7 of the 13 Northern Sun Conference baseball teams announced the signing of players for the 2010 season during the early signing period (Nov/Dec 2008).
In looking at the list of names they are dominated by players from Minnesota. For whatever reason, the Minnesota schools were definitely the most active in signing players early (unless the others just didn’t announce them publicly).
Based on these announcements, it looks like Minnesota State and St. Cloud are the clear winners so far in the early recruiting battle. While I’m typically a little suspect of small school and out-state players, Jordan Smith looks to have all the makings of an early impact player for the Huskies. There is a bunch of depth in the rest of St. Cloud’s list as well. Mankato looks like they got at least 3 guys that will contribute early from their group of 5 signings.
It will be interesting to see how the strategy of signing these guys early, based on their junior seasons will work as opposed to others that wait and get the benefit of seeing players play at least part of their senior campaign.
One other thing to watch play out is the different strategies of the coaches when it comes to how they configure their rosters. For example, St. Cloud already carries one of the largest rosters in the league and yet had the most signings. They typically red-shirt a good number of their freshman and discourage walk-on’s as compared with other coaches that play with a much smaller roster. Some coaches are also more about recruiting primarily out of high school and getting a player for 4 years (Duluth) vs. others that have no problem in going after community college and transfer players.
Here’s the early signing list as posted on school sites –
| First | Last | High School | College | Pos | Previous School |
| Nate | Alfson | Pipestone, MN | Augustana | C | Mesabi CC |
| Brendan | Koistinen | Watertown, SD | Augustana | 1B | |
| Grant | Larson | Burnsville, MN | Augustana | RHP | |
| Deryk | Marks | Cottage Grove, MN | Augustana | SS | Iowa Central CC |
| Ben | Van Kekerix | Sheldon, IA | Augustana | LHP | |
| Marcus | Fitzgerald | S. St Paul, MN | Concordia | RHP/OF | DCTC |
| Griffon | Kilber | Chaska, MN | Concordia | LHP | |
| JT | Schneider | Oak Creek, WI | Concordia | 2B/OF | |
| Ben | Keller | Andover, MN | MSU-Mankato | C | |
| Brock | Lloyd | Mankato West | MSU-Mankato | RHP | |
| Matt | Lutz | Centennial, MN | MSU-Mankato | RHP | |
| Bret | Mitchell | Lakeville North, MN | MSU-Mankato | RHP | Iowa Central CC |
| Mike | Schultz | Forest Lake, MN | MSU-Mankato | C/OF | |
| Joey | Althoff | Delano, MN | SCSU | C/1B | South Dakota St |
| Max | Gregory | Cretin St Paul, MN | SCSU | RHP | |
| Jeremy | Ische | Norwood-YA, MN | SCSU | C | N. IA CC |
| Tyler | Jendro | Royalton, MN | SCSU | OF/P | St Cloud Tech C. |
| Adam | Johnson | St Cloud Tech, MN | SCSU | RHP | |
| Travis | Kulla | Maple Grove, MN | SCSU | OF | |
| Scott | Lieser | Broweville, MN | SCSU | P | |
| Jordan | Smith | Willmar | SCSU | 3B/OF | |
| Evan | Knutson | Faribault | UM-Duluth | P/1B | |
| Parker | Olson | Duluth East | UM-Duluth | IF | |
| Lucas | Steinbach | Wayzata | UM-Duluth | OF | |
| Justin | Wallace | Rosemount | UM-Duluth | RHP | |
| Aaron | Woods | Menomonie, WI | UM-Duluth | P | |
| Adam | Zwak | Duluth East | UM-Duluth | P/IF | |
| Jeremy | Cruz | Frankfort, IL | Upper Iowa | IF | |
| Brett | Young | Appleton East, WI | Winona State | C |
