Crack of the Bat

by Blaine Clemmens

 

Early verbal commitments… do they mean anything?

 

Many of you reading this column are aware of the practice of high school prospects making an early “verbal” commitment to a college program.  The program recruits them and offers them some amount of athletic scholarship money to attend Baseball State University.  Eventually the process leads to one of two things… the program asking the player to state their intent to attend Baseball State or the player contacting the program stating their intent to accept the scholarship offer and attend Big Baseball State.

 

When the player does state his intention to attend BBSU, that is what is known as a “verbal commitment.”  Sometimes players “verbal” as early as the first semester of their JUNIOR year in high school.  Sometimes it is during the summer following their junior year and some players do so in the fall of their senior year.  What is happening less and less is the players making all or frankly even any of their allotted five official visits to D-I programs.  Lately some cracks have appeared in the system.

 

Having been a D-I recruiting coordinator, I have been in the situation of offering the scholarship and asking for the verbal commitment.  I can remember getting those commitments and feeling good about the work our staff put in to get the players we wanted in our program.  I also felt that when we got those verbal commitments, we could trust in the commitment part of that process.  I felt that we could trust not only the players, but also that all recruitment of “our players” by other programs would stop.

 

I trusted that if a rival program honestly did not know one of our players was verbally committed to our program and called one of them that our players would say thank you to the coach, but state that he had already committed.  I worked for a quality program out west, one that has become a regional caliber team, but yet was not then and is not now a high profile baseball program. 

 

It would be safe to say that most coaches have believed and trusted what I did, those at big name programs and those at schools with lesser national recognition or name recognition.  Not anymore.  It is a dog eat dog world in recruiting at the D-I college baseball level, more and more like D-I football and basketball every day.

 

On the day I returned home from Jupiter, a D-I coach I met in Florida emailed me with some disturbing news.  The coach works for a quality baseball program, but not one with a big national profile.  An outstanding player that had verbally committed to his program decommitted, giving a new verbal commitment to a bigger, more high profile program.  It happened after a coach from the bigger program saw the player in a recent fall tournament (not a PG event) and immediately began to recruit that player.

 

Whether the coach from the bigger program asked the player if he was committed or not I have no idea.  I also have no idea if the player (if in fact he was asked) told the truth.  After seeing this player play, I can tell you that no coach in his right mind would believe a player his caliber would be uncommitted at this point of the fall.  The player is, in my humble opinion, a top three round draft talent, possibly higher. 

 

The player’s caliber also brings into question whether or not an agent had any influence in the process.  I have my own thoughts on that but will leave them out of this.  What I do know is that if a player is committed to one of the big name programs, his leverage can be perceived as greater in negotiations with the MLB clubs than if he is committed to one of the smaller profile programs.  The player I am speaking of does have an advisor.

 

This situation is not the first time it has happened this year nor is it the last time it will happen.  Players are not only decommitting from smaller programs to “commit” to big programs, they are decommitting from big programs too.  One player recently pulled his commitment from a program that was in Omaha last year and gave a new “commitment” to another CWS team… one that finished higher in the CWS.

 

Something is rotten in Denmark but who is to blame?  Is it the player that does not honor his early verbal commitment because now a prettier girl likes him?  Is it the program that recruits the “committed” player because they consider verbal commitments to be “soft” commitments and do not care to adhere to an unwritten code of ethics within their profession?  Is it the agents who advise their clients that signing with Big Baseball State will potentially bring more money in a signing bonus than signing with Small State University? 

 

Is it the increasingly large amount of pressure placed on college coaches by their ADs to win and appear in regionals and beyond?  Are the parents to blame for allowing their sons to renege on their commitments and not teaching their children the meaning of what a commitment is?

 

What about the summer and club team coaches that push for their players to attend a higher profile program because it looks better for the club team?  I have witnessed a travel team coach telling a group of coaches that one of his star underclassman (’08 grad) players was still open to being recruited, even though that player had given his verbal commitment to a program months ago.  What made that situation even stranger was that a coach from the very program the player verballed to was in that group.  He had to be sitting there wondering what was going on.  The last thing he knew was that the player had verballed to his program, so he then simply trusted the word of the player and his parents.  Big mistake and my guess is that in the long run, the player does not end up at the school he first verballed to.

 

What responsibility does the program that has received the early verbal commitment have to that player?  Some schools do a tremendous amount of follow through and “loving” of their recruits (their verbally committed players), all the way through the signing of the National Letter of Intent.  Some programs simply stay in touch with their verbally committed recruits, checking in and continuing to build that relationship.  I would venture a guess that most of those coaches in the past have trusted the word of the player.  These days those coaches are being burned.

 

Players used to make at least a few of their official visits to learn about the programs they have the most interest in, those that return that interest.  Now many players only make the official visit to the program they early committed to, sort of a post commitment visit, a show of good faith by both the program and the player.

 

Why the rush to verbally commit so early?  Some programs put pressure on players to commit early.  I understand that some smaller profile programs recruit players they may not get if they have to go through a recruiting battle with big programs.  They offer big money very early in the process and lock up players that later in the year draw attention from big name schools.  The players accept those early offers, possibly not realizing how much attention they might draw later in the summer or fall as they attend high profile events with dozens of coaches from top national profile programs.

 

It seems to be those situations which are causing the problem these days.  Here it is in a nutshell… small program sees a player they really like, one that is likely either way under the radar, one that is local, or perhaps they have done an exceptional job of identifying a very projectable player that still has a year or so before his skills really surface.  They offer the player and they get an early verbal commitment.

 

Fast forward a few months to when the player is now out on either the showcase or tourney circuit.  The player is now playing in front of the big name national programs and he is no longer under the radar, he is no longer only known locally, his skills may have started to develop much quicker than the smaller program would have hoped. 

 

The big profile program coaches start circling.  They get the player’s phone number or talk to him in person, hopefully after the player is finished competing and the event is over.  Or the big program coach talks to the player’s parents during the event, which is perfectly legal.  The big program coach may ask the travel team coach if Joey Somebody is committed, digging for some background info as he prepares to approach the family or player.

 

The conversation may go something like this… “Hello Joey and Mr. Somebody.  I am Coach Soandso from Baseball State University.  I really like Joey.  Is he committed anywhere yet?”  Mom or dad or Joey says… “Yes, I am committed to Small State University.”  

 

Baseball State University coach, ignoring the stated ‘yes’ says… “We would like to get you on campus and show you our facility, meet our head coach and players, and talk to you about the opportunity we have for you.  Would you like to do that?”   Joey and Mr. Somebody, seeing stars in their eyes and the Baseball State logo right in front of them, perhaps the same logo they saw in the CWS in recent years, tells Coach Soandso, “Wow, thank you.  We would love to come to campus.  When?”

 

Then again, that scenario may include the player or parent not telling the Baseball State University coach that he is committed to Small State.  If that happens, is the coach from Baseball State to blame?  What if the player says that, yes, he is in fact committed but he would like to learn more about Baseball State.  The coach from Baseball State has a choice to make… either recruit the player and ignore the commitment, or respect the commitment made to Small State and tell Joey that he will not recruit a verbally committed player. 

 

The likelihood of that second scenario happening is not good.  If the player is going to break his commitment and if that coach from Baseball State does not work to get that player, a player good enough to get his program to Omaha or keep them there, then guess what, that coach is probably not going to keep his job for very long.  Why?  Because if he does not get Joey after Joey realizes that he can play for a big name school and is willing to decommit, guess what, another coach from another school will.

 

I could come up with so many more scenarios but the point is that all this early verbal commitment stuff is starting to cause trouble.  Who started it all?  My feeling is that in many respects the players and their parents are responsible.  Some very high caliber players (and their parents) put pressure on certain high profile programs to make a very early decision.  The schools have been forced to make very early choices... get that player now or lose him to a rival big program.  Then came the smaller programs moving early to lock up under the radar/local/projectable players before the big programs saw them. 

 

Now we have some messes out there and some very angry coaches.  What has happened is someone has used pressure to sway someone else to make a decision without knowing a whole lot about what else is out there and that my friends, is where the trouble lies.  I didn’t even touch on what happens when a program decides one of their very early commitments is simply not good enough for them or gets significantly injured. 

 

Then there are the scenarios when a coaching staff gets early verbal commitments, but then that staff is fired.  A new coaching staff is hired, with players they did not recruit verbally committed to their program.  What if they don’t want those players?  I am aware of that scenario unfolding in a couple of instances this year.  Uh oh… more sticky situations.

 

Are we starting to get the picture here?  Will it change?  Stay tuned.

 

This column represents the thoughts and opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of Perfect Game.