Looking ahead to 2017

[RoosterJacket]

Assuming all of the drafted players sign, here is a very early look at next year's roster.

C-Joey Bart^, Will Galloway, Kyle McCann
1B-Tristin English^, Coleman Poje (OF)
2B-Wade Bailey^
SS/IF-Carter Hall (OF), Jackson Webb (2016 RS), Austin Wilhite, Parker McCoy, Xzavion Curry
3B-Trevor Craport^, Garrett Gooden
OF-Brandt Stallings^, Kel Johnson^, Ryan Peurifoy^, Keenan Innis, Nick Wilhite, Chase Murray

P-Parr, Ryan, Dulaney, Lee, Gibson, Carpenter, Hughes*, King*, English*, Combs, Gauvreau, Winborne, Shelton, Datoc, P. Wiseman, Gooden, Curry, A. Wilhite, Shadday, Jolliff, Archer, Thomas, Wilson

^returning starter
*coming off injury

You can never have too much pitching, right...especially with the injuries we seem to encounter each year. The SS position is wide open is my guess with even Bailey being an option there. Curry, Gooden, and A. Wilhite are all possible "two-way" players. Kel needs to improve his defense to both help the team and to help himself regarding draft stock.

 

[65Jacket]

Assuming all of the drafted players sign, here is a very early look at next year's roster.

C-Joey Bart^, Will Galloway, Kyle McCann
1B-Tristin English^, Coleman Poje (OF)
2B-Wade Bailey^
SS/IF-Carter Hall (OF), Jackson Webb (2016 RS), Austin Wilhite, Parker McCoy, Xzavion Curry
3B-Trevor Craport^, Garrett Gooden
OF-Brandt Stallings^, Kel Johnson^, Ryan Peurifoy^, Keenan Innis, Nick Wilhite, Chase Murray

P-Parr, Ryan, Dulaney, Lee, Gibson, Carpenter, Hughes*, King*, English*, Combs, Gauvreau, Winborne, Shelton, Datoc, P. Wiseman, Gooden, Curry, A. Wilhite, Shadday, Jolliff, Archer, Thomas, Wilson

^returning starter
*coming off injury

You can never have too much pitching, right...especially with the injuries we seem to encounter each year. The SS position is wide open is my guess with even Bailey being an option there. Curry, Gooden, and A. Wilhite are all possible "two-way" players. Kel needs to improve his defense to both help the team and to help himself regarding draft stock.

What about Sneiderjeans?

 

[RoosterJacket]

What about Sneiderjeans?

Oh yeah, had forgotten about him. Add another P to the list. If I am counting correctly, that's 39 players! CDH is going to have to figure out a way to knock that down. I'm sure we will lose 1-3 to transfer, maybe another 1-3 who decide to just not play anymore. They can only have 27 players receiving any portion of a baseball scholarship. I think at home games, we can dress out 30 guys, but only 27 can travel....I think. There may even be an official roster size limit of 35.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

I think a couple of the pitchers won't return to the team ..... no inside info, but several of the returning players didn't play much this year (not injured either.). Hope 100% on King being back to add to the depth.

I think our hitting will be fine since 1) we have some very good talent and 2) Hall seems to play the hot hitter (a lot more than he does with pitchers).

Our defense and base running is a big concern. Sure we turned the most DPs ever. But that is because there were so many base runners with 0 and 1 outs.

The NCAA has a good summary stat page. You have to find it by doing some drop down menus from this link, but this will get you close: http://stats.ncaa.org/rankings/ranking_summary

Anyway, our pitching was atrocious (duh). For fielding we were 117th with a .970 fielding. This needs to be a lot better to be an elite team. While our hitting is good, aspects like stolen bases (184th/214th) and sac bunts (112nd) and strike out to walk ratio (187th) needs improvement.

But all in all, baseball was the best major GT men's varsity sport over the last year. I expect it will be again next year.

 

[FredJacket]

Our defense and base running is a big concern. Sure we turned the most DPs ever. But that is because there were so many base runners with 0 and 1 outs.

Allow that to sink in... It's so true. In other words, were it not for our middle infield (Justus highest drafted player)... our very poor pitching was really a bit worse (maybe only a little) than it appeared.

 

[up state jacket]

I expect us having a similar conversation this time next year about the same concerns and what this team needs to do to get back to respectable status. We've had for about the last 5 years.