Kendall Rogers: Texas A&M could retain players in transfer portal depending on hire

Texas A&M is in the hunt for a new baseball coach following Jim Schlossnagle’s heel turn to go and take the rival job at Texas.

Whoever the new hire is, inevitably, the first questions will be centered around what the roster will look like in 2025. After finishing runner-up in 2024, A&M fans are hopeful many of their top guys will still decide to return to College Station.

While that’s still a strong possibility, D1 Baseball’s Kendall Rogers warns Aggie fans not to get their hopes up when it comes to the transfer portal, since he expects most A&M players to enter.

When speaking with TexAgs on YouTube, Rogers said there’s still a good shot A&M can get players back even if they do enter the portal.

“I think that there’s a pretty safe bet they will — I think if they make the make a couple of the hires that I’ve heard, they could possibly make — I actually would feel pretty good about their chances given some of the NIL things that are kind of you know being worked on behind the scene.”

However, Rogers notes that first, most players will probably enter, and explained why:

“So the thing that people have to realize, I think this is important and I’m speaking not only to A&M fans, I’m also speaking to fans at any other school. Because, here’s the thing, when there’s a coaching change, a lot of the time, it’s these agents that are like ‘Hey, just go in the portal. Like, let’s see your market value.'”

He continued, using a Texas A&M player for example:

“Like, if you’re Gavin Grahovac and you’re one of the top players in college baseball, why wouldn’t you go in the portal? Even if you go back there, you at least get a pretty good idea of what your market value is.”

For these Aggie players, Rogers says it’s all about maximizing value and examining what else is out there in a transition period.

“People have to realize that just because you’re going in the portal doesn’t mean that there’s some concocted scheme to move everybody over to Texas,” he continued.

“No, it’s a very smart decision, because now when you go back to A&M’s NIL collective whenever they hire a coach, it’s like ‘Hey, here is what I’m worth to other schools.’ So it may not be that you want the same amount of money, but like, I want at least somewhere close to that.”

To recap from Kendall Rogers: Texas A&M is in a good spot with plenty of qualified candidates, and if they nab the right one, perhaps many current players do stick around. But just don’t be shocked when there’s a mass entrance into the portal for these Aggies to at least test their value.