Minor Leaguer playing dII ball?

NAIA allows an ex-professional to play in college.
1) The player loses a season of eligibility for each year in the pros.
2) He has to serve an academic year in residence after leaving professional ball before he is eligible to compete.

I'm not aware of a similar rule in NCAA, but there is a Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement which could in principle restore eligibility, assuming a sufficient rationale were provided.

Regarding fairness, I suspect there are hundreds of players in pro ball who get less compensation than typical D2/D1/NAIA players. I also suspect that many college players receive instruction that is as good as or better than some lower level minor league players.

Last year there was a player on my son's DII team that had played two years of pro ball after being drafted. He was allowed two years eligibility as he lost one for each year of pro ball. He was originally from Canada and the way it was stated in his biography on the college site, this may have had something to do with why he was still eligible to play after two years in the minor leagues. He is no longer on the team and is now attending a different college without playing ball.

Permitted in D-2, not in D-1 or D-3.

I THINK the player also has to have unconditiional release from the pro team. There are young men who choose to leave pro ball and go to college but they are not released by their team and placed on restricted list. The teams owns their rights for approx. 7 total yrs. I THINK they are unable to play college ball

Thanks for the input. This young man is on the roster as a freshman. Which he is of course, but I don't know about how many years of eligibility that indicates, since most players who are redshirtted show the playing year not the academic year. I wonder why it is allowable in dII but not dI & dIII.

quote:

Originally posted by catcher25mom:
Thanks for the input. This young man is on the roster as a freshman. Which he is of course, but I don't know about how many years of eligibility that indicates, since most players who are redshirtted show the playing year not the academic year. I wonder why it is allowable in dII but not dI & dIII.

I always thought that signing a professional contract and getting paid does not make one ineligible, signing with an agent does.

Think about the guys that sign professional baseball contracts but return to play football.

TPM,
12.1.2 lists 7 ways to lose amateur status. Getting paid or agreeing to be paid for a particular sport, or unpaid competition on a professional team, or entering the draft all terminate NCAA eligibility for that same sport. So does entering into an agreement with an agent, but I think in most cases an agent would be regarded as only acting for one sport.

Conversely, being a professional in football, for example, does not affect eligibility for baseball.

Some players do get their eligibility reinstated, by appealing to the Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement. (14.12) I don't see any reason to think that signing with an agent would lessen the chances of a successful appeal.

quote:

Originally posted by catcher25mom:
I am curious about something I heard today. How is it that players who were drafted and played a couple of years in the minors can then go back and play collegiate ball? I thought that once you signed, you could no longer play in college? Is this a new rule? Seems a little strange, maybe even unfair, that a player who has recieved a salary and professional instruction be allowed to play. Especially considering all the restrictions that players must navigate to avoid a violation, this does not seem possible?

I assume that you're referring to Nick Tindall?

Nick played on the same Summer team with my Son, and they came very close to being room mates, and playing ball at the same college. Nick went pro, and my Son ended up choosing a different school

Although he is listed on Quincy's roster as a Freshman, he is ineligible in 2012, and will have 2 more years of eligibility starting in 2013, as I understand it.

I believe the rule of his eligibilty has to do with the fact that he played only 2 years of professional ball, both in rookie league. I think once you rise above rookie league, you lose that opportunity, barring some kind of special appeal?

Nick was hurt for part of his second year of pro ball, and then injured his foot or leg again that Summer in a jetski accident.

He's a very good player with a cannon arm and some major pop. I have little doubt that he will be one of the best players in the conference in 2013.

Signing the contract makes you inelgible to participate in that particular sport. There are several players who play minor league baseball and return to play football or basketball at a college. Examples: Adam Dunn played for the Reds while playing football at Texas, Cedric Benson with the Dodgers while playing football at Texas. Lots of college football players are former minor league baseball players that got released or quit after their contracts were done. Example, Weeden the quarterback at Ok State. That;s why high school dual sport athletes have their professional contracts split over 5 years for their bonus and backloaded, if they quit baseball they loose the remaining bonus money, thats what protects the mlb teams from a player signing , getting the bonus money, and then leaving to pursue another sport.

quote:

Originally posted by 3FingeredGlove:
I also suspect that many college players receive instruction that is as good as or better than some lower level minor league players.

With all due respect, I have to take issue with this one. Minor league baseball is all about player development, and they have exceptionally talented players at all levels. As a result, organizations tend to staff their entire minor league systems with quality coaches.

If anything, college baseball on the whole suffers from having too many coaches who fail to remain current with the latest training methods. In other words, they stop learning when they become coaches. That's generally not true in professional baseball.

College baseball is about winning games, the coaches at the big schools have huge contracts based on winning, not development. Also, those that believe that the instruction is better in college are very misinformed. It's not even close.

I am not really sure at this point what the CORRECT answer to the question is.

As far as college instruction vs professional, I have to agree with Prepster and mlb97. Although I feel that in college son was instructed under one of the better college pitching instructors, keep in mind that these are two different developmental philosophies and a reason why college coaches don't instruct on the professional level and why professional instructors don't instruct at the college level.

JMO.

Kyle Hancock left pro ball and tried to play in college:

http://billingsgazette.com/spo...e2-001cc4c002e0.html

Life in the minors is a adjustment for young players who are away from home for the first time
its not as glamorous as they expect.
Here is a picture of the stadium my son's team played in and caused Kyle to get back on the bus

http://www.ballparkreviews.com...Falls&in_state=Idaho

We have one..... Richard Bohlken, a senior CF/2B at Lubbock Christian University was drafted by the Angels out of La Cueva HS in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2007. He played the 2007 season of rookie ball with the Angels.

He was not able to compete his freshman year, lost 1 year of eligibility and serving a year of residence prior to the 2010 season.

Richard is an absolute beast!

GED10DaD

DK went from an unbelieveable beautiful college baseball stadium (the kind you dream about) to his first pro field that was probably worse than any he has ever seen (Batavia). Plus they had more losses than wins and the 100 or less that usually attended told them frequently how much they s*cked. It was a let down for sure but most likely if he hadn't been a bit older the adjustment would have been tougher. I can understand why some return to the college game after thinking that pro ball was the end all.

BTW, Batavia won a NYP championship a few years later and some of the players (college) that played there were from last year's 2011 national championship team.

It's all about development.

There is a topic that may be helpful on this site about Kyle Hancock trying to play college ball

The player was a 32nd round pick out of HS, and assigned to the facility in AZ where he played what is called complex ball. That's up at 6am and game by 12-1 in the practice fields where no one watches. The the rest of the day to "chill".

He was 165 pounds at the time of signing and hit .091 his first professional season.

Everyone's situation is different, but this is a good example of why some should head off to college first.

At 23, most are at the beastie boy stage.

Can he be drafted again?

At my old school (NAIA, now NCAA DII unsure what it was when this happened) they signed a player who had spent 2 or 3 seasons in MILB and he went onto play 2 seasons of College ball for the school.

Prepster, mlb97, and TPM,

All of you disagreed with (or perhaps misunderstood) my statement

quote:

I also suspect that many college players receive instruction that is as good as or better than some lower level minor league players.

arguing that (paraphrased) that pro coaches and instruction is of higher quality than college.

Sure, pro coaching is better than college, generally. However, the goal of a pro coach is to identify and develop those players who will succeed at the MLB level. The goal is clearly not to develop every player to the best of that player's ability. Instead most players are released, and some are released quickly. These latter players are the ones we're talking about in this thread.

I believe that pro coaches tend to focus their efforts on prospects and near prospects. I guess that the players who are close to being released get less attention. For sure, once a player is released from pro ball, he no longer has the benefit of the pro coach at all. The same player, who was good enough to get a pro contract, would very likely be among the best players on a college team, and in a college environment would receive lots of attention.

In the extreme, a player who is released soon after arriving at rookie ball won't have received good instruction compared to a college player of similar talent simply because the pro instruction had such a short duration.

Every player drafted, regardless of where is considered a prospect. The pro coach's job, IMO is to work with everyone (the same) to develop the skill they were drafted for. Remember the story about Albert Pujols?

Guys are released because it is a numbers game, and if you haven't shown development, within the time frame allowed, had off the field issues (which many do) you are gone. The less invested in you the easier it is to replace you. I am going to go out on a limb to say that the players in this topic that put in less than 2 years most likely left on their own. They obviously were unhappy, better to get to school as quickly as possible. The bottom line is that some realize real fast that they made a mistake. A lot has to do with the organization and where you are headed as a rookie as well. A nice signing bonus helps ease adjustments.

I think why things don't work out early is because the player doesn't put in the effort that needs to be put forth for development. The things that are mandatory in college are not so on the pro level. If you were out drinking the night before and miss your scheduled time with the instructor, then it's your problem, as you can be easily replaced by the next guy. As in any paying job, if you don't do what you are hired to do, you get fired.

I think there is a misconception about the word released, it means that you were let go, and it can be for any reason. It doesn't always mean you were fired. This happens frequently when there is a back log. My son has a friend who got released last fall, not because he wasn't good, but because he asked, they gave, and signed a mil deal with a new team with an invite to spring training. Ther are a lot of players that would prefer that option. So release didn't mean it was over.

I will not argue that the better instructors and managers are farther up at the top, but there is a bad misconception that the lower levels do not offer good instruction.

This is where having great options (good college commitments) comes into play, that to me is the whole idea.

However, I don;t see why others should worry about these players being better because they had better instruction in a short season or two, if that is why the comment was made.