I hear you, and I agree - or should say, agreed with a lot of what you are saying. However, when a coach comes to a kid, after freshman year, and says, something to the effect of "Son, these guys playing in front of you, they aren't leaving for the draft, I have two juco studs coming in as well, and playing time is going to be hard to come by next year- you can stay if you want, but I think you need to go somewhere you can play every day"
for all intents and purposes, the kid is being cut- for baseball reasons. Why should he have to sit a year if there's a an opportunity out there?
don't misunderstand, I'm glad the coach was honest with him- this way he's not wasting his sophomore year. He's going to go the 4-2-4 route, and although not ideal, we will deal with it.
I just think it's a bad rule in this situation, the kid didn't decide to leave, the coach highly encouraged him to leave.