2025 roster projection

D1Bsb report on Coppola at Hyannis this summer:

Pierce Coppola, LHP, Florida (2024) — Despite his track record of injuries and relatively few career innings, there was some thought that Coppola would get drafted and be signed this summer based on his immense potential alone. That didn’t happen, though, and the 6-foot-8 lefthander will return to Florida, where he will look to prove himself as a workhorse over a full season. Certainly his summer with Hyannis was a step in the right direction, albeit in a fairly small sample. In 7.1 innings over two starts, he held batters to a .185 average and struck out 15. There’s no doubting his stuff, as he shows a fastball that sits in the mid 90s and can approach the high 90s when he’s really clicking, a slider that had a 40% whiff rate last spring and a 50% whiff rate over the summer, and a usable changeup. Coppola’s ceiling as a prospect is higher than any other pitcher who took the mound for Hyannis this summer. ​

 

When he has control he's great. Problem, besides injuries, has been finding the strike zone.

 

Anyone who is a weekend starter needs to be counted on to throw 5-6 innings.

 

That would be nice. I wonder how frequently our weekend starters lasted 5-6 innings this season? It feels like it wasn’t over 50% of the time.

 

Ideal would be two times through the opponent’s lineup which should be 6 innings—and on any given start should our SP be strong through 7 innings, all the better.

This would also help our bullpen to develop it’s best abilities or personality.

 

I worry a bit that I post a lot of tidbits from D1Baseball, but some of them have good info. For example, they published a list of fall practice games that includes a pair for the Gators, Friday, November 1 at JU, Sunday, November 10 at home against USF.

Also, here's a link to the Gator website that reports on the Baseball America rankings of transfers.
Three Gators Tabbed BA Top-100 Transfers - Florida Gators

 

Are we really at JU or is this the annual game in Jax against UGly the night before the football game?

 

My guess is it is exactly that.

 

You surely are right. D1Bsb has a matrix that lists away as Florida, home as Jacksonville and I was 100% thinking in a baseball mode. I'd much rather sit at the JU ballpark than with dawg football fans, so a touch of wishful thinking may have been involved. No trip to that mess for me.

 

Yeah, for me, all desire to attend that game ended around 30 years old. Same for Baton Rouge. All desire to attend an away Miami game ended about an hour after arriving for my first game down there.

 

I have nowhere else to put this so I figured why not here. I didn't want to bury it in one of the scathing football threads about Coach Napier but I do have a baseball comparison that might matter over here.

I was sitting in my favorite breakfast café this morning and overheard another table of guys commenting about how bad Florida and FSU are looking these days. One of the fellas came up with this classic line. "I always figured, when you start paying the players, they would only care about themselves and not who they are playing for." I had to agree in this day and age. Players don't seem to care as much any more when they ain't winning and getting the exposure they expect.

My point, Florida is at a crossroads. Now that the SEC has added OU and UT, it looks almost impossible that the Gators will ever get close in football to an SEC title again. You see, the cost to compete in football has risen so high that Gator fans don't want to keep up any more. Sure consistent winning solves many a problem but by comparison the cost of signing a top QB every other year is much more than signing a top pitcher every year while hoping he goes to college. I don't know the exact numbers in the NIL world but it might be almost 10 fold or more to get the top QBs. Plus the coaching salaries only continue to sky rocket in football while all being driven by the TV dollars. Other sports can't support their own cause without football but they do get some coverage on TV every once in awhile.

So is Florida better off putting more support into sports like baseball, softball, gymnastics, T&F, and volleyball? Can they still get enough national exposure or does football still rule so much that no booster money can be raised without it? I've always liked seeing many sports doing well at Florida and not just football. I guess the tough question is can they succeed without football's help?

 

87—

With the implementation of NIL$$$ and the transfer portal ALL COLLEGE SPORTS have ceased to function and exist as we have always known them. There is no more commitment to your word much less your team or school.

I am sad to say GREED and ENTITLEMENT have won out. I will always follow Florida Gators Baseball, but I’m afraid that the game the way we have always known and loved it is now in the rear view mirror.

I truly wish it wasn’t so…..

 

Florida has the money to compete NIL-wise. We have more NIL deals in place than any other school in the country. The leadership has chosen, for whatever reason, not to use it in a big time way to bring in enough elite athletes. Check these links:
Top 10 schools based on total number of NIL deals for athletes
https://247sports.com/longformartic...programs-ranked-by-nil-efforts-235181311/amp/
On3's top 20 most ambitious NIL collectives

There's a disconnect. Florida has plenty of money coming in from generated revenues as well as donors. We have the most NIL deals in place and yet the NIL collective is not even in the Top 20 as far as aggressively using our resources to get the top athletes - or at least enough of them.

 

Totally agree. The UF leadership (Pres., AD, UAA, Collective, big money boosters, etc.) simply haven't made the commitment YET to divert enough of our significant revenue resources towards large enough NIL deals to compete with other programs for most of the elite athletes out there.

 

So we no longer recruit the quality person/athlete we want for our program—we just buy…..how sad.

 

Saban said, no thanks. I think Dabo will be next. I wonder how long Sully will watch lesser coaches/programs buy up all of the top talent? I wouldn't want to be a part of this crap if I were a coach. Heck, I'm just a fan and I'm losing more interest by the season.

 

I have a neighbor that was a high school head coach that has retired and he told me he was glad he was retired. He said the kids today care about the money and me, me, they have no loyalty to a school nor the deep down desire to compete. If things don’t go their way, they just transfer to another school. They don’t want to stay and work thru problems, they look for the easy way out. Dealing with parents of these same kids is a headache, they think their kids deserve all the breaks with out working thru them and sticking with their school and coaches.

 

Crazy times. Same thing for teachers. Parents want teachers fired for trying to discipline their badass kids. The kids are so spoiled and entitled, and the parents think they can do no wrong.

I guess it’s really the same in all walks of life. Hiring and training todays youth is just as frustrating. But teachers and coaches used to be who parents depended on to instill some discipline and work ethics. Nowadays they’re hated for trying to do so.

 

So let's go back about 105 years. Red Sox sell Babe Ruth to Yankees. Rumors will soon be flying that Arnold Rothstein bought White Sox players to guarantee his World Series bets. WW I vets are returning expecting financial gratitude from the nation- they've seen Paree and have little interest in returning to their farms. Even black vets have had a glimpse of life without Jim Crow and gotten uppity. (It will take 40 years and two more wars for real progress even to start.) Money, money, money!!! What's happening to the country?

Within a decade Ruth was paid more than the President, but Ruth explained he deserved to make more because he had a better year than Coolidge. Salaries kept getting bigger, but players were regularly traded, including Ruth, Cobb and many other stars. In the '50s, teams start moving, too: Braves moved to Milwaukee, then Atlanta; Athletics to KC, then Oakland; Browns only move once to reach Baltimore; two of three NY teams move to the west coast; one Senators franchise moves to Minneapolis, another moves to Dallas; the first team in Seattle only survives a year and heads to Milwaukee; Expos leave Montreal for a third attempt at MLB in DC. Then there are expansion teams- MLB went fom 16 teams to 30. Where is team/city loyalty? Money, money, money!!! What's happening to the country?

In '69, Curt Flood filed suit against MLB and in '72, the Supreme Court threw out the reserve clause and created free agency. Players jump from one team to another and long term contracts are well into nine figures and surely will reach ten before long. Where is team/city loyalty? Money, money, money!!! What's happening to the country?

During those same years, airplanes, electricity and telephones became part of normal life; radio was born; movies gained talkies and color; television was born; celebrities became richer and richer; the work week became 40 hours over five days; kids seldom had to work to help pay family bills; Dr Spock changed how parents raised children; families became smaller; women were allowed to go to college, hold responsible jobs, own property and credit cards; black people sometimes were allowed to go to college, hold responsible jobs, own property and credit cards, play baseball get into the HOF. Holy sh*t, man walked on the moon. Money, money, money!!! What's happening to the country?

Obviously, I'm saying that changes keep happening. Sorry, you old folks (at least old from the neck up), but money, money, money will continue to drive changes. In fact, many changes will be very good. In fact, many peoples' lives- including athletes- will be better off because of money-related changes. It was nice to read that Gators ARE a big player in NIL in some form, even if they still have to figure out how to do it right.

A 1960 song asked, "What's the matter with kids today? Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way?" It's old, but available on Spotify and several other apps.