Preview 2025 – First Look
2024 Recap
The team was really young in 2024, particularly in terms of experience if somewhat less so in age.
Of the nine batting-positions, there were only two full time returning starters (Cobb, Moore) and a couple of occasional starters (Becerra, Sapien).
On the mound, every pitcher with a significant number of innings was a frosh or soph, with only Scott and Dugan having pitched many innings previously.
Obviously Montgomery would have helped this team on offense. Perhaps more devastating were the pitching losses. One would have expected that the team would have had some contributions from Dowd, Dixon, Pancer, O’Rourke, Uber and even Montgomery.
2025 Personnel
Of course these days one doesn’t know who’s coming back until they show up – though Stanford remains more stable than most. Cobb is gone for sure – no more eligibility. Everyone else who played any significant role could come back. The main person to worry about with respect the draft is Moore. I am assuming he’ll go just because he can – but he also would have been a high draft pick coming out of high school so who knows, maybe he actually wants a degree. No one else would be a high draft pick, but I suppose Haskins or Becerra (JRs) might get picked somewhere. No idea who might transfer. The optimistic view is we could have the entire pitching staff back and 7 of 9 in the hitting rotation.
The incoming players are obviously highlighted by Sasaki. Not sure of his defensive skills, but figure he’d end up either as 1B or regular DH. The incoming frosh class is large by Stanford standards at 12, but small by anybody else’s standards. It doesn’t seem particularly highly ranked, with Perfect Game having them at #42 (with last few years #28, #34, #45, #10, #33). The headliner appears to be Charlie Bates, a SS from Paly. I have seen him ranked as high as #15 prep prospect for the MLB draft, and in general a top 100 recruit. Overall, the incoming group has 6 players listed as pitchers, 5 as middle infielders, and 1 OF.
Among guys on the team who haven’t yet played much, I am most interested in seeing if Champ Hampton can find his way into the lineup. There are reports that he can really hit the ball a mile, just has to do it more often.
Offense
I expect the offense to be substantially improved unless there is a big exodus. After a slow start, the team finished up with a pretty good BA though a bit light on power numbers (midconference). If there are seven guys returning who are stronger and more experienced, plus Sasaki, plus one significant new contributor there is real potential here. Of course Moore returning would help, but he didn’t have a great season and even without him I would expect substantial improvement.
Pitching
Stanford pitching was an extreme version of where it has been trending lately. Lots of strike out but tons of free passes and other control problems all adding up to a rather poor team pitching performance – around 10th or 11th in the conference depending on just how one counts. This was particularly frustrating as the arms on the staff seem very live.
But there is hope. With some improvement and season-long endurance, the prospect of a weekend starting rotation of Scott-Lim-Volchko could be awfully good.
On Volchko, look at his game against OSU in the Pac-12 tournament (6.0 IP, 0 runs, 2 hits, 4 BB) to see what he could do and why he had first round hype out of high school. Even better was his April 30 against Santa Clara. It wasn’t just his numbers (6.0 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, 0 BB), but the Santa Clara batters looks just hopelessly overmatched – like an adult pitching to little leaguers. Of course he’ll need to do that more than twice in a season, and that means developing some control. He ‘led’ the team in walks this year, despite being only #5 in innings pitched. And that’s on a team that walked a ton of batters.
Aidan Keenan was even more highly rated coming out of HS than Volchko, but never got going this year. Here’s hoping that next year we see why he had that rating.
For the bullpen, amongst O’Haran (emergent closer), Moore, Dugan, at least one of Speshyock, Reimers, Thomas, and contributions from one or two of the frosh pitchers … and Keenan as noted above, there is the potential for a strong bullpen with even some depth. However, a significant amount of improvement is necessary for this to work out – particularly improvement in control. Can’t be conference dead last in free passes per game again.
Positions
Catcher – Expect a battle between Lavin and Saum of Moore leaves. Lavin (soph to be) and Saum (Sr to be) were both similarly highly rated recruits. Both played a bit this year, mostly at DH. Saum showed more bat (8 HR) but of course he’s also two years older.
1B – Expect a competition between Sasaki and Larson, with the weaker fielder ending up as the main DH.
2B/SS – Haskins and Becerra would have the inside track if they return. Perhaps Bates will challenge.
3B – Nati most likely, though he’s fairly versatile and could be plugged in elsewhere if needed.
OF – Macdonald, Hott, Reynolds and Sapien seem the mostly likely group. Possibly the first three ahead.
And somebody listed above will probably disappear (through the draft, transfer, injury etc.) while somebody not discussed will emerge. That’s the nature of the beast.
Summary
After the Santa Clara game I was pretty bullish on this team, at least for next year. The 10 game losing streak rather beat me down, but some recovery during the Pac-12 tournament improved my outlook – particularly the good pitching performance by Volchko.
It’s hard to tell what the new league will mean. While the ACC has been the second highest rated league by the RPI in recent years (and thus by number of NCAA berths), it has generally been a little suspect with respect to that ranking. Only 2 ACC teams have ever won the national title (Wake in 1955 and Uva in 2015 – in contrast the Pac 12 has the most titles with 18). But the travel will be a bear and I imagine that by itself will be worth several losses. I also wonder if Stanford will schedule former Pac 12 teams for midweek games or early season series – which would make their non-conference schedule tough and be a strong deviation from the regular ACC puff-schedule approach.
The team really should be substantially better next year – to the point that not being in the NCAA tournament would be a major disappointment, though winning the ACC seems too much. Stanford and cal are moving to a better baseball conference than the rest of the Pac 12 refugees – with the big 4 football schools going to the worst. I pick Oregon as the preseason favorite for the Big Ten next year – though that is without actually looking at what their lineup will be.
2024 Recap
The team was really young in 2024, particularly in terms of experience if somewhat less so in age.
Of the nine batting-positions, there were only two full time returning starters (Cobb, Moore) and a couple of occasional starters (Becerra, Sapien).
On the mound, every pitcher with a significant number of innings was a frosh or soph, with only Scott and Dugan having pitched many innings previously.
Obviously Montgomery would have helped this team on offense. Perhaps more devastating were the pitching losses. One would have expected that the team would have had some contributions from Dowd, Dixon, Pancer, O’Rourke, Uber and even Montgomery.
2025 Personnel
Of course these days one doesn’t know who’s coming back until they show up – though Stanford remains more stable than most. Cobb is gone for sure – no more eligibility. Everyone else who played any significant role could come back. The main person to worry about with respect the draft is Moore. I am assuming he’ll go just because he can – but he also would have been a high draft pick coming out of high school so who knows, maybe he actually wants a degree. No one else would be a high draft pick, but I suppose Haskins or Becerra (JRs) might get picked somewhere. No idea who might transfer. The optimistic view is we could have the entire pitching staff back and 7 of 9 in the hitting rotation.
The incoming players are obviously highlighted by Sasaki. Not sure of his defensive skills, but figure he’d end up either as 1B or regular DH. The incoming frosh class is large by Stanford standards at 12, but small by anybody else’s standards. It doesn’t seem particularly highly ranked, with Perfect Game having them at #42 (with last few years #28, #34, #45, #10, #33). The headliner appears to be Charlie Bates, a SS from Paly. I have seen him ranked as high as #15 prep prospect for the MLB draft, and in general a top 100 recruit. Overall, the incoming group has 6 players listed as pitchers, 5 as middle infielders, and 1 OF.
Among guys on the team who haven’t yet played much, I am most interested in seeing if Champ Hampton can find his way into the lineup. There are reports that he can really hit the ball a mile, just has to do it more often.
Offense
I expect the offense to be substantially improved unless there is a big exodus. After a slow start, the team finished up with a pretty good BA though a bit light on power numbers (midconference). If there are seven guys returning who are stronger and more experienced, plus Sasaki, plus one significant new contributor there is real potential here. Of course Moore returning would help, but he didn’t have a great season and even without him I would expect substantial improvement.
Pitching
Stanford pitching was an extreme version of where it has been trending lately. Lots of strike out but tons of free passes and other control problems all adding up to a rather poor team pitching performance – around 10th or 11th in the conference depending on just how one counts. This was particularly frustrating as the arms on the staff seem very live.
But there is hope. With some improvement and season-long endurance, the prospect of a weekend starting rotation of Scott-Lim-Volchko could be awfully good.
On Volchko, look at his game against OSU in the Pac-12 tournament (6.0 IP, 0 runs, 2 hits, 4 BB) to see what he could do and why he had first round hype out of high school. Even better was his April 30 against Santa Clara. It wasn’t just his numbers (6.0 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, 0 BB), but the Santa Clara batters looks just hopelessly overmatched – like an adult pitching to little leaguers. Of course he’ll need to do that more than twice in a season, and that means developing some control. He ‘led’ the team in walks this year, despite being only #5 in innings pitched. And that’s on a team that walked a ton of batters.
Aidan Keenan was even more highly rated coming out of HS than Volchko, but never got going this year. Here’s hoping that next year we see why he had that rating.
For the bullpen, amongst O’Haran (emergent closer), Moore, Dugan, at least one of Speshyock, Reimers, Thomas, and contributions from one or two of the frosh pitchers … and Keenan as noted above, there is the potential for a strong bullpen with even some depth. However, a significant amount of improvement is necessary for this to work out – particularly improvement in control. Can’t be conference dead last in free passes per game again.
Positions
Catcher – Expect a battle between Lavin and Saum of Moore leaves. Lavin (soph to be) and Saum (Sr to be) were both similarly highly rated recruits. Both played a bit this year, mostly at DH. Saum showed more bat (8 HR) but of course he’s also two years older.
1B – Expect a competition between Sasaki and Larson, with the weaker fielder ending up as the main DH.
2B/SS – Haskins and Becerra would have the inside track if they return. Perhaps Bates will challenge.
3B – Nati most likely, though he’s fairly versatile and could be plugged in elsewhere if needed.
OF – Macdonald, Hott, Reynolds and Sapien seem the mostly likely group. Possibly the first three ahead.
And somebody listed above will probably disappear (through the draft, transfer, injury etc.) while somebody not discussed will emerge. That’s the nature of the beast.
Summary
After the Santa Clara game I was pretty bullish on this team, at least for next year. The 10 game losing streak rather beat me down, but some recovery during the Pac-12 tournament improved my outlook – particularly the good pitching performance by Volchko.
It’s hard to tell what the new league will mean. While the ACC has been the second highest rated league by the RPI in recent years (and thus by number of NCAA berths), it has generally been a little suspect with respect to that ranking. Only 2 ACC teams have ever won the national title (Wake in 1955 and Uva in 2015 – in contrast the Pac 12 has the most titles with 18). But the travel will be a bear and I imagine that by itself will be worth several losses. I also wonder if Stanford will schedule former Pac 12 teams for midweek games or early season series – which would make their non-conference schedule tough and be a strong deviation from the regular ACC puff-schedule approach.
The team really should be substantially better next year – to the point that not being in the NCAA tournament would be a major disappointment, though winning the ACC seems too much. Stanford and cal are moving to a better baseball conference than the rest of the Pac 12 refugees – with the big 4 football schools going to the worst. I pick Oregon as the preseason favorite for the Big Ten next year – though that is without actually looking at what their lineup will be.
