2025 Baseball Budget...

[the artist FKA zipp]

I'm gonna post a more comprehensive analysis of the sports budgets on either the free basketball or football forums. But since we've been talking baseball money on active threads here, I thought I'd briefly discuss the baseball numbers...

YOY the baseball operating budget for 2025 is up 17%, in line with the overall athletics department. That's a large increase, way outpacing inflation.

If you want to evaluate where the baseball program is in 2024, you really have to look at more data. While the 2025 budget is up a lot, the rate of growth since 2018 and adjusting for inflation is a paltry 0.7% annually. If you look at the seven years from 2011 to 2018, that annual growth rate was 7.6%.

So the annual rate of growth in the baseball budget has declined by 90%--from 7.6% to 0.7%--in recent years. In my opinion, you don't need much more evidence than that to tell you why baseball is struggling. We've essentially stopped giving baseball any funding above inflation for a long period of time...

 

[Thecycle27]

I understand you are only focused on money. Explain how that lack of investment is why the program has been down.

The Covid year they were loaded probably a World Series team.

The year after Covid the position roster was loaded, Davis, Binelas, Dunn, Bowman, Usher, Metzinger, and Masterman all guys the ended up playing professional. Didn’t make the tournament.

Unless the reduction in investment killed recruiting which there is nothing to support it did——the money is only a piece of the issue. You are ignoring almost completely player acquisition, retention and development of players specifically pitching.

I would argue the staff lost sight of how they got to 5 World Series.

 

[the artist FKA zipp]

I understand you are only focused on money. Explain how that lack of investment is why the program has been down.

The Covid year they were loaded probably a World Series team.

The year after Covid the position roster was loaded, Davis, Binelas, Dunn, Bowman, Usher, Metzinger, and Masterman all guys the ended up playing professional. Didn’t make the tournament.

Unless the reduction in investment killed recruiting which there is nothing to support it did——the money is only a piece of the issue. You are ignoring almost completely player acquisition, retention and development of players specifically pitching.

I would argue the staff lost sight of how they got to 5 World Series.

There's no free lunch. And it took the Titanic a few hours to sink.

Translated...

Money matters, and the effects might not be obvious right away.

We're also not talking a slight change in course here... A real rate of growth of almost 8% is now close to zero. How can that be debated unless all you want to see is guys in uniform throwing and hitting the ball?...

 

[Thecycle27]

I have yet to see you tie this lack of investment directly to performance. You can’t do.

However, when you actually if you actually watch the guys in uniform throw and hit the ball you see coaches haven’t been getting the job done. We can’t praise the coaches when things are good and blame finances when things don’t go well. That is making an excuse instead of understanding they struggled developing kids since Covid.

Explain how finances impacted Koger, Phillips, Grundy, Legitt Campbell and Corbett? All have legit arm talent i.e velocity but none developed.

 

[the artist FKA zipp]

If money didn't matter, why don't we cut everything way back? I don't think you've addressed that question...

 

[Thecycle27]

I never said money didn’t matter. I said money is only a piece of the puzzle. You said the lack of investment is the reason for the decline. I disagree and I don’t think the cuts have impacted their ability to recruit.

Players actual performance has very little to do with finances. The investment is in coaches and facilities. Those factors attract the best players. The recruiting ranking aren’t declining like investments. They may of even their best classes the last 2 years.

That is why I asked how exactly is the decline in investment impacting performance. The position group hasn’t been bad. The pitching group has been. So are pitchers not coming to Louisville because they don’t have good facilities? Is there some technology Louisville can’t afford that other schools have?

Money isn’t flawless indicator of performance. Good example is all these kids coming from Div 2-3 that are excelling at this level. The kids can either pitch or hit money have zero impact of their talents.

 

[the artist FKA zipp]

I never said money didn’t matter. I said money is only a piece of the puzzle. You said the lack of investment is the reason for the decline. I disagree and I don’t think the cuts have impacted their ability to recruit…

Why are there financial rankings everywhere for the major athletic programs?

I don’t see too many for position groups like baseball starting pitching.

The slapd!cks move into a new ballpark, and they go to their first CWS. Another amazing coincidence…

 

[Thecycle27]

I am done. The stats support my position. Pitching has tanked since Covid. You have nothing to support finances had anything to do with that decline. Coach are paid top 10 money to recruit and develop players.

 

[the artist FKA zipp]

I am done. The stats support my position. Pitching has tanked since Covid. You have nothing to support finances had anything to do with that decline. Coach are paid top 10 money to recruit and develop players.

I never said we had good pitching. Nor has our defense, base running, and timely hitting been all that good. More amazing coincidences.

All I know is when most people see our finances and don’t get lost in the weeds, their eyebrows arch…

 

[earsky]

More amazing coincidences.

No,I think he's saying they're not. The class rankings show that the talent is still there,if that's what we're using to go by. However, that's going off the current Juniors to be. That class #3 in the country. The current incoming class #10. Mac has traditionally recruited very strong every other year since 2010. None of that has changed.
I will say that maybe there was a highly rated class that may have been an anomaly,possibly the class that came in 2020.

 

[Thecycle27]

This debate over finances is subjective because there is no direct correlation between investment and performance. No one can prove the decline or increase in investment is directly tied to poor or good performance.

We can’t complain about investment when we have a staff that is paid top 10-15 in country and they recruit top 10-20 classes. We would roast our football and basketball coaches if they performed like baseball has 3-4 years.

The coaches need to do a better job and figure out why they struggled so much since Covid.