Stanford Baseball TO THE CWS! - Printable Version

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RE: Stanford Baseball TO THE CWS! - CTcard - 07-21-2022

(07-19-2022, 01:41 PM)msqueri Wrote:  I am very bullish on Stanford baseball for next year...

In practice, what this means is that it's a mistake to think about what healthy programs lose.

...The reason is that in college sports it's about who you have, not who you're losing. 

I am also quite bullish on Stanford baseball for next year, which should be obvious by my discussion of the potential 2023 roster a little bit above in this thread.

I think it's quite correct that looking at the future should be more about what you have than what you're losing, but part of what you have is connected to who you're losing. If you lose players when you have promising successors in place, you're fine. If not, it can be a problem. 
Whether that is the case is a little harder to know in baseball than some other sports, but thinking about the future still involves thinking about the roster and not just a generic good feeling about the program. 

Anyway, on the draft ... 
Barrera and Crampton both went higher than I expected, which means they're less likely to return. Still holding out some hope for Crampton in thinking Bobk's statement that he expects Crampton back might be based upon something. 

Williams was drafted about where I expected. I think he helped himself on the year, hurt himself with his tournament struggles, but just doesn't have the explosive arm needed to be a high draft pick. I understand he is a good student and it's possible his transfer portal entry really is about a graduate degree. While I would expect him to join the minors, it would be interesting if he ends up at another school. [In interviews he often talks about not having a particularly live arm, and thus that he needs to always hit his spots and get ground balls. That might reflect some personal concern about his MLB prospects.]

Matthews was drafted lower than I expected - he's a lefty with at least decent stuff. I guess the related disappointment might open the door to a return for a senior year, but I have heard nothing to that effect. 

Matthews would help the staff next year, but doesn't appear to be critical. There are five pitchers on the team who were sophomores in 2022, all of whom pitched significant innings for Stanford. (Bruno, Dixon, Dowd, O'Rourke, Pancer) None have been lights out yet, but all have shown promise. That's a good, experienced core for a staff. Two frosh (Uber and two-way Montgomery) showed lots of promise this past year. Two incoming pitchers are in Perfect Game top 200 recruits (Scott, Dugan) (unfortunately, I don't particular trust PG rankings, but don't have access to others). 

Looks like Stanford will likely be replacing 4 of 9 regular hitters. All had good BA, three had good power (46 HRs amongst the four - plus I suspect Martinez and his 5 HRs won't return either). That's not particularly high turnover for college baseball, but not insignificant either. I'd say there's three reasonably projectable replacements (Haskins, Saum, Moore), and there will be lots of competition for the other spot opening up. Probably two spots if Saum isn't the regular catcher.

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