boomstick

Greenhill signed a UDFA deal with Washington.

Steven Williams was drafted in the 18th round by the Nationals. Signee Riggs Threadgill was drafted in the 19th round. It will be interesting to see what Threadgill decides to do.

Auburn also had its highest rated recruit, Calvin Ziegler, drafted 46th, just behind Bliss.

Mason Barnett had a really strong bounceback out yesterday after he was roughed up in his previous start. Barnett went 4.1 IP allowing 0 runs on 3 hits. He struck out 6 and walked 2. Brayton Brown made the Valley League All-Star game and hit lead-off for the winning North All-Stars. He was 1-2 with a walk, a stolen base, and a run. He's having a great summer for Strasburg, hitting .322 with 6 2Bs/8 HRs/26 RBI.

Some guys not on Auburn's list: John Armstrong: 2-0, 2.57 ERA in 6 games (14 IP), 1 save, 22 K, 5 BB Mason Land: .244, 7 2B, 2 HR, 22 RBI, 17 K, 13 BB Blake Rambusch (Cazadores Beisbol-SENF, Five Tool STX League): .345 in 39 PA, 1 2B, 1 3B, 5 RBI, 9 runs, 7 K, 5 BB

Summer ball update: https://auburntigers.com/news/2021/7/6/baseball-auburn-baseball-summer-league-update-july-6.aspx

Auburn landed two more Samford transfers in RH power hitter Sonny DiChiara and closer Chase Isbell. Two big gets for our roster. Isbell might be limited early coming off TJ surgery to repair a partially torn UCL. Still, he’ll be someone in the backend with a lot of closing experience.

Morrison and Dyal were released from Charlottesville yesterday. So, I believe the only two guys left in the Valley League are Brayton Brown and Cole Foster. Mason Barnett starts tonight for Brewster. Cam Hill has had a great summer so far, both on the mound and at the plate. And how about Ben Schorr leading Elmira with 16 RBIs on 16 hits in 19 games?

Also, Mason Barnett has had two solid outings for Brewster on the Cape. 6.2 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 7 K, 2 BB. He should be in line to pitch again in the next couple days.

I know LaRue was released from his assignment. Good to hear Bright's release wasn't injury related. When guys leave that quickly after the start of the summer season, I always get a little worried. Fitts was also released after his last outing. I imagine that's draft related, but IMO I don't think he helped himself much by pitching on the Cape.

The Notre Dame pitching transfer is official now. Tommy Sheehan was going to be ND's ace LHP this past year but had elbow issues that forced him to miss almost all of the season.

Ole Miss can and does do it too. It's allowed by state law. They did it several years back to encourage more enrollment in the state universities. I think OM utilizes it for a lot of TX and LA kids. Plus, the state of Miss just got their state lottery to a level that will start funding education scholarships. So, in a year or two, there will be an even bigger impact from that.

On top of the fact that State and OM can waive OOS tuition for Alabama students, they also have a lower overall cost of attendance, less stringent academic standards for merit scholarships, and both have an athletic department much more committed to baseball from a funding and support standpoint. So, a student in Huntsville or Birmingham choosing between Auburn and Miss St could have a much cheaper cost by going to State along with much more amenities and a stronger commitment to the program. If Auburn doesn't change how they're treating the baseball program and make it more of a priority, Butch Thompson is going to leave. It's hard enough to fight the inequality in scholarship money and attract enough talent to be competitive. It's something altogether different when there is very little support from the AD and promises made aren't being kept.

And this punishment is stemming from chants during pre Olympic qualifier, not the most recent Nations League issues against CRC and USA. Those are being investigated now. My guess is FIFA will make them play more matches without fans due to the NL issues and then dock points going forward.

Decently favorable draw, especially early on, with our qualifying draw. That finish, though, is tough.

Do you know if Barnett is actually going to play for Brewster in the Cape Cod League? He's still listed on their roster on Pointstreak. I know you had mentioned that Barnett might not pitch at all this summer. Ryan Dyal is listed on their website roster. So i wonder if he makes the move from the Valley League to up there or just stays at Charlottesville.

I hadn't looked in a few days, but that was one team I was keeping an eye on. We've had guys play for them before. There seems to be a pattern of certain teams in certain leagues that we send players to, Cape Cod aside.

And that doesn't include the '03 kids. We might have as many '03s on that list as we do '98-'02s.

At the time, I loved some Michael Bradley, but I'm so excited that he and that whole group from the last cycle are all basically gone. No more arguments about Jozy Altidore or if Clint Dempsey or Donovan is going to keep playing at 38. Those guys surely helped raise the level of expectation after 2014, but hopefully, we're past that point never to return.

True, but in previous iterations, we couldn't play with the top of the confederation in a possession-style, beautiful game kinda way without our best squad, which even then wasn't really our style. What we did to that Costa Rica side with our backups isn't something we've been able to do in the past with any squad. CR isn't very good, and I think they'll be in a fight to qualify with Canada and Jamaica. But they've typically still been a better technical team than us on their worst day when we didn't have our been 11 on the pitch. That wasn't close to the case last night.

What I saw last night, and to an extent against both Mexico and Honduras, was a midfield capable of handling themselves well, which is something that we've never really been able to hang out hats on. We've typically been sound on the back line as a unit with a wizard in goal and 1-2 guys who could go score goals when given enough service. But we've never had a collective group of midfielders and wingers that can handle and possess and pass the way this group can. We looked rusty and disjointed and frankly a bit disinterested against Honduras, but you could see the signs that we could put things together at any moment and things could happen quickly for us. And then against Mexico, we struggled mightily with their high press early and trying to play out of the back didn't seem like a sound strategy, especially when we didn't have Adams in to link up. But even still, we found ways to get past the pressure and get it to our midfield and spring some attacks. Against Costa Rica, I never thought our B team could so overmatch and overpower a traditionally strong CONCACAF side, even if they weren't at full strength. It used to be that, if both us and our opponent were running B teamers, that clearly benefitted the opponent in true technical football skills and usually meant we were trying to out-athlete teams. To see us this deep in quality, technically savvy, competent footballers that even our second best group can dominate and look like the footballing nation (whihc has really never been the case) was really impressive to me. I'm sure there will be rough patches when this group travels to Honduras or Panama or Mexico, but as long as we don't tactically screw ourselves (looking at you, GGG), we have so much depth of talent that we should hold our own and thrive throughout WCQ.

Another match tonight, this one against Costa Rica, and we should see a lot of young guys who haven't played much during this last 3-match stretch. Really hoping to see Pefok and Dike on the pitch. Weah and Aaronson probably start at the wings. And we better see Musah for 90 tonight. Really excited about him and his role going forward.

Add another JUCO transfer to the list.

That makes sense. This whole Draft League thing is brand new, and none of our guys are showing on the posted rosters so far. I'm sure that could change in the next few days.