Now that the professional baseball signing deadline has passed, Baseball America has broken down where unsigned members of the Baseball America top 500 are going to college (the top 500 included all draft eligible players, not just high schoolers).
I was very surprised in reading the article (linked below) that we only have two players in the top 500.... Will Procter and Tony Locey. I thought for sure that Tucker Maxwell and Cam Shepherd would make this list as well, but they did not. I understand that Shepherd was rated as a potential top five round selection, though apparently not by BA.
So, at least in the eyes of this publication, we land two players on campus in the BA Top 500, which is two more than we landed last year (only us and Tennessee failed to have at least one such player arrive on campus in the SEC).
Two is better than zero, obviously, but still places us behind:
Ole Miss (7)
LSU (5)
Florida (5)
Vanderbilt (4)
South Carolina (4)
Arkansas (4 - including a kid named Dominic. What's with guys named Dominic going to Arkansas?)
Tennessee (3)
Kentucky (3)
Mississippi State also had two.
Auburn had one, Alabama and Missouri had zero, and very surprisingly Texas A&M had zero as well.
Here is the article
What does it mean? I don't know.... It shouldn't dampen anyone's enthusiasm over the new class and I do think that Maxwell and Shepherd were under-rated here. I also think that the OF Campbell that we picked up from Vanderbilt is a huge addition, and could be the most impactful of the incoming players. This also goes to show that the powerhouses in this league are aren't slowing down any.... By this one metric, both Vanderbilt and Florida have signed and landed at least 11 such players over the past two seasons. That's the tough thing about it... A good signing class, one that we are told is going to "turn things around" doesn't happen in a vacuum. We've been the worst program in the SEC over the past three years. I'm just not sure that this class, as good as it looks on paper, is going to be sufficient enough to close to gap. We really need to sign this caliber class again in November and then 2018 and 2019 will be seasons where we can (theoretically) make a push.
Anyway, it made for some interesting reading....
I was very surprised in reading the article (linked below) that we only have two players in the top 500.... Will Procter and Tony Locey. I thought for sure that Tucker Maxwell and Cam Shepherd would make this list as well, but they did not. I understand that Shepherd was rated as a potential top five round selection, though apparently not by BA.
So, at least in the eyes of this publication, we land two players on campus in the BA Top 500, which is two more than we landed last year (only us and Tennessee failed to have at least one such player arrive on campus in the SEC).
Two is better than zero, obviously, but still places us behind:
Ole Miss (7)
LSU (5)
Florida (5)
Vanderbilt (4)
South Carolina (4)
Arkansas (4 - including a kid named Dominic. What's with guys named Dominic going to Arkansas?)
Tennessee (3)
Kentucky (3)
Mississippi State also had two.
Auburn had one, Alabama and Missouri had zero, and very surprisingly Texas A&M had zero as well.
Here is the article
What does it mean? I don't know.... It shouldn't dampen anyone's enthusiasm over the new class and I do think that Maxwell and Shepherd were under-rated here. I also think that the OF Campbell that we picked up from Vanderbilt is a huge addition, and could be the most impactful of the incoming players. This also goes to show that the powerhouses in this league are aren't slowing down any.... By this one metric, both Vanderbilt and Florida have signed and landed at least 11 such players over the past two seasons. That's the tough thing about it... A good signing class, one that we are told is going to "turn things around" doesn't happen in a vacuum. We've been the worst program in the SEC over the past three years. I'm just not sure that this class, as good as it looks on paper, is going to be sufficient enough to close to gap. We really need to sign this caliber class again in November and then 2018 and 2019 will be seasons where we can (theoretically) make a push.
Anyway, it made for some interesting reading....
