In part one of our Q&A with West Virginia assistant baseball coach and recruiting coordinator Steve Sabins, he discussed how the team found out about the season being cancelled, what the conversations are like with current players as well as his thoughts on the D1 Council's vote to grant all spring-sport student-athletes an additional year of eligibility.

In the second and final part of our Q&A, Sabins addresses the status of the team's seniors, how this entire situation will affect future recruiting classes and much more.

WVSports.com: How can this affect the future recruiting classes since you guys are actively recruiting those 2022 and 2023 classes? Could this also affect the 2021 class as well?

Sabins: Yeah, the 2021 class for sure. You’re reevaluating everything. Every single person on your roster has an additional year and so you’re now really playing the guessing game with is this guy going to sign as a draft eligible sophomore because all sophomores will be draft eligible now that we’re affected by COVID-19, so will he sign as a draft eligible sophomore? OK, this guy will, this guy won’t. OK, will he sign as a draft eligible COVID junior? This guy will, right? There’s just a whole additional year of playing that guessing game with the draft and free agency and transfers and the things that happen inside of college baseball. So it absolutely affects every class moving forward. I think everybody across the country right now, I think recruiting just in general is going to slow down a little bit. Everyone’s going let’s really get a good feel for what’s happening in our roster and the most important thing, the current kids on our roster and what their motivations are and their likelihood of signing professional contracts. That’s such a huge part in our game, so if the draft really gets shortened significantly, we’re talking about kids that are going to be coming back to school that don’t have a different opportunity. Even last year if you imagine… Brandon White, Nick Snyder, Sam Kessler, Kade Strowd, were all juniors that were drafted after the 10th round that signed professional contracts. If this would’ve happened last year, all four of those boys would be back on our roster. So that changes what you need in the incoming classes incredibly. Those are proven winners and those are guys that are on scholarship that have helped the program for a long time, so I think we’re lucky that that’s not our circumstances this year. I guess you can look at it both ways. Maybe competitively those guys would really help you, but then if there’s a lot of tough decisions, your younger guys aren’t developing as much and getting as much playing time, so there’s just a lot of different things to consider this time, but I think in general for recruiting, it’s time probably to slow down a little bit and truly evaluate where you’re at and your roster’s at.

WVSports.com: In regards to the three seniors, have you guys had conversations with them about what they want to do and about aid and what you guys can grant them?

Sabins: Absolutely. We first and foremost cherish our seniors. We cherish guys that have been in the fire and wanted to be here and led our team and that was a small group of guys that did an unbelievable job with a really large freshmen class. Those guys led us to our best start since 2009. That’s coming off the best season in program history and we were off to the best start since 2009, so those guys will absolutely be taken care of. They absolutely have a spot on this roster. We want them back. (It’s) way too early to tell what’s going to happen. We don’t even know how many rounds of the draft there is. So once that becomes a little more clear, once they probably start evaluating where they’re at and what they truly want in life, most of these kids two weeks ago, I was graduating, I was done with college, I was going to hug (head) coach (Randy) Mazey and coach Sabins and I was going to have to move on with my life, so when you get thrown a completely new option in your life, I think it’s probably pretty important to mull that over and find out what you’re really wanting to do and what are the options available.

WVSports.com: What specifically is the plan right now? Is it to evaluate your recruiting classes and just see what happens in regards to the MLB Draft, the seniors, the logistics of the rulings, etc.?

Sabins: Absolutely. And then at the same time you’re always preparing. In recruiting, you’re always playing the best case scenario and the worst case scenario and sometimes those are very gray defining what you really want to happen. If we have four juniors in (Haden) Erbe, Jackson Wolf, Tyler Doanes and Paul Macintosh, you’re having to evaluate what is the likelihood that you keep all four of those boys on your roster, what is the likelihood that you lose all four of those boys off your roster, what does that mean for how much scholarship that you would have left and if you had additional, what would you need to do in order to maximize the talent on your roster? So that’s almost a never ending game because you can lose one, two, three, four, if you lost the pitcher, do you need a pitcher? Would you rather have a center fielder? It’s a lot of options so it’s just a constant. You’re always (asking) who’s available, who would want to be here, who could help you? Definitely not a time for decisions, but a time to research and understand what players are available and who could potentially help you next year.

WVSports.com: Are there any specific issues that you want clarity on in regards to the decisions made by the D1 Council?

Sabins: Yeah, I think the biggest issue would be years two through three because it’s not a singular year issue because by granting everybody an additional year of eligibility, this has now become a four-year issue where you’re consistently putting five classes into four years or five classes into a roster size that was built for four classes and a scholarship allotment limit that was built for four classes. So the clarity would be very nice if maybe seniors were going to be exempt from a roster limit for four years until everybody that was affected by COVID-19 ruling was out of the system. I think that would make a ton of sense and that clarity hasn’t come yet.

WVSports.com: During (head coach) Randy Mazey’s interview with Dan Zangrilli (14:44-16:53), he said he found a way to fit a Big 12 fall baseball schedule that would begin in mid-August and end in late October. Do you think there’s any chance the season could resume in the late summer or fall and do you think something like that could work?

Sabins: That would be so awesome and I think it absolutely could work and I would be all for it and it would be super exciting. I just think at this point it would be ignorant for me to discuss it because I am not educated enough when it comes to the severity of the virus, how long this could potentially last and the public’s response to what’s going on. I just truly don’t know, I really don’t. I just can’t answer, I just don’t know. I think logistically, I think you could make just about anything work if you really wanted to and the priority from the athletic departments across the country were to get the season in, I think you could make it work. But I think at this point, we’re all kinda bunkered down and watching. I think a month ago we were like, ‘I think this thing might be over in a couple weeks.'

WVSports.com: Any clear idea how this ruling affects the way you guys might pursue transfers, junior college transfers, graduate transfers?

Sabins: Yeah, absolutely. I mean you’re basically looking at an entire senior class from across the country that has now been granted an additional year of eligibility and anybody that graduates from a four-year institution can transfer without penalty which is currently losing a year by sitting. So there’s going to be I would imagine a lot of seniors that are graduating that may be looking into the potential of moving to a different school and so that’s absolutely going to be larger than ever. There’s going to be more players that have graduated that could find a new school, but there’s also a really high likelihood that there’s only five or 10 rounds of the MLB draft that professional baseball may be trying to sign more free agents than ever and so those free agents may be seniors in college that have really good track records that are willing to sign for a low amount of money. But I think you’re exactly right, a lot of graduate transfers potential and then junior colleges, those kids are in an interesting situation. I don’t think there’s gonna be very much scholarship available, but many kids are going to have spent two years at a junior college where they will have finished their AA degree and going back to a junior college for a third year sometimes isn’t even an option because they don’t have the workload that’s needed and then if you go back to a junior college for a third year, you can often times get into trouble with the percent of degree required for a Division I degree. You have to meet 60% of a degree, so a lot of times junior colleges don’t offer the courses that are needed at a Division I school to get a degree. So there certainly can be some issues there. So there might be some junior college players that are desperately looking to leave, they’ve gotten their AA degree, they’ve been there for two years but scholarship is going to be really hard to come by in this landscape with the draft and the seniors.

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