Wake Forest 2023 baseball season thread (Deacs end historic season with extra inning loss to LSU: Final record 54-12 and top 4 finish nationally)

[BlackjackMc]

What was the last Wake men's team to have this much preseason hype outside of soccer. 2005 basketball?

This season's Cross Country team. Preseason ACC champion (won), preseason Southeast Region champion (finished third), and Top Ten NCAA finish (finished 5th). They delivered on preseason expectations. The men's cross country team finished 8th in the NCAA finals in 2021, higher than any other WF sport.

It's not like anyone is going to go to the meet, get loaded and cheer them on, but they are the team to beat in Wake Forest sports this year as well.

 

[thatguy2016]

This season's Cross Country team. Preseason ACC champion (won), preseason Southeast Region champion (finished third), and Top Ten NCAA finish (finished 5th). They delivered on preseason expectations. The men's cross country team finished 8th in the NCAA finals in 2021, higher than any other WF sport.

It's not like anyone is going to go to the meet, get loaded and cheer them on, but they are the team to beat in Wake Forest sports this year as well.

hmm

challenge accepted?

NCAA championship is in Charlottesville in the fall

 

[BlackjackMc]

hmm

challenge accepted?

NCAA championship is in Charlottesville in the fall

That was a lament heard back in the late 60's-early 70's wrt the golf team. They finished top 5 in the NCAA tourney all four years but there was little else to cheer about except periodic upsets in hoops. The 1970 ACC football championship was so unexpected and oh so sweet...

 

[IAppreciateIt]

the roster on the website still hasn’t been updated, pretty odd.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

I usually go to 3 or 4 games a year. Gonna try to get to as many as I can this season. Should be a lot of fun

 

[deacdixieboy]

I usually go to 3 or 4 games a year. Gonna try to get to as many as I can this season. Should be a lot of fun

I’ve already been trying to map out my schedule too. I probably won’t be able to make anything until mid-March. Hope the wind hasn’t been sucked out by then.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

The flex package deal is great bang for your buck value.

Looks like we should ease into the season pretty well with the OOC schedule. Let's run up some scores and break out the Rakes early on.

 

[ChrisL68]

Why Wake Forest Will Be the Last Team Standing in Omaha — Prospects Live

Conventional wisdom says that College Baseball’s preseason #1 pick, LSU, are the overwhelming favorites to win the CWS; and why not? After bringing in the top recruiting class of 2022, which was highlighted by SS Gavin Guidry, C Brady Neal, RHP Nigel Noot and OF Paxton Kling, they also went absolute

www.prospectslive.com

hype what hype?

 

[bluefish]

Why Wake Forest Will Be the Last Team Standing in Omaha — Prospects Live

Conventional wisdom says that College Baseball’s preseason #1 pick, LSU, are the overwhelming favorites to win the CWS; and why not? After bringing in the top recruiting class of 2022, which was highlighted by SS Gavin Guidry, C Brady Neal, RHP Nigel Noot and OF Paxton Kling, they also went absolute

www.prospectslive.com

hype what hype?

This excited me. It's been a while. I hope it works out this way.

Of course, the first step is to get there.

 

[LCDeacon]

the roster on the website still hasn’t been updated, pretty odd.

Completely agree, ~three weeks until the first game and no roster is odd. Possibly a transfer issue with someone who isn't actually enrolled yet for some reason? Couldn't the rest of the roster get posted if there was an issue with a particular player?

 

[Deaconblue]

Why Wake Forest Will Be the Last Team Standing in Omaha — Prospects Live

Conventional wisdom says that College Baseball’s preseason #1 pick, LSU, are the overwhelming favorites to win the CWS; and why not? After bringing in the top recruiting class of 2022, which was highlighted by SS Gavin Guidry, C Brady Neal, RHP Nigel Noot and OF Paxton Kling, they also went absolute

www.prospectslive.com

hype what hype?

The writer of that article really likes the Wake team. The one issue he pretty much skipped was: who will be the midweek starting pitcher(s)? Need those midweek out of conference wins to have a resume to make the playoffs and host regional and super regional.

 

[Dkin]

Completely agree, ~three weeks until the first game and no roster is odd. Possibly a transfer issue with someone who isn't actually enrolled yet for some reason? Couldn't the rest of the roster get posted if there was an issue with a particular player?

I'm told someone got cut about 10 days ago. Not sure what that tells us...other than tail end of the roster might still be in flux.

 

[Pilchard]

The Deacs were one over the roster limit.

 

[ChrisL68]

The writer of that article really likes the Wake team. The one issue he pretty much skipped was: who will be the midweek starting pitcher(s)? Need those midweek out of conference wins to have a resume to make the playoffs and host regional and super regional.

I mean we were great midweek last year and I see no reason with our pitching depth so we won't be the same this year.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

Pitching depth seems to be a big improvement with the transfer portal and retaining most of the top talent

 

[Pilchard]

Don't understand the concern about midweek starters. The weekend starters (Lowder, McGraw and Hartle) return. The two midweek starters: Seth Keener and Reed Mascolo also return.

Of the 61 games that WF played last year, the pitcher that started 60 of them return (doubt there is another team in the country that can say that). As mentioned above, WF was excellent in midweek games last year and everyone returns, plus WF adds:


Michael Massey (Tulane transfer) was weekend starter for the Green Wave; throws in the mid-90s.

Sean Sullivan (NW transfer) started 13 games for NW

A bunch of freshman arms

WF has a ton of midweek pitching options for the likes of App, High Point and Elon.

 

[Deacsfan27]

Keener should have a big step up this year imo.

We should be squared away for pitching.

Fielding remains my biggest concern anecdotally, but we were middle of the conference last year there with a .973 percentage. We were last in the conference in 2021.

 

[IAppreciateIt]

we went an amazing 24-2 in non-conference play last year (regular season), only matched by tennessee.

that's the most detailed article i've ever seen about wake baseball.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

Yeah that was a surprising and excellent read

 

[Pilchard]

To me the big concern is SS.

Blue Jays drafted and signed Michael Turconi. So, it's either Lafayette transfer Justin Johnson (he's gotten good reviews, but Lafayette is very low-end D-1; the fact that WF landed him late out of the transfer portal shows the concern about the SS position), freshman Marek Houston (who sounds super-talented, but it's a big jump from HS to starting at SS on a team with Omaha expectations) or moving 2B Danny Corona to SS (super-talented, but would be playing a new and more challenging position). SS is such a key position, but that's the big question-mark heading into the season. WF is essentially an all-star team everywhere else.