PABaseball posted:The only winners here are P5 schools who were already fully funded and can take on the additional costs to keep their corona seniors. They will likely have lights out pitching staffs and enough guys on the roster that the bottom half could have probably found a way into the top 50 RPI.
The best seniors we saw from the first 1/4 of the season will be back. I'm talking weekend starters, closers, everyday 1-9 guys. Or guys who really want to go to grad school (reasonable). The 20 AB guy who started on Sundays - gone. The middle reliever who had 7 innings through 16 games - gone.
I keep seeing celebration, but a lot of seniors who think they are coming back for one last ride will be told there's no money, that they're going to give the younger guy a chance, or that with the seniors coming back and basically no draft - there is a roster jam.
I know in our case (P5) probably 4 (of 9) exhausted eligibility guys would be welcome back. Do all four come back? Probably not, one is already 24. Maybe 2 sign for 20k and don't go to grad school. But the problem won't be finding a way to make a few extra guys on the roster work, it will be the fact that there is basically no draft this year and instead of 35 guys working for 22ish slots of field time there will be 48. There will be excessive amounts of transferring, PG years, Juco dropdowns, etc. College coaches meticulously recruit and budget down to the penny based on the notion that the draft is 40 rounds. MLB screwed the NCAA - no way around it. A lot of kids will not be able to go to college where they wanted because of the decision the MLB made.
Exactly what I meant when I said this is gonna be a disaster. Everybody is playing a big hand of poker, and no matter who you are you just got dealt a card that makes your odds of winning a whole lot worse.