College Roster Question

@Francis7 posted:

I may have some of this screwed up because I am getting some of the information 3rd hand.

There was a kid. Let's call him Eric Bazooka, which is not his real name. He was a 2023 HS grad and kind of a local big deal. Committed to go D1. I hadn't thought about him in a while but I recently thought of him, randomly, and wondered how he was doing. But, I didn't see him on the D1 roster.

So, I asked a friend who knew of him better. And, this is what the friend said:

He went to the D1 in the fall of 2023 and it didn't go well. So, he transferred to a Juco for the Spring 2024.

He played like 3 games at the Juco at the start of the season last year and then decided he was done. He quit the team and dropped out of school.

Now, this is the strange part. My friend then said "And, then, the coach dropped him from the roster."

I asked what does that mean? How do you drop a player from the roster AFTER the season has started and AFTER the kid has played in some games?

My friend said: "He was wiped from the roster online on the school website. He's just gone, like he never existed. If you go to the stats page, his stats are there with no name, just a uniform number. If you go to the individual box scores on the site, from that season, you can see his name. But, that's the only way you can find him. If you look at the roster and stats from 2024, there's no mention of him whatsoever. And, I know he was on the website roster when the season started. The story I heard was that 'the coach dropped him from the roster' when he said he was quitting."

FWIW, I looked after he told me this and he was right. Every he described was true in terms of the online roster, team stats and box scores.

My question now is: Why would a coach do this? It's not like he can pick up another player in-season and replace him. And, it's obvious the kid was there and played, if you knew and looked at the boxscores.

Is this to try and preserve his eligibility? Or, something else? Maybe the coach doesn't want to confuse opponents in-season that someone is on the roster that's not physically there? Or, is it a petty retaliation move because the kid quit?

I have never heard of someone being "dropped from the roster" after a season has started and he actually played in a game. Is this an actual thing?

It is a common practice,  school websites are not required to list keep inactive players on the roster page.

I'm not going to get in the weeds of how data should be governed.

Remember game stats are governed by the overall organization, thus NCAA, NAIA, NJCAA, etc have the real numbers and controls

From a data goverance perspective, CBI will be more accurate than school's website.

@Francis7

CBI is more than likely correct but almost all impact programs keep past rosters available on a pdf file.

@TPM posted:

@Francis7

CBI is more than likely correct but almost all impact programs keep past rosters available on a pdf file.

@TPM it will depend on what the school determines is there official roster and if the pdf is available for the public.

Normally the pdf is a snapshot taken at the beginning of the year.  If they perform the same task at the end of the season (using their website as the source), they will still have the same issue of not listing all players.

Note, we became aware of this issue in 2016 when Coastal Carolina won the CWS.  Start of season they had 35 players, at the end of season (29).

1 player played against my son in HS, the other played at a JUCO with him in 2017.  Found out he had TJ Surgery, thus he was removed from the website roster.

Currently as we are reconciling 2025 season, we've already found players that were removed from rosters since the beginning of the season for all levels.

Data governance has always been the issue.

CBI, as mentioned, it depends on how much of an impact the program has in college baseball and college sports in general.

Done here.

I've seen stats with no name, just a number, on old stat/roster pages.  You can usually pick through the box scores for each game and figure out who they were (or else news reports with box scores).

@TPM posted:

CBI, as mentioned, it depends on how much of an impact the program has in college baseball and college sports in general.

Done here.

@tpm unfortunately your statement didn't mention overall impact it has in college baseball, thus maybe it was implied.

Note, as you are aware from a student athlete/family perspective, in order to make certain decisions concerning right fit and $$$ , information is required.

Note, this goes beyond the official spring roster, ie the publishing of fall rosters, etc.

Do you trust the coach word on his roster management approach, how can you verify?

It is about transparency,  IMHO @Francis7 is referring to this.

@anotherparent posted:

I've seen stats with no name, just a number, on old stat/roster pages.  You can usually pick through the box scores for each game and figure out who they were (or else news reports with box scores).

@anotherparent you can,

Note when a family is researching schools, Box scores will not have the following certain top level information.

Level 1 research is mostly the following, then you quickly  move on

How many players have been on the roster?

Where are players from?

What is there primary position?

What is the player attrition rate?

Is the player a transfer student (4 yr or juco)

Why did the player leave? did he transfer?

So, apparently THIS happens. But, the question remains WHY? What's the purpose and benefit of "dropping someone from the roster"?

When my son was cut from a P4 in the fall his name was on the roster for about 2-3 more days.  Then, poof....it was gone or you got a 404 error code.

The only way you'd know he was there is by his Baseball Cube profile.

@Master P posted:

When my son was cut from a P4 in the fall his name was on the roster for about 2-3 more days.  Then, poof....it was gone or you got a 404 error code.

The only way you'd know he was there is by his Baseball Cube profile.

That's actually common. And, I get it if a kid never appeared in a regular spring game. But, why wipe a kid who actually played for you?

Whenever I've seen this it's seemed to be player specific. Meaning it wasn't a consistent practice that the team/school followed but on a case by case basis.

Are there actual NCAA rules that govern what is on a schools website? I don't think there are. For the sake of transparency it would be nice.

Some schools list a fall roster with more than 40 players, and put bios for each player.  Then when they cut down to 40 for the spring season, they have to delete all the extras.

Some schools don't post a full roster with bios until the start of the spring season.

Personally I think that if they are one of those schools that cuts a lot of players, it would be better (i.e. not get hopes up) to do the latter.

@nycdad posted:

Whenever I've seen this it's seemed to be player specific. Meaning it wasn't a consistent practice that the team/school followed but on a case by case basis.

Retaliatory petty move then maybe?

@anotherparent posted:

Some schools list a fall roster with more than 40 players, and put bios for each player.  Then when they cut down to 40 for the spring season, they have to delete all the extras.

Some schools don't post a full roster with bios until the start of the spring season.

Personally I think that if they are one of those schools that cuts a lot of players, it would be better (i.e. not get hopes up) to do the latter.

Some schools don't care, and have a roster of 50 some players in the spring.  NIL has changed everything.

@Francis7 posted:

Retaliatory petty move then maybe?

No idea. Not fair to the coaches or players to speculate IMO.

@Francis7 posted:

So, apparently THIS happens. But, the question remains WHY? What's the purpose and benefit of "dropping someone from the roster"?

Why do you think, there are different reasons. If it is that important, then just list them.

I would not spent too much time trying to get in the head of why information is managed a certain way.

Otherwise you will stay in the rabbit hole.

@Master P posted:

When my son was cut from a P4 in the fall his name was on the roster for about 2-3 more days.  Then, poof....it was gone or you got a 404 error code.

The only way you'd know he was there is by his Baseball Cube profile.

Baseball cube may or may not have his profile.

@anotherparent posted:

Some schools list a fall roster with more than 40 players, and put bios for each player.  Then when they cut down to 40 for the spring season, they have to delete all the extras.

Some schools don't post a full roster with bios until the start of the spring season.

Personally I think that if they are one of those schools that cuts a lot of players, it would be better (i.e. not get hopes up) to do the latter.

@anotherparent what you are alluding to is a different issue.

1 - fall roster (unofficial)  vs spring roster (official).

- Fall rosters are nice to have but not mandatory.  Note, many teams will not post their full fall roster.

2 - what @francis7 is alluding to is in-season changes to official spring roster.   adding is fine. physically deleting corrupts the system.

CBI accounts for this data management issue.

@Master P posted:

Some schools don't care, and have a roster of 50 some players in the spring.  NIL has changed everything.

@Master P  I don't know if there is a direct correlation between NIL and how SID manage content on their website.