Yeah, my son was buddies with a guy who got drafted early by the Tigers (not 1st round) a few years ago, who was committed to Arizona State. He had a specific $ figure in mind going into the draft that was going to make the pro vs. college decision, and the Tigers exceeded it. Hard to blame these kids. He’s like 22 and should be on their roster this year after working his way up through the minors.
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It’s early but generally good outing from Teel who could end up being our closer. Did Aidan spend last season recovering from arm problems?
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Love the game summaries. Thanks!
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On the flipped side I was the S&C coach for a kid who was a stud player got drafted out ouf HS in a midish round turned it down to keep playing and go to college ended up blowingnuphis knee twice in college and never got another look. Not saying he made the wrong choice he’s a Physio now with a degree but that window can be small and once it’s closed it’s closed.
Hard for a kid to figure out at 18
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It’s a tough call. My son played in high school with two kids who could have been drafted around the fifth round, but told the teams they wanted to go to college. They both enjoyed successful four-year careers in the ACC. One is with the Tigers now, one is with the Braves.
They undoubtedly would have made more money going pro right out of HS. But they wanted to enjoy the college experience, and they wanted to have a fallback plan if baseball didn’t work out. A $1 million bonus sounds like a lot, but it’s not going to sustain you if you wipe out in the minors after a few years – which is what happens to the vast majority of HS prospects.
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Dude had one great first weekend! Impressive freshman bat. GOF was excellent also. Ethan a little slow out of the gate but he’ll be a beast this year. The bats are great.
Worried about pitching. We’ll see how things turn out but this weekend didn’t inspire confidence.
@UVApride7 , Thanks a lot for the good work you did all weekend. Great job on the play calling.
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For sure.
I feel for the kids who have to “save” the family & friends. This particular kid came from a great family, with 2 six figure earners, so no pressure to jump right away. But he also knew this is what he wanted from an early age, and could have just as easily got hurt playing college ball and never had the pro shot.
Glad it worked out for him, but for everyone who it does, there’s countless who thought they’d get there, but didn’t.
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Teel was recovering from Tommy John surgery last season. He was the DH this summer for the C’ville Tom Sox but didn’t pitch. The staff is thus going to be very cautious about pitching him too much and will want to give him time to build up strength in his arm and avoid re-injury.
During the Hofstra series he pitched 1.2 innings giving up one hit, no runs and striking out 2. Earned 2 saves. Definitely a promising start.
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Who starts Tuesday?
Yeah this is the crux of the issue. Nowadays with how the draft is set up, if a HS player gets picked at all that means the team drafting them saved up enough slot money to be confident that they’ll sign. The leverage that you have as a high schooler over being a junior in college is much higher and thus leads to more money on the table typically.
You only see a handful of guys who get drafted and opt for college now, and it’s almost always in the last few rounds. Back when the draft was 40 rounds instead of 20 the general rule was that if a HS guy doesn’t great drafted in the first 10-12 rounds, they were likely headed to college save for your outlier exceptions. We got bit by this like 5 or 6 years ago, Max Kranick one of our top pitching recruits got drafted in the 11th round and opted to go pro. Sometimes it turns out to be a bad decision, but the risk of injury that comes with having to play in college for three more years (or getting exposed in college as being not as good as your HS scouting report said you were) vastly outweighs the potential to raise your stock for a lot of these top 50-100 recruits.
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Yup that influenced this kid as well. Was a Fairfax County kid from a very high income family (hince why he could afford to work with a private S&C coach ) so the money wasn’t an issue.
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Connor Jones, who was a starting pitcher for UVa when we won the 2015 College World Series, was regarded as a definite 1st round pick out of high school. He was one of the unusual kids who was determined to go to college. He wrote to the pro teams, told them he would be attending Virginia and advised them not to draft him.
I got to know Connor a bit as I was his faculty advisor. Very nice person and smart. He struggled a bit (on the field) his first year but became part of the starting rotation as a second year in 2015 and ended up the ace of the staff once Nathan Kirby was hurt. It was wonderful to see the team win the College World Series that year.
After his third year, Connor was drafted in the 2nd round in the summer of 2016. The last thing I could find about him when I just searched is that he had Tommy John surgery in 2022.
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Jones is definitely one of our biggest recruiting wins in program history. Derek Fisher was a massive surprise as well, he was a top 20 player in his class.
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For anyone that cares… here is the Jomboy breakdown…
Horrible news, Matthew Buchanan’s father Aaron Buchanan passed away.
Because of this the ODU game originally scheduled tomorrow has been moved to Wednesday. Heart goes out to Matthew and his family.
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A bit late to the start on this one, couldn’t get off work in time lol.
ODU went in order top 1, McKay got a K (1) in between a fly out and a groundout.
So we’re still at 0’s heading bottom 1, GOF to lead off.
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Bottom of the 1st, LHP Jacob Gomez on the mound for ODU. GOF to lead off.
- GOF chops out to 3rd after a long AB for the 1st out. Nobody on, one out for Stephan.
- Stephan grounds out to the SS for out #2. Nobody on, two outs for Anderson.
- Anderson flies out to dead RF to end the inning.
Heading into the 2nd, game is tied at 0.
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Top of the 2nd, Ticer to lead off for ODU.
- Ticer K’s (2) swinging on some high heat for out #1. Nobody on, one out for Bouche.
- Bouche K’s (3) swinging on a nice breaking pitch for out #2. Two down for Abrams.
- Abrams flies out to Didawick in CF to end the frame.
Middle of the 2nd, game still tied at 0.
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