thunderbird1100

Thats true, he's played quite a bit of SS in the minors

So who do you put on the bench last year between him, Milam and Dickinson then?

Maybe Milam plays 3B (or Dickinson)? Reaves/Braswell basically sit the pine in that instance.

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The problem with this D1 series is and always has been how shitty it is compared to random midweek games on ESPN

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The problem doesnt have anything to do with D1 themselves (granted their stream was a shitshow the previous 2 years with people paying $25-$30 for it which is a joke for a weekend).

The problem is the setup of having this 3rd party having to come in to stream the games at these tournaments (because ESPN doesnt want the extra cost and doesnt have the obligation to do it) and to put something like that on they need to cover their costs and hopefully make a profit so for 1 weekend out of the entire season people are forced to pony up an extra $25-$30 for the special case scenario in order to watch a whopping 3 games (out of 50-60+) of their team (let be for real 98% of people are really just watching their own team).

It's basically just very anti-fan, anti-consumer and doesnt help promote the sport at all. Imagine being a sports fan casual and wanting to watch some of these games, none of those people are going to pony up $25-$30 to stream some college baseball games over a weekend.

I get why the teams/coaches like these as kind of pseudo tournament atmosphere in some ways, but it absolutely sucks on the fan side having to pony up $25-$30 to watch a few games because of the way its setup it doesnt fall under anything you already pay for.

d1 is just doing what others wont and are trying to cover costs/make a profit somehow in the process, but this being the scenario in the first place is what's kind of screwed up about the whole thing. Pretty much anyone can "afford" the $25-$30, it's not about affordability, its about just feeling squeezed every dollar possible out of you as a fan to watch the team you can watch almost literally every other game with a $30/mo ESPN Unlimited subscription each month.

On the d1 end the only shitty part was the stream sucked the previous 2 years and still isnt ESPN quality this year by any shape of the imagination...which for $25-$30 a lot of people would expect a premium product for 3 games (again being honest pretty much anyone just watching their team 3x in full, maybe watching a little bit of other games if you can) if you can watch the entire March (18-19 games or whatever) for $30 from ESPN Unlimited. Also if I was D1, why not rope your damn platform into an option for streaming the game? I would probably happily pay like $70 for a d1 season pass (like 5 months long) for access to their site and includes streaming from their tournaments they do that at. But no, they want an absurd $140/yr for basic access to their site and it's $190 for SEC/ACC insider and the content we'd truly want anyways....with ZERO access to the streams if you pay the $140/$190. Make better business decisions. This stuff isnt hard to think about. Get a fking forum so people can talk baseball on your site as well. It's 2026.

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NOLA.com said this recruit is 22 & played in a pro league in Australia. Guess this is a look at the future.

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It's a kid similar to Ron Zipper (older overseas pro league player)....who did nothing this season

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Stanford plays Cal St Fullerton 4x this weekend

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Not that anyone probably really cares, but because I mentioned it, Stanford split the series 2-2 with CSF and NEITHER team scored more than 4 runs in any game the entire 4 game series :lol:

Sasaki went 1 for 11 (single) with 3 walks and 1 K on the weekend

He's hitting 4 for 24 on the season now (.167)....ouch

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Predicted RPI looks reasonable already.

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If we really think this is even somewhat useful right now, it has Kent St finishing at #25 RPI, 32-1 in the MAC, 50-4 overall :lol:

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What will happen to the 100s of foreign players? What will happen to players that don’t want to go to school?

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Wisconsin should start their baseball program back up :lol:

Selfishly I would love for the draft to condense down to 10-15 rounds and they do get rid of A ball and just have rookie ball for a bit or something for newcomers year 0/1 I(whatever you want to call after being drafted).

Would be interesting to see how they treat international players/high schoolers if they still let teams draft/sign them as 17-18-19 year olds or not though, knowing they have to compete in AA right away (or after year 0/1). If they said you need college at least 1 year, JUCOs would absolutely HUGELY benefit since you're eligible each year in JUCO.

No idea what they will ultimately do, but it is interesting after condensing the draft from 40 to 20 rounds (less during covid year obviously) they just kept that going. It certainly would be a nice expense off MLB teams back to get rid of another layer of minor league cost to them and push that on colleges as much as possible. We've certainly seen a shift of more and more college players being drafted seems like compared to high school ones.

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There's only four LSU baseball games that aren't televised with a streaming/cable package.

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What's the 4th one? Are you counting the ESPN+ game technically there? I guess I could see that since you need beyond just a tv package with ESPN in it (or subscribe to ESPN+ separately which is what i do), but they started ESPN unlimited late last year which gets you ESPN+ access along with it for only $29.99/mo Really a heck of a deal if you dont care about much else on tv during baseball season. I could probably cancel youtubetv right now personally after the olympics are over and survive on ESPN Unlimited through the summer.

You dont even need a cable/streaming tv package with ESPN to watch all the games anymore - minus the peak tournament games of course.

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All that matters is that they secure the autobid in the MAC tournament.

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Definitely dont HAVE to do that necessarily, but certainly have to win a ton of freaking games otherwise being a MAC team to get an NCAAT bid without the MAC auto-bid.

Last year they got off on the completely wrong foot starting 1-5 against the likes of Eastern Kentucky, South Alabama, SIU-Edwardsville and 3x against Mercer. So despite going 23-7 in conference play winning the MAC, they had no shot any type of selection because of that poor a start to the season and finishing just 34-18 overall. They definitely need to win 40+ games probably at minimum to ever be considered for a at-large bid playing the MAC.

Winning 2/3 @ Tennessee is a good start to this season for them. They play Wright St and 4x against Rhode Island this week. That needs to probably be a 5-0 week for them to keep those hopes up. 4-1 not end of world but every loss against a meh team certainly not helping their case.

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No Vanderbilt? I'm aware that it's early, but what's up with them this year?

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While theyve had regular season success since the NIL era started, its crazy to me they havent been out a regional since 2021. 4 straight years of regional exits. Tim Corbin's stock hasnt been going up or staying among the elite tier like it used to, thats for sure.

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None of the bigger networks have any interest in doing it. If it wasn't D1 streaming this, it would be something like Flo Sports who would cost just as much.

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And again, this changes absolutely nothing about any of my points.

The way these tournaments are setup is just anti-consumer when they have to have someone come in to stream them and charge (proportionally) a large amount of money to people to watch them. It's just dumb and doesnt advance the sport and just is a complete pain in the arse for actual fans who can watch the other 95% of the games on ESPN family of networks which they all already pay for. On top of all that, the quality is way worse and in past years had total disasters while trying to stream it...for what anyone paying for would expect a premium product to pay $25-$30 to watch a few college baseball games....and they're not getting anywhere close to that.

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UCLA will have that #1 ranking tested this weekend. They play Tennessee, A&M, and Mississippi State.

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I know they play in the B10 which they need to play some good OOC games but they really are testing themselves out heavily in their OOC play

3x against TCU
Tournament in TXC against TN, A&M and MSU

Threw a mid-week against Cal St fullerton and Tulane in there too before B10 play starts. Played UC San Diego to open the season 3x too who is certainly not a good team/program but is fairly solid after moving from DII a few years back. They ended up #82 in RPI back in 2023. low mid 100 range in 2024 and 2025.