Craig Keilitz’s sleepless nights resulted from a call that might change the long run of school baseball.
He knew that the response of the room filled with a whole bunch of coaches can be crucial, but he couldn’t shake his anxiety.
“I just want to do what’s right for our sport,” Keilitz said truthfully Thursday night.
Now, after 10 years as executive director of the American Baseball Coaches Association, Keilitz told a gaggle of Division I coaches gathered on the ABCA’s annual convention in Washington that they’d have to come to a consensus that evening on one of the best ways for school baseball to proceed working on fall rosters, including due to the transition to 34-person teams in 2026 and the upcoming December 1 deadline for finalizing the squad.
Should year-end training squads have a maximum of 34 players? Is 38 too many because it will require 4 cuts? Was there support for unlimited fall lineup sizes?
His solution was to open the ground for open mic conversation.
“I really need you all to care about this,” he reminded the coaches repeatedly.
After almost two hours of debate, it became clear that a compromise was vital. The query was now not whether cuts needs to be made to the roster, but what number of. Therefore, it was ultimately determined that the most effective – although still very uncertain – solution was to limit the variety of players to 38.
Although several coaches presented arguments against this selection, support for the 38-player limit quickly grew since it provided what those in attendance viewed as a pleasing middle ground in an unsavory situation that was sure to leave some teams and players in a precarious position. items.
The prevailing argument against limiting teams to 34 was easy: a couple of season-ending injuries – increasingly common, especially amongst pitchers – could deprive coaches of an adequate variety of healthy players and the flexibility to replace them.
Some identified that this may increasingly have been probably the most financially sound and fair solution, but as Keilitz and others disputed, the risks were just too great.
This attitude – risk – was also the rationale why unlimited fall roster sizes failed to gain any support.
This was the surest route to the six-month transfer window, which most coaches hope to avoid.
There was also a legal precedent. In recent years, the NCAA has lost several high-profile lawsuits brought by athletes difficult roster decisions, leaving coaches wary of creating moves that might put their sport in even greater danger.
“There really is no right answer,” one mid-major coach told Baseball America after the sport.
That even applies to the currently agreed-upon 38-player drop limit, which Keilitz will propose to commissioners of the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12 conferences, who’re the one ones with the autonomy to approve the Legislature and send it to the ultimate stages of consideration.
Even a mean of 4 cuts per program would go away about 1,200 participants within the transfer portal at mid-year in a sport that currently doesn’t provide a right away opportunity to play for many who find themselves with no home halfway through the educational calendar.
While it is probably not as extreme as unlimited fall rosters, even 38 spots puts teams and the NCAA susceptible to legal motion.
And if one thing was clear Thursday night, it was that coaches were deeply concerned in regards to the reality that scorned players could take their cases to court.
“Why don’t we just start with 34 players and keep going from there,” one minor-league, Division I coach said during a town hall-style meeting. “All it would take is one of those 1,200 players to be sued and then we would lose the ability to make those decisions ourselves.”
It is price noting that some Division I teams will ultimately have the option to avoid a few of the above-mentioned pitfalls and limitations which are a part of the fallout from the continuing $2.8 Billion NCAA Antitrust Settlement. Schools can opt out of the upcoming revenue-sharing model, which is able to allow them to avoid the 38-player regular-season and 34-player roster limits.
According to Keilitz, these teams will return to their pre-pandemic roster of 35 players and 11.7 scholarships, which could possibly be an inexpensive solution for minor league teams that can’t afford to increase their scholarship pool or over-recruit within the fall just to make uncomfortable cuts later within the yr.
Fresno State pitching coach Troy Buckley told Baseball America in December that teams opting to herald fewer players above the 34-player limit could also gain a bonus within the recruiting process because the safety of roster spots could prove to be a invaluable asset.
“I still think you can get away with it because the lure of going to your dream school means something,” Buckley said. “But there are lots of places where we can’t do it and everybody will find an acceptable level. Realizing that is going to be really, really vital.
According to multiple sources, the timeline for when the 38-player cap will go into effect stays unclear, although many Division I head coaches will likely proceed to consider the 2026 roster as if it had already happened.
Now they will only hope that it was the suitable decision.
“I think we just have to play 38 players,” Keilitz said, “and see where the chips fall.”
Two further legislative changes that may likely enter into force in 2025
While the choice by ABCA members to adopt the 38-man fall roster proposal was definitely the most important news from Thursday night’s Division I meeting, Keilitz informed the coaches that two other legislative changes are scheduled for a vote on Jan. 15 and can likely be implemented.
The first, which drew broad support from coaches who responded to a survey distributed by ABCA in 2024, would increase from two to 4 the variety of fall exhibitions through which teams can play games against outside competition.
The second one, which according to coaches was crucial for the health of their players, especially within the face of shrinking squad sizes, was a standardized pre-season camp period, which began 35 days before the beginning of regular-season games.
Pending their expected approval, each bills shall be implemented on August 1.
