Michigan baseball coach: Difficult decisions loom after NCAA eligibility ruling

Michigan baseball gets send-off before College World Series

Michigan baseball head coach Erik Bakich greets fans during a send-off for Michigan baseball players before their trip to Omaha, Nebraska to compete in the College World Series Wednesday, June 12 2019.Jacob Hamilton/MLive.com

ANN ARBOR -- Michigan head baseball coach Erik Bakich will have some tough decisions to make over the next few years.

With the NCAA deciding to extend all spring sports athletes’ eligibility a year because of the coronavirus pandemic, administrators and spring coaches are now tasked with working out logistical problems the ruling could present.

RELATED: NCAA D1 Council extends eligibility for spring-sport athletes

For the 2021 spring season, teams will be able to carry more student-athletes on scholarship to account for incoming recruits and seniors who decide to stay. It's a puzzle that Bakich said won't be easy to piece together.

"I'm really happy for all the spring sports athletes across the board that got the so-called 'bail out,'" Bakich said. "But I honestly didn't think that that would be the case. I was hoping that the seniors would get some relief. It was a pleasant surprise to see that everyone got that additional year. But now that has happened now, it's kind of like, 'OK, now how do we do this? How do we make this work? What's this going to look like?'"

Baseball is the only spring sport with a roster limit (35 players), and although that limit will be increased next season, it still presents challenges.

For instance, baseball players are eligible for the MLB draft following their junior season. When recruiting, coaches, especially those from elite programs, plan on a handful of juniors leaving for the pros every year.

But this year’s draft could be pushed back to late July, which is after the renewal date for scholarships (July 1). The draft is likely to be reduced to as few as 10 or five rounds instead of the usual 40, meaning juniors and seniors who aren’t projected to go in the early rounds would be more inclined to return to school for another season.

That could create more headaches for coaches, who can offer a total of 11.7 scholarships divided among 27 players.

"Speaking for Michigan, but I'm really speaking for all the good college baseball programs around the country, you have an expectation that you have a lot of juniors who are going to move on, and you have incoming recruits who are going to get that opportunity and elect to come to college (instead of turning pro out of high school)," Bakich said.

"These next few months, there's going to be a lot of really difficult decisions and difficult conversations. Administrators are going to be juggling how the finances are going to work for this, and college baseball coaches juggling how we're going to meet our limitations with the roster and the scholarships."

Michigan had nine juniors on the roster this season. Some, like outfielder Jordan Nwogu and Jeff Criswell, were key contributors in their first two seasons and have a longer resume of success. Others have shown glimpses or strong play during the previous two years but were counting on a big junior season to boost their draft stock. With the team playing just 15 games before the season was canceled, scouts' evaluation period also was cut short.

RELATED: Baseball America names Michigan’s win vs. Vanderbilt top game of 2020

The Wolverines also had six seniors on the team who will have to decide whether to return or not.

"It's a lifelong dream of every baseball player to get the chance to play professionally," Bakich said. "This impacts a lot more than just a junior class. It's a senior class. It's a senior class in college, a senior class in high school. The math doesn't add up. There's not going to be enough draft slots there typically is.

"The positive impact of that is, college baseball could be the benefactor and have a really high caliber player coming into college baseball now. I think next year's college baseball class might be the oldest and deepest it's ever been."

The coronavirus pandemic also has had a major impact on communication. Players and coaches are spread out across the country and encouraged to stay home, leaving video chat as the best form of communication.

Bakich said he was on multiple video conference calls from 2 p.m. through 10 p.m. on Tuesday with administration, coaches and players.

“That’s just how we’ll do it,” Bakich said. “We’ll do it each day, hammering it out while we’re talking through it. Figuring out what the best course of action is going to be. It’ll be daily conversations, daily video chats, daily Zoom meetings, things like that.”


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