2021 Depth Chart

[Comebakatz3]

I am a bit bored. What are your thoughts on how things will look? Who starts where? What do you think our weekend rotation looks like? Who becomes our closer?

We are a month or so out from the season starting, so let's hear your early thoughts.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Just to help with this a bit:

Outfield:
Cam Hill
Jaren Shelby
John Rhodes
Trae Harmon
Oraj Anu
Chase Bryan
Houston King
Kirk Liebert

1B:
TJ Collett
Trae Harmon

Middle Infield:
Ryan Ritter
Austin Schultz
Jacob Plastiak
Zeke Lewis
Jack Hicks
Drew Grace
Nolan McCarthy

3B:
Chase Estep
Reuben Church
Coltyn Kessler

C:
Coltyn Kessler
Brendan Hord
Devin Burkes
Kirk Liebert
Alonzo Rubalcaba

Pitchers:
Cole Stupp
Austin Strickland
Mason Hazelwood (L)
Cole Daniels (L)
Hunter Rigsby
Alex Degen
Trip Lockhart
Jimmy Ramsey
Daniel Harper
Dillon Marsh (L)
Seth Logue
Zack Lee
Zach Kammin
Holt Jones
Wyatt Hudepohl
Sean Harney
Ryan Hagenow
Braxton Cottongame (L)
Ron Cole
Evan Byers (L)
Tyler Burchett

 

[dtjr]

Rhodes LF
Hill RF
Shelby CF
Oraj DH
TJ 1B
Estep 3B
Grace SS
Shultz 2B
Kessler C

 

[Comebakatz3]

Rhodes LF
Hill RF
Shelby CF
Oraj DH
TJ 1B
Estep 3B
Grace SS
Shultz 2B
Kessler C

Pretty solid guess I would say. I think that SS/2B/3B is going to be the interesting positions. Ritter is apparently the top ranked JUCO transfer to show up on a D1 campus this fall. He has been called an elite defender. So, will he get SS over Grace and Schultz? What about Zeke, who did outstanding last year at second? Could Schultz really find himself on the bench on this team, or will they take down Estep and move Schultz to third? Just a lot of possibilities there.

I have heard rumblings that Kessler will not be playing catcher this year and that the coaches really like Rubalcaba. Not sure if that holds up, but I am not sure that Kessler has found his bat even now and continues to struggle at the plate.

As it is... I think you are probably close. Here is my weird guess:

Hill - LF
Shelby - CF
Rhodes - RF

They liked Hill's ability to deal with the difficult and small corner in left field last year. So, I think they may keep him there, but he could play any position out there. It is possible that if any of those don't hit well you could see a middle infielder work his way into the outfield.

1B - TJ

The one sure thing.

2B - Schultz
SS - Ritter

There are a ton of possibilities here, but I think this is what it ends up being. Grace and Zeke are right there, but the staff loves these two and it will be extremely hard to unseat them.

3B - Estep

I think that Kessler might get a look here if he is hitting well, but if not I think Estep will have it fairly locked down.

C - Rubalcaba

He may split some time with Kessler, but what I have heard is that he is impossible to run on. He has a cannon and gets the ball out extremely quickly. Coaches love his ability to control the running game.

Weekend:
Friday - Hazelwood
Saturday - Hagenow
Sunday - Ramsey?

Pitching continues to be a nightmare. Hagenow might automatically be our Friday guy, but that isn't as much a testament to how good Hagenow is as much as it is to how poor our pitching staff is. Hazewood seems like he is coming along pretty well, but I don't think he has the dominant stuff to really be a Friday guy. Still, he is at least a solid weekend pitcher. Ramsey has been a huge letdown and needs massive leaps to be successful on the weekend. Still, I am not sure anyone else can or will step up and displace him.

I imagine that Cole Daniels would be the closer, but oddly... he had 0 saves in 7 appearances a year ago. So, I don't know if they still look for him to have that role. Alex Degen is another possibility and he has come along nicely as a pitcher since arriving.

 

[Aday117]

Offense should be really solid this year with multiple options any given day. It’s going to come down to pitching/defense again which has hindered the team for a quite a while now.

 

[dtjr]

Pretty solid guess I would say. I think that SS/2B/3B is going to be the interesting positions. Ritter is apparently the top ranked JUCO transfer to show up on a D1 campus this fall. He has been called an elite defender. So, will he get SS over Grace and Schultz? What about Zeke, who did outstanding last year at second? Could Schultz really find himself on the bench on this team, or will they take down Estep and move Schultz to third? Just a lot of possibilities there.

I have heard rumblings that Kessler will not be playing catcher this year and that the coaches really like Rubalcaba. Not sure if that holds up, but I am not sure that Kessler has found his bat even now and continues to struggle at the plate.

As it is... I think you are probably close. Here is my weird guess:

Hill - LF
Shelby - CF
Rhodes - RF

They liked Hill's ability to deal with the difficult and small corner in left field last year. So, I think they may keep him there, but he could play any position out there. It is possible that if any of those don't hit well you could see a middle infielder work his way into the outfield.

1B - TJ

The one sure thing.

2B - Schultz
SS - Ritter

There are a ton of possibilities here, but I think this is what it ends up being. Grace and Zeke are right there, but the staff loves these two and it will be extremely hard to unseat them.

3B - Estep

I think that Kessler might get a look here if he is hitting well, but if not I think Estep will have it fairly locked down.

C - Rubalcaba

He may split some time with Kessler, but what I have heard is that he is impossible to run on. He has a cannon and gets the ball out extremely quickly. Coaches love his ability to control the running game.

Weekend:
Friday - Hazelwood
Saturday - Hagenow
Sunday - Ramsey?

Pitching continues to be a nightmare. Hagenow might automatically be our Friday guy, but that isn't as much a testament to how good Hagenow is as much as it is to how poor our pitching staff is. Hazewood seems like he is coming along pretty well, but I don't think he has the dominant stuff to really be a Friday guy. Still, he is at least a solid weekend pitcher. Ramsey has been a huge letdown and needs massive leaps to be successful on the weekend. Still, I am not sure anyone else can or will step up and displace him.

I imagine that Cole Daniels would be the closer, but oddly... he had 0 saves in 7 appearances a year ago. So, I don't know if they still look for him to have that role. Alex Degen is another possibility and he has come along nicely as a pitcher since arriving.

Excellent information.

I think our outfield is solid with Cam Hill coming back with the possibility of King getting some playing time.

I think you are dead on with our middle infield having a lot of competition. He may go with multiple guys in the beginning as he did last year until someone forces their hand.

Offense should be solid but pitching, defense and basic baseball IQ remain ?'s.

Pretty exciting to see Hagenow possibly being in the rotation.

 

[Comebakatz3]

Offense should be really solid this year with multiple options any given day. It’s going to come down to pitching/defense again which has hindered the team for a quite a while now.

I'm a Negative Nancy with this baseball team. To me, on paper, our offense should be good. In actual practice... I'm not yet convinced.

Collett is always looked at as the gold standard and I love the guy, but he's yet to prove to me that he's special. Last year he hit well, but most of it was against poor competition. Two years ago he hit well against OOC (.259), but hit just .214 against the SEC. That was a long time ago, but ain't going to cut it.

Shelby was similar... hit just .215 in 2019. Kessler struggled a year ago hitting sub .100.

So, how will they hit against great pitching? Last year we played 2 teams that were NCAA caliber... we lost all 6 games, got shut out twice and failed to put up a crooked number in 4 of 6.

So, sadly, I'm just not overly confident in the bats either. Certainly hope they prove me wrong though.

 

[Old_Red]

I will be happy if they are at least competitive and don't end up looking like the bad news bears on defense. I have a hard time believing in the pitching. However, if they could get some confidence, they could actually improve quite a bit. It seemed like every fielding error made the next mistake pitch more likely. Same thing with the hitting, hitting with runners in scoring position was pretty bad if I remember correctly. We could get hit by pitch though.

 

[Comebakatz3]

I will be happy if they are at least competitive and don't end up looking like the bad news bears on defense. I have a hard time believing in the pitching. However, if they could get some confidence, they could actually improve quite a bit. It seemed like every fielding error made the next mistake pitch more likely. Same thing with the hitting, hitting with runners in scoring position was pretty bad if I remember correctly. We could get hit by pitch though.

I don't know if it will happen or not, but the defense should be improved. Ritter is supposed to be an elite defender, so I think he will be a huge defensive improvement at short stop. Golda and Schultz played there a chunk a year ago and they were all right, but Ritter should be better. Golda especially was often out of position at short, but often made some very good plays.

Last year we were pretty bad because John Rhodes struggled at third base and we couldn't find a person to take that role. Rhodes had 7 errors last year for a fielding percentage of .821. Most of these were when he played 3rd. He still had 2 errors as a left fielder, but I think the numbers will improve as he settles into the outfield. Estep should be better over there, but he even struggled at times. I think that should go down for him. If not, we have a lot of guys who play 2B/SS that can move over there. In fact, it isn't out of the realm of possibility for Schultz to play over at 3rd and Ritter at SS with Zeke or Grace at 2nd.

 

[parrott]

I think the defense and pitching are closely intertwined - the better your defense, the better your pitching as long as they can throw strikes.

If the defense comes around, then I think the pitching improves (obviously). Have seen way too many 2 out errors which led to runs scored over the past couple of years.

Fix the defense first because you ain’t striking everyone out.

 

[Comebakatz3]

I think the defense and pitching are closely intertwined - the better your defense, the better your pitching as long as they can throw strikes.

If the defense comes around, then I think the pitching improves (obviously). Have seen way too many 2 out errors which led to runs scored over the past couple of years.

Fix the defense first because you ain’t striking everyone out.

Cutting down on defensive mistakes would certainly be huge and will definitely help the pitching staff improve. Hopefully some SEC quality arms show up.

 

[dtjr]

Any news on the practice front?

I would think they have started back up.

 

[BlueStoops]

Thanks for the info on the thread. Will probably won’t believe they’ll be any good until I see it. However, excited for the season to start

 

[Comebakatz3]

Any news on the practice front?

I would think they have started back up.

They've started. I think they got a late start, but have been back to ball for a week or so.

 

[sluggercatfan]

PLAY BALL...HOPEFULY!

 

[CB3UK]

Yep, entered this thread to ask when we can start hearing some practice reports. Coach Ming was on Just the Cats the other day so I knew things had to be ramping up. I'm ready for some SEC baseball action.