The Brick Wall That Is Tennessee Baseball

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vol66

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#1
These are the schools that spend over 2 million dollars a year on college baseball. In alphabetical order, compiled as of 2013 here: Best College Baseball Programs of the Past Decade

Thanks Old Timer.

Arizona - 2.2 million
Arkansas - 2.48
Auburn - 2.46
Baylor - 2.08
Florida - 2.45
LSU - 4.32
Miami - 2.67
Ole Miss - 2.11
Oklahoma - 2.29
Oregon - 2.39
Rice - 2.49
South Carolina - 3.37
TCU - 2.40
Texas - 3.53
Texas A&M - 2.40
Vanderbilt - 3.62
Virginia - 2.21

17 schools. All of them have football, and most of them are "football schools"

8 or nearly half the list, are SEC schools.

In 2014, 14 of the 17 made the NCAA tournament, 9 of them, over half, were 1 SEEDS.

In 2015, 14 of the 17 made the NCAA tournament, 6 of them were 1 SEEDS.

In the 2016 projections from D1 Baseball on May 11th, 11 of the 17 are likely in, 7 of them are likely 1 SEEDS.

In the last 3 years only two teams on the list have not made the tournament at least once, Baylor and Oklahoma.

Meantime, Florida, LSU, Miami, TCU, and Vandy have made the tourney as 1 SEEDS for three straight years.


How about The CWS? In 2014, 5 of the 8 teams in Omaha were off the above list. In 2015 7 of the 8 teams in Omaha were from that list. Guess who the 8th team was...Cal State Fullerton you say? Correct.


Bruin and I had a discussion around, "what's the difference between us and South Carolina?" a while back. This is in no way calling Bruin out, but I think we could pose that question again.

Chad Holbrook makes $50,000 dollars LESS than Dave Serrano. Far as I can tell, they have roughly the same assistants/staffing, though Serrano lists an administrative assistant and Holbrook doesn't (that doesn't mean he doesn't have one, bet he does).

South Carolina spends almost twice what we do on baseball.

For what? Why? How Come?

Do they travel better?

Does some of that money go to the players creatively?

Do they televise all the games?

Recruiting?

Do they spend more money promoting the sport?

Because, it's not going to salaries alone.

This is not a pro Dave Serrano post or an anti-Serrano post. This is a "are we giving a coach enough ammo to play ball with these other teams" post.

Notice that of the 17 teams on the list, only 2 are from the ACC. In other words, it's a much more level playing field...Miami and UVA aren't ridiculously out spending Clemson, FSU...but poor ole Pittsburgh, spending the same as South Alabama...good luck with that.

LSU flew a charter to Notre Dame, played 2 games on a Wednesday, flew home and then flew into Knoxville. That's what first class looks like and until our administration wants to get in that game, we are going to have a hard time attracting the best of the best here, no matter who the coach is.

That is not to say we aren't spending enough to keep up with Missouri, and Kentucky and Georgia...we're about where they are and we have been for the last five years.
 
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#2
#2
These are the schools that spend over 2 million dollars a year on college baseball. In alphabetical order, compiled as of 2013 here: Best College Baseball Programs of the Past Decade

Thanks Old Timer.

Arizona - 2.2 million
Arkansas - 2.48
Auburn - 2.46
Baylor - 2.08
Florida - 2.45
LSU - 4.32
Miami - 2.67
Ole Miss - 2.11
Oklahoma - 2.29
Oregon - 2.39
Rice - 2.49
South Carolina - 3.37
TCU - 2.40
Texas - 3.53
Texas A&M - 2.40
Vanderbilt - 3.62
Virginia - 2.21

17 schools. All of them have football, and most of them are "football schools"

8 or nearly half the list, are SEC schools.

In 2014, 14 of the 17 made the NCAA tournament, 9 of them, over half, were 1 SEEDS.

In 2015, 14 of the 17 made the NCAA tournament, 6 of them were 1 SEEDS.

In the 2016 projections from D1 Baseball on May 11th, 11 of the 17 are likely in, 7 of them are likely 1 SEEDS.

In the last 3 years only two teams on the list have not made the tournament at least once, Baylor and Oklahoma.

Meantime, Florida, LSU, Miami, TCU, and Vandy have made the tourney as 1 SEEDS for three straight years.


How about The CWS? In 2014, 5 of the 8 teams in Omaha were off the above list. In 2015 7 of the 8 teams in Omaha were from that list. Guess who the 8th team was...Cal State Fullerton you say? Correct.


Bruin and I had a discussion around, "what's the difference between us and South Carolina?" a while back. This is in no way calling Bruin out, but I think we could pose that question again.

Chad Holbrook makes $50,000 dollars LESS than Dave Serrano. Far as I can tell, they have roughly the same assistants/staffing, though Serrano lists an administrative assistant and Holbrook doesn't (that doesn't mean he doesn't have one, bet he does).

South Carolina spends almost twice what we do on baseball.

For what? Why? How Come?

Do they travel better?

Does some of that money go to the players creatively?

Do they televise all the games?

Recruiting?

Do they spend more money promoting the sport?

Because, it's not going to salaries alone.

This is not a pro Dave Serrano post or an anti-Serrano post. This is a "are we giving a coach enough ammo to play ball with these other teams" post.

Notice that of the 17 teams on the list, only 2 are from the ACC. In other words, it's a much more level playing field...Miami and UVA aren't ridiculously out spending Clemson, FSU...but poor ole Pittsburgh, spending the same as South Alabama...good luck with that.

LSU flew a charter to Notre Dame, played 2 games on a Wednesday, flew home and then flew into Knoxville. That's what first class looks like and until our administration wants to get in that game, we are going to have a hard time attracting the best of the best here, no matter who the coach is.

That is not to say we aren't spending enough to keep up with Missouri, and Kentucky and Georgia...we're about where they are and we have been for the last five years.

How many of those programs actually make money with baseball?
 
#4
#4
These are the schools that spend over 2 million dollars a year on college baseball. In alphabetical order, compiled as of 2013 here: Best College Baseball Programs of the Past Decade

Thanks Old Timer.

Arizona - 2.2 million
Arkansas - 2.48
Auburn - 2.46
Baylor - 2.08
Florida - 2.45
LSU - 4.32
Miami - 2.67
Ole Miss - 2.11
Oklahoma - 2.29
Oregon - 2.39
Rice - 2.49
South Carolina - 3.37
TCU - 2.40
Texas - 3.53
Texas A&M - 2.40
Vanderbilt - 3.62
Virginia - 2.21

17 schools. All of them have football, and most of them are "football schools"

8 or nearly half the list, are SEC schools.

In 2014, 14 of the 17 made the NCAA tournament, 9 of them, over half, were 1 SEEDS.

In 2015, 14 of the 17 made the NCAA tournament, 6 of them were 1 SEEDS.

In the 2016 projections from D1 Baseball on May 11th, 11 of the 17 are likely in, 7 of them are likely 1 SEEDS.

In the last 3 years only two teams on the list have not made the tournament at least once, Baylor and Oklahoma.

Meantime, Florida, LSU, Miami, TCU, and Vandy have made the tourney as 1 SEEDS for three straight years.


How about The CWS? In 2014, 5 of the 8 teams in Omaha were off the above list. In 2015 7 of the 8 teams in Omaha were from that list. Guess who the 8th team was...Cal State Fullerton you say? Correct.


Bruin and I had a discussion around, "what's the difference between us and South Carolina?" a while back. This is in no way calling Bruin out, but I think we could pose that question again.

Chad Holbrook makes $50,000 dollars LESS than Dave Serrano. Far as I can tell, they have roughly the same assistants/staffing, though Serrano lists an administrative assistant and Holbrook doesn't (that doesn't mean he doesn't have one, bet he does).

South Carolina spends almost twice what we do on baseball.

For what? Why? How Come?

Do they travel better?

Does some of that money go to the players creatively?

Do they televise all the games?

Recruiting?

Do they spend more money promoting the sport?

Because, it's not going to salaries alone.

This is not a pro Dave Serrano post or an anti-Serrano post. This is a "are we giving a coach enough ammo to play ball with these other teams" post.

Notice that of the 17 teams on the list, only 2 are from the ACC. In other words, it's a much more level playing field...Miami and UVA aren't ridiculously out spending Clemson, FSU...but poor ole Pittsburgh, spending the same as South Alabama...good luck with that.

LSU flew a charter to Notre Dame, played 2 games on a Wednesday, flew home and then flew into Knoxville. That's what first class looks like and until our administration wants to get in that game, we are going to have a hard time attracting the best of the best here, no matter who the coach is.

That is not to say we aren't spending enough to keep up with Missouri, and Kentucky and Georgia...we're about where they are and we have been for the last five years.

Ok, so what is the point? If we spend as much as LSU, Vandy and SCe, what will we look like?

Fine with me--I'd love to have a great baseball team, but you've got a bunch of stats here and I'm not sure what we do with them.

If we fly first class, we get a great boost in recruiting? What's the answer?
 
#7
#7
At that time, 2013, 1.8.

Thanks.

Not that much difference in the grand scheme of things IMO. Edit: i misread their amount as being in the 2mil range

Do they count game personale as part of that?

USCe would have probably twice or 3 times as many game day workers are we do with their attendance and stadium size. Heck that alone might make up a lot of the difference
 
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#8
#8
Ok, so what is the point? If we spend as much as LSU, Vandy and SCe, what will we look like?

Fine with me--I'd love to have a great baseball team, but you've got a bunch of stats here and I'm not sure what we do with them.

If we fly first class, we get a great boost in recruiting? What's the answer?

I don't expect people who don't follow college baseball, or even SEC baseball to "get it".

These aren't stats. If I wanted to "do" stats I'd show all the drive by posters what they want to see and it would be painful for the die hards here, that contrary to what's been portrayed, we aren't a better hitting club against SEC schools this season as opposed to last.

What is posted here is the landscape of college baseball, nationally and in the SEC.
 
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#9
#9
Just some educated guesses on where South Carolina spends more money. They may have more $ in their scholarship budget to make more competitive out of state offers. I think cost of attendance is over $40,000 for out of state students. They sit at home in Columbia for basically the entire pre conference schedule. I'm sure they pay very attractive game guarantees to visiting teams. I would guess this number to be north of $10,000 for a three game set. I suspect game day operations are included in their budget. With a lot of home games and large crowds they spend a lot of money to play home games. Its really hard to tell how some schools allocate money in certain budgets but I suspect the cost of playing home games factors in to that number.
 
#10
#10
Thanks.

Not that much difference in the grand scheme of things IMO.

Do they count game personale as part of that?

USCe would have probably twice or 3 times as many game day workers are we do with their attendance and stadium size. Heck that alone might make up a lot of the difference

Good Luck.
 
#11
#11
Just some educated guesses on where South Carolina spends more money. They may have more $ in their scholarship budget to make more competitive out of state offers. I think cost of attendance is over $40,000 for out of state students. They sit at home in Columbia for basically the entire pre conference schedule. I'm sure they pay very attractive game guarantees to visiting teams. I would guess this number to be north of $10,000 for a three game set. I suspect game day operations are included in their budget. With a lot of home games and large crowds they spend a lot of money to play home games. Its really hard to tell how some schools allocate money in certain budgets but I suspect the cost of playing home games factors in to that number.


Agreed with all of this except for the scholarship budget. That wouldn't make any difference IMO
 
#13
#13
Just some educated guesses on where South Carolina spends more money. They may have more $ in their scholarship budget to make more competitive out of state offers. I think cost of attendance is over $40,000 for out of state students. They sit at home in Columbia for basically the entire pre conference schedule. I'm sure they pay very attractive game guarantees to visiting teams. I would guess this number to be north of $10,000 for a three game set. I suspect game day operations are included in their budget. With a lot of home games and large crowds they spend a lot of money to play home games. Its really hard to tell how some schools allocate money in certain budgets but I suspect the cost of playing home games factors in to that number.

Their first 22 games of the season were in South Carolina. They had to travel Greenville twice, and Charleston once, other than that their first 19 games were at home.
 
#14
#14
Scholarships would be minimally different at best, I agree.

Their stadium cost 35 million to build. I can guarantee they are spending a pretty penny to make the fan experience as good as it can be to keep people coming back. Same thing with LSU. They play a ton of home games in front of very large crowds.
 
#15
#15
Scholarships would be minimally different at best, I agree.

Their stadium cost 35 million to build. I can guarantee they are spending a pretty penny to make the fan experience as good as it can be to keep people coming back. Same thing with LSU. They play a ton of home games in front of very large crowds.

They play home games because the weather allows them a competitive advantage, they save money on travel as opposed to going to play California, or Arizona, or Las Vegas as we have, early on to escape the weather. Serrano tried to play that game last season and got stuck with 7/8 cancelled/postponed games early...another reason why last season's batting numbers were so bad compared to this season's overall stats.
 
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#17
#17
Ok, so what is the point? If we spend as much as LSU, Vandy and SCe, what will we look like?

Fine with me--I'd love to have a great baseball team, but you've got a bunch of stats here and I'm not sure what we do with them.

If we fly first class, we get a great boost in recruiting? What's the answer?

I should apologize..you asked a valid question and I was perturbed in the moment...so...I'm sorry.

In football we have the #1 recruiting budget in the country. We have top 15 facilities and the budget for Athletics at Tennessee was 111 million dollars last year. 1.8 million of which is spent on baseball.

That is a lot of money to some schools, but in the SEC, the league in which we compete, it's about 10th or 11th.

That might be fine if we were sitting on a bunch of recruits like in Florida. We aren't.

The ones we are sitting on, especially pitchers, are going to go to Vanderbilt, who spends exactly twice what we spend and spends second only to LSU in our conference.

It's not all about the money, those schools offer a track record of post season play, players refusing the draft out of high school because they've proven they can boost the players value. They have top notch facilities.

There is a stunning lack of commitment to being successful and if it comes to a new coach, if they don't change their ways, the result won't be appreciably better.
 
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#18
#18
I don't expect people who don't follow college baseball, or even SEC baseball to "get it".

These aren't stats. If I wanted to "do" stats I'd show all the drive by posters what they want to see and it would be painful for the die hards here, that contrary to what's been portrayed, we aren't a better hitting club against SEC schools this season as opposed to last.

What is posted here is the landscape of college baseball, nationally and in the SEC.

Nice post 66.........

Regarding the original post, money doesn't necessarily solve or fix any or everything, however it plays a integral part of the puzzle of making a winning program. Still need coaching, support, recruiting, depth, facilities, etc...
 
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#19
#19
Much like with our football program - recruiting is the life blood of baseball success - when I see us trot out 5' 10" 175 lb pitchers to start in our conference series vs some 6' 5" freak that throws mid 90's for Florida or LSU I can't help but think we are at a disadvantage before the game even starts. Vandy's budget is impressive - but that is all Vandy has going for it - and I am sure at one time it was comparable to ours. Two of the better kids from Knoxville over the past few years have signed with Vandy - we just haven't recruited very well imo. A little more money might help some but this staff has failed to recruit SEC caliber talent.
 
#20
#20
Nice post 66.........

Regarding the original post, money doesn't necessarily solve or fix any or everything, however it plays a integral part of the puzzle of making a winning program. Still need coaching, support, recruiting, depth, facilities, etc...

Thanks OT, it was eye opening. Most folks glaze over the numbers, fine by me...we're getting what what we pay for, what's the problem?
 
#21
#21
The facilities (lockerroom, team room, media room, batting cages, weight room) for the players at UT are equal to just about any sec school. The experience at the stadium is not the same (although that does not explain Vandy, which for the success they have is not that great an atmosphere). I am not sure how you fix that part. The team takes very nice "sleeper buses" to sec games that are a little farther than others. My understanding is that with the sec network, the college baseball contract with espn and the other networks, that baseball is close to either a break even sport or making a little money. With the attendance that places like South Carolina, LSU, A&M, Arkansas and the Mississippi schools draw they have to be making money. Bottom line, I understand that the very top kid that is trying to decide between LSU and UT would lean LSU for baseball because of the total package. However, the chance for a kid to play baseball in the sec should open doors all over the country (look at the roster for Coastal Carolina who may host a regional and see all the northern kids that are looking for warm weather). All goes back to recruiting and developing players. If I was looking where to spend money it would be recruiting and maybe a big "name" pitching guy. Much of it is about the mlb draft. Obvious, winning helps. I still think Serrano can do it, but time is running out.
 
#22
#22
Love this topic 66 and it's great info to analyze.

I want to look at vandy spending twice as much as us. 3.6mil to 1.8mil

I think I can make a good estimate of where the gap is found.

My guess is there is a 400k gap in coaching salaries.

Vandy also has 3-5 created staff positions that we don't have. I am guessing that's another 250k gap.


The gameday operations(which I would love to know if they are figured into these numbers) would be very similar because of stadium size and attendance


The scholarship budget would be very different and I am not even going to figure in their need based money which I assume isn't included in this data.

Vandy 11.7 x 65k=760k

Tenn 11.7 this is partially a guess.
8 out of state at 40k= 320k
3.7 in state at 25k=92,500

So in the scholarship department that's approximately a 350k gap.

So that's a total of
400k coaching salaries
250k extra staff
350k in scholarship $

For a total of 1mil dollars gap.

The other 800k could very easily be post season travel budget. Those trips to Omaha are extremely lengthy and expensive. I would be curious to know how much $ is actually spent in those 2 weeks and that isn't counting the extra days at Hoover, hosting a regional cost, as well hosting or traveling to a super regional.

So my point is the only "real" difference I see in comparing the 2 is the 3-5 created positions they have on staff. Do those Equal wins? I don't think so but I can understand why some might say they do
 
#23
#23
My understanding is that the 11.7 scholarships have to be divided among at least 24 players . I heard that minimum percentage is 33%, is used to be 25%. That is based on tuition, room, board and books. Most schools have 35 on spring roster and 27 or 28 on travel sec roster. With lottery money that does give a big advantage to in state kids. You cant waive out of state tuition, however the actual money is based on whether it is in state or out of state. Obviously a private school with a large endowment and a bunch of finanical aid can offer more help based on family income.
 
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#24
#24
My understanding is that the 11.7 scholarships have to be divided among at least 24 players . I heard that minimum percentage is 33%, is used to be 25%. That is based on tuition, room, board and books. Most schools have 35 on spring roster and 27 or 28 on travel sec roster. With lottery money that does give a big advantage to in state kids. You cant waive out of state tuition, however the actual money is based on whether it is in state or out of state. Obviously a private school with a large endowment and a bunch of finanical aid can offer more help based on family income.

27 total players and 25% is the minimum

Some schools do have waivers for out of state tuition and that's a huge part of why tenn is at a big disadvantage because we don't that I know of
 
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#25
#25
27 total players and 25% is the minimum

Some schools do have waivers for out of state tuition and that's a huge part of why tenn is at a big disadvantage because we don't that I know of

Some schools even have out of country waivers which can be helpful when recruiting Canadians of which some schools recruit very well. From my experience even when a program can offer out of state waivers they have to "pay" the school the difference in the waiver, so that money must be budgeted.
 

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