Georgia asst. coach apologizes for criticizing former recruits after MLB backlash

A University of Georgia baseball coach apologized Saturday for an email sent to recruits in which he demeaned players who had forgone college for professional baseball, underscoring the fight for top talent as the June draft approaches.

Scott Daeley, an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for Georgia, sent multiple emails to the parents of recruits committed to the school starting next season laying out the case against signing with a pro team if drafted. In the most recent email, one of two obtained by Yahoo Sports, Daeley focused on six former Georgia recruits who instead signed with major league teams and had struggled or not yet made the big leagues.

The email, sent April 21 and first reported by Kiley McDaniel of FanGraphs, reached the scouting community this week and inspired a significant backlash, angering scouts whose jobs often conflict with college coaches. While both sides acknowledge significant lobbying exists, baseball executives down to rank-and-file scouts were livid with Daeley’s tone – a sentiment Daeley said he understands.

“I regret I gave [the players] a one-sided view about college and professional baseball,” Daeley told Yahoo Sports on Saturday. “I did that when they were the ones who had the most at risk, the most to gain or lose. I’m sorry about that. I feel I let those guys down.”

About 2½ weeks after Daeley’s email, one of the players whose struggles he mentioned, Cincinnati Reds farmhand Jarrett Freeland, wrote a 673-world response to the parents impugning Daeley’s sentiment and wondering whether the email “will prevent our beloved Bulldogs from being competive (sic) because the best players will most likely select other colleges who choose to work with the professional teams instead of against them.”

Freeland, who declined further comment when reached by Yahoo Sports, said Daeley mischaracterized him in the email, which read: “Jarrett Freeland – 15th round pick, signed for $324,500, has hit .190 in rookie ball and is currently in extended spring training without a team.” Omitted was the fact that Freeland tore his ulnar collateral ligament toward the end of high school and Cincinnati gave him the money in spite of the injury. A hip injury sidelined him further, highlighting the need for a strong, baseball-specific medical staff.

“I stand convinced there is no better place for recovery and fine care than a professional baseball facility and staff such as the Reds,” Freeland wrote. “At NO point have I been hurried through any of the healing and recovery processes. Pro baseball also provides the best of instruction, and most importantly, it provides the chance to play the game at the highest level.”

Freeland’s response percolated throughout the scouting community this week, furthering the ever-present quarrel between colleges and pro scouts. Daeley said he first considered writing the notes when reports from spring performances came in and he feared the Bulldogs’ 12-man recruiting class could end up more like six or seven players.

“It was not done with any malicious intent,” Georgia coach Scott Stricklin told Yahoo Sports. “It was done for the University of Georgia. He loves his job. He loves the school.

“It’s been tough on him because he’s a guy who’s not used to being in a position like this, where he’s made a mistake. People who don’t know him automatically think he might be a bad person. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Last season, Georgia’s top two recruits, outfielder Michael Gettys and right-hander Spencer Adams, were second-round picks who signed for around $1.3 million each. This year, right-hander Dakota Chalmers is expected to be a high pick, and other Georgia recruits could join him. The Bulldogs are 26-28 and in last place in the SEC East division with a 10-19 conference record.

In recent days, as it became evident the email leaked into scouting circles, Stricklin and Daeley started apologizing to professional scouts as well as the recruits and their families.

“I feel bad for the guys like Jarrett Freeland and the other guys mentioned by name,” Daeley said. “I didn’t mean it as a shot at their careers or the decisions they’d made. That’s how it came off. It was poorly written the way I did it. That wasn’t the purpose behind it. It wasn’t my intent to belittle their careers.”

At the same time, the chasm between college and professional baseball remains palpable, laden with mistrust and little incentive to cooperate.

“Professional scouts have jobs to do, and we have jobs to do, and unfortunately those jobs overlap,” Stricklin said. “Both sides want to be professional and have transparency and work together as much as possible, but this isn’t in a vacuum. It happens a lot, and it’s just really unfortunate that our jobs rely on getting great baseball players. Both sides.”

One Georgia-based scout said schools will go so far as to hand recruits pamphlets featuring a picture of a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich – the staple of minor league baseball food – next to an opulent training table offered by top colleges and ask parents: Which would you rather your son eat?

In one email, Daeley told the stories of a colleague who missed the birth of his son because he didn’t want to lose his Triple-A rotation spot. He compared the minor leagues to the “Bizzaro” episode of Seinfeld. He copied and pasted Adrian Cardenas’ essay in the New Yorker on why he quit professional baseball.

“They’re trying to make us look like a bunch of bad guys,” the scout, who requested anonymity because he was not cleared by his bosses to speak publicly, told Yahoo Sports. “We’re not bad guys. I think they’re remorseful. But this has gone beyond the realm of scouts. There are players who are mad, agents who are mad, families and friends.”

Not all scouts are innocent, either. They’ll use the must-win nature of college coaches’ job to argue that development stagnates or puts pitchers especially at greater risk of injury. Freeland’s arguments about the medical and coaching staffs are common talking points, too, as is the most obvious: The money that goes along with pro baseball. A vast majority of players who turn down contracts out of high school do not get an equal or higher contract offer out of college, incentivizing on-the-fence players to go pro.

It’s the trump card professional ball holds, one that prompted Daeley to write in one email: “these guys all signed for what seems like (and in some cases really is) a lot of money… but google search their names and pull up their careers… see if you think they are happy with the path they have taken.”

Freeland, for one, rebuffed that notion. “Let me reiterate: the decision to play in college or to sign professionally is a very personal one that cannot be judged by those who do not have an understanding of an individual's situation,” he wrote. “I am very proud of where I am and what I am doing.”

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