I'm curious about the financial side of this shift. A 50% scholarship at LSU for an out of state kid still leaves him with a bill for almost $20K/year. A 50% scholarship at an in-state public university would cost the student about half of that in most cases. Every player's situation is probably unique, but the money must figure into the equation for most.
It's not that big a difference. 50% of Cal, UCLA etc still leaves $15k, so it's a $5k difference. Plus, there's only about 300 D1 scholarships in the state with 38M population so players have to cast a wide net and they look for and see what's out there. I can tell you that the amazing facilities and popularity of college baseball in the south east is attractive to kids. And, for whatever reason, traveling from California to the east coast doesn't seem nearly as far as it does for an east coast kid thinking about going to California.
I wasn't thinking so much about CA. I know the CA public universities are expensive, and academic scholarship money is extremely tight.
I was thinking more about schools like LSU and ULL drawing kids from Texas, Florida, Georgia, etc. In those cases, the money is pretty significant.