A pair of California '09 players commit to Pac-10 schools!

Congratulations to these young men!

Congratulations to Jimmy and Andrew!! My son has played with and against both players and we couldn't be happier to see both of these young men get rewarded with a Pac-10 scholarship!

It's great to see some more Sacramento Area players going to the Pac-10!!!

See you both in the Delta River League!!!

How do 09' players commit at this time when they do not even know what kind of offer they will receive? They can't officially be offered anything until July 1 of 08' I believe. I think it is great that these young men are set on where they want to go to school but what kind of conversations between coach and player happen other than "we would like you to be a part of our program" ?

DE Dad, there is nothing prohibiting a team from making a verbal offer this early, and nothing preventing the player from giving his handshake in acceptance.

Nothing is official or enforceable until they sign their NLI's next November (2008), so things can change. But that is very rare. Usually the NLI's are merely the formal confirmations of deals struck long before.

There are more restrictions on communications prior to next July 1 than after, but there are still lots of ways to communicate prior to July 1, also. Baseball is going the way of basketball and other sports in the sense that deals are being struck earlier and earlier these days. You can debate whether that's a good thing or not (and lots of threads on this site have hashed through that debate), but there's no denying that it's happening.

Just FYI, even prior to next July 1, a current 2009 player can communicate with coaches as follows:

1. He can call them (though they cannot call back if he leaves a message), and if he gets them on the phone, they can talk to their hearts' content.

2. He can e-mail with them, and they with him, to their mutual hearts' content.

3. If a player goes to their campus (and absorbs the travel expenses himself), when he's standing on their soil they can talk to each other to their hearts' content. This includes camps, "unofficial" visits, etc.

Any or all of the above can, and many times do, involve discussions of the terms of an offer.

DD,
Midlo Dad is correct.

Also, this essentially lets the other schools know they are technically off the market.

I don't agree with it at all, too many things happen in a two year period (ome year until signing), situations change coaching changes, programs change.

To each their own.

Not to mention the title of this thread is... 2008 Signees.

MD,

Thanks for the information, this is very helpful. You too TPM.

First, I apologize for noting the significance of two '09s committing to major Pac-10 schools on the "08 Signees" forum. I would have noted it on the 09 Signees Forum, but one doesn't yet exist!

I'm not particularly a fan of kids committing this early myself, but it is undeniably the trend for the top level prospects. Max Stassi of Yuba City high school might have been the 1st '09 in the country to commit, when he verballed to UCLA. These two student-athletes, who happen to be pretty similarly talented, are part of a very small pool of the top '09 baseball talent in the country, and I felt it was significant enough to note their commitments a year earlier than most top recruits get offers. In the case of these two boys, I do believe it's the right thing to do. Both were getting tons of recruiting mail already, and now they just have to concentrate on doing well in class and scoring high on their SATs. Both boys are taking special SAT tutoring to ensure that they maximize the opportunity before them, and they already do very well in the classroom. What I've seen with these two is that their opportunities have given them additional motivation to excel and they're working harder than ever, both in the classroom and on the field. I don't see anything bad about that, at all.

Both boys are going to what are pretty much their dream schools, and how can anyone feel bad about having an opportunity to be the 1st '09 to commit to the school you'd love to attend and play for, especially when they happen to be the two-time defending national champs?

06Catcherdad,

I pretty much agree with you. I think TPM is right that there are pitfalls to committing early. But I also think that lots of kids are capable of simply starting the process sooner and getting to the decision point sooner as a result.

I would not suggest someone should commit early just to brag about how early they were. That's indulging immaturity.

But if you've done your homework, you know this is where you want to be, and the offer is right, I say, go for it! On top of everything else, if the school is ready to move, you might want to get yourself ready also. Opportunity, as they say, doesn't always knock twice. The school may move on to others if you take too long, because they don't want to end up missing the boat on others only to find out you may choose somewhere else in the end.

My understanding is that the very very early commitment (a year before they can sign) becomes more of a commitment on the players part. The player has almost a year and a half until acceptance and he has to live up to his part of the commitment, which is being able to get good grades and test scores for admission. Actually, the school has very little to lose as they do not have to offer teh letter when teh time comes, if they feel that the player might not be a good fit (grades, level of play). The junior academic year is very important, so I agree that now all the player has to do is concentrate on school and put all of the recruiting business aside.

We were discussing a player last night in chat, who committed a year early and then suddenly a few months ago had to go looking for a new school and a new place to play. Not sure what happened, but obviously the right fit changed over the course of a year.
I am just wondering if my son had commited to his dream school fall of junior year, and becoming one year older and wiser, would he have been as happy as he was at where he attended.
I also do agree, that there are many players who have not received commitments for '08 and seeing and hearing of 09's committing causes one to wonder, where they went wrong and if there son is not good enough to have received a committment for next fall. But I do not think that was the intention.
Best of luck to all.

TPM, I think one thing about any '09s committing a year early while many '08s haven't yet been offered is simply that the '09s who're being given the opportunity to commit a year early are the very best of the best players out there. All across the country, the number of players who get the chance to commit a year early and who do so, is a very small pool of players.

When the very top players from a given graduation year play in the "right" summer tournaments and also have the benefit of playing on a quality high school team, they tend to get noticed way ahead of other players from their class, or even the classes ahead of them. I know that some people won't agree with me, but playing in the Jr. Olympics, the Perfect Game/WWBA tournaments at East Cobb, the Area Code Games, Summer Series, Sunbelt Classic, Connie Mack World Series, Jupiter, etc. etc. all go a long ways toward playing in front of the people who make decisions about who is going to get scholarship offers and those who aren't. When a kid who plays on our teams gets recruited by schools in the SEC, ACC or soutwest or other regions of the country, it's no mystery to me where these coaches saw the kids perform to know what type of player they are. Many travel teams play a major portion of their schedule in venues a long way from home, in front of large numbers of college coaches. The players on those teams tend to be the ones who all the top coaches know about early.

06,
I understand your reasoning. Please understand that I also had a player who was on the radar very early and attended most of the venues that you have posted. I know that things have changed in recruiting. Back in 2003, early commitment was committing July 1 of your senior year. Although asked to commit on several occassions in the month of July, it was not until late september when son made up his mind. I am giving my honest opinion that was the best choice for him and could have made a huge mistake if he committed to his dream school.

A player that I know, in our county, broke all records as a sophmore in HS in the state. He was very well known throughout the country. He had more early offers than he knew what to do with, and chose to go to a top 10 program in the country. At the time he turned down the #1 program in the country. But by the time he had stepped foot on campus he had already peaked, there were now players much better than him, he lost his scholarship and transfered two more times after that looking for the right fit. You can't do that anymore. I think he jumped the gun so early he really didn't fit between the time he committed and stepping foot on campus.

Not that this will happen to the players you mentioned, but just an example of many I know where things change.

As far as top prospects committing early, many I know have just recently made commitments. Because of their status, they actually had the luxury of taking their time to make the decision.

We're in agreement that this can often be a dangerous situation. I'm not a fan of colleges going after kids a year or two early, not at all. That said, it's the reality these days. I don't know how prevelent it is on the east coast, but out here on the left coast it is becoming too common for the good of the players and colleges, IMO. The situation is caused by a few schools that wanted to tie up some of the top talent early in order to get them committed; and now other schools, despite the fact that they'd rather not do this, feel compelled to go after some of the top underclassmen in order to keep up, or just to have a chance at those players. This is one of the few cases where more strict rules could possibly be beneficial, but I'd hate to see the NCAA do anything, because chances are they'd screw it up worse than it already is.

I also think that this trend toward earlier recruiting is going to lead to more kids withdrawing their verbals over time and commiting to other schools, realizing that they weren't ready to make a decision as early as they did. Perhaps, the schools will become less respectful of commitments and start acting more like football and basketball programs, trying to persuade kids to change their mind after they've announced where they'll be going. I don't think any of this is good if it happens, but is likely if something doesn't change.

As for 2008's being frustrated that they still aren't getting commitments while 2009's are, a few points.

First of all, programs view each recruiting year as a separate thing. They do their best to project how much money they'll have available in each recruiting class and they try to put that money to use as best they can, class by class. So, 2009's aren't taking 2008's slots at all. I can understand how a kid might see the 2009's getting deals and feel slighted, but that's misdirected frustration.

Secondly, the new NCAA roster limit rule is affecting the 2008's substantially. Some teams know they have to reduce their roster sizes, so they have a limited number of slots available in the 2008 class unless they want to cut more upperclassmen. There may be some lingering effect of this for the 2009 class but probably not; it will surely have passed by the time the 2010's come around starting next summer (!).

It makes me glad we got our 2008's deal done early, because the roster cap rule's implementation over the summer has left a lot of our classmates quite frustrated. First the teams held off on making offers (July-August) until the dust cleared on what the NCAA was going to do, and then when the dust did clear in late summer, it turned out the new rules were not good news for 2008's.

Are the early offers coming from less than top academic schools? The reason I ask is by the time someone has entered their senior year you have a good track record to base their potential acceptance on, but how can you do this effectively for someone just starting their junior year? I wouldn't think an offer would be forthcoming from a top academic school until they knew that player is academically qualified which takes more time to review their record fully.

My son played with an 18U team this weekend for which both starting middle infielders have verballed to UF. (normally 2B plays for the 16U team, but they were missing some players and needed some bench help). One is a sophomore and one is a junior. Granted, UF isn't Emory, but it's no slouch academically. I kind of like that the new UF coach is going right after the local talent. These guys were awesome - one is a defensive wizard, the other a hitting beast.

quote:

Originally posted by 2Bmom:
I kind of like that the new UF coach is going right after the local talent. These guys were awesome - one is a defensive wizard, the other a hitting beast.

Kevin O'Sullivan knows every player in the state of Florida, he recruited some of the best players from here away from UF, that's why he got the job. What the former UF recruiter couldn't convince to sign, he did. I can atest to that fact.

I know that KO has had some early commitments when he was at Clemson, but I am sure they were stipulations (grades, progress). It's good for business right now, letting everyone know that Florida players are welcome at UF.

Guess that you don't find him so bad afterall?