Will Rule Change Bring Return Of Wild, Wild West?

WILD, WILD WEST? Player movement complicates roster construction.

 

- Teddy Cahill

Boomer White’s decision to transfer from Texas Christian to Texas A&M after the 2014 season was a shocking move in the sport. He was a starter for two seasons and was coming off a sophomore season during which he was the Horned Frogs’ second-leading hitter and helped lead the team to the College World Series.

After sitting out the 2015 season, White went on to star in 2016 for Texas A&M. He was named an All-American and the Southeastern Conference player of the year, and he helped the Aggies to super regionals, where, in a twist of fate, they were upset by TCU.

White said his decision to transfer was not baseball related; he was instead looking to finish his college experience at his dream school. But it was also a throwback to an earlier, wilder era of college baseball, one where 4-4 transfers (four-year school to four-year school) were the norm instead of the exception. That was a time when transfers could be the lifeblood of major programs, and assistant coaches were dispatched to Cape Cod and other summer leagues to hunt for players who could transfer and provide an instant impact.

Those Wild West days came to an end a decade ago when the NCAA eliminated baseball’s one-time transfer exception and required players to sit out a year when they moved from one Division I school to another. The rule change, which was made at the same time as the introduction of roster caps of 35 players (27 on scholarship) and establishing that all scholarships must be at least 25 percent, went into effect in August 2008 and was designed to improve baseball’s graduation rate and Academic Progress Rate. Within two years, the percentage of players who had made a 4-4 transfer dropped from 8.4 to 3.5, and the percentage of players who had transferred at all (including those coming from junior colleges) fell from 26.2 to 22.4.