West Virginia baseball is fully into their offseason and with that comes a lot of unknowns for first-year head coach Steve Sabins.
"I fall asleep every night going in circles about what’s going to happen," Sabins said. "The most interesting thing about roster management is you have draft eligible players that you don’t know will be drafted or not."
Sabins has already made four adds for the Mountaineers from the transfer portal, but by his estimation, they are not close to done. Entires into the transfer portal close on July 2, but the MLB Draft does not begin until July 14.
There are some players Sabins expects to go pro, obviously shortstop JJ Wetherholt, but junior pitcher Aidan Major is another according to Sabins. West Virginia will also possibly be saying bye to other players prematurely depending what happens in the 20-round MLB Draft.
"Logan Sauve is draft eligible. Grant Hussey is draft eligible. Kyle West, Brodie Kresser, we have several other draft eligible players and then some of the transfer portal players that we’ve committed are also draft eligible. So, they’re coming to West Virginia unless they feel like the professional ranks is a better option for them. It’s actually impossible to get down on paper what your roster will look like," Sabins said.
Out of the list of four names Sabins listed, all were starters for WVU this past season. In addition, WVU has already lost third baseman Reed Chumley who exhausted his eligibility, creating large holes on the Mountaineer roster depending on what goes down in less than a month at the MLB Draft.
"The transfer portal closes before the MLB Draft happens, so basically, everyone makes a decision if they want to be open for a new opportunity, and then the draft happens and reshuffles everything again," Sabins said. "You have to find this balance of being aggressive but not overly aggressive because if players come back, you have too large of a roster and you want to make sure you don’t have too many guys in that locker room because that hurts development and team culture. We’re playing that game every day. You kind of go back and forth in a circle a lot."
In order to achieve that balance, Sabins said he has had open communication with current guys on the roster as well as guys expected to come from the transfer portal. Add in the final piece of high school commitments who could get drafted and the first month of Sabins' tenure seems destined to be chaotic.
"You’re trying to gain as much information, but the players are the ones who have been wonderful with me. Essentially, I want whatever our players want. Whatever is in their best interest. If it’s signing a professional contract, if it’s moving on as a free agent, I want to just celebrate that with them. Or if it’s coming back to West Virginia, even better. But I just need to know the information, I need to know what the real likelihood of their interest is in entering professional baseball and then I can find out what’s the realistic possibility that a pro team actually wants them to enter professional baseball," Sabins said.
One area in particular WVU undoubtedly will have to address is their starting pitching. WVU loses all three starters from this season as Derek Clark and Hayden Cooper are out of eligibility and Major will most likely go pro.
"Derek Clark is going to be graduating and hopefully he’s going to sign a professional contract here shortly. Hayden Cooper is graduating. We anticipate Aidan Major signing a professional contract. So, a big chunk of innings that were thrown last season are going to be gone," Sabins said.
For Sabins and WVU, it's now just wait-and-see. There is less than a month until the MLB Draft, and multiple Mountaineers — or slotted future Mountaineers — could hear their name called.
The MLB Draft is set to take place from July 14-16 in conjunction with the MLB All-Star Game.
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