I’m watching Alex Bregman, former Corndog shortstop, play third base for the Astros against the Orioles. He’s 1-for-2 with a double, an RBI and two walks, and a couple of outstanding defensive plays (and, to be fair, a baserunning blunder). He was the #2 pick in the 2015 draft where Benny Baseball went #7. (Dansby Swanson, another SEC product from Vandy, was the #1 pick that year and is also in the bigs, albeit with a .246 career average despite a .357 start for the Braves this year). Three top-10 picks, three MLB studs. Benny is scuffling so far this year, hitting .071 although he does have a knock tonight; Bregman was hitting .284 coming into tonight.
I’d be really curious to know what kind of scholarship money Paul Mainieri had to throw at Bregman to get him to Red Stick out of Albuquerque. The Red Sox took him in the 29th round, after he made it clear he wouldn’t sign unless he was a first round pick (and he probably would have been if he hadn’t broken a finger on his throwing hand during his senior season). As a reminder, D1 baseball schools have 11.7 scholarships but can divide them up pretty much as they choose. LSU has done very well by getting its in-state talent to attend school on the TOPS lottery scholarship program, freeing up those 11.7 for out-of-state players.
Then again, I’d be interested to know what DVH had to give Benny to get him here out of Cincinnati after the hometown Reds took him in the 31st round. And yes, DVH has made use of our lottery scholarship as well.
Baseball coaches cannot use their 11.7 scholarships any way that they please.
The rosters are limited to 35. Of those, 27 are eligible for some portion of a scholarship. Any player who receives scholarship money must get at least 25%. (At one time, there was no minimum.)
Now it is true that academic scholarships can be used in place of athletic scholarships and DVH loves those scholars.
Yeah, I misstated. They couldn’t give all 11.7 to one guy, for instance. But I’m pretty sure Bregman got a full 1.0 which is pretty rare from what I’ve read about modern college ball. Probably Benny too.
If you gave everyone the minimum, you could have 46 guys on scholarship. Obviously that’s more than the scholarship limit. If you gave everyone 43%, that would be your 27 limit. That ain’t happening either. He’s gotta come up with more money for some guys to keep them from signing after the MLB draft. Using that lottery money does increase the freedom to do that because you don’t have to necessarily give that in-state kid any of that 11.7 (lottery scholarships are better than a partial athletic scholie anyway).