After the final pitch in the College World Series is thrown,
baseball players go home and begin to enjoy the offseason. For
college coaches, there is no offseason. In college baseball, where
a coach can only be assured of keeping a player for three years,
recruiting is a process that has neither a beginning nor an end.
The same applies to UCLA’s John Savage. Almost as soon as the
season ended against Missouri at regionals, Savage was hitting the
recruiting trail, pursuing players who could maintain and expand on
the Bruins’ toehold in the playoffs. With the loss of
starting pitchers Dave Huff and Hector Ambriz to the major leagues,
Savage’s focus was pitching. “We’ve got some
really good freshman pitching coming in,” Savage said.
“Among others, we’ve got Gabe Cohen, Jeff Rapoport and
Mickey Weisser coming in who should be able to compete for a spot
immediately.” The pitching cupboard is not exactly bare. The
Bruins will return Tyson Brummett, the Sunday starter from this
season, and Jason Novak, who took over the Tuesday duties from
Brian Schroeder mid-season. And with pitchers like Cohen, Rapoport,
Weisser, Charles Brewer and J.D. Haver likely coming in, the
pitching situation may end up being a positive for the Bruins next
season. That is, if all of them end up in Westwood. A year ago,
Savage lost highly touted recruits John Drennen and Brian Kirwan to
the major leagues, and there is no guarantee that all of his stud
recruits will end up coming to UCLA. “You really have to do
your homework,” Savage said. “You have to look for guys
who value their education, and find out how much they want to be a
part of the UCLA family. We want to find guys who are interested in
the buzz building off of last season and want to be a part of the
building process we’re in.” Last season, Savage’s
Bruins completed a turnaround from the previous season, winning 33
games after just 15 wins the previous year. And Savage did that
with a team that was essentially a jury-rigged combination of
junior transfers and freshmen, a situation forced on him because of
the lack of recruiting prior to his first year with the program.
“We had so many needs coming off of that first year,”
Savage said. “We had to get a ton of freshmen. Ideally, you
want to balance each class in terms of scholarships. We’re
making some good progress in that direction and we should be where
we need to be in a year.” In college baseball there are only
11.7 scholarships available, so Savage is in the unenviable
position of having to work some budgetary magic in terms of how
many scholarships he offers to each new class. “You’ve
gotta stay within your allotted scholarships (when offering
players),” Savage said. “The 11.7 is almost like a
salary cap. You really have to make sure you balance the
budget.”
NEW SCHEDULE, SAME PHILOSOPHY: The Bruins have
announced their 2007 schedule, and as with this year, it is full of
perennially playoff-bound opponents. There will be 15 games next
year against opponents who made the super regionals. Savage’s
philosophy on scheduling is to make the non-conference schedule as
hard as possible so there is no rude transition into conference
play, and so that the team is well prepared for the playoffs.
Miami, Cal State Fullerton and Mississippi are all on the
non-conference schedule for next year, all three of whom made the
super regionals. The Bruins will also face national champion Oregon
State in the conference season.