Oregon State head coach Mitch Canham chats with players ahead of the Beavers' College World Series matchup against Louisville. Courtesy photo: Karl Maasdam, Oregon State Athletics

In all of collegiate athletics, no sport may have a more strenuous offseason than baseball.

Like football and basketball, the baseball transfer portal window opens during the postseason, meaning the potential to lose key contributors before the biggest games of a team’s season. Where college baseball differs from the two, however, is in relation to its professional counterpart and its draft-eligibility rules.

The NBA allows players to enter the draft one year after graduating from high school, while the NFL requires three years. Both leagues host their drafts — a 60-pick format in the NBA and a 7-round, 250-plus format in the NFL — following the completion of both the college and professional seasons.

But baseball? Baseball is the Wild West.

The new frontier

The 20-round draft of more than 600 selections takes place in the middle of the MLB season. Players can be drafted as soon as they have their high school diploma, meaning verbal commitments to colleges end up irrelevant if they’re signed. While the vast majority of those commits do end up making it to campus, how long they’re there varies with the transfer portal and the MLB Draft’s eligibility rules — three years of school or until their 21st birthday, whichever comes first.

The summer of 2025 also introduces a new wrench in the process — new roster and scholarship limits. The 2026 college baseball season will be the first that programs can offer all players on the roster full scholarships, increasing from 11.7 to a maximum of 34 full-rides. The increased scholarship limit coincides with a decrease in roster spots, as college baseball programs are now limited to a total of 34 players on the roster. Most hovered north of 40 during the 2025 season.

Fresh off their first trip to the Men’s College World Series since 2018, the Oregon State Beavers and their head coach, Mitch Canham, who spoke with The Portland Tribune on Wednesday, are in a high-speed game of “Hurry Up and Wait.”

“I got so many messages (when the season ended) from a lot of friends and supporters of the program saying, ‘Oh, I hope you get some downtime to relax and enjoy it and soak it all in,’” Canham said. “And I’m like, ‘No. When the recruiting calendar closes in August, then I’ll probably take a couple days.’ This is, like, an even busier time of the year.”

Since the season ended, 15 members of the 2025 Oregon State roster have entered the portal. Of those who remain, nearly a dozen are draft-eligible and five are ranked amongst Baseball America’s top-500 prospects.

To counter, Canham and his staff are hitting the recruiting trail hard — even if a flurry of commitments haven’t occurred.

“I don’t think it’s a process that should be rushed, especially now,” Canham said of recruiting under the new roster limits.

So far, they’ve landed a trio of commitments out of the portal since the offseason got underway and currently boast the No. 17 high school recruiting class in the nation according to Perfect Game. However, the uncertainty of late June to early July, coupled with the changes to roster limitations, means the Beavers’ braintrust must balance talent acquisition through the portal and high school recruiting without exceeding the 34-man limit.

“Obviously, you’ve got to be more strategic,” Canham said. “We’ve always gotten really talented athletes that could get drafted out of high school or drafted (as soon as) they’re eligible in college, so you have no idea how much you need to recruit. You have to be pretty conservative in that space. The last thing you want to do is over-recruit and break someone’s heart, or under-recruit and then not be able to put a good group together.”

What to expect with new limitations

Off-season recruiting is a game of patience and listening, Canham said, but now doing it within the confines of a roster limit adds a piece of strategy to it.

Talented baseball players and the personalities that fit Oregon State’s team-first, one-dogpile culture are everywhere. Finding the right blend of talent, personality, and skill set to fill out a shortened roster is the latest challenge for Canham and his peers across the sport.

“I don’t know what everyone’s going to do,” Canham said, hypothesising about roster construction across the sport. “Is it going to be 17 arms and 17 position players? You’ve got to account for some two-way guys as well, or infielders that play outfield… If you’ve got 17 position players and six (of them are) outfielders, how many catchers do you need? If you’ve got four catchers, well, now you’ve only got seven infielders?

“I think more so now, you’re looking for all-around athletes. (Former Oregon State head coach Pat Casey) always recruited just a ton of shortstops and then started moving them around. Cole Gillespie and Tyler Graham were shortstops (who transitioned to the outfield). Joey Wong was a shortstop who moved over to second base.”

The need for positional versatility is already showing up for the Beavers’ incoming transfers and high school commitments as collegiate summer leagues ramp up.

Transfer portal acquisition Bryson Glassco from Clackamas Community College primarily played middle infield for the Cougars, but has gotten run at third and first base for the Portland Pickles of the West Coast League. Incoming freshmen, such as Joshua Proctor and Win Gurney, have had similar WCL experiences thus far. Gurney has appeared at all three outfield spots for the Bend Elks, while Proctor — a third base recruit — has transitioned to the outfield and seen time at first base.

With the deadline for players to enter the portal scheduled for July 1 and the 2025 MLB Draft beginning July 13, the picture of the 2026 Oregon State Beavers will gradually come into more focus.