A Sea Of Red

I saw where the Coach at West Virginia is working on a proposal to get NCAA to move college baseball season to April thru August. basics for the change is travel/winter weather for northern teams.
his deal sounded interesting, but I don't think it will fly. But I will admit, February is too early for baseball, even for Florida based teams and others in the South.

Southern schools will fight this tooth & nail. And having the majority of the season when students are away from campus takes away from the collegiate experience.

Changes do need to be made, but April to August isn't the answer. But I think more adults attend college baseball and softball than students by a large margin.
I was at Florida for softball this pass weekend. I bet there were not 10 Florida students at the games. Crowd appeared to be 99% adults.

Although that might have been because it was softball...

Stupid proposal. Start the season later and cut the ridiculous excessive # of games they get to play.

I can't figure out if college baseball would run afoul of minor league baseball in this scenario, and how.

The one thing that may make this happen (even for the southern schools) is the advent of conference TV networks. Big 10, Pac 12 and SEC networks have no live sports programming in the summer. Moving baseball would give them something to show.

A rare public appearance by Bystander! Good to see you coming around, brother.

Something has to be changed, but I don't know the solution. One thing I've heard is start it March 1. No mid-week games. You play tournaments and series every weekend through May. That's 13-14 weekends or 39-42 regular season games. Conference tournaments are the first week in June. College World Series caps off July 4.

The biggest thing that cuts into is summer ball but I think coaches would rather have their players on campus more.

It'll never happen because MLB will never move its draft. You think players check out mentally late in the season now? Wait until they do it midway through the year and then leave their teams in late June to start playing rookie-league or Low-A ball after the draft.

Good observation Chris. MLB Draft could be the #1 thing that kills this proposal. Also the summer leagues for college players would be eliminated.
But when it's all said and done, NCAA might defer to ESPN and let them make the call in the name of $$$$$$$$$$$.

I love college baseball, but in reality, I think they play too many games in regular season. I have heard the reason for so many games is to keep teams with 1 or 2 good pitchers from dominating. Playing 56 games forces everyone to have a deeper pitching staff, thus leveling the playing field. Normally the teams that go deep into post season rely on # 3,4, and sometimes 5th starter to get them there.

That proposal isnt going anywhere because of the 2 reasons above. The draft and nobody is on campus. Some if the power 5 schools would probably be in favor of eliminating mid week games but it would really hurt a program like us.

Baseball players do miss an inordinate amount of class time

I may have mentioned this elsewhere, but while probably not a major reason, having that many games is a better prep for making the move into minor league ball. The D-Braves (Appalachian League) played 68 games last year not including playoffs.

And wouldn't moving it from April to August essentially require some schools to alter their summer school offerings? I'm not sure how they could get away with nearly 4/5 of the season not being during the regular academic year (late August or September through early May), and the kids not being enrolled full-time during the summer.

Purple Haize wrote:Baseball players do miss an inordinate amount of class time

It's even a problem in D3 where they play much fewer games, and has prompted potential NCAA legislation for cutting the regular season by 10%. It's absurd how many games baseball (and softball) plays, both collegiately and professionally.

BJWilliams wrote:I may have mentioned this elsewhere, but while probably not a major reason, having that many games is a better prep for making the move into minor league ball. The D-Braves (Appalachian League) played 68 games last year not including playoffs.

It's still too many games, especially in the mid-week.

If you're going to reduce the number of games at the collegiate level, youre going to have to reduce the number of games proportionately at the minor and major league levels, and I doubt you'll see a reduction to MLB season length for one reason...$$$.

Why would reducing number of college games, reduce number of minor league games ?

I didnt say it WOULD do that ballcoach (reading comprehension man), I'm saying that in order for it to make sense, there would need to be an equal reduction in games at the next level. very few kids could go from playing 30-40 games per year to 90-100 games per year unless they are playing travel ball once your high school season is over

BJWilliams wrote:I didnt say it WOULD do that ballcoach (reading comprehension man), I'm saying that in order for it to make sense, there would need to be an equal reduction in games at the next level. very few kids could go from playing 30-40 games per year to 90-100 games per year unless they are playing travel ball once your high school season is over

Run on sentences.....mannnn

Trying to improve in that area, mannnn.

I don't see why, BJ. There's no necessary correlation between the length of the two seasons. So players might not adjust as well? So what?

Seems to me that HS kids who get drafted adjust as well as college kids. I don't think there is any reason to think that shortening the college season would then result in a need for a shorter MiLB season. Doesn't make sense. Other than pitchers and maybe catchers, I don't think the longer pro seasons have much adjusting required anyway.

I honestly haven't given this too much thought, but you could potentially cut the draft in half. The first draft would be for international & HS players...maybe even pushed up some in the year which would give them more time with the clubs for development. The second could be for college players. I'm not really sure about the logistics of this without giving it more thought but if MLB could find this as a way to drive some of the signing bonuses down then they'll be all in.