I know that I heard we had the nation's #1 class this past recruiting season. When do these players come on the team? Are they playing in 2009, or are they already on the team? Forgive my ignorance on the timing of baseball recruiting.
You recruit them, sign them, hope they're good enough to be drafted, then cross your fingers and hope they decide to play college ball. It's difficult to rank the top classes until the draft occurs and you find out which kids take the money and run. LSU was a victim of their own success for several years and I'm not sure if Smoke understood that. With so many potential recruits across the U.S. and Canada, it's almost impossible to scout out every kid. MLB teams put a lot of stock in some of the top college coaches and Skip was toward the top of that list. LSU would recruit a kid that should've been around a 15th round pick but some team would take him in the 10th figuring if Skip wants him, he must be special. Sometimes that was just high enough for the kid to skip college. This year's class was not only deep but we lost very few players so this probably was the #1 class in the country. If not, it has to be in the top few. I'm just amazed how a 18-19 year old can be so good and how they can maintain their focus against quality opponents. We're very fortunate because we've got some good ones! :thumb:
and with baseball, you get I believe 11.7 scholarships. So you have to be real creative mixing and matching those among several players. Mainieri and Rooney have done a great job signing "LSU-able" players. Smoke always had pretty classes, but 50% of them were filled with guys that everyone knew would never play college ball. This offseason will be a real tough one. the team is losing only 3 guys to graduation, but a lot of the fan favorites like Pontiff, etc... may not be able to make the team next year and may have to move on to make room for the new players signed. Because with Mainieri's sharp recruiting savvy, the talent train is going to continue to roll through Baton Rouge.
Good posts and observations, never thought about the Skip situation before but I'd not be surprised if it were true that players were drafted a little higher because of the repsect they had for Skip's talent evaluation. I'll add one more thing that about the Kid's Smoke signed, Turtle Thomas in fact accepted a lot of the blame for the number of kids that never showed up on our campus, he just didn't do enough homework on the expected draft positions of some of those players and what it would take for the kids to sign with a major league team. We got killed by MLB baseball because of that.
Sorry to piggyback on the thread, but a couple of questions myself. Do they have to be in school a certain amount of time before they can be drafted again, or can they enter each year? If people are forced off the roster, will the transfer? I guess there isn't much choice. I guess with that few scholarships, there aren't many red/greyshirts? I had no idea we had so many contributing from the last class. Great time to be an LSU fan! :tigbas: *edit* More that came to me! Clair, besides Pontiff, who else do you think will get bumped? In the now infamous "How hot is PM's seat" thread they had talked about PM sometimes throwing people under the bus. Has he improved in this aspect (He seems to have addressed all the other concerns in that thread), and if not, how has/is that affecting recruiting? I know that classes are very tough to rank, but are there any sites that can give us an idea of how we are doing in comparison to people around the country?
I think it goes something like this. If you are Smoke you: Recruit great kid Offer kid schollie Watch kid get drafted Watch kid go pro Sign less talented kid If you are Paul you: Recruit great kid Offer kid schollie Watch kid get drafted Watch kid come to LSU Sign the kid you wanted By far the biggest difference I have noticed.
I'll try to help with a couple of the questions: Once a player enrolls in a four year school he cannot be drafted again until he is 3 years removed from high school. So if he does not sign with a club right out of school but wants to remain eligible for the draft then he would have to enter a 2 year school. He can be drafted the following year if he does that. They aren't greyshirts like we see in football since the kids aren't usually depending on a baseball scholarship to pay their way, and since baseball is in the spring semester they'd have to sit out an entire year of school. The 11.7 scholarships are divided up amongst many kids and many of the instate players are on TOPS and only get a food stipend form the baseball program. The kids who are told they aren't likely to get much playing time the following season usually transfer if they want to play college ball. They can stay and try to compete if they choose but likely will not get any financial help from the program. Some might not be getting much anyway and would rather stay at LSU instead of heading to another school. Most of the 11.7 scholarship money goes to out of state players who are not eligible for TOPS unless an instate players is really coveted by the coaches and isn't eligible for TOPS. I have 3 friends who have had sons play baseball at LSU and the out of state kid received the equivalent of a half scholarship, the in-state guys basically received just meal money from the program but both were on TOPS.
