warbiscuit

Chase Wilkerson has decided to decommit from Auburn. https://auburn.rivals.com/news/all-american-pitcher-highlights-summer-signees

Tanner Burns signed for 1.6 million dollars. Werner Blakely, Bailey Horn, Tanner Burns, Matt Scheffler and Ryan Watson have all officially signed their contracts.

Armstrong wasn't really a hyped prospect. Martin was ranked the number 36 JUCO prospect from Perfect game, but not the biggest loss. Odom was a huge loss considering he was the number 174 prospect in the nation last year from Perfect Game, although that was more for being a SS.

Couple things to note here: Travis Odom and Jackson Reynolds have transferred, while Garrett Martin and John Armstrong have decided to change their commits and go elsewhere. There are now 38 players expected to be on next year's roster. https://auburn.rivals.com/news/tigers-expected-to-field-deep-and-talented-roster

Austin Turner has transferred to Northwest Florida State College. https://twitter.com/Aturn2223/status/1278808520830451713

John Griffin Bell, who was supposed to play for Auburn next year, has decommitted to Pearl River Community College. Also apparently Logan Austin is now committed to Chipola after initially being committed to Auburn for next year. https://twitter.com/JohnGriffinBel1/status/1277617026870185985

https://www.soxon35th.com/2020/06/27/white-sox-sign-fifth-round-pick-bailey-horn/ Horn signed for 150K. Slot was for 386,600. Since I assume Bailey's back home in Texas, it reminded me of a small tidbit how Brendan Venter wouldn't sign his signing bonus with the Braves until he went back home to Texas so he wouldn't have to pay state income taxes on his bonus.

Also, since we missed out on this, Auburn has signed a HS catcher named Peyton Sybrandt a few months ago, so now there are 4 catchers for next year at the moment and they are all freshmen. https://twitter.com/EHSBRAthletics/status/1243515431496843268

So here are probably some reasons why Conor chose ASU. ASU lost two high school signees to the draft, one from California and one from Mississippi. Out of the 5 guys drafted from their roster, 3 are from out of state. Combined with the fact that they lost the best 1B in the draft, Conor became a good fit for them, since they probably gave significant scholarships to at least some of the out of state signees/players, so there was room for a decent scholarship. ASU's out of state grad school tuition from last year was $23,544, where as Auburn's tuition for out of state for both grad and undergrads is $15,978 per semester, so $31,956 for the fall and spring. This was taken from their websites btw. Add in the fact that ASU could give a higher scholarship than Auburn has given him the last four years because of the draft losses, the cheaper tuition, and he's only playing for one year, ASU would be significantly cheaper tuition wise for Conor. Plus Georgia and Georgia Tech didn't exactly have room for him on the field. Anyways, I think either Dyal/Ceccoli may be the replacement for Conor next year at the moment, because I didn't see any 1B recruits for next year barring new recruits/position changes.

Conor Davis posted he’ll make an announcement tomorrow: probably to which college he’ll play for next season. https://instagram.com/stories/conordavis13/2336762114160242512?igshid=1vijskys8r5q3

Mason Greer has entered the transfer portal. There doesn't seem to be many corner infielders on the team with Woley, Shenker, Ceccoli and the two-way JUCO recruit Chase Wilkerson who played 3B at San Jacinto, though it's possible someone else could transition to 3B, as Brody Moore had experience there last year. It's also a possibility Dyal could play some 1B/DH as he recovers from Tommy John surgery. Guess it depends on where Rankin plays next year at either 3B or 1B. Another thing to note is that Mason Greer is draft eligible next year, as he would have been a draft eligible sophomore in 2021, but now he's a draft eligible freshman. https://www.al.com/auburnfootball/2020/06/another-auburn-baseball-player-enters-transfer-portal.html

Ole Miss had two players from Alabama and MSU had 5. Butch has done pretty well recruiting from Georgia, and he has to contend against Georgia colleges that have the benefit of the HOPE scholarship for Georgia residents. Unfortunately, Alabama is one of the 5 states that don't have an education lottery(Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, Utah) with Mississippi being the most recent state to approve the lottery in 2019.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotteries_in_the_United_States).

I forgot this too, but Arkansas offers out of state waivers for any resident of a state that borders Arkansas. That includes the hot bed of baseball talent known as Texas. No doubt this helped Arkansas get the Texas Native Heston Kjerstad and how they can get several top recruits from Texas. https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2015/09/11/university-of-arkansas-adds-to-border-state-tutition-break-program LSU gives a lot of aid for out of state students, and even have their own deal with students from Texas. https://www.collegexpress.com/interests/public-colleges-and-universities/articles/find-public-college-or-university/public-schools-best-tuition-deals-out-state-students/ I think we need to give more credit to Butch for recruiting, especially with the disadvantages he has compared to other schools just in our conference.

I forgot Mississippi had out of state tuition waivers. I would hope they would work for grad school as well, but I don't think Ole Miss and MSU would go for him. Ole Miss has some good players already for 1B/DH rotation with Kevin Graham, Tim Elko and Cael Baker, while MSU has Josh Hatcher at 1B.

Well Georgia Tech got themselves a transfer from Vandy named Justyn-Henry Malloy who played 3B and 1B last year, which makes it less likely they get Conor.