We're seeing a lot of decommitments in college baseball. I think it's important to understand WHY. This didn't happen overnight. Follow the dominoes. 👇 2020: COVID. The NCAA grants spring athletes an additional year of eligibility. Players stay in college longer. Rosters get older. Opportunities for incoming freshmen become more competitive. Then the professional pipeline changes. MLB cuts its draft from 40 rounds to 20. Affiliated minor league teams shrink from 162 to 120. Fewer traditional opportunities to enter professional baseball. Now look at the roster math. Before COVID, D1 baseball operated with a 35-man roster limit. During the eligibility crunch, temporary allowances eventually expanded rosters to 40 players. Beginning in 2025-26, programs participating in the House settlement moved to a 34-man roster limit, with exceptions for certain players. That's SIX fewer standard roster spots compared to the temporary 40-man allowance. Now add the transfer portal. Nearly 2,700 D1 baseball players entered the portal during the June 2026 window alone. Programs have access to thousands of experienced college players competing for opportunities. Throw in NIL, revenue sharing, and the shift from the old 11.7-scholarship model to the possibility of funding scholarships across all 34 roster spots at participating programs. And now the NCAA's new age-based eligibility model can allow qualifying athletes up to FIVE years of competition within a continuous five-year window, replacing the traditional four-seasons-in-five-years model. Think about what all of this means. A college coach can genuinely believe in a high school prospect when he commits. But by the time that player arrives on campus, the roster, budget, available transfer talent, and immediate needs of the program could look completely different. College baseball has become an increasingly competitive roster-management business. And the pressure to WIN NOW is real. Does that excuse every decommitment? Absolutely not. But I also don't believe every decommitment represents a lack of loyalty. Here's what concerns me most. We're asking teenagers and their families to make decisions about their futures in a system that can change dramatically before they ever step foot on campus. The rules changed. The economics changed. The roster math changed. But the hopes and dreams of those kids haven't. And somewhere in the middle of all this change, we cannot lose sight of the people affected by it. @prepbaseball

I'll probably catch some heat for this, but here goes. I'm a HUGE believer in multi-sport athletes. I grew up playing multiple sports. Loved basketball. Loved competing. And I firmly believe those experiences helped me become a better baseball player. Different movements. Different challenges. Different ways to compete. I've spent decades around this game, and I'll tell you this: being a better overall athlete sure as hell isn't going to hurt your chances of becoming a better baseball player. Does that mean every kid needs to play three sports? Nope. Does that mean specializing is wrong? Absolutely not. But I do think we've gotten a little too comfortable convincing young athletes they need to choose one sport before they've even figured out what they're capable of. Let kids compete. Let them develop. Let them figure it out. There's more than one road to becoming a great ballplayer. 👊