2021 Frog Baseball (General)

[froginaustin]

Old men?

That don't mind screechy shrill dugout chatter, I guess.

 

[Pharm Frog]

I've never understood the "we can't afford more baseball schollies" argument. I'm not expert at academic institution accounting, but it seems like a simple red enough cost to offset in a host of ways. If you add 18 schollies to a baseball team why not add 18 slots to the freshman classes you bring in every year. Then you still get the same amount of revenue as you budgeted for and the only additional cost burden is meals and lodging, which could be further offset by adding another handful or two to the freshman classes. It's hard for me to believe that almost every school that plays baseball couldn't find a way to add 25 - 30 more students to offset this cost. It's not like the university loses money by adding additional kids to class who get to go for free. They just lose the opportunity at revenue when kids going for free take spots from kids who will pay.

Ultimately, I think Punter is right that the product on the field would improve dramatically and baseball would become a revenue sport for a lot more schools. College baseball is terrific. You bring a lot more talent into it due to the major shift happening in minor league baseball and it gets way better. The fact that college baseball starts right after football ends feels like a natural TV interest. NCAA needs to get busy.

Just a few years ago the average baseball program cost its school about $750,000. Hockey was worse but far fewer play it.

 

[Purp]

Just a few years ago the average baseball program cost its school about $750,000. Hockey was worse but far fewer play it.

How much of that $750K is schollies? How much does that go up if you add 18 schollies to it? In actual costs? Because, as I outlined in my thought experiment earlier, it seems like tuition and lodging would essentially add no real costs to the university if you added 18 more freshmen to the incoming class to keep your revenue stream on budget and cover the 18 schollies. Am I missing something?

 

[FWTFrog]

How much of that $750K is schollies? How much does that go up if you add 18 schollies to it? In actual costs? Because, as I outlined in my thought experiment earlier, it seems like tuition and lodging would essentially add no real costs to the university if you added 18 more freshmen to the incoming class to keep your revenue stream on budget and cover the 18 schollies. Am I missing something?

Well, the costs of TCU are different from than the cost of TCU Athletics. Two completely different funds. So by adding more scholarships it would also force the Frog Club to raise more money. Not saying they can't but it's not as easy as adding 18 more students.

 

[PO Frog]

How much of that $750K is schollies? How much does that go up if you add 18 schollies to it? In actual costs? Because, as I outlined in my thought experiment earlier, it seems like tuition and lodging would essentially add no real costs to the university if you added 18 more freshmen to the incoming class to keep your revenue stream on budget and cover the 18 schollies. Am I missing something?

I'm not arguing against your view but merely parroting the schools' argument. It's all smoke and mirrors as far as I am concerned. And I would bet that even though 18 more kids to you and I doesn't cost any real money, the school from a cost accounting perspective would multiply 18 by $50 or $60k to get the "cost" to the University, or whatever the all-in cost is. Again, I think they have too much money to begin with so I don't care, but they sure seem to think it's a big deal.

 

[Pharm Frog]

Well, the costs of TCU are different from than the cost of TCU Athletics. Two completely different funds. So by adding more scholarships it would also force the Frog Club to raise more money. Not saying they can't but it's not as easy as adding 18 more students.

This. You can’t just add students to the general student body and take their money to fund athletic scholarships.

 

[Pharm Frog]

How much of that $750K is schollies? How much does that go up if you add 18 schollies to it? In actual costs? Because, as I outlined in my thought experiment earlier, it seems like tuition and lodging would essentially add no real costs to the university if you added 18 more freshmen to the incoming class to keep your revenue stream on budget and cover the 18 schollies. Am I missing something?

Why would you increase cost to a program that is already costing you? And how does formula funding for state-supported schools factor in? Then as previously mentioned you have Title 9 implications. Are you going to raise fees on the general student population to fund additional scholarships or tap the donors?

 

[flyfishingfrog]

Apparently the majority of scholarships for baseball aren’t currently fully funded as things stand now. Triple the number of slots and that problem gets worse. Or so I have been told.

I think his point was the “funding” on tuition for
Scholarships is really a false narrative

no one comes up with money - a school is just letting another student into class but that student doesn’t pay - most are not turning down one paying student when they let in a scholarship student

Only schools like TCU that have student:faculty ratios ever have a cost and then only when those barriers are met - for example if we added 15 more kids to the student population, we would have to hire another staff member regardless of if those students are paying or on scholarship

the room revenue is real dollars lost because there are a fixed number of slots for beds

it is real debatable on the “boarding” costs as there is a lot of wasted food on campuses across the country and not sure 15 more athletes not paying their way would make a single dollar difference in how much TCU spends

 

[YA]

I thought it was posted recently that the NCAA changed the way schools fund baseball that helps the private schools.

How does that play into this conversation?

 

[Pharm Frog]

I thought it was posted recently that the NCAA changed the way schools fund baseball that helps the private schools.

How does that play into this conversation?

You’re talking about scholarship stacking I presume.

 

[flyfishingfrog]

You’re talking about scholarship stacking I presume.

Would have to be - and that helps some since now certain types of non-athletic aid can be given on top Of athletic scholarships and not count against the 11.7 - so more options to cut the attendance costs for smart athletes

but you still have to have athletes that can qualify for those additional scholarships which are mostly academic since the need based grants seemed to have been excluded and an athlete would have to choose between the two

and of course a school that has the endowment to fund a lot of academic aid across the student body - which is where the private school is also helped out more often than public schools

 

[Pharm Frog]

Would have to be - and that helps some since now certain types of non-athletic aid can be given on top Of athletic scholarships and not count against the 11.7 - so more options to cut the attendance costs for smart athletes

but you still have to have athletes that can qualify for those additional scholarships which are mostly academic since the need based grants seemed to have been excluded and an athlete would have to choose between the two

and of course a school that has the endowment to fund a lot of academic aid across the student body - which is where the private school is also helped out more often than public schools

The endowment issue is the biggie. Let’s SOME private schools compete for a larger pool of student athletes. But also some public schools that have established certain economic thresholds.

 

[flyfishingfrog]

The endowment issue is the biggie. Let’s SOME private schools compete for a larger pool of student athletes. But also some public schools that have established certain economic thresholds.

The economic threshold is interesting- when I read the stacking decision it made it seem like if a school is not charging tuition for students whose parent make under say $100k - because that is need based, not academic - you can’t stack it

so if a kid qualified for that free tuition and played baseball - it would count as a full scholarship out of the 11.7 if it can’t be stacked wouldn’t it?

 

[Pharm Frog]

The economic threshold is interesting- when I read the stacking decision it made it seem like if a school is not charging tuition for students whose parent make under say $100k - because that is need based, not academic - you can’t stack it

so if a kid qualified for that free tuition and played baseball - it would count as a full scholarship out of the 11.7 if it can’t be stacked wouldn’t it?

Vanderbilt is a private school and has that advantage over every other school in the SEC. And now it can mix and match school and athletic financial aid, much like other private schools can (Stanford, Tulane, Miami, etc.)

“Tulane, for instance, they don’t get a lot of help. They have academic aid, but at the end of the day, you couldn’t stack all this stuff,” Rogers said. “Miami’s another one in that same equation where it will help a lot.

“Some public schools, like Texas, have a program to where if your family makes under X amount of dollars, everything’s paid for. You either take that or you don’t, or you take baseball money. Now they can stack all of it.”

From an article I saved back last year. No need to offer a scholarship to a kid getting a full ride.

 

[Purp]

Well, the costs of TCU are different from than the cost of TCU Athletics. Two completely different funds. So by adding more scholarships it would also force the Frog Club to raise more money. Not saying they can't but it's not as easy as adding 18 more students.

I get that they're totally different funds. What I don't get is why the cost to TCU Athletics has to be $50K/year when the cost on the academic side is really much less than $50K/year. My company builds shower enclosures and mirrors. If we sell to an employee we only charge the cost of materials and labor to the company. Why would a university charge its athletics department more than the actual cost? It seems like weird accounting games to me.

I realize the 18 additional students would only have a negligible effect on diffusing total cost per student to the university, but the the real cost on the bottom line of 18 additional students to fund baseball schollies would be negligible.

 

[Paint It Purple]

I get that they're totally different funds. What I don't get is why the cost to TCU Athletics has to be $50K/year when the cost on the academic side is really much less than $50K/year. My company builds shower enclosures and mirrors. If we sell to an employee we only charge the cost of materials and labor to the company. Why would a university charge its athletics department more than the actual cost? It seems like weird accounting games to me.

I realize the 18 additional students would only have a negligible effect on diffusing total cost per student to the university, but the the real cost on the bottom line of 18 additional students to fund baseball schollies would be negligible.

How do you keep the mirrors from fogging up?

 

[Moose Stuff]

Had no idea

 

[bmoney214]

Had no idea

Chuck mentioned it a few times over the weekend.

 

[Pharm Frog]

Had no idea

Yes. WVU broadcasters when they actually realized there was a baseball going on spoke a lot about it.

Runs per Game the Frogs are 7th at 8.4 with Arkie 8th at 8.3. Tech is 17th at 7.6 and OU at 21st with 7.4

Frogs #1 in walks drawn with 258. Arkie 3rd and Whorns 4th with 247. Tech 6th.

Frogs 17th in BA. BU leads among Big12 teams at .303. Frogs at .302

Frogs 2nd in hits with 451. Doubtful we catch AZ. OU has 431. Whorns 422 but have played three more games than the Frogs.

Frogs 10th in slugging at .497. Tech at 13th .492 and K-State at .486

Frogs 7th in steals with 86. K-State at 22nd with 63. Frogs caught only 14 times and half of those are picks.

Frogs #1 in triples with 23. Tech is T20th with 13.

 

[Pharm Frog]

Frogs T272nd in sac bunts with 4. And two of those were mistakes IMO including Wolfe’s sac with no outs and a runner at 2nd base in the middle innings. Florida and Ole Miss have 2 on the season. Tech has 5. Arkie has 6 (as does their sister school in Pine Bluff)

Whorns are 7th with 34. We’ll face ULM soon and they are 1st with 47.