Yeah I know of a few kids who are committed to other places that had some concerns if the new assistants were what they considered D1 level. I'm not sure what the HS coaches are saying nor do I really care about them because the way everything is setup these days AAU coaches have much much more influence on where players go. From other players that I have spoken to who will be HS Sr's this fall, a few of them have considered U of Hartford solely because of a connection they feel with Blood even though they like nothing about the school. I personally was surprised at the hirings of our assistants when they happened because none of them had what I considered major D1 coaching experience. If you look at the schools in the SEC that we want to compete with one day, when they lose a coach of two they will go out and get someone who has been in D1 coaching for a while (5+ years) and know the ends and out. In some cases I have seen mid major head coaches get hired a recruiting coordinator and pitching coaches at some of these places (S. Carolina is one example if I remember right). Now I know UConn doesn't have that kind of pull yet but that shouldn't stop us from going after say a Mike Glavine (pitching/recruiting coordinator at N'Eastern) who I have had the pleasure to meet and talk to some HS players & their families about, and all of them love who he is as a coach and think very highly of him. That's just my 2 cents and I would love to be proven wrong in the coming seasons because that would mean my school is winning lots of games and there is nothing wrong with that!
i don't necessarily disagree with your premise... but as you said, UConn doesn't have the luxury of always getting those types of coaches to come in and take the pennies a UConn asst baseball coach pays. as for a guy like Glavine... he's a Northeastern grad and its not a given a guy like that would want to leave his school to make a sideways movement as a UConn asst. i'm not saying UConn = Northeastern, but in terms of college ball an assistant job is an assistant job. its a crap position. its also not like Blood had a long bonafide track record before coming to UConn. he was a volunteeer at Quinnipiac and i believe a grad asst at Franklin Pierce. this is college baseball in the northeast we're talking about. just about any person with a pulse, some basebalk knowledge and thats willing to work can get a volunteer coaching spot at Quinnipiac. UConn took on young guys with familiarity to the program, certainly a risk, but Penders is a 'family' type of guy so its not surprising. i, personally, am not as concerned with the assistants. college baseball recruiting (especially in the northeast) is mostly a relationship business. getting a former player to get a local kid from his town can often be as important as the assistants recruiting. after that its usually what the school can offer academically and other stuff any college kid would care about (atmosphere, housing, proximity to home, etc)... all stuff that UConn has to offer as an elite state school.
I wasn't saying that Glavine would leave N'Eastern bc I know for a fact that he wouldn't, as he is going to become the head coach of the program in the very near future. I was just giving an example of the type of assistants UConn should be going after now that they have moved up the baseball ranks. Ball St is a perfect example of what I was talking about as just this week they hired a pitching coach and recruiting coordinator who had been the associate head coach at Dayton for the past 13 seasons! When Blood was hired, that was a great hire at the time for UConn because that is the type of assistant they could get for where the program was at during that time frame. What an assistant in college baseball is looking to do is be at a school for 5-6 years or less and then use their success to jump to a small D1 head coaching position. In that case UConn has a lot to offer when looking for assistants. Also I can tell you for a fact that even though recruiting is a relationship business, those relationships are not within towns but rather they are with the coaches of AAU programs. An assistant who has been in D1 longer is going to have more connections with AAU programs such as the East Coast Grays, Baseball U, TCB, CT Bombers, Tri State Arsenal, Bayside Yankees and other elite programs, which is where we should be getting kids from. The 2012 class has 5 players from Baseball U and I personally believe that Blood was responsible for most if not all of those players, helped by the fact that Vinny Siena and Daniello committed and had some pull on their teammates. Also as of last summer, the coaches of Baseball U did not have a very high opinion of UConn baseball so when I hear negative talk about our new assistants, it makes me wonder what the AAU coaches out there think.
make no mistake...........blood was the catalyst for both solid recuiting and pitcher development. currently if a pitcher is struggling, there is no one there with the expertise to break things down, show him whats wrong and help correct it. same with hitters. if a hitter is struggling, he is on his own. uconn doesnt even videotape hitters. even decent high schools do that. penders is a good recruiter and being a great recruiter is a great asset for a baseball program. from a development perspective, he and his current regime are lacking both an appproach and a relationship with the players as a whole
I've seen players behind the backstop with a computer that has different camera angles on the batter during games.
Interesting discussion... I wouldn't completely minimize the impact the relationships that respected high school coaches have w/ Penders/UConn. Guys like Bill Mrowka (Chesire - two guys on current roster), Sal Coppola (Amity - Vin Siena/Jason Esposito - Vandebilt), and others over the years.
I don't doubt they're charting pitches but why would they not use that same film for look at the batters?
i think the major thing we keep forgetting is, this is UCONN baseball. its not LSU, its not South Carolina, its not Texas. they have good workout/indoorfacilities because of other programs, they have a building that they use for hitting that is pretty outdated and they have the equivalent of a really nice high school field. the brand 'UConn' sells baseball to these recruits as much as our coaches are selling them and thats no fault of the coaches, its just how baseball recruiting is. i'd say a 1/4 of the kids who sign with UConn do so subconciously because they are local kids and UConn is the biggest name in the northeast sports picture. the school is becoming better and better academically, which also helps. Penders is a local guy with a good rep as a hard working guy with family history. the assistants from what i hear have been working hard, whether its been productive or not i have no idea. but lets not fool ourselves, the kids who are looking into the assistants track record are in the minority. baseball recruits aren't like football or basketball prima donna's. the number of kids that get into recruiting battles for are pretty low. schools simply don't have the budgets to do the things that revenue generating sports can. because of that the recruits themselves generally don't have the entitled attitude that other sports recruits have. these AAU coaches that you're talking about aren't as influential as you're making it out to be. do they give opinions, of course. do they tell kids schools to be aware of certain places, of course. but in baseball moreso than other sports (because there aren't extra benefits being thrown around) it comes down to where the kid wants to be and where the kids parents want him to be if he comes from a close family. baseball parents love to be able to get to their kids games, its a big part of the recruiting as well. basically, my point is we're overanalyzing the recruiting. we're the best program in New England, we're going to consistently be in the running for the top New England kids because of that and that alone... we were the best program in New England many times before Blood was near our program. did he do a great job while here, yes. but the guys who want to stay local will come here, then there are the ones we have to battle for that want to go south, we'll get some and we'll lose some... but the # of kids that aren't coming because of Justin Blood isn't nearly as big as you're making it out to be.
Well it looks like this discussion has pretty much been completely covered... I will say this, there is far more that goes on behind the scenes than anyone here thinks when it comes to recruiting. I was fortunate enough to have my brother get recruited by some very good schools and he committed over the winter. I always have other players from schools like Amity, St. Joe's, Greenwich, ND-WH hanging around my place and I know what is being said because they talk a lot about their experiences. Like I've said it's time to sit back a watch over the next few years and actually the East Cobb tournament just wrapped up so I would be looking for possible news of commits in the near future. Oh and 21Huskies you are right about the family aspect for some recruits, Vinny Siena was one of them as he is very close with his mom & dad and he wanted them to be able to see him play. On a side note the 2012 class is already on campus taking classes and I'm told they are enjoying the freedom from home and having some fun!!
These AAU coaches are only loyal to what shoe companies are affiliated with several schools. It's also this way in hoops too. UConn hoops has much influence with the shoe companies. UConn baseball has little influence compared to the southern schools. We need to keep on winning for a higher profile in order to even the playing field.
Shoe companies in baseball?? I think you mean bat/glove companies (Akedema, Louisville, DeMarini, Easton, Worth, yup and even Nike).
So the problem (it's a great problem to have) is how does Mazilli coming back influence how our infield will look in the spring? Obviously Mazilli is going to have 2nd locked down
It would be nice that someone with extensive knowledge of incoming class, take a stab at what they think the starting lineup will be next year.
Maybe we should start a new topic and go position by position with the returning players and the incoming kids. Do maybe a position or two a week and let everyone weigh in on their thoughts. It would give us something to do while the baseball news is slow this time of the year
Nice idea. I don't know much about incoming players, but will try to contribute if someone gets it going.
