...and Stanford and UNC fail to crack Top 25 for the first time in the past 5 years. UT comes in at #2, TCU #17 and Tulane at #23 (the Green Wave's first Top 25 recruiting class since 2005)...

http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/r...e-country/

Here's their brief blurb on Rice's class, which does touch on the four newcomers who will likely have an impact (though it fails to mention Andrew Dunlap)...

Quote:Rice’s class has a potential star in C John Clay Reeves, who hits for average from the right side and is an advanced defender for his age with an accurate arm. RHP Jon Duplantier has a chance to be very good if he can harness his command of his quality four-pitch mix, which is highlighted by an 88-92 fastball that touches 94. Six-foot-7 RHP Trevor Teykl works at 88-91 with heavy sink but needs to get more consistent with his slider and must overcome health concerns. OF Charlie Warren has a nice flat stroke from the left side and above-average speed.

(10-22-2013 05:06 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  ...and Stanford and UNC fail to crack Top 25 for the first time in the past 5 years. UT comes in at #2, TCU #17 and Tulane at #23 (the Green Wave's first Top 25 recruiting class since 2005)...

http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/r...e-country/

Here's their brief blurb on Rice's class, which does touch on the four newcomers who will likely have an impact (though it fails to mention Andrew Dunlap)...

Quote:Rice’s class has a potential star in C John Clay Reeves, who hits for average from the right side and is an advanced defender for his age with an accurate arm. RHP Jon Duplantier has a chance to be very good if he can harness his command of his quality four-pitch mix, which is highlighted by an 88-92 fastball that touches 94. Six-foot-7 RHP Trevor Teykl works at 88-91 with heavy sink but needs to get more consistent with his slider and must overcome health concerns. OF Charlie Warren has a nice flat stroke from the left side and above-average speed.

When was the last time we were ranked in the top 25 in recruiting?

(10-22-2013 05:11 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-22-2013 05:06 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  ...and Stanford and UNC fail to crack Top 25 for the first time in the past 5 years. UT comes in at #2, TCU #17 and Tulane at #23 (the Green Wave's first Top 25 recruiting class since 2005)...

http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/r...e-country/

Here's their brief blurb on Rice's class, which does touch on the four newcomers who will likely have an impact (though it fails to mention Andrew Dunlap)...

Quote:Rice’s class has a potential star in C John Clay Reeves, who hits for average from the right side and is an advanced defender for his age with an accurate arm. RHP Jon Duplantier has a chance to be very good if he can harness his command of his quality four-pitch mix, which is highlighted by an 88-92 fastball that touches 94. Six-foot-7 RHP Trevor Teykl works at 88-91 with heavy sink but needs to get more consistent with his slider and must overcome health concerns. OF Charlie Warren has a nice flat stroke from the left side and above-average speed.

When was the last time we were ranked in the top 25 in recruiting?

I believe this is the first year in well over a decade we have not been in the Top 25. We're usually in the #15 - #23 range. The good news is: (1) we have an upperclass laden squad this year and, consequently, the recruiting class was much smaller than usual-- which impacted the rankings a bit, and (2) next year's incoming class has 3 Top 100 prospects and another in the Top 150, which means if we can get them on campus (and people are optimistic at this point that all will matriculate), we could have our first Top 10 ranked recruiting class in history.

The 2010 Rice baseball recruiting class was ranked 9th by Baseball America. I would suspect that other classes (1995, 2002) might have been in the top 10 too (or at least should have been if looked at afterwards in how well the players did in their careers).

http://www.riceowls.com/blog/2010/10/ric...erica.html

(10-22-2013 05:35 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  The 2010 Rice baseball recruiting class was ranked 9th by Baseball America. I would suspect that other classes (1995, 2002) might have been in the top 10 too (or at least should have been if looked at afterwards in how well the players did in their careers).

http://www.riceowls.com/blog/2010/10/ric...erica.html

...and that was without Jamo Tallison and Esquivez. However, Simms, Kubitza and Mason were all Top 200 recruits, and that class also included Hoelscher, Hamilton, Cook and Aquino.

The 2002 class might have been ranked Top 10 in retrospect, but I'm not sure it even cracked the Top 25 the fall of 2002. Let's not forget that both Neimann and Townsend went undrafted (and were diamonds in the rough), and Humber was drafted in the 29th round. Janisch was not a Top 500 prospect. Yes, Sinisi was very highly regarded, but I believe he was the only one in that incoming class. Ditto for the 1995 class, as Berkman went largely unrecruited, and Bubba was not that highly regarded out of high school.

The 2005 class might have turned out to have been our best ever, top-to-bottom, but Savery was the only Top 100 guy that year. However, that class produced a ton of all-american and all-conference players: Savery, Geer (transfer), CSC, Bell, Bramhall, McDaniel, Tacker (transfer), Cox (transfer), Friday, Henley, Dodson, Lehmann and Zornes. Just a gold mine of talent there.

(10-22-2013 05:15 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(10-22-2013 05:11 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-22-2013 05:06 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  ...and Stanford and UNC fail to crack Top 25 for the first time in the past 5 years. UT comes in at #2, TCU #17 and Tulane at #23 (the Green Wave's first Top 25 recruiting class since 2005)...

http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/r...e-country/

Here's their brief blurb on Rice's class, which does touch on the four newcomers who will likely have an impact (though it fails to mention Andrew Dunlap)...

Quote:Rice’s class has a potential star in C John Clay Reeves, who hits for average from the right side and is an advanced defender for his age with an accurate arm. RHP Jon Duplantier has a chance to be very good if he can harness his command of his quality four-pitch mix, which is highlighted by an 88-92 fastball that touches 94. Six-foot-7 RHP Trevor Teykl works at 88-91 with heavy sink but needs to get more consistent with his slider and must overcome health concerns. OF Charlie Warren has a nice flat stroke from the left side and above-average speed.

When was the last time we were ranked in the top 25 in recruiting?

I believe this is the first year in well over a decade we have not been in the Top 25. We're usually in the #15 - #23 range. The good news is: (1) we have an upperclass laden squad this year and, consequently, the recruiting class was much smaller than usual-- which impacted the rankings a bit, and (2) next year's incoming class has 3 Top 100 prospects and another in the Top 150, which means if we can get them on campus (and people are optimistic at this point that all will matriculate), we could have our first Top 10 ranked recruiting class in history.

Gosh, apparently my Rice baseball memory is REALLY short.

(10-22-2013 05:49 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  The 2002 class might have been ranked Top 10 in retrospect, but I'm not sure it even cracked the Top 25 the fall of 2002. Let's not forget that both Neimann and Townsend went undrafted (and were diamonds in the rough), and Humber was drafted in the 29th round. Janisch was not a Top 500 prospect. Yes, Sinisi was very highly regarded, but I believe he was the only one in that incoming class. Ditto for the 1995 class, as Berkman went largely unrecruited, and Bubba was not that highly regarded out of high school.

The 2005 class might have turned out to have been our best ever, top-to-bottom, but Savery was the only Top 100 guy that year. However, that class produced a ton of all-american and all-conference players: Savery, Geer (transfer), CSC, Bell, Bramhall, McDaniel, Tacker (transfer), Cox (transfer), Friday, Henley, Dodson, Lehmann and Zornes. Just a gold mine of talent there.

Bubba Crosby was a year after Berkman. The 1995 class included Lance, Matt Anderson (#1 overall pick but he also wasn't that highly recruited), Jacques Landry and others. The 2002 class would have also included Justin Crowder and some other really good JUCO transfers. But I do agree that the 2005 class was our deepest and best college class. Maybe it didn't produce the number of pros as other classes, but just about every one of those recruits were really good college players.

(10-22-2013 06:07 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  

(10-22-2013 05:49 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  The 2002 class might have been ranked Top 10 in retrospect, but I'm not sure it even cracked the Top 25 the fall of 2002. Let's not forget that both Neimann and Townsend went undrafted (and were diamonds in the rough), and Humber was drafted in the 29th round. Janisch was not a Top 500 prospect. Yes, Sinisi was very highly regarded, but I believe he was the only one in that incoming class. Ditto for the 1995 class, as Berkman went largely unrecruited, and Bubba was not that highly regarded out of high school.

The 2005 class might have turned out to have been our best ever, top-to-bottom, but Savery was the only Top 100 guy that year. However, that class produced a ton of all-american and all-conference players: Savery, Geer (transfer), CSC, Bell, Bramhall, McDaniel, Tacker (transfer), Cox (transfer), Friday, Henley, Dodson, Lehmann and Zornes. Just a gold mine of talent there.

Bubba Crosby was a year after Berkman. The 1995 class included Lance, Matt Anderson (#1 overall pick but he also wasn't that highly recruited), Jacques Landry and others. The 2002 class would have also included Justin Crowder and some other really good JUCO transfers. But I do agree that the 2005 class was our deepest and best college class. Maybe it didn't produce the number of pros as other classes, but just about every one of those recruits were really good college players.

Beat me to the punch on the Bubba Crosby comment.

In either 2007 or 2008 we tied a record for the most players drafted (not all made the majors)

Sinisi was a transfer in 2002 (from Texas), same as Crowder (TCU). Aardsma transferred from Penn State, IIRC, but I thought it was in 2003.

Kohlkorst and Bubela came from JUCO the same year I believe (want to say 2003, but may have been 2002. Chris played in 2004 (and got hurt which was one reason we lost that regional), but I can't remember if he came back for his 4th year (counting JUCO) or it was his 3rd year of eligibility. I think the former.

I'm a little surprised at the top 25 rankings because I didn't think Rice had that many of them. Before they cut down on scholarship numbers, the ratings were heavily weighted towards schools like UT that offered to a bunch of kids that were highly drafted and had little likelihood of ever reaching campus.

I'll be interested to see what that Tulane class ends up doing. They have a couple of guys in shortstop Stephen Alemais and catcher Jake Rogers that could have played just about anywhere and a few others (Hunter Hope, JP France, and a few JUCO kids) that are expected to be pretty solid.

There's been a lot of talk about the class over at YOGWF and there's even been some speculation that the Wave have more or less gone all-in with this class in terms of available scholarships. Rick Jones' future might end up being tied to how this class does early on.

(10-27-2013 09:01 PM)jdh008 Wrote:  I'll be interested to see what that Tulane class ends up doing. They have a couple of guys in shortstop Stephen Alemais and catcher Jake Rogers that could have played just about anywhere and a few others (Hunter Hope, JP France, and a few JUCO kids) that are expected to be pretty solid.

There's been a lot of talk about the class over at YOGWF and there's even been some speculation that the Wave have more or less gone all-in with this class in terms of available scholarships. Rick Jones' future might end up being tied to how this class does early on.

It's a wonder Rick Jones is still there. Yeah, Katrina hurt (for a couple year's worth of recruiting) and the private school tuition thing is frequently used as an excuse (ditto by USC), BUT as far as I'm concerned, Rick Jones has yet to prove he can develop young talent. During Tulane's glory days in the late 1990s through the 2005 season, he relied almost exclusively on very highly regarded (frequently all-american caliber) D-1 transfers. Once the transfer rule went into effect, Tulane has been unable to climb back into the Top 50 - 65, and have mostly been sub-100 in RPI.