The Golden Bears dropped back-to-back battles around the bay, as San Francisco beat Cal 10-9 on Tuesday in Berkeley, and San Jose State hosted and beat the Bears 14-5 on Wednesday night in San Jose.
I enjoyed last season’s outstanding showing. No way should the Bears have been left out of the NCAA Tournament. Mike Neu led the team to Cal’s best winning percentage achieved by a Golden Bears squad since 1966, yet the committee chose to include a .500 Florida Gators team in place of the Bears. Beginning this year, Cal is travelling more miles for conference games than almost any other team in the nation (Stanford also is underperforming this year, with all the ridiculous travel). As well, other programs in the P4 are out-luring Cal baseball in NIL fundraising. How much of this can you really blame on the coaches? Every standout player you have is earmarked for transfer. Advincula, etc. will have lucrative offers to leave after this season, and the roster could further thin out, despite coaches’ recruiting efforts and track record of player development.
The NCAA selection committee made a downright corrupt decision to deny Cal an at large bid. Politics reared its ugly head. Cal lost 5 quality starters to the MLB draft and a 1st round catcher and 2nd round center fielder: both of who were juniors. This year started out promising when we swept Stanford at Stanford (when they were ranked #14) but then a bizarre series of bad luck bounces (that’s baseball but Cal seemed to be cursed by the baseball gods), walks, hbps (which college hitters now are leaning into intentionally) and baserunning errors (lack of focus) led to several late inning heartbreaking loses. Travel fatigue has been a factor and this team is very young. If Mike Neu can hold on to the core we should be very good next year. But with SEC teams offering huge money for the best talent it’s going to be a challenge. Baseball is historically structured around concepts of team play and loyalty. These are both now in very short supply in D1 baseball.
New coaches please
I enjoyed last season’s outstanding showing. No way should the Bears have been left out of the NCAA Tournament. Mike Neu led the team to Cal’s best winning percentage achieved by a Golden Bears squad since 1966, yet the committee chose to include a .500 Florida Gators team in place of the Bears. Beginning this year, Cal is travelling more miles for conference games than almost any other team in the nation (Stanford also is underperforming this year, with all the ridiculous travel). As well, other programs in the P4 are out-luring Cal baseball in NIL fundraising. How much of this can you really blame on the coaches? Every standout player you have is earmarked for transfer. Advincula, etc. will have lucrative offers to leave after this season, and the roster could further thin out, despite coaches’ recruiting efforts and track record of player development.
The NCAA selection committee made a downright corrupt decision to deny Cal an at large bid. Politics reared its ugly head. Cal lost 5 quality starters to the MLB draft and a 1st round catcher and 2nd round center fielder: both of who were juniors. This year started out promising when we swept Stanford at Stanford (when they were ranked #14) but then a bizarre series of bad luck bounces (that’s baseball but Cal seemed to be cursed by the baseball gods), walks, hbps (which college hitters now are leaning into intentionally) and baserunning errors (lack of focus) led to several late inning heartbreaking loses. Travel fatigue has been a factor and this team is very young. If Mike Neu can hold on to the core we should be very good next year. But with SEC teams offering huge money for the best talent it’s going to be a challenge. Baseball is historically structured around concepts of team play and loyalty. These are both now in very short supply in D1 baseball.