Cal Baseball: Recruiting in Bear Territory

The Recruitment Strategy of Mike Neu and the Golden Bears; and a Q&A with 2026 Commit Isaac Copen

Another season of Cal Baseball is on the horizon with some of the state's best collegiate players ready to make their returns, debuts, and memories at Evans Diamond at Stu Gordon Stadium. Cal Baseball has been at the top of its game in developing these players. In Mike Neu’s prior seven seasons as the head coach of Cal, 27 Golden Bears have been drafted by Major League Baseball teams, with first-round (and compensatory first-round) picks including Andrew Vaughn (2019), Korey Lee (2019), Dylan Beavers (2022), and Caleb Lomavita (2024). Season number eight will look much different for Neu and the Golden Bears, with rivalries against UCLA, USC, Washington, and Oregon State being as good as gone- and the inner state travel staying in the Bay Area and Northern California.

Let’s talk about California. I would consider California the baseball capital of the United States, and arguably the world. We are the only state with five (soon to be four) professional MLB teams. We have beautiful weather all year round for constant training and competitive play amongst youth and adults. We have a plethora of talent in the pool of 1,031 high school programs (Fieldlevel) and have 160 collegiate programs (NAIA, NCJAA, and NCAA Div. I-III) for students to strive for, with 25 of these colleges competing in the NCAA Division I- more than any other state in the nation (Texas 2nd with 22).

Jarren Advincula turning a double-play (via @CalBaseball on Instagram.)

The Atlantic Coast Conference is home to historic powerhouse baseball programs such as Clemson, Duke, Miami, North Carolina, Virginia, and Wake Forest- teams that have dominated the East Coast recruitment territory. The Southern States such as the Carolinas and Florida have similar sunshine to California and Texas enabling long seasons of training and competition, as well as lacking in professional baseball teams in the Major Leagues, leaving lots of fans invested with time and money into their local college programs. The California Golden Bears’ move to the ACC and the ACC’s recruitment grounds comes amid a recruitment strategy that Neu and the staff have been utilizing for a few seasons now.

Since 2021, the Cal Men’s Baseball program has had one player outside of the state of California play, and that was Catcher, Caleb Lomavita, from Honolulu, Hawaii. Carter Bailey (Chandler, AZ HS class of 2023) was on the Cal Bears websites’ roster for the 2024 season but utilized his Red Shirt after receiving no playing time, and ultimately transferred to Georgia State University.

For the 2023 recruitment class, all other players (13) were from California, for the 2024 recruitment class, every player (9) was from California, and for the recently committed 2025 class, all (12) players were from California. If you’re thinking this is just a recent thing that is done now that we have conference games across the country… you may be shocked to hear that the 2026 and 2027 current commits are also all from… California.

In comparison to our counterparts like UCLA, Stanford, or USC: UCLA has all West Coast commits in the 2025 class with 9 2025-2026 freshmen from California, and one student each from Hawaii, Washington, and Nevada. Stanford has 8 incoming freshmen from California, one student from Washington, and one from Ontario, Canada. And lastly, USC has 12 incoming players from California, two from Hawaii, and two from Nevada. Each of these schools, along with Cal, will be bringing their Golden State-based lineups to universities across the Midwest and Atlantic Coast for the foreseeable future, and the cultural wars of West Coast baseball versus Midwest and East Coast baseball have begun.

Is this pool too limited? I do not believe so. Cal Baseball, like the University of California, has a mission to abide by. California is rich in talent for baseball players, while also providing the path for all in-state students to receive higher education. The University of California, Berkeley should embrace the challenge and appeal of recruiting in the state our flagship university represents. The commitment to developing California-born and raised athletes into one of Neu’s 27 drafted ball players is what will keep Cal baseball nationally relevant and formidable these next few seasons.

ACC Schools Map (via sportleaguemaps.com) (SMU & Syracuse do not field Baseball teams)

For Cal commits, especially those from the Bay Area, this is a dream come true. Your local university has decided to take a chance on your baseball abilities while retaining the proximity to home and is offering a world-class education. You often hear Cal fans pitch the Cal “brand” to Football and Basketball recruits on social media as the “40-year decision” implying that the degree is what will take you further than the pro-athlete dream.

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I got the chance to speak with Acalanes High School class of 2026 and Cal Baseball commit Isaac Copen (7.5/10 via PerfectGame) on what staying home in California means for local recruits, as well as what advantages come with West Coast baseball.

JB: What’s your Bay Area story and connection to the East Bay?

IC: My dad's from Virginia, and my mom's from Florida, they met at grad school in Columbia (NYC), So I was born in the city. I was a few months old and we moved over to Rockridge, kind of Right by Cal’s campus, and I remember taking the bus up and down College Avenue when I was little and, you know, just getting to see the campus and stuff. But we moved around a little bit around the bay, we lived on the peninsula for a while and that's kind of where I started playing baseball and playing the little league, then in fourth grade, moved here to Lafayette and, you know, kind of been here, been here ever since!

JB: Acalanes is a very small high school in comparison to other East Bay schools with around 1,300 students, how exciting is the jump from that to almost 46,000 at UC Berkeley?

IC: I always love to meet new people and just learn new things about them. I think that was another big thing for me when I was in my recruiting process, without a doubt, I knew I wanted to go to a big school to have that college environment and life. That's one of the reasons why Cal was also such a great fit. It's going to be really cool, you know, being able to meet people from all different kinds of backgrounds and experiences.

JB: Are you committed to Cal as a two-way player (P/1B) or will you be enrolling under one position?

IC: I had a Tommy John [surgery] this fall right after I committed, obviously they knew everything about it so now I am just building back up, trying to get better than where I was even before. I am just super grateful that the coaching staff has been super open with me and they believe in me. And so that's also been a huge fueling factor in my rehab. As much as I love hitting, when I recover, my future is in pitching, and I am super content with that.

JB: With your surgery and recovery, how important was it to take this opportunity close to home to recover and develop with Cal?

IC: Very! Everything is kept local, My physical therapist actually has a relationship with Bodhi (Chris Bodishbaugh), the Cal pitching coach, and goes to show how close-knit of a community it is here where everyone in the baseball world knows each other. I had a weird recruiting process with the whole TJ thing, it was right after August 1st so I didn't really get to play in the fall. Cal gave me a call and told me that they were still going to offer me and then right when I took that visit in September, I immediately fell in love with the school. It was a no-brainer for me.

JB: Do you plan on playing this season at Acalanes or do you want to take it easy?

IC: I had the option of whether I wanted to hit or not. I'm like, I can't sit out. I love the game too much to have to be sidelined all year so I'm starting my hitting build-up, and my hitting program this weekend, I'll be able to hit most of the year. And then I think somewhere in there, depending on how long the program take, assuming there are no setbacks, I should start throwing around mid-March.

JB: You committed very early on in your Junior year, what made you jump at this opportunity early and choose Cal?

IC: I had another offer from the University of San Diego but like I said, seriously, when I got to Cal there were so many amazing aspects of the school and it is obviously operating at a super high level of academics, one of the best academic schools in the country. That's something me and my family found very important. And then the amazing, amazing, amazing coaches, like the quality of a coaching staff doesn't really get much better than that. These are guys that actually care about you as a person. They want to develop me as a player and a person while wanting to win. I’ve gotten to know the coaching staff being local, the other commits and classes, and gotten to build a bit of a relationship with them.

JB: Were your academically inclined parents a big influence on that?

IC: Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad actually teaches a graduate course at Cal’s Haas School of Business.

JB: You mentioned wanting to win. Last season, Cal was team number 65 in a college postseason of 64 teams. What will the move to the ACC do to help elevate the winning culture in Berkeley?

IC: You know that new conference. I mean, we're one of two West Coast teams, you know, so that's going to be a lot of traveling for us, but I think everyone wants to be the best version of themselves at the highest level too and it’s going to show. I think moving into ACC is huge for that. We're going to be playing the best competition in the country. And I think that's also going to make us a better team. I really think that Cal has it in them and I'm really excited to be a part of that. It will go well because the work ethic at Cal is really unmatched you know, these people have to work hard in school AND on the field. It's a very hardworking group of guys and staff. The ACC, it's a tough conference, but it's nothing they and we can't handle to elevate us.

JB: For Cal’s current freshman class of 9 freshmen, the incoming 12 recruits for the class of 2025, 6 commits in your class of 2026, and the single recruit in 2027, all of you share the common trait of being based out of the state of California. You guys are all California-based. What's the sentiment and shared experiences you all feel on that?

IC: We already got to know each other before we even stepped on campus as students. We already have a culture. We all train together down in Morgan Hill, five other commits and I, we all work out together, every weekend and over the summer. We already have a type of chemistry. You know baseball is such a team-oriented sport, anything can happen together. It's not like football where if you're more physical, you can just overrun teams. Anyone can win in baseball and that comes from the team culture How much do you want to go up to bat for your boys? All of the other states might be more appealing for us recruits, but you know, to come to Cal, I think that one of the main sentiments among our Cal group is how we want to show the country, that this is who California is. California has some of the best baseball in the country. I really want to prove that, you know.

Copen’s commitment graphic (via @Isaac.copen on Instagram.)

JB: Something I am super excited about not just for Cal, but for Stanford, UCLA, and USC, is bringing “West Coast Style” baseball to the East Coast and Midwest. What have you guys talked about as far as bringing this brand of baseball to the ACC?

IC: Just to give a personal example, at my high school, a mall school, we had one Cal Poly commit last year, yet we absolutely ran NorCal. We went 17-0, made it to the NCS semifinals, and our whole philosophy the entire year was “small ball" and strategic base running. We weren't a team that hit home runs. We had to have had three home runs as a team the whole year. But what we could do was throw strikes, do all the little things right, and, you know, that leads to wins. I think that there is a lot about what the California brand of baseball is like. It's little gritty things that matter. That's how you can win games. It's the little things that people don't see, like a base stolen, bunting, hustling for an extra base on a hit, and hitting your cutoff man quickly. These are all little things that the average college baseball viewer might not see but make a difference. And so, if Cal can keep all of that together in the ACC, we might have a real shot at winning.

JB: What’s next for Cal Baseball? Where’s the trajectory of this program headed?

IC: Cal had 36 wins last season, picked up some huge transfers, and us guys in the pitching class are in great hands with Bodhi as their coach. I think Cal won’t just be average in the ACC, we have the talent to thrive there and expand on what has been built upon, positioning us well to hopefully dominate the ACC. Under [Neu], the program has gotten better and better each year.

Follow along and subscribe to Write For California as we continue to cover the California Golden Bears’ 2025 ACC Baseball season!