FSU baseball Q&A with Link Jarrett (Part 2): Transfer portal, MLB Draft
After talking with Florida State baseball coach Link Jarrett about his reflections on the 2023 season, building blocks for the future and key returning pieces, we pivoted to talk of the future.
Part 1 of our conversation with Link Jarrett
Here's the second half of our talk where we talked on MLB Draft decisions, the transfer portal and his message to FSU's 2024 commits, both in the high school and junior college ranks.
You have a few guys like Jackson Baumeister and Doug Kirkland who are considering entering the MLB Draft or returning? How they are approaching their draft decisions? How do you and your staff advise prospects as they weigh their decisions?
Jarrett: Both of them are in interesting situations because they have leverage and they clearly don't have to sign. Some guys, juniors, that can't really come back as a senior, logically your leverage has minimized to almost a minimal point. But they clearly have leverage in years and our discussions in the office were, ‘Look at the trajectory you were on when this ended. Now if you pick it up from that point, and make another trend upwards look at where you're going to be.’ Professional baseball is not what it was five years ago. They have whacked teams. So if you go into that world, you better go into that world with a complete grasp on your game and your craft and what you're doing. So the combination of what they've learned and I think what they can learn with one more season, combined with the leverage piece, those are the conversations we've had and those conversations will continue. And ultimately that's their decision and their family's decision. But when you step back and look at it, if those guys come back, think about where they enter the draft landscape and the college baseball landscape when you enter next season. It's far different than where they are right now, I will tell you that. So that's the upside to it. And these are ongoing conversations that we have. Kirkland, I think is going to go pitch in the Cape (Cod League) a little bit. I'll be up there and I'll see him when I'm up there. Baumeister not so much. He's thrown a ton. These are just ongoing conversations and these are big decisions for these kids and these families.
Looking ahead to this offseason, with Notre Dame making a run to the College World Series in 2022 and then you were hired, moved to Tallahassee and the coaching staff wasn’t in place until mid-July, you missed the transfer portal window last summer. How much are you looking forward to the chance now to shape the roster?
Jarrett: Last year (at) this time, we missed the cycle. There wasn't anything left really to do when you get to July, the first few weeks in July. There's 3,500 baseball players in the transfer portal right now. 3,500. That's what our staff is doing. What is the right fit for us? What are our most important needs in terms of athleticism, depth on the mound? How do we solve that? That's what's going on in every office in college baseball right now. You have waves of this, too, so the first wave of it happened this week. Now you heard rumblings and there were grad guys that were in the portal that we were recruiting before you get to Monday, Tuesday. But now the exit meetings are starting and here comes the portal and every time you refresh it, you have new players that are in there. It is wild. Then when the first round of the NCAA Tournament ends, there's going to be another wave. Whether we like this or not, the transfer piece is a critical part of college athletics. It is. And that's why Major League organizations have 100 people dedicated to scouting and salary cap management and acquisition and trades. And that's really what we're doing right now. Talent acquisition, roster building, the depth of the roster, the balance of the roster, the pieces that you have, that's so vitally critical in the roster building. So when you roll out there to play game one, you have the athletes and the personnel that you feel like can compete at this level.
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The portal has only been open a few days and I have to imagine it’s already hard to sift through and find the right pieces. When you are looking when it comes to portal entries? Examining the fit, are there certain personality traits, are there certain baseball skill sets that you look for?
Jarrett: We have video capabilities that we can access essentially every player in college baseball. Even in some cases Division II, junior college players. We can pull up clips and footage and the guys that have played at venues that have camera coverage. You can pull up batters batting with just two strikes or all of their extra-base hits or a pitchers’ sliders, or you can break this down and filter anything. There's never been a better mechanism for you to evaluate from your office or from your living room or wherever you are from your hotel room on the road than where we are right now. So that's part of it and then you have the statistical data, which tells you a lot. When you have enough numbers to look at that really helps. And then our staff has been all over the place. We are a Florida school, but you're not going to have a team that is strictly from right here. So your national network of coaches and scouts and advisors and front office personnel that also evaluate, that's what you use to gather the information you need. Then you talk to the kids and you talk to the families and if you can talk to their coach, travel coach, there's a lot of ways you can start to dive into the character traits of the athletes. So there's the talent layer and the executional layer and are they doing things the way you think they should be done as you bring them into your roster. And then there's the personal side and what type of kid is it and clearly that matters, too.
With how in the future baseball recruiting is a lot of these 2024 kids probably committed to FSU before you were here. What’s been your message to them? You have also added some junior-college prospects to the class. What’s been your feedback about the season and why they’ve stayed committed?
Jarrett: These guys want to be at Florida State and what happened this season, it doesn't change the Florida State brand and what this program is about. They have to want to be a part of Florida State and we have had no problem with any of that. The draft, for some of these seniors, there are guys going to the combine and going to the workouts. There are guys coming to summer school. There's a combination of that. This is an ongoing challenge. But our conversations have been great with the incoming guys and this has been in the works for a long time so we have had no problem with dealing with the season from a recruiting standpoint. Sometimes guys see a way onto the field that maybe they didn't see if you had a group that's all back and everybody (is back as if) you're coming off the field at Omaha. I think some of these guys actually feel that, ‘Hey, there's a chance for me to step in there and play sooner than later.’ So that has been just fine.
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