in a few years, he’s cut. Nothing to look forward to, no education and can’t go back to college. We all know well that less than 1% actually make it to the big leagues.
Pete
LaPlace, La.

OK, Pete, I’m for stud baseball players going to college more than anyone else, but I’m not going to fight the idea of actually having an MLB draft with the ability to draft high school players. There was a day when the NBA could sign players out of high school. Those days are over. Will the same come to baseball at some point? No. You see, the MLB organizations must fill rosters for their lower level minor league teams. Also, the draft has been this way for a while, so I doubt any major changes will be coming soon. As for players signing with a pro team out of high school, it’s pretty simple for me. Unless I was given a signing bonus of around $700,000 or better, I’d choose to go to college for three years and take my chances. I can certainly see why a kid would sign for more than $700,000. That’s a lot of money. There are instances such as the story of former Arkansas signee Kyle Hancock, who signed with the Rockies for $460,000 and decided soon after that he didn’t want to play Minor League Baseball. He wanted to go back to UA, but the NCAA said no way. Perhaps there should be a rule in place that gives a high school player a “grace period”, with the ability to decide to go to college at the end of the summer.

My son plays college baseball and I couldn’t agree more with your suggestions. Especially the rule that a transfer must sit out a year. A kid who is a walk on and can get money from another school still has to sit out a year? How does that protect the kids?
Scott
Cincinnati

Scott, I personally don’t care if the player is a walk on or a player receiving 50 percent of a scholarship. If he has better scholarship and academic aid potential at another college, it’s his right, at least in my eyes, to be able to transfer schools. The coaches may not like this, but it’s the only way to increase scholarships in college baseball sooner rather than later. Having the transfer rule back in place would force the NCAA to eventually increase scholarships. The NCAA really is a strange organization. On one hand, the kind folks at the NCAA establish rules to protect student athletes. But in the same breath, the NCAA will turn around and establish a transfer rule that only hurts many student-athletes. It’s simply mind-boggling to me.

I would add one more item to your list. In addition to the changes you mentioned, an increase in coaching staffs also is needed. To only have two full-time assistants compared to football staffs or basketball staffs in Division I is terrible. Athletic Directors and Presidents need to consider increasing staff sizes.
Kyle
Richardson, Texas

Kyle, I agree with you that college baseball coaching staffs should have at least one or two more full-time positions. But again, this will only come when the sport becomes a much bigger deal on the national stage. College baseball continues to grow both in attendance and in the financial aspect of things. However, there’s still a ways to go. As the sport increases in popularity, the number of coaches on a staff could increase. Think about it like the scholarship situation, though. There are many programs that are able to afford extra coaches. However, there are some programs that may not have the money to hire additional assistants. It’s certainly a tough debate. I’m with you, though.

I do like the idea of an All-Star Game, but why would you have it the day before the College World Series? Coaches would not want their players playing in an All-Star Game and getting hurt the day before the world series; do it after. Also, the draft being the way it is now decreases distractions with players. They already know their futures before they play the biggest games of their lives, so that is one less thing they have to worry about. It’d be much more stressful if players are not only on a stage that big but are also playing to get drafted.
Erick
Indiana

Erick, having an All-Star Game to begin the College World Series seems like a great way to start the event as far as I’m concerned. But I also would be open to having the game between the regular part of the CWS and the CWS Championship Series. Obviously if this was the scenario, players on teams in the three-game title series wouldn’t be able to compete in the game. However, players from the other six teams would. One thing to remember, though, is the fact that many players already will be playing professional baseball. If you have the All-Star Game at the beginning of the CWS, perhaps those players can put off their professional responsibilities for a couple weeks. As for the timing of the MLB draft, I disagree. I believe that when players get drafted high, they let their guard down a bit. North Carolina’s Dustin Ackley was an exception last season, but I remember Nebraska’s Alex Gordon looking like a different player in Omaha a few seasons ago.

The problem is that all of your suggestions make entirely too much sense. We know that’s not the way the NCAA operates. If as ostriches, they stick their collective heads in the sand regarding a football playoff, why in heaven’s name would they even consider your good ideas? Getting MLB to provide wood bats is the way to go - they can afford it, their interest in the college ranks as more of a farm system would increase even more, and using wood bats in itself would speed up the game.
Brian
Austin, Texas

Brian, this is the chief reason I believe wooden bats would work. Major League Baseball would have a vested interest in using college baseball as more of an evaluation period. For now, many professional organizations have no clue what they’re getting when a batter has spent three years against aluminum bats and some pitchers only have pitched against aluminum bats. You’re also right that it would speed up the game. As for the NCAA, I’ll let you know if they call me and ask me to assume a leadership position.

I agree having an All-Star game would be great but I would push to have it on the off day before the championship series starts. This would allow players from teams that have been eliminated in Omaha to still participate. What do you think?
Jorge
Rock Island, Ill.

Jorge, I’d prefer to have the All-Star Game before the CWS begins, but I think you and other e-mailers have also brought some great points to the discussion. I think having the game before or in the middle of the CWS is a great idea. Either way, let’s make it happen.

I would add that another big problem is the NCAA needs to put pressure on MLB to make the date much earlier on signing contracts with players drafted out of high school.
Donald
Huntsville, Ala.

Donald, you may get your wish sooner rather than later. Sources have told me that the new CBA may include a much earlier signing deadline. Currently you have the ability to sign in the middle of August, which basically screws over college coaches. Moving the signing deadline up to July 1 certainly is the best-case scenario. And it could happen.

By requiring another school to top the current schools financial package are you not in essence opening up the recruiting trail again for schools? What keeps the wealthy schools from going out and cherry picking the gems from those schools that are less fortunate from a financial perspective?
John
Roseville, Calif.

John, I completely see what you’re saying, but the current rule isn’t for the well being of the student-athlete at all. Let’s say there’s a player at Northern Illinois and is on 25 percent of a scholarship. He finds out that Michigan needs a player at his position and word is that it is willing to throw 50 percent of a scholarship at someone. It makes financial sense, until college baseball becomes full scholarship, for the player to transfer to Michigan. Perhaps it seems a little shady to move on, but it’s a financial decision. Let’s think about it like this. How many college coaches would turn down $600,000 a year to coach at Texas to stay at Cal Poly and make $175,000 a year? The answer to that question is simple. None. The same rule should apply to the student-athletes.