Baseball picked 7th in AAC preseason poll

[JTrue]

2 hours ago, NovaBull said:

I respect your opinion but humbly disagree. That is not how college kids think about baseball as the best kids usually go pro after high school, with other good players getting signed by either JUCOs (so you can get drafted every year) or 4-year schools. 

UT is unique in that within the Bay Area (Seminole High Warhawks baseball for the win) many scouts recommend that school over a USF, especially to JUCO transfers. So they get a ton of talent that’s already experienced.

As a guy who will speak from personal experience (with both myself and lots of guys I played with around the Bay Area), UT is a place you go to learn and go pro, whereas USF has never had that same reputation.

I don’t quite know why, but I will leave you with one final anecdote (since they always prove correct over the long term ;^D), but I was recruited by UF, UT, Clemson, UNC, LSU, SPC, HCC and some other out of state teams, but never once received even a sniff from USF - even though I was in Pinellas County. Out of all my other friends/teammates, let’s say about 30-40 guys who either went D1 or turned pro from the Bay Area, only 1 even went to USF.

My point is that USF (at that time, it may be different now) was lacking in assessing/landing talent in its own backyard and that just shouldn’t happen.

 

 

Not sure which part to respond to.

1) Of course the best players want to go pro, that has no bearing on USF or UT.

2) If scouts are "recommending UT over USF," they're not following through on drafting the players they speak with since the number of kids UT signs as freshman that eventually get drafted is about half of what USF does. (see #3 and #4).

3) UT total draft picks: 106 with 8 eventually making it to MLB - USF total draft picks 132 with 16 making it to MLB. 

If you and your friends thought UT was a better bet to get you drafted OR to the major leagues, you're statistically wrong.

4) As to my point about UT being able to scoop up transfers that USF could never afford to give scholarship money to since they'd sit on the bench for a year AND the kid probably didn't want to sit out either, I did a little digging and more than 1/3 of UT's draft picks the last 5-6 years have been D1 transfers.

5) I'll concede that I am not from Tampa, so most of what I said is about D1 vs. D2 in general.

*My footnote, since you threw in the personal anecdote...As someone who was a) drafted out of HS, b) played college baseball, c) coached a handful of minor and major league players, d) is still friends with 2 major league scouts, and e) is having breakfast with a current major leaguer from Tampa tomorrow morning...I'm very confident in the accuracy of my original post. 

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by JTrue

[Guest Jonesy Bull]

On 1/8/2020 at 5:21 PM, NovaBull said:

I’m not sure I’m following...UT is defending DII national champs and probably has more draft picks form their team than USF (have not verified this, but just a hunch). 

As a former college player myself back in the early 2000s (man I’m getting old) UT was ALWAYS better than USF and it was a known fact by scouts everywhere in the state that they’d certainly compete with the big three in Florida college baseball.

UT most likely would win more games than USF in say a 7 game series (which btw right now isnt any great accomplishment).  And they are mega successful in Div 2.

But lets not get crazy and say they can compete evenly with a FLA or FSU program.  Apples and Oranges. Thats flat out being silly.

[chapelbull]

3 hours ago, Jonesy Bull said:

UT most likely would win more games than USF in say a 7 game series

I highly doubt that

[Guest Jonesy Bull]

6 hours ago, chapelbull said:

I highly doubt that

I think last year they would cause we were pretty bad the 2nd half of the year.

Depending on if we improve this year, pretty likely.  Then I agree we should beat them in a series or it would at least be pretty evenly matched.

[CousinRicky]

1 hour ago, Jonesy Bull said:

I think last year they would cause we were pretty bad the 2nd half of the year.

Depending on if we improve this year, pretty likely.  Then I agree we should beat them in a series or it would at least be pretty evenly matched.

So you're saying we're just about as good as a DII school.  I'm feeling much better now.  

[chapelbull]

2 hours ago, Jonesy Bull said:

I think last year they would cause we were pretty bad the 2nd half of the year.

 

We struggled in our conference ... not in the Sunshine State Conference.   Anything is possible, but I doubt they would have taken 4 out of 7 from us

Edited January 10, 2020 by chapelbull

[Guest Jonesy Bull]

3 hours ago, CousinRicky said:

So you're saying we're just about as good as a DII school.  I'm feeling much better now.  

Well considering we didn't even make our own Conference Tournament - which means we weren't even the 8th best team in the conference....its not far from the truth.  But we aren't talking about just any Div II school either, the best in the Nation historically.

I would hope this year will be different and we show improvement, otherwise its bye bye Mohl.

[chapelbull]

It's like saying Bama could beat an average  ore even slightly below Pro team.  It ain't happening.  They are on a whole different level.  I'm going out on a limb and saying, no way that UT wins a best of 7 series with USF even last year with several pitchers injured and a fairly young team ... unless we are spreading the series out over 7 weeks so UT can throw their ace every week .... then maybe just maybe

[JTrue]

22 minutes ago, Jonesy Bull said:

Well considering we didn't even make our own Conference Tournament - which means we weren't even the 8th best team in the conference....its not far from the truth.  But we aren't talking about just any Div II school either, the best in the Nation historically.

I would hope this year will be different and we show improvement, otherwise its bye bye Mohl.

Technically, Florida Southern has that distinction if we're going the historical route. More D2 CWS appearances and more titles.

[Guest Jonesy Bull]

1 hour ago, JTrue said:

Technically, Florida Southern has that distinction if we're going the historical route. More D2 CWS appearances and more titles.

Really?  I thought UT was by far the King of Div 2 Baseball......I didn't know that, I'll take your word for it.