College Podcast: Breaking Down Top Transfers

Image credit: Micah Dallas (Photo by John Williamson)

On this episode of the Baseball America College Podcast, presented by Rapsodo, Teddy Cahill and Joe Healy break down all of the activity in the transfer portal one last time in light of the recent release of the top 100 transfers list and the upcoming release of the top 25 incoming transfer classes.

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It was a busy offseason in the transfer portal, but not necessarily in the way many assumed. With immediate eligibility for all players transferring between four-year schools now the law of the land, there was fear that it would be open season for every impact player on every roster across America. The move of a player of Jacob Berry‘s caliber to go from Arizona to Louisiana State right way only exacerbated that fear.

As time went on, however, it was clear that a vast majority of the best players in the sport were going to stay put and that while the volume of players entering the transfer portal was higher than ever, that just meant there was more depth to the quality of players transferring rather than relative free agency for the best players.

Behind Berry on the ranking of transfers are mostly young, relatively unproven players who are perhaps leaving because of a coaching change at his previous program, like Jack Moss leaving Arizona State for Texas A&M, or leaving because things didn’t go exactly to plan in their first seasons, like Victor Mederos moving from Miami to Oklahoma State or Jace Bohrofen going from Oklahoma to Arkansas.

Along the way in the top 100 ranking, every type of transfer is represented. You have anonymous small-school standouts looking to prove something on a bigger stage like righthander Adam Maier going from NAIA British Columbia to Oregon after an eye-opening summer on the Cape. You have productive mid-major veterans looking for greater glory in a major conference like Samford’s Tyler McManus, Sonny DiChiara and Brooks Carlson heading to LSU (McManus) and Auburn (DiChiara and Carlson).

You have the major-conference role player looking for more playing time, like Mississippi State’s Josh Hatcher going to Kennesaw State. And you have post-hype top recruits looking to get back on track, like South Carolina’s Brennan Milone looking for a new start at Oregon. What they all have in common is that they’ve made the decision that a move to a new program is what’s best for their careers, and the 2022 season will show them whether or not the grass really was greener after all.