Yes, it’s a possibility, although I think the chances are slim. It basically comes down to whether Blaine thinks he can significantly improve his position in the draft next year, and whether he wants to pass on a six-figure signing bonus for a potential seven-figure one.
I believe he could be a candidate to come back because of the way this season turned out. The first half of the season, he looked like a possible 1st or 2nd rounder. Then, for some reason, he had a major drop in performance and lost his slot as the Friday starter. He did make a nice comeback the last couple weeks of the regular season and in post season play. I don’t know if it was a minor injury or a tired arm or something else. If he came back and put a complete season together like his first half of this season, it could mean huge dollar differences.
I’m sure it would be tough to turn down a nice six figure offer though. Especially with the injuries to a couple of pitchers he saw happen early this season.
Him losing the No. 1 slot had little to do with performance. It happened during a short turnaround week. Stephan recovers quicker than Knight, so he got into the No. 1 spot that weekend. It stayed that way the rest of the year to keep both on the same recovery schedule.
Actually the change between Knight and Stephan happened on a long turnaround week, not a short one. Knight’s last Thur/Fri start was Thur, 5/4 and his next start was Saturday 5/13, while Stephan started Fri 5/12. The change happened the weekend after Knight had 3 poor Thur/Fri starts in a row with a 9.6 ERA.
I was, however, way wrong about how long his poor pitching performance lasted. It was only those 3 weeks, after which he pitched very well through the end of the regular season and the post season. So, I’m sure the Scouts would see that as just a 3 start blip, especially the way he recovered from them. He probably didn’t go back to the Thur/Fri starter for the last 2 SEC weekends and in the two post-season tournaments because Stephan was pitching so well. Knight was pitching equally well during that time.
What I meant was that it would have been a short turnaround week for Blaine. He warmed up on Thursday against Tennessee and then pitched again Saturday because of the rain delays. So Trevor, who also pitched that Saturday in the second game, got the start the following Friday against Vanderbilt because the coaches thought he recovered quicker than Blaine.
Seems like I remember hearing Blain had a bit of lingering soreness the week after UT as well. I’m sure that helped make the decision to push his start back a day even easier if I’m remembering correctly.
You are right. I should have known better than to look at the schedules and box scores on Arkansas Razorbacks.com and trust them. They showed that we lost on Thursday (5/4) with Blaine, and won on Saturday (5/6) with Stephan’s complete game (7 innings) shutout. I had forgot that both of the TN games were actually played on Saturday.