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Kentucky Baseball 2022

This one is a pretty interesting pickup for UK. According to DT, Harris will be a favorite to start at 2nd. If this is indeed his final year, I doubt that he's coming to UK to sit the bench, so he will most certainly at least think he's got a really good chance of locking down 2nd in the fall, if he wasn't promised the position.

I have to imagine that this means that UK believes that Plastiak will move to 1st and Estep will play 3rd. That means that Church is going to PH and kind of be the odd man out defensively. Cotto could factor into that by playing first and he'd be the only lefty on the UK roster capable (I think) of doing that, but it kind of seems like the staff wants to keep him on the pitching side and not cross him over.

All in all, this is a pretty interesting development as many of us were leaning towards believing that Plastiak would be at third while Estep moved to second. So, this kind of changes that up.
Harris is a really good player. Don't be fooled by the EKU thing, the guy is solid.
 
This one is a pretty interesting pickup for UK. According to DT, Harris will be a favorite to start at 2nd. If this is indeed his final year, I doubt that he's coming to UK to sit the bench, so he will most certainly at least think he's got a really good chance of locking down 2nd in the fall, if he wasn't promised the position.

I have to imagine that this means that UK believes that Plastiak will move to 1st and Estep will play 3rd. That means that Church is going to PH and kind of be the odd man out defensively. Cotto could factor into that by playing first and he'd be the only lefty on the UK roster capable (I think) of doing that, but it kind of seems like the staff wants to keep him on the pitching side and not cross him over.

All in all, this is a pretty interesting development as many of us were leaning towards believing that Plastiak would be at third while Estep moved to second. So, this kind of changes that up.
Crazy development really. I like Church at 3B myself.

We will nearly have a whole new team next year............
 
Harris is a really good player. Don't be fooled by the EKU thing, the guy is solid.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not attempting to put down any player or say that they aren’t worthy or anything to that effect. I think with transfers it is always a question of how they adjust to an increase in talent. For some, maybe many, it will be an easy transition. For others, they’re will be a learning curve. Harris seems like a solid player by all accounts. He seems to run well (15-19 on stolen bases) and he has a solid bat (.289) with good power (6 home runs) and struck out just 12 times in OVC play in 115 at bats. Makes some mistakes at times defensively, but probably not enough to hurt you too often (.965).

More point was more about his effect on the roster/lineup we have. I think many believed that Estep would be at 2nd while Plastiak and/or Church would be at third. Then we’d have Plastiak/Church at 1st, if Cotto didn’t move there. With this addition, it seems unlikely that the coaches are looking to move Estep to 2nd. So, instead, it is likely that you have Estep/Church/Plastiak competing for 3rd once again. Of course, this could also move things around and moreso ensure that we see Plastiak/Church at first. No matter how you cut it… UK is adding another infielder to the mix, which means that you now have 4-5 players competing for 3 spots. You could also possibly narrow that down to 3-4 competing for 2 spots if we believe that Harris essentially has 2nd locked down. Of course, we know UK coaches aren’t opposed to making an infielder an outfielder, so there is always that possibility.

All in all, an interesting addition that will have some ripples throughout the roster.
 
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Don’t get me wrong, I am not attempting to put down any player or say that they aren’t worthy or anything to that effect. I think with transfers it is always a question of how they adjust to an increase in talent. For some, maybe many, it will be an easy transition. For others, they’re will be a learning curve. Harris seems like a solid player by all accounts. He seems to run well (15-19 on stolen bases) and he has a solid bat (.289) with good power (6 home runs) and struck out just 12 times in OVC play in 115 at bats. Makes some mistakes at times defensively, but probably not enough to hurt you too often (.965).

More point was more about his effect on the roster/lineup we have. I think many believed that Estep would be at 2nd while Plastiak and/or Church would be at third. Then we’d have Plastiak/Church at 1st, if Cotto didn’t move there. With this addition, it seems unlikely that the coaches are looking to move Estep to 2nd. So, instead, it is likely that you have Estep/Church/Plastiak competing for 3rd once again. Of course, this could also move things around and moreso ensure that we see Plastiak/Church at first. No matter how you cut it… UK is adding another infielder to the mix, which means that you now have 4-5 players competing for 3 spots. You could also possibly narrow that down to 3-4 competing for 2 spots if we believe that Harris essentially has 2nd locked down. Of course, we know UK coaches aren’t opposed to making an infielder an outfielder, so there is always that possibility.

All in all, an interesting addition that will have some ripples throughout the roster.
Do we know if/where Harris played this summer?
 
Defensively it seems like it could actually be a puzzle that fits. Don’t know how good the newcomers are, but it’s at least guys in positions they know. Anu should be able to stick at DH. Church/Plastiak should be ok fielding 1B. Hopefully they can show they are good around the bag receiving throws.
 
Seems like they've done a good building a team that has a good chance of being significantly better next year. I think that is what was needed too. They weren't going to go bring in impact freshman and change the trajectory of the season next year, so they hit the portal. I feel like we've got to be pretty happy with where are compared to wherever were.
 
This one is a pretty interesting pickup for UK. According to DT, Harris will be a favorite to start at 2nd. If this is indeed his final year, I doubt that he's coming to UK to sit the bench, so he will most certainly at least think he's got a really good chance of locking down 2nd in the fall, if he wasn't promised the position.

I have to imagine that this means that UK believes that Plastiak will move to 1st and Estep will play 3rd. That means that Church is going to PH and kind of be the odd man out defensively. Cotto could factor into that by playing first and he'd be the only lefty on the UK roster capable (I think) of doing that, but it kind of seems like the staff wants to keep him on the pitching side and not cross him over.

All in all, this is a pretty interesting development as many of us were leaning towards believing that Plastiak would be at third while Estep moved to second. So, this kind of changes that up.
I’m skeptical until I see these kids play. Going from OVC to SEC is a huge step up in competition. I’m not a fan of using the portal as your best recruiting tool but I guess putting bandaids on problems is fine for UK and Barnhart.
 
Seems like they've done a good building a team that has a good chance of being significantly better next year. I think that is what was needed too. They weren't going to go bring in impact freshman and change the trajectory of the season next year, so they hit the portal. I feel like we've got to be pretty happy with where are compared to wherever were.
UK’s incoming class is poor for SEC standards. Mingione has done a decent job with the portal but the program is hemorrhaging and bandaids are only a temporary fix. Zero player development along with morale issues are a lose/lose scenario.
 
I want to be clear that I am not giving an excuse for the way we played or anything to that effect. I am really just talking about the effect it had on the development of our players and how things might change going forward. Again, for instance… Anu seems like he has been here forever. He was here in 2020 and in 2021 and he’ll be back in 2022. In some ways I feel like the player he was in 2021 is the player he will be going forward. However, even he was facing SEC pitching for the first time in 2021. He didn’t do terrible, but he clearly wasn’t impressive. So, with another year of seeing and adjusting to SEC pitching, can Anu put up big numbers or will we see the same type numbers (or worse) in 2022? So that is what I mean by the effects of Covid in this regard. I am just kind of thinking about these impacts. Hagenow for instance… he didn’t have a senior year at all (IIRC). Could he have pitched his way into a higher draft pick? What effect did a year off do to his arm strength and his ability to pitch a full season for UK? Did that play a factor in him seemingly not pitching as much later in the year?
I understand where you were going. Player development was definitely hurt by Covid, but personally I’ve not seen hardly any player development out of this staff period. I’m surprised Mingione was able to get anyone out of the portal to come play for him if half of what I’ve read/heard is accurate.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I am not attempting to put down any player or say that they aren’t worthy or anything to that effect. I think with transfers it is always a question of how they adjust to an increase in talent. For some, maybe many, it will be an easy transition. For others, they’re will be a learning curve. Harris seems like a solid player by all accounts. He seems to run well (15-19 on stolen bases) and he has a solid bat (.289) with good power (6 home runs) and struck out just 12 times in OVC play in 115 at bats. Makes some mistakes at times defensively, but probably not enough to hurt you too often (.965).

More point was more about his effect on the roster/lineup we have. I think many believed that Estep would be at 2nd while Plastiak and/or Church would be at third. Then we’d have Plastiak/Church at 1st, if Cotto didn’t move there. With this addition, it seems unlikely that the coaches are looking to move Estep to 2nd. So, instead, it is likely that you have Estep/Church/Plastiak competing for 3rd once again. Of course, this could also move things around and moreso ensure that we see Plastiak/Church at first. No matter how you cut it… UK is adding another infielder to the mix, which means that you now have 4-5 players competing for 3 spots. You could also possibly narrow that down to 3-4 competing for 2 spots if we believe that Harris essentially has 2nd locked down. Of course, we know UK coaches aren’t opposed to making an infielder an outfielder, so there is always that possibility.

All in all, an interesting addition that will have some ripples throughout the roster.
You’re absolutely right on with that post. I’ll just wait and see how it goes with the new kids.
 
Seems like they've done a good building a team that has a good chance of being significantly better next year. I think that is what was needed too. They weren't going to go bring in impact freshman and change the trajectory of the season next year, so they hit the portal. I feel like we've got to be pretty happy with where are compared to wherever were.
I’m anxious to go check them all out in the fall.
 
I’m skeptical until I see these kids play. Going from OVC to SEC is a huge step up in competition. I’m not a fan of using the portal as your best recruiting tool but I guess putting bandaids on problems is fine for UK and Barnhart.
I'm not saying they are doing well with Player Development or anything else. I'm just saying that given the situation they were in, I'm not sure what else we could have expected them or hoped for them to do. Would we be happier if they went and brought in a bunch of freshmen that wouldn't contribute for the next year or 2? And then be calling for their jobs after this season also? The situation they were in is not good, I'm just saying I feel like we have to be about as happy as we can be that they've plugged the holes as well as they have with transfers. I think from an SEC-ready standpoint, these guys with college experience under their belt (a lot of them top players from their previous conference) are much more likely to come in and produce than an untested freshman.
 
I'm not saying they are doing well with Player Development or anything else. I'm just saying that given the situation they were in, I'm not sure what else we could have expected them or hoped for them to do. Would we be happier if they went and brought in a bunch of freshmen that wouldn't contribute for the next year or 2? And then be calling for their jobs after this season also? The situation they were in is not good, I'm just saying I feel like we have to be about as happy as we can be that they've plugged the holes as well as they have with transfers. I think from an SEC-ready standpoint, these guys with college experience under their belt (a lot of them top players from their previous conference) are much more likely to come in and produce than an untested freshman.
The main problem here is why they had to hit the portal in the first place.
 
I'm not saying they are doing well with Player Development or anything else. I'm just saying that given the situation they were in, I'm not sure what else we could have expected them or hoped for them to do. Would we be happier if they went and brought in a bunch of freshmen that wouldn't contribute for the next year or 2? And then be calling for their jobs after this season also? The situation they were in is not good, I'm just saying I feel like we have to be about as happy as we can be that they've plugged the holes as well as they have with transfers. I think from an SEC-ready standpoint, these guys with college experience under their belt (a lot of them top players from their previous conference) are much more likely to come in and produce than an untested freshman.

As I mentioned in another post, something like 63 players came to UK over the last 4 years and made it to campus. Of those 63 a whopping 44 of them have left early without getting drafted. You could possibly even add in a few more, but a fairly conservative number is 44 of 63 have left before their eligibility expired or before they were drafted. That is almost 70 percent of the young men we brought into the program leaving before they needed to or had to. That seems to me to be an extremely high turnover rate and that is before we even factor in those handful that were successful and left the program by being drafted.

So, I think the roster situation that we are currently in is a culmination of that and I think that will continue with this staff. Which is fine, if it works. It just really hasn’t worked all that well since 2017.
 
As I mentioned in another post, something like 63 players came to UK over the last 4 years and made it to campus. Of those 63 a whopping 44 of them have left early without getting drafted. You could possibly even add in a few more, but a fairly conservative number is 44 of 63 have left before their eligibility expired or before they were drafted. That is almost 70 percent of the young men we brought into the program leaving before they needed to or had to. That seems to me to be an extremely high turnover rate and that is before we even factor in those handful that were successful and left the program by being drafted.

So, I think the roster situation that we are currently in is a culmination of that and I think that will continue with this staff. Which is fine, if it works. It just really hasn’t worked all that well since 2017.
I am confused by that number. Not saying you are wrong, but I count 22 returning guys for next year. So those are all guys brought in over the last 4 years. On top of that there have been some that have been drafted. How are you figuring the numbers? Again, not arguing just trying to understand.
 
I think this is the best way to summarize it:

-The program is in trouble, as rampant player defections, past player vocal criticism, internal dissension, and fan unrest are all very high.
-Ming and co. have done a decent (potentially very good, we'll see how the season pans out) job with teh portal to plug some holes.
-I have more hope that this season won't be a complete disaster. We're not competing for SEC titles any time soon, but will be interesting to see if Ming can cobble together an NCAA berth to save his job.
 
I am confused by that number. Not saying you are wrong, but I count 22 returning guys for next year. So those are all guys brought in over the last 4 years. On top of that there have been some that have been drafted. How are you figuring the numbers? Again, not arguing just trying to understand.

The short answer for you is that it does not take into account any JUCO players. It is just about HS recruits.

I did this a month or two ago, so I am looking at it again and adjusting the numbers to make sure they are a bit closer to accurate. I had some mistakes that I needed to clean up, but I think this is pretty close to being correct. I am using Perfect Game, so it is not necessarily 100 percent accurate as they have a screwy way (IMO) of presenting things. I had some players included that shouldn't have been and took those out from my original post and I had some that I missed because of the way PG presents things. So, I think this is more accurate:

Here is the breakdown:

UK had 11 commitments and players show up on campus from 2020. 3 of the 11 are now gone or are leaving (King, Hicks, and Kavanagh).

UK had 15 commitments and players from 2019. 11 of the 15 are now gone or are leaving (Brown, Rogers, Wibbels, Cole, Grace, Cook, Payne, Bard, Margot, Robinson, Tate)

UK had 21 commitments from 2018 (including JUCO). 15 of the 19 are now gone or are leaving, not including anyone who might get drafted... I mean transferred or left the program, or possibly never arrived (Parker, Harmon, Gambino, Cottongame, Olson, Adams, Music, Marsh, Koester, Daniels, Norton, Sulzer, Hord, Ellington, Ayers).

UK had 18 commitments from 2017 (including JUCO). 12 of the 15 are now gone or are leaving or never made it, taking out two that went pro, that I remember, (Jordan (RIP), Marozas, Dobzanski, Ramsey, Benoit, Hill, Bringhurst, Bennett, Cantillo, Harbet, Hastings, Lockhart)

So, the first sentence is just referring to how many players were in the class in one way or another. I then take out the JUCO players and focus solely on the HS recruits. I also tried to take out anyone that I am sure was drafted (i.e. Aaron Perry in 2017) before coming to UK.

So, if I counted correctly, that is 60 players over 4 years that came to UK as HS freshmen. Of those 60, 41 (68%) of them are now gone and they left not because they were drafted (i.e. Rhodes) or because they ran out of eligibility (i.e. Collett, who was actually a 2016 HS grad), but for some other reason.

Edit to add:

There are 16 players on the UK roster that came to UK as freshmen and still remain. Add that total to the 41 and you're up to 57. Add in three that got drafted/free agent this year (Rhodes, Schultz, Kess) and you get the 60.

I think this is correct. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong. haha
 
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To add to the above and make it more clear (if needed) if you look at 2017:


I take off Perry and Rutledge in my count because both were drafted before they ever got to UK (Perry in 17 and Jackson in 19, I think). So, if you count everyone on that page, minus those 2 you get 18 players. You then take out 3 JUCO/transfer players (Anu, Harney, Golda) who came to UK not in 2017, but at some later time, and that gives you 15 HS players that came to UK in 2017 (they’d be on the 2018 roster as freshmen). I then count the ones that are no longer at UK and technically there are 13 of those. However, I took Coltyn Kessler off my list. He could, conceivably stay on there since he entered the transfer portal, but I decided it was fair to take him off. So, that gives me 12 players that left UK early out of 15 total. That leaves UK with just 2 players from that class returning that meet this criteria (Hazelwood and Harper).

I hope that makes sense and clears it up. Again, feel free to call me out on anything that is funky or I'm wrong about. I make plenty of mistakes, so I don't doubt I made some more in this. haha
 
Thanks for the research. I’ll take your word for it. There has been lots of turnover without a doubt and it’s a huge problem. However, there are 22 returners in the program no matter how they got to Uk.
 
Seeing some schools taking 24-28 players and with the 11.7 scholarships in play these guys must be getting no more than a spiral notebook and a #2 pencil.
 
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I'm not saying they are doing well with Player Development or anything else. I'm just saying that given the situation they were in, I'm not sure what else we could have expected them or hoped for them to do. Would we be happier if they went and brought in a bunch of freshmen that wouldn't contribute for the next year or 2? And then be calling for their jobs after this season also? The situation they were in is not good, I'm just saying I feel like we have to be about as happy as we can be that they've plugged the holes as well as they have with transfers. I think from an SEC-ready standpoint, these guys with college experience under their belt (a lot of them top players from their previous conference) are much more likely to come in and produce than an untested freshman.
I understand what you’re getting at and I didn’t mean to come off argumentative. I agree with your point, I just don’t like why we had to use the portal so much.
 
As I mentioned in another post, something like 63 players came to UK over the last 4 years and made it to campus. Of those 63 a whopping 44 of them have left early without getting drafted. You could possibly even add in a few more, but a fairly conservative number is 44 of 63 have left before their eligibility expired or before they were drafted. That is almost 70 percent of the young men we brought into the program leaving before they needed to or had to. That seems to me to be an extremely high turnover rate and that is before we even factor in those handful that were successful and left the program by being drafted.

So, I think the roster situation that we are currently in is a culmination of that and I think that will continue with this staff. Which is fine, if it works. It just really hasn’t worked all that well since 2017.
Perfectly worded. This is the point I was trying to make with Cocky’s post on the portal. I think we are all on the same page that we don’t like the current state of the program and we want more. Hopefully we get that sooner rather than later.
 
I think this is the best way to summarize it:

-The program is in trouble, as rampant player defections, past player vocal criticism, internal dissension, and fan unrest are all very high.
-Ming and co. have done a decent (potentially very good, we'll see how the season pans out) job with teh portal to plug some holes.
-I have more hope that this season won't be a complete disaster. We're not competing for SEC titles any time soon, but will be interesting to see if Ming can cobble together an NCAA berth to save his job.
This sounds crappy but if we have a decent year next year it will push out the inevitable decision to fire Mingione. The longer he stays, the longer we squander in mediocrity. No one wants to win more than me by the way.
 
To add to the above and make it more clear (if needed) if you look at 2017:


I take off Perry and Rutledge in my count because both were drafted before they ever got to UK (Perry in 17 and Jackson in 19, I think). So, if you count everyone on that page, minus those 2 you get 18 players. You then take out 3 JUCO/transfer players (Anu, Harney, Golda) who came to UK not in 2017, but at some later time, and that gives you 15 HS players that came to UK in 2017 (they’d be on the 2018 roster as freshmen). I then count the ones that are no longer at UK and technically there are 13 of those. However, I took Coltyn Kessler off my list. He could, conceivably stay on there since he entered the transfer portal, but I decided it was fair to take him off. So, that gives me 12 players that left UK early out of 15 total. That leaves UK with just 2 players from that class returning that meet this criteria (Hazelwood and Harper).

I hope that makes sense and clears it up. Again, feel free to call me out on anything that is funky or I'm wrong about. I make plenty of mistakes, so I don't doubt I made some more in this. haha
Yep I think that in order to really get the context of this though you would have to analyze several other SEC baseball schools. I think that there is definitely an underlying issue with the program, which if I'm being honest it's partly that it's Kentucky. There hasn't been a huge history of success so turning a program around to have success is tough in a conference like the SEC for sure. But it's also partly just the state of college baseball and college athletics in general. I think you'll find that a lot of other SEC schools there are really high turnover rates for baseball as well. You are just noticing the turnover rate at Kentucky because you're a Kentucky fan. There are a lot of kids that come in Riding High as a freshman and then get the harsh reality of how tough SEC baseball is and realize they may not see the field and they aren't on scholarship because there's not enough scholarships to go around. So, they can enter the portal and drop down to a smaller school or a Juco, get some money and see the field more and that's a better option for them in their career which then leaves the SEC schools hitting the transfer portal to fill spots.

In complete transparency I live in Columbia South Carolina and walk to the baseball stadium from my house. The South Carolina boards talk about the exact same thing. I think Mag Cotto realized he probably wasn't going to see playing time at South Carolina, so he went into the portal looking for other opportunities and Kentucky came calling with what was an option to stay in the SEC and have a better chance at seeing the field and he jumped on it.

It is pretty common for a freshman or sophomore in the SEC who is not getting playing time to not have great things to say about the coaching staff afterwards also. They've never been in a situation where people on the team we're better than them, so of course they feel like they should be playing and other people shouldn't be but the coaches have to make decisions and a lot of times that causes people to seek other opportunities.

Now I know that isn't the entire situation at Kentucky because it hasn't just been underclassmen who have spoken out about the program it's been pretty high-level producers as well. But on the other hand the issue isn't completely unique to UK either.
 
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Yep I think that in order to really get the context of this though you would have to analyze several other SEC baseball schools. I think that there is definitely an underlying issue with the program, which if I'm being honest it's partly that it's Kentucky. There hasn't been a huge history of success so turning a program around to have success is tough in a conference like the SEC for sure. But it's also partly just the state of college baseball and college athletics in general. I think you'll find that a lot of other SEC schools there are really high turnover rates for baseball as well. You are just noticing the turnover rate at Kentucky because you're a Kentucky fan. There are a lot of kids that come in Riding High as a freshman and then get the harsh reality of how tough SEC baseball is and realize they may not see the field and they aren't on scholarship because there's not enough scholarships to go around. So, they can enter the portal and drop down to a smaller school or a Juco, get some money and see the field more and that's a better option for them in their career which then leaves the SEC schools hitting the transfer portal to fill spots.

In complete transparency I live in Columbia South Carolina and walk to the baseball stadium from my house. The South Carolina boards talk about the exact same thing. I think Mag Cotto realized he probably wasn't going to see playing time at South Carolina, so he went into the portal looking for other opportunities and Kentucky came calling with what was an option to stay in the SEC and have a better chance at seeing the field and he jumped on it.

It is pretty common for a freshman or sophomore in the SEC who is not getting playing time to not have great things to say about the coaching staff afterwards also. They've never been in a situation where people on the team we're better than them, so of course they feel like they should be playing and other people shouldn't be but the coaches have to make decisions and a lot of times that causes people to seek other opportunities.

Now I know that isn't the entire situation at Kentucky because it hasn't just been underclassmen who have spoken out about the program it's been pretty high-level producers as well. But on the other hand the issue isn't completely unique to UK either.
I agree the dynamics of baseball causes higher turnover than what you see in football and basketball. When you’re program is at a higher level it’s not noticed as much. In the case of UK, the turnover is above average and with comments from former players it’s cause for concern.
 
This sounds crappy but if we have a decent year next year it will push out the inevitable decision to fire Mingione. The longer he stays, the longer we squander in mediocrity. No one wants to win more than me by the way.

Yea, I totally get it. I can never root against UK, so I'll be rooting for a great year next year, but I do not think it's in the best interest of UK to have him here any longer.
 
Seems like they've done a good building a team that has a good chance of being significantly better next year. I think that is what was needed too. They weren't going to go bring in impact freshman and change the trajectory of the season next year, so they hit the portal. I feel like we've got to be pretty happy with where are compared to wherever were.

As others have said, this is a really bad way to build a program. I get it, all programs have players come and go and the transfer portal will be the new norm going forward. But, to me this roster build l, if you can call it that, reeks of desperation. It’s like major league teams who go all in on trades/free agents for one year just to turn around and suck the next. (On a related note, being a Reds fan has made me numb to this kinda thing.) I can never root for UK to lose, but having Mingione leading this program makes it easier for me to find other things to do during baseball season.
 
I agree the dynamics of baseball causes higher turnover than what you see in football and basketball. When you’re program is at a higher level it’s not noticed as much. In the case of UK, the turnover is above average and with comments from former players it’s cause for concern.
Yep, I don't disagree. Its somewhere between a total train wreck and just the same as the other SEC schools - definitely farther on the sliding scale toward the first scenario than the 2nd, I'm just not sure exactly where. I think that building a program at UK may take a few years in a row of some transfers coming in and establishing a bit of a winning tradition so that they can get the right type of freshman to want to come here. Otherwise, we are just going to keep losing in state talent to other more attractive schools in the SEC. Being a "Northern" SEC school with no tradition of winning is hard to overcome. A lot of the best kids want to get South to get out of the snow in spring workouts, etc. So, we have to be better in all the other aspects than the other schools we compete with. Otherwise, I think we could be stuck picking from the portal each year to give guys their 1 shot at playing SEC ball and impressing MLB scouts in a way they couldn't in the OVC, etc.

I'm not saying its a proven or easy way to win, but it could be something they could really do at a place like UK.
 
As others have said, this is a really bad way to build a program. I get it, all programs have players come and go and the transfer portal will be the new norm going forward. But, to me this roster build l, if you can call it that, reeks of desperation. It’s like major league teams who go all in on trades/free agents for one year just to turn around and suck the next. (On a related note, being a Reds fan has made me numb to this kinda thing.) I can never root for UK to lose, but having Mingione leading this program makes it easier for me to find other things to do during baseball season.
To me this is no more desperate than what Calipari has been up to. For good or bad the portal is the wave of the future. Some will use it to plug in a few missing pieces, see Stoops, others will attempt to remodel the whole team. On the football side, some schools are now hiring "Portal Coordinators." Don't recall the school but I remember seeing in the Feb signing period where one school, a mid-major, signed ONLY portal guys, no HS or JUCOs. Wouldn't be surprised if that spreads to other sports. I'm not a big fan of this type stuff but guess we better get used to it.
 
To me this is no more desperate than what Calipari has been up to. For good or bad the portal is the wave of the future. Some will use it to plug in a few missing pieces, see Stoops, others will attempt to remodel the whole team. On the football side, some schools are now hiring "Portal Coordinators." Don't recall the school but I remember seeing in the Feb signing period where one school, a mid-major, signed ONLY portal guys, no HS or JUCOs. Wouldn't be surprised if that spreads to other sports. I'm not a big fan of this type stuff but guess we better get used to it.
Right.. it's like the coaches are deciding that they'd rather grab a guy after a year at a mid-major rather than an unproven kid out of high school. Probably not as much upside, but the downside is limited more.
 
To me this is no more desperate than what Calipari has been up to. For good or bad the portal is the wave of the future. Some will use it to plug in a few missing pieces, see Stoops, others will attempt to remodel the whole team. On the football side, some schools are now hiring "Portal Coordinators." Don't recall the school but I remember seeing in the Feb signing period where one school, a mid-major, signed ONLY portal guys, no HS or JUCOs. Wouldn't be surprised if that spreads to other sports. I'm not a big fan of this type stuff but guess we better get used to it.
You’re right on the money about Calipari doing the same thing. What Calipari and Mingione have in common, and the reason they had to go all in on the portal, is a couple bad years of poor recruiting. This is a baseball discussion so I won’t get into my recruiting issues with Calipari here. Bottom line is if you can’t recruit good high school talent, you have to go all in on the portal.
 
Yea, I totally get it. I can never root against UK, so I'll be rooting for a great year next year, but I do not think it's in the best interest of UK to have him here any longer.
On a side note, baseball has been over for almost two months now and the baseball forum is still seeing some decent traffic. I think I kinda like it.
 
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