The Brick Wall That Is Tennessee Baseball

[armchair]

Much like with our football program - recruiting is the life blood of baseball success - when I see us trot out 5' 10" 175 lb pitchers to start in our conference series vs some 6' 5" freak that throws mid 90's for Florida or LSU I can't help but think we are at a disadvantage before the game even starts. Vandy's budget is impressive - but that is all Vandy has going for it - and I am sure at one time it was comparable to ours. Two of the better kids from Knoxville over the past few years have signed with Vandy - we just haven't recruited very well imo. A little more money might help some but this staff has failed to recruit SEC caliber talent.

The only way we're going to get better--of course--is via better recruiting, especially for pitching. No secret there, but we don't do it. If Serrano can show that more recruiting money would help, I would hope that our AD would give him more. As you say, Vandy surely has boosted its baseball spending because it is about the only sport success story they have.

I think recruiting in the SEC, for a lot of sports, is hard because there are a LOT of good programs competing for talent mostly in one geographic area. I have NO IDEA how Virginia got so good in baseball so suddenly, seemingly. UVA was a doormat in a lot of sports for decades--now that school is good at most everything (but football!) Maybe it's because there is less recruiting competition in the mid-Atlantic as opposed to the Southeast? I think it is also the fact that UVA, like Vandy and Stanford, is a /very/ attractive school academically, and that helps them with recruiting as players see they can play for a good program AND get a first-rate education. It's a nice combo that works wonderfully for sports like tennis, soccer...and baseball.

I played baseball at UT, quite a lot time ago, and Vandy was good then--and the spring weather was always horrible--cold, rainy, snow a couple of years; it suxed. By the time it started to warm up, the season was over!

 

[BruinVol]

Some schools even have out of country waivers which can be helpful when recruiting Canadians of which some schools recruit very well. From my experience even when a program can offer out of state waivers they have to "pay" the school the difference in the waiver, so that money must be budgeted.

If I follow what you are saying I don't see how that is right.

Any waiver would be open to all students so why would the athletic department have to reimburse the School for a waiver the student-athlete would receive even as a regular student?

 

[RollerVol]

Thanks vol66 and keep letting your freak flag fly...:rock:
To Dave or not to Dave, that is the final question...
Whatever happens isn't going to change anything for a while. (1) If Dave is let go, at least, IMHO, he left it better than it was, and a new coach would be in a better position to kick-start the program. (2) If Dave is let go, another Dave may not be far behind...:yes:

GO BIG ORANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[FGT]

If I follow what you are saying I don't see how that is right.

Any waiver would be open to all students so why would the athletic department have to reimburse the School for a waiver the student-athlete would receive even as a regular student?

Some schools only offer out of state waivers to students with special talents. Baseball ability would be one. But they are limited and there must be money to cover the difference unless state legislation allows the school to not have to cover it. Border schools like UTC and ETSU offer in state tuition waivers to out of state students from bordering counties, but this policy was enacted by legislation.

 

[BruinVol]

Some schools only offer out of state waivers to students with special talents. Baseball ability would be one. But they are limited and there must be money to cover the difference unless state legislation allows the school to not have to cover it. Border schools like UTC and ETSU offer in state tuition waivers to out of state students from bordering counties, but this policy was enacted by legislation.

If baseball is the special talent by NCAA rule that waived $ counts against the 11.7

 

[vol66]

Love this topic 66 and it's great info to analyze.

I want to look at vandy spending twice as much as us. 3.6mil to 1.8mil

I think I can make a good estimate of where the gap is found.

My guess is there is a 400k gap in coaching salaries.

Vandy also has 3-5 created staff positions that we don't have. I am guessing that's another 250k gap.


The gameday operations(which I would love to know if they are figured into these numbers) would be very similar because of stadium size and attendance


The scholarship budget would be very different and I am not even going to figure in their need based money which I assume isn't included in this data.

Vandy 11.7 x 65k=760k

Tenn 11.7 this is partially a guess.
8 out of state at 40k= 320k
3.7 in state at 25k=92,500

So in the scholarship department that's approximately a 350k gap.

So that's a total of
400k coaching salaries
250k extra staff
350k in scholarship $

For a total of 1mil dollars gap.

The other 800k could very easily be post season travel budget. Those trips to Omaha are extremely lengthy and expensive. I would be curious to know how much $ is actually spent in those 2 weeks and that isn't counting the extra days at Hoover, hosting a regional cost, as well hosting or traveling to a super regional.

So my point is the only "real" difference I see in comparing the 2 is the 3-5 created positions they have on staff. Do those Equal wins? I don't think so but I can understand why some might say they do

In addition to all of those things, if accurate, we all know about their endowment so they have that widely publicized advantage and of course they are spending to improve their facilities which include batting cages, club house, new offices and weight room, a locker room big enough for 22 former Vandy and current MLB players to call home in the off season.

The study I used stopped in 2013, of course Vandy, has won a national championship since then (2014), they are investing in baseball, they'd be foolish not to.

There are a number of reasons I chose to look into South Carolina. They compete with Clemson and other high quality, nearby, ACC schools. They have a state wide lottery. Holbrook interviewed for the job Serrano got. I don't know if Holbrook was serious or just showing us some respect, my guess is the latter. I suspect that South Carolina has a bit more in state talent, but it's not like UF.

It would be more apt to compare this job and the budget to Missouri or Kentucky on almost every level, but that's not striving for anything. We're already there, and that's fine if you simply want to say, "we play baseball."

 

[vol66]

The only way we're going to get better--of course--is via better recruiting, especially for pitching. No secret there, but we don't do it. If Serrano can show that more recruiting money would help, I would hope that our AD would give him more. As you say, Vandy surely has boosted its baseball spending because it is about the only sport success story they have.

I think recruiting in the SEC, for a lot of sports, is hard because there are a LOT of good programs competing for talent mostly in one geographic area. I have NO IDEA how Virginia got so good in baseball so suddenly, seemingly. UVA was a doormat in a lot of sports for decades--now that school is good at most everything (but football!) Maybe it's because there is less recruiting competition in the mid-Atlantic as opposed to the Southeast? I think it is also the fact that UVA, like Vandy and Stanford, is a /very/ attractive school academically, and that helps them with recruiting as players see they can play for a good program AND get a first-rate education. It's a nice combo that works wonderfully for sports like tennis, soccer...and baseball.

I played baseball at UT, quite a lot time ago, and Vandy was good then--and the spring weather was always horrible--cold, rainy, snow a couple of years; it suxed. By the time it started to warm up, the season was over!

UVA is pretty much like Vandy in terms of how they allocate need based money...it's no coincidence that UVA won a national championship in 2015 and Vandy won it in 2014 and they've both been one seeds two out of the last three years, assuming Vandy isn't one this year.

Pitching and full ride go hand in hand...however it's useless to talk about these examples we need to figure out how SC does things financially and shoot for that.

 

[FGT]

If baseball is the special talent by NCAA rule that waived $ counts against the 11.7

The phrase 'special talent' was somewhat informal, because yes it could be construed as countable aid. However, in this instance it was not.

 

[BruinVol]

Pitching and full ride go hand in hand...however it's useless to talk about these examples we need to figure out how SC does things financially and shoot for that.

I posted a few weeks ago that I found where USCe has need based aid as well for their students. They also have out of state waivers for specific target academic students. Huge things for baseball recruiting

 

[BruinVol]

The phrase 'special talent' was somewhat informal, because yes it could be construed as countable aid. However, in this instance it was not.

NCAA violation area here

 

[vol66]

I posted a few weeks ago that I found where USCe has need based aid as well for their students. They also have out of state waivers for specific target academic students. Huge things for baseball recruiting

I know that, obviously...of course at that time I didn't realize their budget was also twice what ours is...

Again, I'm not making excuses. Serrano has made mistakes. He totally underestimated this job on almost every level and he's pretty much admitted it. So that's one thing.

Then there is the school, they bare responsibility as well and I'm not even talking about what DeerPark brought up regarding unfulfilled promises.

Maybe we'll catch lightening in a bottle and if there is a next guy he can just overcome it, but it's asking a lot.

 

[BruinVol]

I know that, obviously...of course at that time I didn't realize their budget was also twice what ours is...

Again, I'm not making excuses. Serrano has made mistakes. He totally underestimated this job on almost every level and he's pretty much admitted it. So that's one thing.

Then there is the school, they bare responsibility as well and I'm not even talking about what DeerPark brought up regarding unfulfilled promises.

Maybe we'll catch lightening in a bottle and if there is a next guy he can just overcome it, but it's asking a lot.

Hard to know what your numbers really show without knowing if they show post season expenditures and game day operations. If so those USCe $s are slanted upward very so especially in the 2013 timeframe with their CWS trips.

The reason I post that about scholarship $s was to say they really aren't that far from Vandy and virginia which you posted was easy to see their success to paraphrase

 

[vol66]

Hard to know what your numbers really show without knowing if they show post season expenditures and game day operations. If so those USCe $s are slanted upward very so especially in the 2013 timeframe with their CWS trips.

The reason I post that about scholarship $s was to say they really aren't that far from Vandy and virginia which you posted was easy to see their success to paraphrase

I don't doubt that all of these numbers are a bit out of date, if anything I bet they are DE-flated...LSU is spending the most, Vandy etc...

I'm not trying to get into the minutia of how scholarships are dolled out between need based schools and what not...

I've used what I can find to prove there is a correlation between schools that spend the most generally get what they pay for...sure there are the CSF of the world, where baseball is the #1 sport, but that's not a viable option for us because football is king...but as I've also shown, all the schools listed have football programs...

If we need to get creative to be successful with scholarships like SC then we should do it and if we don't it's on the school, it's just another way they fail the coach they hire and the kids he recruits. There is no reason our kids should travel worse than anybody else, there games should be shown like everybody else...and when i say that I'm not talking about Arkansas, I'm talking about Arkansas State.

Serrano is a good man, hopefully the next guy is too, it's hard to watch them treated this way. It would be interesting to see if a guy like Calvi, who knows the lay of the land fairly recently would take this job because I'd expect he knows the disadvantages.

 

[FGT]

Hard to know what your numbers really show without knowing if they show post season expenditures and game day operations. If so those USCe $s are slanted upward very so especially in the 2013 timeframe with their CWS trips.

The reason I post that about scholarship $s was to say they really aren't that far from Vandy and virginia which you posted was easy to see their success to paraphrase

The NCAA pays for postseason travel, hotel and meals via a per diem. The institution pays whatever they choose to go over the per diem. For instance if they choose air travel to a regional tournament when the NCAA has mandated bus travel based on mileage to the venue.

Another thing that could be part of the budget is $ for hosting bids for NCAA regionals.

 

[vol66]

the ncaa pays for postseason travel, hotel and meals via a per diem. The institution pays whatever they choose to go over the per diem. For instance if they choose air travel to a regional tournament when the ncaa has mandated bus travel based on mileage to the venue.

Another thing that could be part of the budget is $ for hosting bids for ncaa regionals.

qft.

 

[HeyBuddy]

This is a great discussion....one thing that needs to be factor in is what is the cost to recruit players out of the area. It seems to me that UT does a good enough job recruiting from the state of TN. But in order to compete nationally, I think we all agree that they need to cast a larger net to get more talent. The reason I bring this up is because if UCLA (or any warm weather/heavily populated area) has a budget of 1.7 mill. and UT has a budget of 1.8 that is deceiving. UCLA is located in the middle of nation's hotbed of talent. Their costs to attract that talent is much lower because they do not have to travel all over the US looking for talent. On weekends they can go and scout many talented players. They can create relationships with the top travel teams, scout ball coaches, etc.. Sure, the tournament in Jupiter and GA are opportunities for scouting, but how do you really create a relationship with the family in such a short time. UT is trying to build what Miss. St, Ole Miss, already have...cost $$$$$. I think the hiring of Simcox was brilliant (but maybe too late) not just because of his offensive philosophy, but because of his connections with travel ball. I think that is why this recruiting class is much bigger. The athletic administration should be having these discussions...like I have said in previous posts...this is a deeper issue than the coach. The top baseball programs at every level are about infrastructure. There are no magic offenses, schemes, or masterminds. Those things work in football and basketball, not baseball. Look at the average salary of an MLB manager and compare it to a NFL or NBA head coach...it isn't even close. If you find a better coach...hire one. I love how CDS is as determined as ever to turn this program around. Finally, this group of seniors are special men. I think the baseball program can hold their heads high at the seniors that just graduated. They are great young men and I know a previous poster said it is all about winning...I disagree. The college athletic experience should be looked at differently for these students. If there is a new coach, he is entering a culture of high moral and academic success. I wish the boys luck this weekend.

If football wins 10 games, beats Florida, and wins a bowl game (again)...this will be even less important.

 

[BruinVol]

The NCAA pays for postseason travel, hotel and meals via a per diem. The institution pays whatever they choose to go over the per diem. For instance if they choose air travel to a regional tournament when the NCAA has mandated bus travel based on mileage to the venue.

Another thing that could be part of the budget is $ for hosting bids for NCAA regionals.

Almost 100% the NCAA reimburses schools for hotels and food in post season play which would still be included in the total list of expenditures. That's my impression and I could be wrong but I would bet on it

 

[TNnative]

Ok, so what is the point? If we spend as much as LSU, Vandy and SCe, what will we look like?

Fine with me--I'd love to have a great baseball team, but you've got a bunch of stats here and I'm not sure what we do with them.

If we fly first class, we get a great boost in recruiting? What's the answer?

I believe the point he is making is this:

The sport of college baseball is dominated by schools who make the financial commitment to winning. If your travel budget is lower, the HS players you want pay enough attention to know which schools takes care of their team, and who does not.

And even though his post did not include direct evidence to what those actual expenditures are, it is safe to assume those schools who invest more make more & better recruiting visits, and their presentations reflect the financial commitment. Things you and I will never see, unless we have a son, nephew, or close friend's boy being recruited to play college baseball.

So, if Tennessee wishes to win at baseball, he feels they seriously need to find ways to increase their investment through the program's budget.

 

[vol66]

In the last 14 years (we'll be able to track 15 years after Saturday it won't help our number any), how many times have SEC schools finished above .500 in SEC play. Obviously, exceptions have to be made for Mizzou and TAMU.

Ole Miss - 11

South Carolina - 11

Florida - 10

Vanderbilt - 10

LSU - 9

Arkansas - 8

Texas A&M - 5

Mississippi State - 5

Alabama - 5

Georgia - 4

Kentucky - 3

Missouri - 3

Auburn - 2

Tennessee - 1


* In 3 years in the SEC, Mizzou has not finished above .500, though they did finish exactly .500 last year.

* In 3 years in the SEC, TAMU finished above .500 once, last year and will do so again this year.

* For us this spans three coaches, two AD's and an Interim AD.

* Auburn is on the list in the original post, they don't get much bang for the buck...the rest are doing well.

 

[508mikey]

My understanding is that the 11.7 scholarships have to be divided among at least 24 players . I heard that minimum percentage is 33%, is used to be 25%. That is based on tuition, room, board and books. Most schools have 35 on spring roster and 27 or 28 on travel sec roster. With lottery money that does give a big advantage to in state kids. You cant waive out of state tuition, however the actual money is based on whether it is in state or out of state. Obviously a private school with a large endowment and a bunch of finanical aid can offer more help based on family income.

Does anyone ever wonder if some of these top baseball programs give players improper benefits - It seems like the AA only has a nose for that in basketball and football

 

[YankeeVol]

Does anyone ever wonder if some of these top baseball programs give players improper benefits - It seems like the AA only has a nose for that in basketball and football

I wonder what schools actually make money off baseball? It can't be many

 

[508mikey]

I wonder what schools actually make money off baseball? It can't be many

My thoughts also -

 

[vol66]

According to Arkansas' wiki page, they, LSU, MSU and Ole Miss make a profit. Whether or not that is true I don't know...I'll look into it later, gotta make dinner.

 

[vol66]

While looking up that info I stumbled on this...

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU0CbZvdgBs[/youtube]

The greater than $9.6 million, 52,000-square foot facility opened at the end of last season. Players have been regulars there ever since and the Razorbacks were able to utilize the building during fall practices, rain or shine.

WholeHogSports - Indoor facility has Hogs feeling defensive

Whoever said our facilities are as nice as anyone obviously hasn't seen this lol.

 

[BruinVol]

While looking up that info I stumbled on this...

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU0CbZvdgBs[/youtube]




WholeHogSports - Indoor facility has Hogs feeling defensive

Whoever said our facilities are as nice as anyone obviously hasn't seen this lol.

Our facilities are below Arkansas, lsu, ole miss, miss state and USCe.

The rest are all about the same(I can't really comment on Alabama)

When seeing the success of vandy and florida it becomes apparent that the elitist of the elite in facilities isn't a requirement for becoming an elite winner