2023 college baseball/softball thread

You mean Vanderbilt?

 

Coastal Carolina is still a good baseball program, but it also has made significant investments in moving to FBS football since their CWS title back in 2016. I think it thinks of itself as much as a football school as a baseball one. That probably wasn't the case when it was in the Big South.

 

As I understand it, no.

 

What I can find:

"The first two years are freebies. You can complete two years of academic study and leave the (USMA) Academy and owe nothing. Generally with enough credits that you only need one more year at a traditional college to graduate with a BS.

Once you begin classes in your 2° (junior) year, you incur an Active Duty Service Commitment (ADSC). Depending on how long you continue before you leave will determine how much time (and in what grade) you will be required to repay. As I understand it, there is an option to repay that time not in service but in dollars as well."

What happens if you flunk out of a military academy (West Point, Annapolis, Air Force Academy)? Do you you have to repay tuition? - Quora

 

All the things I've read and heard about Skenes are, he is a wonderful person. He left Air Force with the coach's blessing, and the coach showed up in Omaha to support him. Everything about his military requirements are above board. He promises that when his baseball career is over, he will enlist in the military and serve, to honor family members who were in the Navy. And he was the one who put the injured catcher on his back and carried him out to the on-field celebration after LSU won.

Last week, I was skeptical, too. Whenever someone comes along who "experts" say is the best-ever, blah blah blah, I hope they get their ass handed to them. Skenes did everything that was expected of him. We'll see what happens next. But, remember, there were people on here who thought Shohei should have started his career in the minors.

 

If he has the kind of career the draft experts think, he won't need to enter the military until his late 30s. (And may be contractually prohibited from it because of the risk.) At that point, are there any physical jobs for which he could enlist? How does that work?

 

He doesn't need to enter at all. He left Air Force before it became compulsory.

 

Here's what I'm getting at: Schools outside the power structure. No big revenue from any other athletics program, no conference TV cash to speak of. So I'm excluding Florida State, Miami and South Carolina from the definition of outsiders. I'm including Louisville and TCU from their days as Group of 5 members as outsiders, but I could be persuaded to amend.
* Oral Roberts is the first outsider to make it to Omaha since Cal State Fullerton in 2017. The other 39 appearances from 2018-23 were made by teams with football cash backing them up.
* One or more outsiders made it to the College World Series in 34 of the 38 years from 1980-2017. In the five CWS held since, only this year's Oral Roberts team qualified.
I'm working on EADA data now to see if I can actually prove my point about finances.

 

Correct. I was referring to the fact that he has said he'll enlist voluntarily in the military after his playing days are over.

 

I think you can include Michigan in your list of Omaha underdogs. I know Blue prints money but recruiting to a northern school for baseball is so difficult that it erases any financial advantages, as evidenced by the fact they haven’t even hosted a regional since that 2019 run. Oregon State is more baseball-centric but operates under the same handicap with a fraction of the overall athletic budget.

 

Yeah, I know, I was just goofing around. But considering the perennial sad state of Vandy FB, and the current sad state of basketball ...

 

Very true that OSU's baseball budget is a smaller part of the overall budget (which is smaller compared to an SEC budget), but it doesn't scrimp. Gonna start work on a $7 M hitting facility in CF when the local summer-league team's season ends.

It has a well-funded booster group, several years ago they needed to raise $75K to refurbish part of the stadium and they doubled that in about a week. Pat Casey really connected with the fan base. Ellsbury donated $1 million for the locker room about five years ago, Darwin Barney gave a chunk to fancy up the in-game alumni room and there certainly are hopes Rutschman, Conforto, Rasmussen, Madrigal, Boyd, Larnach et all will pony up some for future improvements.

But boosters can't do anything about the weather, that's for darn sure. The past two seasons have been miserable.