Good catch. Also a nice job by Coaches Ayers, Valenzuela, and Thornton.. I assume they do the majority of the recruiting.

I think this re-build is going to take more than 2 years. They have some very good building blocks, like Nick Leehey, Mark Wolbert, Bryan Green, and James Williams III, but they need a lot more of them if they want to even just have a winning conference record., let alone go to the playoffs.

Community college transfers like Gouveia are going to be especially important, as starters and leaders, moreso than they've ever been in the past. I think it will be tougher to recruit high school players at first who are ready to step right in and take over like Leehey and Wolbert, and they'll have more recruits who need a little more development time. So in other words JC players will be more likely to be starters than relievers and bench players.

They might need to adjust their standards a bit when evaluating JC talent. The top pitchers will never get to Davis-UCD is too low in the college baseball pecking order to get them. Finding hidden underappreciated gems. Guys with underwhelming baseball stats but good tools and work ethic. Look at J.D. Mico-short, skinny infielder who wasn't even the full-time starter at Cosumnes River College, even though his dad is the coach ! You definitely can't accuse him of nepotism. But when several players fled the program and the guy who started the year at second wasn't hitting Mico stepped up and now he's the starter. They would do well to find a couple of J.D. Mico's.

I've decided that all the players who left to play elsewhere (Except those who graduated of course) are whiny crybabies who abandoned their brothers-instead of sticking around and playing "Don't **** Your Brother". Hazing humor. Not to mention some of them may not have clean hands as to the hazing. Just my opinion, not going to discuss it. No one will change my mind, but I'm nobody so who cares what I think ?

I also think there may be a lot of roster turnover before next season. Just a few seniors this year, but most of the position player reserves have played very little. In a season with this much losing there is plenty of opportunity to play the bench. That the bench hasn't played much says to me that there is a pretty significant difference in the current defensive + offensive capabilities between the starters and reserves, maybe moreso than in regular years. And they will definitely add pitching..

Reasonable observations. Your comments about lack of PT for reserves reminds me of football - 5-6 RBs who rarely or never played.

Another point. We signed a Frosh JC youngster, just like Jake Maier.

These players should know that have a golden opportunity for immediate PT.

A bunch of new Commits.

Pitching:

Shotaro HAMADA, RHP, 5'10", 180 #s - Aliso Niguel

Alejandro Huezo, RHP, 6'0", 185 #s, Fastball 85, C, 3B, Palmdale

https://www.ncsasports.org/baseball-recruiting/california/palmdale/william-j-pete-knight-high-school/alejandro-huezo

Infield:

Andrews Cisneros, SS

Ryan Lee, C / 3B 6'0", 190, St. Francis HS.

Outfield:

Leighton Helfrick, OF, R/R, 6'0", 180 #s, Clayton Valley Ugly Eagles

Ethan Kang, OF / LHP, 5'8", 150 Garrett HS, Cerritos. 'Powerhouse baseball program.'

Gahr Baseball Twitter: "Kang, a four year starter with incredible defensive skills will impact the Aggies right away. Currently hitting .457 with an OB .561. Kang is the 6th Gahr commit heading to play D1 baseball."

Good catch-did you find these from separate internet articles, or was there a single article announcing them ?

As far as I can tell Andrew Cisneros is from Moorpark, CA and attended Sierra Canyon HS.

Usually UCD puts out a press release about new recruits prior to the season. Guess that was interrupted this year by the hazing investigation.

Dumb luck. I stumbled onto this site.

https://www.perfectgame.org/college/CollegeCommitments.aspx?college=1763

Several of the players have tweets, as does Aggie baseball.

Daniel Descalso is being inducted into the Cal Aggie Athletics Hall of Fame and is currently completing his degree at UCD. Apparently, he can often be seen hanging around the Aggie dugout too. Maybe there will be coaching position for him in the future of Aggie baseball...

Daniel Descalso - Baseball (2005-07)

Descalso has gone on to post the most successful post-collegiate career of any Aggie baseball alumnus but the baseball record book is dotted with his name from his time at UC Davis.

He was the first Aggie to collect his 200th career hit before his senior year and finished among the school top-10 lists in at-bats, hits, and doubles despite only playing three years.

Though he was never able to earn an all-conference award due to playing during UC Davis reclassification to Division I, he was named All-Division I Independent First Team in 2007. He hatted .397 that season, third in school history behind only Ty Kelly, another future Major Leaguer, and David Nix. He finished with a mammoth 1.043 OPS in 2007 and led the Aggies in doubles, runs, RBI, total bases and walks as well as striking out just 17 times in 269 plate appearances.

Despite missing time early in the 2006 season due to an injury, he retured to start 41 of the 43 games he played that season and bat .284.

He was an All-Division I Independent Second Team selection in 2005, playing in all 56 games and leading the team in average (.320), at-bats (225), hits (72), and total bases (92). He became the first true freshman to lead the team in batting average since Gary Schlagenhauf in 1967.

Of a possible 164 games over his career, Descalso appeared in 155.

Descalso was selected by the St. Louis Cardinals in the third round of the 2007 MLB Amateur Draft and made his debut three years later in 2010. He went on to a win a World Series with the Cardinals in 2011, a season where he set a career-high for games played with 148 and batted .264. He was instrumental in that 2011 World Series, batting .667 in the five-game series against the Texas Rangers.

He went on to have a nine-year career in the Major Leagues with the Cardinals, Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Chicago Cubs.

Descalso is currently enrolled as a student at UC Davis finishing his degree and is a frequent sight in the dugout during Aggie home games.

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2022/5/16/uc-davis-announces-2022-cal-aggie-athletics-hall-of-fame-class.aspx

Depending on how long he needs to complete his degree he could even be a student assistant. If an ex-major leaguer as a student assistant sounds far-fetched guess who is a student assistant for Oklahoma State ?

Robin Ventura.

How often do you see a former MLB All-Star and manager go back to college and join his old college team as a student assistant?

Is an 88 MPH Fastball good for college?

It's not great, but if an incoming freshman is already throwing 88 there's good potential. Control is really more important than velocity. A pitcher with a mid-80's fastball can do OK in Division 1 if he can spot it consistently in places where hitters will make weak contact or miss entirely. If the Aggies get a pitcher out of HS who already throws in the 90's consistently he probably has control issues or else he'd wind up at Irvine, for example.

Of the current Aggies I've seen play in person this year, only games attended, it seemed like Carson Seeman was the best at inducing weak contact. Bryan Green very much looks the part of a future staff ace and professional prospect if he can cut down on the walks.

I asked bc a player we're pursuing is Charlie Combs, 6'3", 210 RH pitcher, 2.01 ERA from Temecula. He's being recruited by 3 UCs. His Father played QB here.

https://twitter.com/tvbearsbaseball/status/1484608513762799616?s=20&t=QN1kRKUQDdr02jLZIXMGKg

Fastball velocity, as you know, can be improved as a pitcher adds strength and matures physically so 88 out of HS is a pretty good start.

Is it possible we have 1-2 JC transfers which aren't tracked like HS recruits?

Yes. FieldLevel's website often shows JC recruits, but only some of them. You sometimes have better luck just doing a Google search, and even with that you'd still miss some. There are also the occasional JC transfers that played baseball who come to UC Davis with the intent of just being students but decide to come try out. I think Raul Sandoval and Jacob Barrera from the 2022 roster fit into the last category.

I'm wondering if we have more than the 6 we signed, given that we are probably thin and had graduation.

Yes, you or someone else referenced an article that said Tommy Nicholson had already received 15 HS and Community College commits.

That has to be a big jump in talent and depth.

Honestly after all these years of seeing baseball underperform the names of new recruits are just names to me, even if you can connect previous year's stats to them.

The football fans who follow their new recruits can probably empathize. You see all these highlight videos but they're meaningless. I mean, are you going to find videos online that highlight their failures ? Probably not, right ?