LSU's Paul Mainieri still adjusting to canceled baseball season

Paul Mainieri has coached 2,228 college baseball games.

But for the LSU head baseball coach, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented a challenge that he has never dealt with before.

Set to head into their conference opener in Oxford, LSU stood at 12-5 on the season when the NCAA canceled all spring sports for the 2020 season.

“It almost feels like the Twilight Zone doesn’t it?” he said in a virtual press conference from his residence on Thursday afternoon. “It’s so surreal, you go outside and everything seems normal but then you go in and watch the news and realize what is going on. I’m not even sure if I have the proper words on how things are going.

“I can honestly say that I have never been through anything even remotely close to this experience. In my entire coaching career, I have never dealt with anything even close to this experience. (in early March) we get a letter from the athletic department saying we couldn’t have gatherings of 30 or more people. I tell the team to come and clean out their lockers. I couldn’t even meet with my team in person; we had to do a conference call. I’m having a team meeting talking to a box. After that call the coaching staff went back to our offices talking about next year’s roster, the draft, etc. I told them to go home after a while and I’ll see you in a month. That was on March 13. Now I’m holding press conferences from my bedroom on a computer screen.”

With the 2020 season now over, Mainieri and the rest of the coaching staff have shifted their focus to the 2021 season and roster. The 2021 season will be a unique one as the NCAA Division I Council voted to grant an extra year of eligibility to the spring sports. Schools will be allowed to carry more athletes on scholarship to account for seniors who decide to return for a fifth or sixth year and incoming freshmen from the high school ranks. But this exemption only lasts for the 2020-21 season, as all scholarship limits will return to normal the following year. The 2020 Tigers roster featured only two seniors in right-handed pitchers Matthew Beck and Aaron George.

“I think it was the appropriate thing to do,” Mainieri said of the NCAA’s ruling. “I want Matthew and Aaron back and they both want to come back.”

Perhaps the biggest impact on the 2021 LSU baseball team will be the 2020 Major League Baseball draft, something that has still yet to be finalized in terms of plans.

First reported by Jeff Passan of ESPN, the draft will be held this summer with a date still to be determined, as well as the number of rounds, which MLB has the right to trim down to five.

Major League Baseball also announced that signing bonuses from the draft would include no more than $100,000 within 30 days, 50-percent by July 1, 2021 and the remaining 50-percent by July 1, 2022.

“I think the owners didn’t even want to have a draft at all,” Mainieri said. “Just knowing that there was going to be a draft was a major happening in our world. Once I knew there was going to be a draft of at least five rounds, in my mind and in my heart, I thought we would lose a couple of our current players. Specifically, Daniel Cabrera and Cole Henry and a couple of from our 2020 recruiting class. That would be the case if it was five rounds. But we still don’t know how many rounds it will be yet.

“There are still a lot of questions on what the 2021 roster is going to look like. There are just too many different things up in the air. I’m also holding out hope that the NCAA will look at baseball individually and give us some leeway when it comes to scholarship numbers and roster-size besides the seniors. Let us have a handful of more spots for at least next year.”