Here’s the other thing on scholarship money, and it’s a new thing going forward, but I think baseball and softball are probably the sports where saving money for players that will be in the transfer portal is going to have the biggest impact on high school kids. Especially when it comes to pitching. I think when you look across the country, the hit rate on highly rated pitchers is much lower than it is for position players, while some “late bloomers“ end up being fairly successful early in their careers, albeit frequently at smaller or less traditionally successful programs.
You’re always going to see kids like Pickens or Jordy Bahl at Oklahoma that are highly rated throughout the process get major offers and come off the board early. But I don’t see a lot of programs committing a lot of money to pitching beyond those top prospects. You may let a kid walk on or give them a lower percentage of scholarship, then increase it if they pan out. But I think many coaches would rather budget differently to make sure they will have something left to chase a proven picture from a smaller school or a program that is going through a transition.
It may regulate itself out a little more once these fifth year players stop being a thing after 2024, but where the majority of sports in the NCAA use the transfer portal to replace transfers that they lost, baseball and softball with partial scholarships seem to be using it as an opportunity for late bloomers to move up. Oklahoma is using it to let everybody else develop players for a couple of years, then build another super team. I really hope that changes eventually.
Ultimately, it’s the high school kids that are going to miss out on scholarship opportunities at major schools because so many are doing so much shopping in the portal.
