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Does anyone know if the NCAA is honoring the extra year?  I was looking at Miss State's roster and it lists players as class and eligibility.  Their 2019 JUCO kids are showing as Sophomore's and so is a 2020 JUCO kid.   I haven't been able to find anything one way or the other on if the NCAA is honoring it or not. 

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My 2021 has a 2019 buddy he played HS ball with that spent the last 2 years at Iowa Western CC.  He's now at East Carolina as a "freshman."  Imagine getting 2 years under a perennial top 25 Juco program and then still having 4 years of eligibility remaining.  Yes, 2020 was a shortened season due to Covid, but it's crazy to me that 2019s and 2021s can in be the exact same place eligibility-wise.  What an advantage.  They're both freshmen right now, but one spent the last 2 years playing HS ball while the other spent the last 2 years at a Juco powerhouse.  I'm not bitter (anymore, ha!), but I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish my kid was born 2 years earlier.

Watching the Rose Bowl Utah had a 25yo junior. He got a religious waiver for his two year LDS mission. He’s also received a two year Covid waiver. How do kids coming out of high school compete against 24-26yos?

If I’m a college coach I’m recruiting transfer men over yet to physically develop 18yos.

When I was a 16 year old Freshman in College, the average age of the College baseball team was 21 years old.Played 1b and hit 5th in the lineup.

The team included returning Military Veterans with the GI Bill.

My son was 14 years old when he played "18 & under Summer baseball against 40 future MLB players in Northern California.

Today, the player needs to adjust to the "faster" pace and study his competition.

Bob

Last edited by Consultant

Thirteen years ago my son played 17u as a 15U eligible. But this is high school age. Most high school athletes aren’t physically men. He was 6’ 160 his first year and 6’1” 175 as a senior. He hit 6’2” 190 in college.

Anything either of us did in college ball has changed significantly since those days. There wasn’t the push for physical development back then that exists today. That said I was 6’1” 185. But I’m sure my son was a lot stronger even though he wasn’t that much bigger.

The only freshmen who will be playing in top fifty programs the next couple of years will be top prospect studs.

Last edited by RJM

I still think you will have guys who are productive playing.  This woe is me attitude has become a national thing to me.  Covid was the same for everyone and everyone has to face difficulties.  I've had so many parents tell me how how bad it has been on their kid.  It has been bad on all people.  We want to revert back to our selfishness.  The 2020 HS class says I didn't get a graduation or prom or on and on.  Neither did every other 2020 grad in HS and college.  All HS parents say my kid didn't get a 2020 baseball season.  Neither did college guys.  It affected everyone and we either learn to deal with it or we keep making excuses for our kids.  Did it change baseball recruiting?  Absolutely but you either whine about it or learn quickly how to deal with it.  Remember the 2020 freshmen college class didn't play a freshman season and has had to deal with the transfers just like the HS recruiting classes and the 2019 class who had waited their year to get to play in 2020 got messed over and then the flood of transfers came in.  They either adapted or got left behind.  So, let's lose the woe is me because woe is everyone in some way or another.

@PitchingFan posted:

I still think you will have guys who are productive playing.  This woe is me attitude has become a national thing to me.  Covid was the same for everyone and everyone has to face difficulties.  I've had so many parents tell me how how bad it has been on their kid.  It has been bad on all people.  We want to revert back to our selfishness.  The 2020 HS class says I didn't get a graduation or prom or on and on.  Neither did every other 2020 grad in HS and college.  All HS parents say my kid didn't get a 2020 baseball season.  Neither did college guys.  It affected everyone and we either learn to deal with it or we keep making excuses for our kids.  Did it change baseball recruiting?  Absolutely but you either whine about it or learn quickly how to deal with it.  Remember the 2020 freshmen college class didn't play a freshman season and has had to deal with the transfers just like the HS recruiting classes and the 2019 class who had waited their year to get to play in 2020 got messed over and then the flood of transfers came in.  They either adapted or got left behind.  So, let's lose the woe is me because woe is everyone in some way or another.

They all did miss something which is why no one should have gotten anything. It is ludicrous that a 2019 can have two seasons under their belt and be a freshmen, when a 2020 who lost the same is now a sophomore.   Everyone should have had to chalk it up to a year of bad luck and move on. This made the problem worse. It’s not woe is me, it  just is.  Their solution compounded the problem.

Am I understanding this correctly?

Before Covid, If a player went 2 years JUCO and graduated JUCO, how many years of NCAA 4 year school eligibility would they have had left?   I have never found this number.

Then after covid, only one year of eligibility was granted to all current NCAA student-athletes?  Right?  I mean everyone get's 5 to play 4, right?  Now it's 6 to play 4 where a partial or cancelled season doesn't count against it.

It's still only 1 makeup year, so to me it's not really affecting anyone differently than what was expected.  Everyone basically HS 2015-2019 (years might be off) who can afford to stay can get that 4th year back.  I think looking at it as an Extra Year is kind of misleading.  Maybe a lot of people were thinking it was only going to have a 1 year impact and their kid is a few years out and wouldn't feel the effect but now realize it's a 4 year impact not 1.

would really just like to understand the JUCO rule to grasp if that particular scenario of the freshman after 2 years juco is accurate.

@baseballhs posted:

They all did miss something which is why no one should have gotten anything. It is ludicrous that a 2019 can have two seasons under their belt and be a freshmen, when a 2020 who lost the same is now a sophomore.   Everyone should have had to chalk it up to a year of bad luck and move on. This made the problem worse. It’s not woe is me, it  just is.  Their solution compounded the problem.

Again, it is in perspective.  Every college player got the same amount of time back.  The ones who are upset are the high school players.  I think the fact that it was equal for all 4 year college guys makes it okay.

I have talked to a few coaches and there has been no official response as to whether the two years that juco gave back will be considered the same by the NCAA.  Coaches are assuming it will but there has not been an official statement according to the coaches I talked to.  Everyone knows they get 2020 back but don't know about 2021.

@HSDad22 posted:

Am I understanding this correctly?

Before Covid, If a player went 2 years JUCO and graduated JUCO, how many years of NCAA 4 year school eligibility would they have had left?   I have never found this number.

Then after covid, only one year of eligibility was granted to all current NCAA student-athletes?  Right?  I mean everyone get's 5 to play 4, right?  Now it's 6 to play 4 where a partial or cancelled season doesn't count against it.

It's still only 1 makeup year, so to me it's not really affecting anyone differently than what was expected.  Everyone basically HS 2015-2019 (years might be off) who can afford to stay can get that 4th year back.  I think looking at it as an Extra Year is kind of misleading.  Maybe a lot of people were thinking it was only going to have a 1 year impact and their kid is a few years out and wouldn't feel the effect but now realize it's a 4 year impact not 1.

would really just like to understand the JUCO rule to grasp if that particular scenario of the freshman after 2 years juco is accurate.

for D1 baseball, it's 5 calendar years to play 4 season. it doesn't matter how many seasons were at the juco. for example if a juco kid missed his sophomore season due to injury, but graduated and transferred to D1, he could still play 3 more years.

NCAA granted one extra year to the 5-year clock due to covid.

The juco "issue" is that lots of juco guys played a full season in spring 2021, but NJCAA is giving them a pass on that season anyway (in addition to the 2020 season which was shut down). So if a juco kid gets the NCAA waiver he could come to a D1 campus with 4 more seasons to play, plus 4 years to play those season (the normal 5 years + the extra covid year - 2 years at juco).

The NCAA has created a huge problem for college baseball by making an idiotic ruling - not once but twice!  The very best players are not negatively affected as they hardly ever are. It’s the other 75% or so that are. When Covid hit in 2020 and the NCAA granted an additional year of eligibility for all spring sport athletes I said then that it would be a cluster#*$& for years to come. Some disagreed with me then but the reality is becoming obvious to all involved. The truth is that it’s now harder than ever for a HS player (who isn’t a top 20% talent) to make a college roster and get playing time. And that’s going to continue for a few more years. PitchingFan is right that a “woe is me” outlook about it won’t get you anywhere. It sucks, but it is what it is at this point. So worry about the things you can control. Understand that the target you had before Covid may not be attainable anymore. My suggestion for most is to revise your game plan. This should begin with a very honest conversation with your son, and after that develop a plan based on how that conversation goes. One thing for sure is that if you blindly continue with business as usual you will almost surely end up being disappointed.

@baseballhs posted:

I agree it is perspective, but I think you don’t mind it because your son got a year….

I don't mind it because it was equal to everyone at the same time.  I don't think the free year was near as detrimental to anyone as the transfer rule will be.  The extra year just moved everyone back one year.  My son's goal of being drafted did not change and his time to play really probably did not change because he is out of state and he should get his masters if he stays for four years.  Very few will stay for five years if they are not gonna get drafted so the having to play 25 year olds is still the rare occurrence.  Son's school does not have a load of extra year guys.  1 pitcher and 1 fielder who were both redshirt guys at one point.  Both who have degrees in aerospace engineering.  Both working on master's degrees.

The transfer rule causes you not to be able to do research anymore.  When son walks in on Monday of next week, there could be a new player who is transferring in that was not there at the end of fall ball and the same with next school year.  The transfer rule is the one that will impact baseball far greater than the extra year rule.  No way you can know who will be there when you get there or when you get back.  You can't look at the roster from last year and know what it will look like next year or even next semester.

@Consultant posted:

High level College Baseball teams and the Premier College Summer Leagues will now rival the talent in short season Class A Minor Leagues.

The Pro Scouts will have the opportunity to scout a "high" level of competition.

Use wood bats!!!!

Bob

Not to change the subject, but I think that was already the case.  Son's and I would go see short season A ball all the time, before they got rid of the affiliate recently.  The bet between my boys was always; would there be more hits or errors during the game.  Very young undeveloped talent.

I generally agree that the "woe is me" attitude is not a good thing.  But I am not comfortable telling people to get over it on a timeline that feels right to ME.  I have a 2021 son and Covid's impacts (and the NCAA & NJCAA's decisions) stung a lot.  It took time for the sting to subside.  That's part of being human and we all process differently.  While I am over the sting of 2020 with regard to my 2021 son, it's still possible that what happened in 2020 will negatively impact my son in the future again.  A second big sting.  In reading some of these comments, it sounds like me/my son acknowledging any future sting associated with 2020 will be unacceptable.  No one likes whiners, but compassion isn't the worst thing in the world.

I do struggle with the "everyone lost/everyone suffered" concept.  While fundamentally true, some (of the everyone) who suffered got some things to help ease their suffering.  But 2021s like my son?  They only suffered.  They didn't get the help that 2019s and 2020s did.  So I'd be careful with considering everyone's suffering as somehow equal.  As I said earlier, my 2021 has a HS 2019 buddy who spent the last 2 years at a premier Juco.  Both have 4 years of eligibility remaining. Both are "freshmen."  In no universe does saying "both those kids suffered" come close to doing justice to the specifics of each kid's situation.  Usually (but not always), I find those who say "get over it" are ones who have suffered less and/or have more than the ones they're telling to get over it.

I take issue with the notion that few kids will come back for an additional year when available.  When the NCAA first made the decision to grant the extra year, just about everyone was saying "very few" would come back for a 5th year.  But that very few ended up resembling closer to 65%.  So I'd caution anyone from arguing that very few will take advantage of the extra opportunities.  This generation is nowhere near as anxious to begin their non-baseball careers as we'd hoped.  A majority aren't embarrassed to live with their parents after college.

Lastly, I'll share a story.  My son and I visited the Juco he's now at back in June of 2020.  At that time, his coach predicted that it'd take 3-4 years for Juco to fully recover from/wash out the impacts of Covid and 4-5 years for 4-year programs.  Again, that was June of 2020 for what that's worth.

I said everyone in college in 2020 got equal not everyone.  Would love to see where you got the 65% of fifth year baseball players came back in 2021 from that had used 4 years of eligibility already?  That is incredibly higher than the % that I have read.  The articles I have found say it was closer to 10-15% which I still think is high from the players I know.  I know very few players of the many I follow that used 5 years of eligibility in 2021 with none being redshirt years.

Again, I have always said it is a problem in perspective.  Each person involved sees the problem according to how it affects them, their perspective.  I know 2019 grads who were supposed to fill a spot and the draft did not go as big as planned so they did not have a spot to fill at P5's that see it as a big problem.  I see players who were supposed to follow someone who got an extra year to stay their fourth year with negotiating power as feeling lied to.  It is all in perspective.  The NCAA did what they thought helped the current players rather than looking to how it hurt the future players.  Current players were pleased, most, and future players are frustrated.  Again, it is a culmination of extra year, transfer players, and mlb draft.  All of it comes together but you have to deal with life as it comes to you.  I don't see it as lack of compassion it is just some people deal with life as it comes and some let life control them and look for excuses.  I'm more of a deal with it and move on kind of guy.  God had a plan before you had a problem was my sermon title last week.  I don't have to like his plan or my problems to trust Him.

To be fair, 65% is not something I read anywhere.  It's a ballpark figure based on rosters I looked at at the time and things I read here, actually.  Maybe it's not that high.  Probably a good thread to get going here.  I absolutely could be off base, but everything I absorbed made it look much closer to 65% than 10%.  9ish out of 10 college baseball seniors just hung up their cleats and entered the workforce after the 2020 season?  I don't know, man.  I'll keep an open mind to that possibility, but let's hear what others have to say.  @CollegebaseballInsights are you able to help at all with this?

I can absolutely appreciate sucking it up and moving forward.  That's exactly what we did with my son.  He had some legit D1 interest who had asked for his 2020 spring schedule (high school junior) and were wanting to come out to see him, but that never happened.  The most important season of his recruiting journey was eliminated.  What he and his peers lost was foundational to what the next 5-6 years of his "career" were supposed be built on.  Without that foundation, he was forced to build a completely new house.  On a completely different piece of land.  And instead of having a year or 2 to put his plan together (like he did with his initial plan), he had weeks.  And handcuffs that didn't exist before.  We really didn't spend much time at all lamenting the situation.  We couldn't.  Went right back to work and made the most of the time and resources available - which were both very limited.  He did find a good home.  He was the first 2021 Juco commit in our state, but then we had to sit back and watch so many of his peers flail and struggle.  And be continually taunted by the NCAA pushing out the dead period 30 days at a time.  Had a front row seat to a good deal of pain for his peers.  I will never forget that. 

My son is a 2020.  He got nothing.  Lost his senior year.  His draft year was only 5 rounds.  9 covid seniors returned to the roster his freshman year of college.    The kids in college really missed nothing.  They lost a year, but they got it back.  If my kid was in college when it happened, I'd be fine with it too, but I think I would recognize that it wasn't a good decision and compounded the problem for everyone else.  It's pretty easy to "deal with that".  Your son was also hurt, right? So he wouldn't have been playing regardless of Covid.  He came out pretty good.  Not making excuses, the facts are it made it harder for a lot of kids and gave an advantage to the kids that were in college. That is my perspective.

Last edited by baseballhs
@nycdad posted:

What help did 2020s get? 2020s missed their senior HS season and showed up on campus in the fall.

Uh, they actually got to show up on a college campus with baseball jerseys waiting for them.  Less 2021s and 2022s can say that.  For any 2020s that went the Juco route, they all got a free year of Juco practice, training and games.  Just like my 2021, 2020 Jucos are freshmen right now.  I'm not arguing that everyone didn't lose something, but if I could go back and magically have my son be a 2020 HS grad instead of a 2021, absolutely we're doing that.  Which would you choose if given the choice?  Be a 2020 grad or a 2021?  To each their own, but I can't imagine many college ball players would prefer to play their HS senior season over their freshman year of college.  My son had a nice time playing his senior year, but he loves being a college freshman ball player 10 fold over that.  Easy.   His senior year was fun, but his junior year of HS that he lost was earmarked to be critical to the next 5+ years of his life.  His senior season was mostly fun but actually mattered very little.   

Last edited by DanJ
@DanJ posted:

Uh, they actually got to show up on a college campus with baseball jerseys waiting for them.  Less 2021s and 2022s can say that.  For any 2020s that went the Juco route, they all got a free year of Juco practice, training and games.  Just like my 2021, 2020 Jucos are freshmen right now.  I'm not arguing that everyone didn't lose something, but if I could go back and magically have my son be a 2020 HS grad instead of a 2021, absolutely we're doing that.  Which would you choose if given the choice?  Be a 2020 grad or a 2021?  To each their own, but I can't imagine many college ball players would prefer to play their HS senior season over their freshman year of college.  My son had a nice time playing his senior year, but he loves being a college freshman ball player 10 fold over that.  Easy.   His senior year was fun, but his junior year of HS that he lost was earmarked to be critical to the next 5+ years of his life.  His senior season was mostly fun but actually mattered very little.   

I have a 2020 and a 2022. Both stepping on campus at 17yo. Plenty of 2020s were told not to show up. Son's TB teammate was a John Hopkins commit. I believe they told the entire class to take a gap year. Granted they still had their spots for the following year.

I do agree that 2021s probably had the most difficult time, my 2022's TB team had 5 or 6 2021s that took a gap year.

All of that said, my 2020 is on pace to have his bachelor's when he's 21, I hope his brother has a similar outcome. I'd stick with their current grad years.

@DanJ posted:

Uh, they actually got to show up on a college campus with baseball jerseys waiting for them.  Less 2021s and 2022s can say that.  For any 2020s that went the Juco route, they all got a free year of Juco practice, training and games.  Just like my 2021, 2020 Jucos are freshmen right now.  I'm not arguing that everyone didn't lose something, but if I could go back and magically have my son be a 2020 HS grad instead of a 2021, absolutely we're doing that.  Which would you choose if given the choice?  Be a 2020 grad or a 2021?  To each their own, but I can't imagine many college ball players would prefer to play their HS senior season over their freshman year of college.  My son had a nice time playing his senior year, but he loves being a college freshman ball player 10 fold over that.  Easy.   His senior year was fun, but his junior year of HS that he lost was earmarked to be critical to the next 5+ years of his life.  His senior season was mostly fun but actually mattered very little.   

I don't know.  I think we would have for sure traded our junior year for senior year.  My son's 2020 recruiting class had 19, same with 2021.  There wasn't really a difference.  They both walked into over crowded rosters.  There are 10 left from my son's class and there will probably be about the same amount of 2021s that survive to next year.  Everyone's experience is different and they lost things for different reasons.  It is a bit of a rub to hear that we are whiners or looking for excuses from people who didn't really lose anything.  I know we all look through different lenses.  My son committed before his junior year so having his senior year was more important to him, for other kids (position players) who use their junior year more for recruiting, I understand that being a bigger loss.  My son was gaining traction for the draft and had 10-20 scouts coming  to all his games and then it all stopped. In hindsight, I think going to school was probably the right thing, but we will never know. The bottom line is all the younger kids didn't get anything back and walked into much more crowded rosters.  Add in the transfer rule.  It is what it is...it's not complaining, it's just an unfortunate reality.

Last edited by baseballhs

The other aspect of the roster crunch is that there have been 55 fewer rounds of the MLB draft the past couple of years.  That's 1,650 kids that would be in the low minors that are at some level of college ball.  No matter what level your son plays at this has affected him.  My son is a 2019 and that is what hurt him.  He waited his turn in 2020 but guys that would have been drafted in a 40 round draft were not drafted in a 5 round draft.  We were lucky.  We saw it coming and adjusted.

@Pig Papi I totally agree. We actually weighed that into our decision with our son, a 2021. The year before his, the draft was only 5 rounds and there were some absolute beasts that showed up on campus in 2020 in addition to the extra year which meant that very season player and JUCO transfers were on the team.  What did that mean for reps and opportunities for a freshman? The chances to play absolutely still exist depending on how prepared your son is for college, how well you picked his school for fit, and what the position needs of his team happen to be but it’s important to take that into consideration.

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