@Francis7 posted:That said, I think the tweet is implying that you will probably not sit at many JUCO schools if you had enough talent to get 35% at a D1.
It also implies that the player made a bad decision to go to the D1 that offered him 35%, which I disagree with in most cases. If a D1 awards you a 35% scholarship, they feel pretty good about your chance of success. It would be pretty unlikely for a kid to get that offer and think... I really don't think I'm good enough to get playing time there even though the coach likes me. Unless it's the type of program where freshmen routinely don't get playing time, and you should understand that going into it.
The answer to the original question is pretty simple. Why the transfer portal "explosion"? For one thing, the portal has only been in existence for baseball since 2019, so calling the increase an explosion is kind of silly. The general public doesn't even have access to the numbers, so how do we know how much it's grown? But we do know there are hundreds if not thousands of baseball players in the portal. Are there more kids attempting to transfer now than pre-portal? Undoubtable, yes.
The Covid extra year(s) + the new one-time transfer rule are probably the primary reasons for that increase. The portal itself is probably responsible for some of the increase. Some kids probably think that they'll just enter the portal and get picked up by another team, whereas previously they wouldn't have left as quickly.