Inside Pitch: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World… in the Transfer Portal!

Since January 1st of this year, nearly 900 softball players have entered the transfer portal. That number isn’t exclusive to Division I players, but the vast majority of those players have come from the D1 ranks.

Since May 1st, and as of Wednesday afternoon, almost 600 of those same athletes have entered the portal! That’s more than two-thirds of the year’s transfers that have entered in six weeks’ time!

My 5th-grade division skills tell me that’s an average of almost 13 players per day over the last six weeks.

For the sake of comparison, that’s nearing the number on an average collegiate roster, and it represents players entering the portal, on a daily basis, for weeks on end.

As a rule, I’m in favor of the transfer portal.

I have a firm belief that, if used correctly, the portal can be a very positive thing. Players in bad situations certainly benefit from the opportunity to get a change of scenery without having to ask their coaches to be released.

When a coaching change happens at a school, I don’t take issue with players who may decide to find themselves a new home at the same time. It’s a proven fact that coaches are often a big part of the reason that players choose to commit to certain schools, so when that coach leaves it’s appropriate for a student-athlete to have the option to not be totally pinned down and without recourse of her own.

But with as many positives as can come from the transfer portal, there are plenty of issues that remain.

The NCAA has not done a great job of policing the portal, which can lead (and has led) to “poaching” of players from one school by another school. There are also players who jump from school to school, seemingly almost on an annual basis, due to not receiving the playing time they feel they’re entitled to.

With so many players in the portal and with plenty more to come as the summer winds on, it’s a legitimate question as to when the historical recruiting and talent-building cycle might give way to simply looking for the next “hot name” on the transfer market.

Softball is rooted in finding and developing young talent, but could we see more and more teams elect to go the “easy” route by focusing more on players who have experience at the collegiate level already under their belts?

The transfer portal is a good thing, or at least it can be. But we’ve got a long way to go before we truly get to that point.

— Justin McLeod, Extra Inning Softball Correspondent & Publisher of Justin’s World of Softball