CDH Approach to the Portal

[awbuzz]

Not making into a regional last year pushed the subject into high gear.

“The portal is hard to navigate from the standpoint that there’s a lot of schools that, I would just say it like this, that have collectives that have a lot of money, and those collectives want those teams to get this best players in the country. And the ones that have the collectives up and running and have a lot of money, they can get the best players, just quite honestly,” Hall said. “We are not at that level. .."

“It’s a different recruiting model, and it’s something that we will continue to do. Now will we bring 12 players in like we did this year? Probably not. But when we feel like there’s an area that we need to improve upon, the easiest way, not necessarily a quick fix, but try to fix something would be to go into the transfer portal.”

Georgia Tech coach Danny Hall explains approach to transfer portal

Hall’s team opened practice Friday, a little less than three weeks from starting the 2024 season. It’s a team that features nearly 30 newcomers.

www.ajc.com

 

[GTNavyNuke]

I tried to get article on AJC.com on my phone and over limit.

In any event, D1 Baseball says we had a good transfer class to fill our needs like 18th in the country. So not quite sure what Hall is getting at. Is he saying the guys we got aren't that good? I don't think so.

Maybe he's saying that in future years we won't do that good in the portal.......

Here's something I remembered that Hall said in the fall which is different than the quote above:

 

[JacketOff]

I tried to get article on AJC.com on my phone and over limit.

In any event, D1 Baseball says we had a good transfer class to fill our needs like 18th in the country. So not quite sure what Hall is getting at. Is he saying the guys we got aren't that good? I don't think so.

Maybe he's saying that in future years we won't do that good in the portal.......

Here's something I remembered that Hall said in the fall which is different than the quote above:
View attachment 15623

I think he’s just saying we’re probably not going to be getting guys like Tommy Tanks, Paul Skenes, and Chase Burns out of the portal. The guys that have proved themselves to be early draft picks and All-Americans and are only in college to boost their draft stock. The portal guys we’re going to be going after are solid pieces to fill holes in a lineup and hopefully play at an above average level and maybe All-ACC. Either dudes like Justyn Henry-Malloy who weren’t really getting opportunities at baseball powerhouses, or guys like Mason Patel and Cam Jones who showed out at lower levels of competition.

Basically we aren’t going to be able to buy all of the best players like the LSU’s, Tennessee’s, and Florida State’s of the world, but we’re going to get solid pieces and continue to develop them together into a winning team.

 

[78pike]

The AJC article is just a reposting of the comments CDH made in his press conference today before the scrimmage.If you watch it you don't have to guess at what he means. He was pretty clear that there are some schools out there with deep pocketed collectives that are able to buy most of the top players in the portal that they want. We are not in that stratosphere. We have to carefully scout the portal to fit needs. What the coaches recognized we needed at the end of last year was better defense and pitching so that's what they went after. He said we signed 12 this year from the portal because of the high number of position players lost to the draft along with three of our top freshmen that decided to sign out of high school. He said normally he wouldn't anticipate us signing that many in the future. With regard to the portal he said it is very tough for freshmen to be able to compete right away when they are playing against 23 year old "men" who have been in college for 5 years getting much stronger and much more experience.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

The AJC article is just a reposting of the comments CDH made in his press conference today before the scrimmage.If you watch it you don't have to guess at what he means. He was pretty clear that there are some schools out there with deep pocketed collectives that are able to buy most of the top players in the portal that they want. We are not in that stratosphere. We have to carefully scout the portal to fit needs. What the coaches recognized we needed at the end of last year was better defense and pitching so that's what they went after. He said we signed 12 this year from the portal because of the high number of position players lost to the draft along with three of our top freshmen that decided to sign out of high school. He said normally he wouldn't anticipate us signing that many in the future. With regard to the portal he said it is very tough for freshmen to be able to compete right away when they are playing against 23 year old "men" who have been in college for 5 years getting much stronger and much more experience.

Thanks. Makes sense and is similar to football or basketball. And most of the high level transfers should only play a year given their age.

But (always a but), when I look at the D1 Baseball top 25 transfer teams, I see some teams - like Wake Forest which I wouldn't think have a deep pocket collective. Maybe I'm wrong and the collective world is intentionally opaque.

Looking at WF, the reason they are ranked so high is Chase Burns from Tennessee. I wouldn't be surprised if Burns didn't leave since Tennessee has so much talent stacked up it's hard to get playing time at the position (starter not reliever) he wants. Just speculation, but players will move for playing time to increase their draft stock in addition to NIL.

Who in the ACC do we think has "deep pockets" for baseball. FSU and Clemson? Not NC State or us.

 

[78pike]

Ranking transfer classes before they play a single game is much like ranking teams. It's just a guess based on past performance. A poster on one of the baseball threads said it best, last year's performance (which most of these rankings are based on) has nothing to do with this year's teams. With the portal and high school guesswork each school is a new entity year to year. We may not have signed the "big names" in the portal but we seem to be able to turn some of them into gems each year. Chandler Simpson was decent at UAB but he became one of the top players in the nation in his time with us. Same with Tim Borden. He was a utility infielder with Louisville and then he comes to Tech and he is hitting the barrel of the bat on the ball almost every at bat and knocking many of them out of the park. There are plenty of other transfer that could be listed but you what I am saying. I would love to see transfer classes rated at the end of the year instead of the beginning.

Anyway, we all know we will go as far as our pitching will take us. I'm confident the offense will be fine as Ramsey does his magic year after year. It sounds like our transfers have blended well with the team. As always I remain hopeful and I am looking forward to seeing how this new team does and how the transfers and freshmen mesh with the team.