nereus said:
I agree that the better prospects aren't planning on playing 6 years of college baseball anyways, so you will still see them play D1 (especially with NIL as an extra incentive).
But, there are only x number of roster slots in all of college baseball. If some players are playing an extra 2 years, that takes spots from someone else.
Due to COVID, we increased the roster sizes due to having players hang around longer. Now, we are shrinking the roster sizes to slightly below their pre-COVID numbers. Adding two years of eligibility for a subset of players will take spots from others if this stands.
But if the 5th/6th year guys are better than the fish, then we're really not seeing a decline of talent in D1 baseball.....we're just going to see the non-blue chip talent developed at the JUCO level and coming out of there rather than from HS - more guys the caliber of Ali, Nutty, Ashenbeck, etc. can transfer in and contribute more quickly. But yes, this will affect the high school recruits - as will the continued rise in NIL keeping mid-round draft picks on campus
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