Virginia Baseball Loses Two Top Recruits After Brian O'Connor Leaves

Bauer is the 37th best prospect for the 2025 MLB Draft this July by MLB Pipeline as he's proven to be a dominant left-handed pitcher. His strong arm even pulled the attention of the New York Post, which published an article after he threw a 102 MPH pitch. Alongside his fastball, Bauer had his slider clocked from 81-84 with 2900+ RPMs while his changeup ranged from 85-88 MPH. 

Shortly after the news about Bauer, a right-handed pitcher and third baseman Sam Rosand told Madia that he would explore other opportunities but still could end up in Charlottesville. Rosand's fastball tops out at 92, putting him in the top 1% of pitchers in his class. 

With Bauer and Rosand reopening their commitments, nine players remain in the 2025 recruiting class set to arrive in Charlottesville this fall. There are also 14 commits from the class of 2026, although, with O'Connor now at Mississippi State, time will tell which of these players choose to stay true to their commitment. 

So what can the Cavaliers do to maintain these commits? 

Carla Williams has done this before when she managed to get Chance Mallory to recommit to Virginia men's basketball after he suddenly decommitted after the sudden retirement of Tony Bennett. 

What Williams did is rooted in two key factors: 

The first is open communication with the athletes: maintaining constant and open communication with the players about the hiring process of Virginia's new head coach. 

The second step is to hire a coach in short order while ensuring that this coach fits the billing to run Virginia Baseball. Williams recently executed this by hiring Ryan Odom for the men's basketball program and could do it again on the diamond. 

Considering the likelihood that O'Connor will try to get these players to decommit and come to MSU, it won't be easy to keep these recruits in blue and orange. However, the fact that only two players were confirmed to decommit is a positive sign for the future of the Virginia baseball program.