re: Baseball Recruiting Discussion

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South Carolina dodged the draft. Sure, a trio of players selected early are going to sign but every player on the borderline is going to come to school. The Gamecocks had a quintet of signees who were going to have opportunities to sign professional contracts. Those players received calls with six and seven figure offers but all elected to pass and plan to attend school.

The biggest offer turned down went to right-handed pitcher Wil Crowe (Pigeon Forge, Tenn./Pigeon Forge), who was ranked by Keith Law as a top 50 pick in this week’s MLB Draft. Even after the first day of the draft, Law surmised that Crowe would agree to terms with a team before the start of the second day.

Teams tried to get to Crowe and two of them threw out big money offers. The first was San Diego with pick No. 69 in the draft, which was easy for Crowe to say no to. What was a bigger challenge was when Houston called.

The Astros went back and forth with Crowe’s advisor and the team’s offer went up to $1.2 million. Crowe didn’t back off his signing bonus demand, which was well north of the offered figure.

“It’s a great feeling knowing that I was drafted and had an opportunity,” Crowe said. “I didn’t know where I was going to go in the draft. I’m happy it all happened the way that it did though. I’m really excited about being at South Carolina and being a Gamecock.”

Since the start of the Ray Tanner era at South Carolina, the $1.2 million offer was the most any player has turned down to come to school. Former first baseman Justin Smoak turned down just shy of $1 million. Shortstops Drew Meyer and Reese Havens both had big money offers but none approached what Crowe turned down.

After turning down the offer, the Astros decided to go in another direction. Crowe ended up being selected by Cleveland in the 30th round, which was more of a courtesy pick to build goodwill for the future.

Right-handed pitcher and utility player Taylor Widener (Aiken/South Aiken) also turned down six figures. He was contacted in the fifth round and offered slot money but declined what was around $250,000 to come to school.

There were opportunities for right-handed pitchers Canaan Cropper (Salisbury, Md./James M. Bennett) and Matt Vogel (Medford, N.Y./Patchogue-Medford) as well as outfielder Brock Maxwell (Suwanee, Ga./Lambert). As it stands at this point, all plan to be at school.

Vogel was selected in the 30th round by Arizona. Widener, Cropper, and Maxwell fell out of the draft altogether.

Saturday may have produced a loss on the field for the current team but it was a win for first-year head coach Chad Holbrook when it came to the MLB Draft.

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