Episode Transcript
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[00:01:11] Speaker B: Welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball. I'm Andy Kutis, joined by my wonderful co host Keith Glasser. How we doing?
[00:01:20] Speaker C: Great.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: How are you? Good.
We got a rule change coming in.
This time it's not from the ncaa, it's from Major League Baseball.
[00:01:31] Speaker C: Oh, thank goodness.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: And while it may not have a direct impact on recruiting, I do think the trickle down effect of this drives at some of what we talked about in the not so distant past around proper scheduling and when guys should be throwing and when they should be playing and where when guys should be working out. But essentially this rule, and I'll run down the specifics of it, but there's really no reason to be playing competitive baseball after October 15th anymore. So let me, let me run this down real quick. So, new set of rules. Once again, this comes down from Major League Baseball and essentially the, what seems to be the driving factor behind this decision is that you got a lot of kids and a lot of players who are suffering from arm injuries likely tied to overuse. Throwing too much. Throwing too much. Competitively, you can chalk it up to whatever you want, but this seems to be a step that Major League Baseball is doing in order to try to reduce some of this by eliminating the ability of Major league scouts to go and scout high school juniors or seniors from October 15th to January 15th and college players from November 15th to January 15th.
So they cannot go to anything. Training sessions, activities, throwing, hitting, catching, fielding practices.
Technically they are not even allowed to get their hands on biomechanical data, trackman data. All of that good stuff is Supposed to be off limits during this window. How they're going to enforce that, I have no idea. But the crux of it is not only are college coaches not allowed to go and evaluate off of their campuses, Division 1 college coaches, but now major league scouts will not be in attendance for anything from October 15th to January 15th for high school guys, November 15th to January 15th for college guys.
What are your thoughts on this, Coach?
[00:03:52] Speaker C: I think it's a step in the right direction.
Right. You know, you're.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: There.
[00:04:01] Speaker C: They'Re at least attempting to start some, to start change and realistically it has to start somewhere. Do we think that this is going to curb all injuries? No, at least I don't, because I still think there's going to be people out there that are want to throw year round and do all the things and it's at their detriment in the long run. But it's at least a starting point for Major League Baseball to mimic or mirror, I should say mirror kind of the shutdown period from a recruiting standpoint at the NCAA and not have the pressure for college guys and high school guys that are draft eligible. And this, to be clear, this is domestically, so this is only United States to be able to go see all of these players year round.
So, you know, I think it at least starts the conversation of people legitimately having a rest period built into their throwing program. And I, you know, to be, to be completely clear, I do believe that.
I don't believe that there, I should say, I don't believe that there are a lot of college guys out there nowadays that feel the pressure that they need to be able to throw late into the fall or earlier in the year in front of college guys or major league scouts. Right.
You know, the college guys, I think, have a really good feel for what their throwing program looks like throughout the course of the year, how their body's reacting, how they feel, what those things are. Are there people out there? I'm sure there are, but I would say the vast majority of guys that are going to be draft eligible that legitimately have a shot to be drafted have an understanding of like, hey, I need to have a shutdown period at some point to let my body recover for what I'm doing. But it's the step in the right direction, especially at the, the amateur level with, in high school with draft eligible guys. Because, you know, we've talked about it with going to tournaments in November in Florida and, you know, not having a downtime and, you know, now, you know, what is the incentive to going, you know, you can't necessarily say that you're going down to be scouted by major league scouts, right? And let's be clear, there's only 20 rounds. There's not a lot of people getting drafted. Like, you have to be really good.
Not to say it can't happen in the future, but, you know, the reality is if you're not going to be close to draft eligible right now, you're probably not getting on a whole hell of a lot of draft boards or follow lists until you do some stuff that proves you should be drafted. And that can happen over the course of the next four or five years as you develop in college, but it's a step in the right direction. I don't, I don't believe that this is going to, you know, we're going to go from 100 arm injuries to zero.
But I certainly think that it's going to start the conversation of, like, yeah, there's no point in us playing in these tournaments. There's no point in us continuing to do these things if literally nobody is going to be there, right? Like, if the goal is to be recruited or scouted and no one can be there to do it, then there's no point in playing the tournament.
And it's not to say that I'm, you know, anti competition, I'm one of the most competitive people you meet, but there comes a point in time where there's. It's a point of diminishing returns and October, November, December, January, like, there. There's no point to be doing that. The point would be to rest for a certain amount of time, be able to build back up safely, let your body recover, do some other things, you know, get away from baseball for, you know, two or three weeks and then get back into it. So, you know, again, I sound like I'm beating a dead horse here, but, you know, it's. It's the right step to start the conversation and to do. To be actionable on trying to legitimately cut down on arm injuries and the amount of wear and tear that are on a lot of these younger arms by feeling like you have to go to all these tournaments and throw in all these things.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll be a little bit more emphatic. I think it's awesome.
I mean, I, I agree with you. 100. Like, I don't think it's the solution. And I don't know if there'll ever be a solution, like a complete solution, I should say, where you just, you know, find a way to just Completely minimize arm injuries. But I think this is massive and you know, it really doesn't give.
There's no legitimate reason to be throwing competitively in late October and November anymore.
And hopefully travel ball coaches take note of this. And these tournaments that are going on in November for 14 and 15, you like, you don't have to go to this. These kids shouldn't be throwing baseballs year round. Competitively. It's different playing catch, it's different working in your facility.
That, that to me is a different ball of wax. You have shutdown periods, you have ramp up periods.
It's a more controlled environment. You can control volume, you can control intensity.
It's easier to manage.
Right?
So I'm a big fan of this.
I think it's huge. Hopefully it helps clear the air on some decisions and makes it easier to sit through the BS around going and playing some of these tournaments and you know, flying down to Florida to play the first week in November. Like, hopefully families realize you don't need to do that. You never, you never had to. But now there's, you know, there's no pressure over like, well, the major league scouts are going to be there. Well, they're not anymore and for the most part they weren't there anyways.
But I think it's great.
I would really love to see, and I'm going to throw this out there, maybe somebody at the NCAA will pick it up. I would really love to see the NCAA put a cutoff date for on campus camps and put a completely dead period.
And instead of the quiet period where college, college coaches, college programs aren't allowed to host camps on campus during a similar window to prevent guys from showing up and throwing.
Because that's always a lure too. Like, that's the other thing that doesn't go away from this is that you can still go throw at whatever camp at the beginning of November, if they have a camp or whatever it is. I'd love to see the NCAA say, hey, the quiet period ends the 15th. You have the ability to run camps or the ends of the 13th, excuse me, starts the 13th, I'm all over the place. Starts the 13th. Quiet period goes till March 1st.
I'd love to see them put some, even some more controls in there just for the high school guys, not for the college guys, but just for the high school guys and say, all right, you've got two weeks to host your campsite and on November 1st, from November 1st to February 1st, you're not allowed to host any camps and really force the issue that these kids need to put the ball down or not be, not feel like they need to go and throw in front of coaches when they're not really ready to or they shouldn't be based on where they're, where they are from a ramp up perspective.
Yeah, that's my two cents on that.
[00:11:18] Speaker C: You can, I think you could take it a step further to there should be a recruiting dead period at Division 2 and Division 3.
It can mirror the Division 1 calendar because it's not stopping your, your private showcases from having events in January that these guys show up to.
And look, I get it, like you, you know, you're getting paid money to work some of these events. But I mean every event that I've been to as a Division 3 assistant or head coach in January, I've never gotten a player out of, I've gotten a paycheck.
I never got a player out of it.
Like you're going to see a kid in January. Like you might not. Even if you have a shot at the kid, you're not going to know until late August, September, where you can see that kid during the spring or the summer or even the fall and make a decision on him, you know, but like if, and I think it's, it goes hand in hand with the argument, like you can't be excited about the Major League Baseball rule and say that it's good to try to get it rid of it but, or to get to, to lessen arm injuries. But then on the same hand be like, yeah, I'm going to show up to these camps in January on, you know, January 17th to watch a bunch of high school kids throw.
I mean, you can, but no, I agree with you. One of my favorite things, but like, you know, you know what I'm saying? Like if, if, you know, and I think to your point, when, when we open this, like it's, there'll be a there, there could be a trickle down effect. Like if the big if, if major league scouts can't go out and see guys, like, why can, why should college guys?
Yeah, you know, and it's, you know, you can put an arbitrary date on it, but you know, maybe February 1st is the date you put on it. Because I, I do think that in some regards, like kids, at least at that point the vast majority of this country is either playing high school baseball and, or very close to playing high school baseball where kids are probably in a safe enough spot to be able to go showcase themselves.
But I also think like as a family and as a kid, you have to be, you have to know where you're at.
If you're not playing a meaningful game until March or, excuse me, until April, then, you know, if you're not in a spot to go throw and you know, let's be clear, if you're a 20, 28 or a 29, like, no one's really recruiting you next year.
So, like, do you really need to go through January to September, October throw, you know, live up period?
I would argue that you don't.
You know, I would argue that, you know, you're better off just playing high school baseball, gearing up for the summer and then having a decent fall and going to some places that you want to be seen by versus trying to do it in February because again, you know, you're going to show up as a 28 or 29. If you're going to be like, yeah, no, they're like, we're, I'm 18 months away from recruiting this kid.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: Yeah, there's. And from a 28 perspective, right? And these are direct quotes from college guys, like, call me in seven months if he's still.
Like, they're, they're not worried about 28.
They're not recruiting 28. They'll get around to that. Yeah, of course, they'd love to have an idea of who's out there, but they can't talk to him after October 15th, 13th. They can't go see him. They got to come to them.
Like, it's just not top of mind for them. And the other part of it is there's such a small percentage of kids that would qualify for like, hey, you're that good that going to this camp in February might actually move the needle for you.
Right? It's such a small percentage of kids.
When you, when you look at it across all of high school baseball and you look at the schools that are really going to be recruiting heavy for 28 next August, there's a, there's a really small percentage of kids that coaches are going to jump at because you got the roster limitations, you got the transfer portal, you've got all that stuff that's getting factored in now. And you know, we've had almost verbatim conversations with coaches where they say, hey, like, we're not taking the 27 right now unless we feel like that kid's pretty much ready to help us or could step on our team right now and not get lost in the sauce. Like, they're looking for really high end kids who are really advanced and.
[00:16:12] Speaker C: A.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Lot of people don't want to hear this, but the truth of the matter is is that that's a really small percentage of kids.
Doesn't mean you're not good. It doesn't mean you're not going to get a Division 1 scholarship. Doesn't mean you're not going to play college baseball. But you know, the kids who are going and playing in the SEC and the ACC and the Big 12, you know, in the Big 10, like, that's a really small portion of the college baseball landscape. And it's not that they're the only schools who are actively recruiting, but they're the majority, you know.
[00:16:42] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: So I think it's good. I'm, I'm glad that they did it. I was a little surprised to see it come across my Twitter feed, but I was excited to see it.
Hopefully it makes some decisions for people a little bit easier because there's really nothing there for you to go, oh, well, I should be doing this in November. Well, nobody's going to be there. If you're a 27, literally nobody's going to be there that's going to be recruiting you. So I think it's a good thing.
Anything else you want to add?
[00:17:14] Speaker C: That is it.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: All right. Thank you for listening, everybody. Tune in next week. We'll talk to you then.
Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and instagramdbaseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.
