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WF Baseball Off-season Thread

Def excited to see this group in action. The clips that were posted of Burns…just absolutely explosive.
 
Is it possible that this team is better than last year?

The talent level seems a bit higher across the board. Probably a few more questions we have to answer in the lineup.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
Is it possible that this team is better than last year?

The talent level seems a bit higher across the board. Probably a few more questions we have to answer in the lineup.
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Seems unlikely with the pitching losses. We were rolling with Massey and Keener as middle relievers. Going to need a couple of the freshmen, Crawford Wade, and Falco to produce in those spots. Burns is extremely exciting but it’s going to be more of a roller coaster with him compared to Rhett just being consistent every time out.

Pierce Bennett and Tommy Hawke aren’t too easy to replace either.
 
TheIshThatSaved WakeForest said:
Seems unlikely with the pitching losses. We were rolling with Massey and Keener as middle relievers. Going to need a couple of the freshmen, Crawford Wade, and Falco to produce in those spots. Burns is extremely exciting but it’s going to be more of a roller coaster with him compared to Rhett just being consistent every time out.

Pierce Bennett and Tommy Hawke aren’t too easy to replace either.
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That Wilken feely was deec-deec+ at least until his BA hit ACC play.
 
We will look different this year. It seemed like last year we tried to get on base and waited for someone to launch a HR. I think we'll see more doubles, etc. this year. Barring injuries, I think we can be really, really good. We don't have a Lowder, but I think Hartle is an upgrade over Hartle last year, Massey is better than Keener and adding Burns makes the weekend starters stronger as a whole v. last year (although being able to count Friday as an automatic win was a huge advantage last year, and I don't think we have that this year).

Austin Hawke looks good.
Tellier will be a steal machine this year.
Marek looks more comfortable at the plate (moved from the 9 hole to lead off in the scrimmage!)
I think a lot will be ride on getting production from Reinisch and Katz.
 
The top end talent seems as good as last year, but we had incredible depth (mainly pitching) last season. The unknown, to me, is how much contribution we will get from the non-superstars. If Houston takes a big step forward at the plate, which I see as a good possibility, our lineup could be as strong as last year. Perhaps even better suited for Omaha. That really sounds crazy considering what we lost.
 
The bullpen last year included: Minacci, Roland, Keener, Massey as the guys that were reliable options, and 2 of those guys were capable of throwing 2+ innings in an outing. This year's bullpen includes: Roland, Wade, Falco, ???. I'm not sure we're going to be comfortable with any of those guys going multiple innings (maybe Falco), which means that more guys in the bullpen are going to have to step up to give some high-leverage innings.

I also don't know how you would predict right now that the offense will be better than last year. It certainly could be better, but we are losing Wilken, Hawke, Johnson, Corona, Lee, and Bennett, all of whom we know for a fact were high level ACC bats. That's a lot of production to replace, and while we can have high confidence in King, the remaining bats that will need to step into the lineup are all varying degrees of unknowns. If multiple of (new) Hawke, Reinisch, Winnay, Katz, Tellier, Ballestero turn out to be disappointments, I don't see any way the offense is as good as it was last year.

I also think it's important to note that our offense AND bullpen could take a step back from what it was last year and we'd still be a top 5-10 team in the country. That's just how damn good we were last year.
 
Dkin said:
Everyone also ignoring we have a question mark at catcher, after a tremendous season from Lee. He made pitchers better.
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In fairness, Bennett Lee was a pretty big question mark at this time last year too. He hit .255/.366/.398 his sophomore year at Tulane and then .303/.435/.472 moving up a level to the ACC in his junior year. I don't think any of us here really expected that to happen.
 
There are a lot of unknowns on this team, but if a couple break right I think we could be close to as good as last year.

I'm not looking at the numbers at the moment, but our offense was overrated last year. We destroyed non-conference opponents and bad pitching, but IIRC we were only the 5th best offense in the ACC during conference games, despite our hitter friendly park. Tons of unknowns, but if Reinisch hits as well as he did two seasons ago and Chris Katz can live up to the offseason hype, I think there is a very good chance our offense is better than it was last year.

Lots of unknowns in the bullpen, but I am confident guys will step up based on our track record and the talented arms we have.

One of the things I'm worried about is getting worse in the field, we had an elite defense last year.
 
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In addition to King, Marek Houston is going to be much improved offensively from a freshman to sophomore. Also, it has been forgotten how good Jake Reinisch was in 2022 (.318/.467/.518). Going into 2023, Reinsch was expected to be a huge middle of the order piece. After crashing and burning early (he hit .178 with one extra base hit all season) and then getting benched for the balance of the season, Reinsch had a good Summer, and has been tearing it up in Fall Ball. Think its likely that Reinsch will be the middle of the order presence in 2024 that he was expected to be in 2023. Also, as good as Tommy Hawke was, Seaver King could be better, by a lot. He's getting to close to consensus 1st round pick status for the 2024 MLB draft. How many teams will have two bats in their lineup that are projected 1st round picks?

Also, think Tellier is legit. He may not be as productive as JJ was, but think it will be close. I love Bennett Lee, but think the platoon of Ballestro (he hit third for St. John's) and Gill (middle of the order hitter for a solid Wofford team) will be as productive as Bennett Lee was in 2023.

Finally, because he was hurt to close the season, there may be a tendency to forget the force that Nick Kurtz is. No doubt in my mind that WF wins the 2023 CWS if Kurtz was 100%. As crazy as it may sound, Kurtz may be even better in 2024.

All of this is another way of saying that, while there are question-marks, not willing to concede the WF offense takes a step back next year.
 
Pilchard said:
In addition to King, Marek Houston is going to be much improved offensively from a freshman to sophomore. Also, it has been forgotten how good Jake Reinisch was in 2022 (.318/.467/.518). Going into 2023, Reinsch was expected to be a huge middle of the order piece. After crashing and burning early (he hit .178 with one extra base hit all season) and then getting benched for the balance of the season, Reinsch had a good Summer, and has been tearing it up in Fall Ball. Think its likely that Reinsch will be the middle of the order presence in 2024 that he was expected to be in 2023. Also, as good as Tommy Hawke was, Seaver King could be better, by a lot. He's getting to close to consensus 1st round pick status for the 2024 MLB draft. How many teams will have two bats in their lineup that are projected 1st round picks?

Also, think Tellier is legit. He may not be as productive as JJ was, but think it will be close. I love Bennett Lee, but think the platoon of Ballestro (he hit third for St. John's) and Gill (middle of the order hitter for a solid Wofford team) will be as productive as Bennett Lee was in 2023.

Finally, because he was hurt to close the season, there may be a tendency to forget the force that Nick Kurtz is. No doubt in my mind that WF wins the 2023 CWS if Kurtz was 100%. As crazy as it may sound, Kurtz may be even better in 2024.

All of this is another way of saying that, while there are question-marks, not willing to concede the WF offense takes a step back next year.
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You phrased it as Seaver King is the lineup replacement for Tommy Hawke, when in reality he needs to be the lineup replacement for all time ACC HR champ Brock Wilken. I understand he's likely replacing Hawke in CF, but King is stepping in as the most likely person to be the second best hitter on the team, so functionally he is replacing Brock.

At the end of the day though, the lineup is going to hinge on a few important questions: do we get 2022 Reinisch or 2023 Reinisch? Are Tellier/Ballestro/Gill good enough transfers to feature on a top 5 team? Do guys like Marek Houston, Austin Hawke, and Jack Winnay make significant jumps from freshman to sophomore year? Are there any freshmen that can assert themselves into the lineup?

Again, I don't think it's a given that the offense is worse than last year, but it's definitely not my expectation that they will be better.
 
checking the numbers, last year in ACC play our offense received:

+tremendous production at three positions (1B, 3B, 2B)
+above-average production at zero positions
+average production at three positions (LF, CF, RF)
+below-average production at two positions (C, SS)
+absolutely atrocious production at one position (DH, where we had a .481 OPS)

(no positional adjustments)

so in quintiles from bad to good, 1-2-3-0-3 (atrocious-below average-average-above average-tremendous)

if we can do 0-1-4-2-2, or even 0-1-5-1-2, I think we'll be in great shape offensively.

^obviously tremendously oversimplified, i will try to updated my shitty projections at some point soon
 
IAppreciateIt said:
checking the numbers, last year in ACC play our offense received:

+tremendous production at three positions (1B, 3B, 2B)
+above-average production at zero positions
+average production at three positions (LF, CF, RF)
+below-average production at two positions (C, SS)
+absolutely atrocious production at one position (DH, where we had a .481 OPS)

(no positional adjustments)

so in quintiles from bad to good, 1-2-3-0-3 (atrocious-below average-average-above average-tremendous)

if we can do 0-1-4-2-2, or even 0-1-5-1-2, I think we'll be in great shape offensively.

^obviously tremendously oversimplified, i will try to updated my shitty projections at some point soon
Click to expand...
How are you defining average? Hawke hit 0.351/0.459/0.506, seems better than an average leadoff man to me
 
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