Introducing the incoming freshman baseball recruiting class…

[Blake Munroe]

[Blake Munroe]

If anyone has any particular questions on the class, specific players, etc… ask away!

[Angel]

How many others were signed but opted for MLB after getting drafted? 

and were there any surprises that chose the MLB route vs. enrolling in school?

[FrostedHorn]

10 minutes ago, Blake Munroe said:

If anyone has any particular questions on the class, specific players, etc… ask away!

All of them lol

[georgethepunter]

Who are the impact guys next year and who are the development guys? 

[James]

Do you see any of them having an impact near like what Volantis had?

[Drunk randoke]

Which do you see having a good role this year 

[marathon]

3 hours ago, Drunk randoke said:

Which do you see having a good role this year 

The impact will most likely come from the transfers. Aiden Robbins (OF) transferred to Texas and has a chance to be really good. He won the Cape Cod summer league batting title.

One pitcher to watch is true freshman Sam Cozart. He performed well the West Virginia Black Bears in the MLB Draft summer league. He started 4 games, 19 IP,  2.37 ERA, 26 strikeouts, and 2 BB. 

 

 

 

 

Edited 18 hours ago by marathon

[.45s]

That is a lot of pitchers.

[Hornmatic]

12 hours ago, Blake Munroe said:

If anyone has any particular questions on the class, specific players, etc… ask away!

Care to give out OTF rankings or stars?  If not could you put them in tiers? 

[dentonhorn]

Is there a recruiting rank for classes that actually made it to campus? Just curious as to where this group ranks.

[Blake Munroe]

I’ll get to all these this morning! Had a rather busy afternoon/evening, as we had to feed a varsity football team yesterday. I’ll run through these after C&F today!

[marathon]

6 hours ago, dentonhorn said:

Is there a recruiting rank for classes that actually made it to campus? Just curious as to where this group ranks.

Here are the Perfect Game national rankings for the signees. Anthony Pack was the highest ranked at 32.

32 - Anthony Pack (OF)

47 - Sam Cozart (RHP)

62 - Brett Crossland (RHP)

81 - Cooper Rummel (RHP)

135 - Jack McKernan (LHP)

162 - Brody Walls (RHP)

169 - Kaleb Rogers (RHP)

194 - Grady Westphal (RHP)

228 - Maddox Monsour (OF)

241 - William Hill (OF)

274 - Michael Winter (RHP)

277 - Presley Courville (C)

358 - Jadyn Furgason (RHP) 

500 - Jack Paris (RHP)

[marathon]

Here are the national rankings for those that were drafted and signed MLB contracts.

Perfect Game rankings:

6 - Kayson Cunningham (SS) (1st rd pick)

10 - Gavin Fien (3B) (1st rd pick)

57 - Mitchell (P) (13th rd)

145 - Grayson Boles (RHP) (18th round)

 

 

 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by marathon

[marathon]

 

 

[Blake Munroe]

20 hours ago, Angel said:

How many others were signed but opted for MLB after getting drafted? 

and were there any surprises that chose the MLB route vs. enrolling in school?

I'll go ahead and get this one out of the way.

Four commits went the MLB route.

Kayson Cunningham - Elite SS. Would have started for Texas at the position as a HS senior. Seriously.  He's that good. There was about a 20% chance he was coming to Texas at best and it would have been HUGE if he did.

Gavin Fien - Elite 3B. Texas knew this would be a battle as well. His odds were a little higher of getting on campus, but not much.

Xavier Mitchell - LHP, 13th round. Texas for sure had a shot here, but he also got paid a nice little chunk of change.

Grayson Boles - RHP, 18th round. Boles was a national top 150 kid, but I didn't expect him to go. Really good command, but needs work.

 

I think it's worth noting that they feel good about where they are and it's important to remember that this is still somewhat of a transition class. Some of this class was Pierce guys. Schloss first true class is 2026.

There were only two players they really put up a fight for and both were elite guys.... unfortunately they lost both.

[Blake Munroe]

20 hours ago, georgethepunter said:

Who are the impact guys next year and who are the development guys? 

 

20 hours ago, James said:

Do you see any of them having an impact near like what Volantis had?

 

20 hours ago, Drunk randoke said:

Which do you see having a good role this year 

 

I wanted to answer these three together, as they all sorta tie in.

I don't see an impact guy next year, at least not offensively. I would be surprised if there is an A-Rod level contributor next season from one of these freshmen. That's not to say that they're not talented, because they are. This is a solid class for sure. It's just that Texas is much deeper than they were a season ago, along with some portal players who have an opportunity to shine.

As far as pitching goes, that's so tough. NO ONE, not even the coaches, knew what they had in Volantis. It's sort of an unfair comparison. I can promise you that the staff didn't even think he'd be what he ended up being before he began or even through the early part of the season.

If I had to pick a pitcher, I would say Cozart is definitely the safe pick. He's the most ready. Will he be Volantis 2.0? I seriously doubt it.  I'm not even sure Cozart is the most talented freshman pitcher on the roster, but again, he's the most ready out of the bunch to throw in a game.

It's also important that a couple of these guys may carve out a role earlier than others, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're the most talented or the best of the group.

Cozart fits that to a T, imo. And that's not a knock on him by any means.... He's a high floor guy with a ton of talent.

[Okcool]

1 hour ago, Blake Munroe said:

I'll go ahead and get this one out of the way.

Four commits went the MLB route.

Kayson Cunningham - Elite SS. Would have started for Texas at the position as a HS senior. Seriously.  He's that good. There was about a 20% chance he was coming to Texas at best and it would have been HUGE if he did.

Gavin Fien - Elite 3B. Texas knew this would be a battle as well. His odds were a little higher of getting on campus, but not much.

Xavier Mitchell - LHP, 13th round. Texas for sure had a shot here, but he also got paid a nice little chunk of change.

Grayson Boles - RHP, 18th round. Boles was a national top 150 kid, but I didn't expect him to go. Really good command, but needs work.

 

I think it's worth noting that they feel good about where they are and it's important to remember that this is still somewhat of a transition class. Some of this class was Pierce guys. Schloss first true class is 2026.

There were only two players they really put up a fight for and both were elite guys.... unfortunately they lost both.

Blake, who were those two they lost out on? Thanks

[Blake Munroe]

30 minutes ago, Okcool said:

Blake, who were those two they lost out on? Thanks

Cunningham and Fien. Again, it was a long shot (at best) for either one of them, but Texas definitely tried. No doubt about it.

[Blake Munroe]

21 hours ago, Drunk randoke said:

Which do you see having a good role this year 

Forgot to mention... @marathon is correct on the transfer part. There will be a couple from that group.

 

I will say losing Freeman was a big deal. That's the one that stung the most, imo, out of all the portal players.

If there was one kid they lost that they didn't want to, it was him. 

[Blake Munroe]

16 hours ago, .45s said:

That is a lot of pitchers.

Definitely. But it was a main area of focus this go round.

 

10 hours ago, Hornmatic said:

Care to give out OTF rankings or stars?  If not could you put them in tiers? 

Let me think on this. The PG rankings were posted above, but I'm not a huge believer in their rankings for one main reason... you go to their events, you get ranked. It's not like they are @Gerry Hamilton going around and seeing kids, watching film, etc.

 

9 hours ago, dentonhorn said:

Is there a recruiting rank for classes that actually made it to campus? Just curious as to where this group ranks.

Never thought about that, but that's actually a good idea. I'm not sure tbh.

[marathon]

23 minutes ago, Blake Munroe said:

Never thought about that, but that's actually a good idea. I'm not sure tbh.

It’s more difficult to find good rankings for HS baseball. 

The MLB pre draft rankings might be good but you have both college and HS players ranked that you have to sort thru. And it’s hard to know how much they take sign-ability into account when ranking HS players.

Perfect Game is the easiest for me. Even the football rankings vary by service and there are much more resources available.

Edited 29 minutes ago by marathon

[Okcool]

46 minutes ago, Blake Munroe said:

Cunningham and Fien. Again, it was a long shot (at best) for either one of them, but Texas definitely tried. No doubt about it.

Thanks. My bad. I misread your post. I thought there were two others in addition to the four you mentioned that went MLB.