They’ve got to give him jersey #24, right?
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This kid MUST have been named after Jack Bauer on 24, seriously- since he’s what 16 now, and 16 years ago was 2006- the show was out, that must have been a true inspiration…unless he’s Jack Bauer the second or third etc.
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saw D1Baseball put out their fall preview for the team. i don’t subscribe, but the very high-level overview seems to be “we should rake, but will the pitching sort itself out”. Not sure if anyone (@KarlHess ?) subscribes and can share any more insight w/o giving away the whole article.
my fear is the hitting still has cold spots (particularly against top notch ACC arms… at times it felt like some of our guys feasted/racked up numbers on the bottom half of our schedule), but hopefully some of the transfer pitchers are as good or better than expected to help out on the other side.
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Your top line summary is a good description.
They also went over the key players (presumed starters, heavy contributors, transfers) with a little bit of insight. For example, left field should be contested among returning Colin Tuft, Penn grad transfer Tommy Courtney, and first year Harrison Didawick. And Justin Rubin is the presumed starter at 2B but he didn’t play this fall so first year Luke Hanson got a long look.
Alex Tappen will be hard to replace in the lineup. But Northwestern transfer CF Ethan O’Donnell (2nd team Big 10) should be an offensive upgrade from Chris Newell. O’Donnell lacks Newell’s top end speed and power but he’s a much more well rounded hitter.
We should also be deeper on the bench with the bats is my guess although Oak and Mac tend to whittle down the bench once the season is in full swing much like Bennett shortening the rotation.
They also discussed Woolfolk and confirmed that he hasn’t done any pitching work since last May. So Oak doesn’t really know what we’re going to get. That was part of a discussion about Jay as a possible starting option or staying in the bullpen. Essentially all the pitching roles are up for grabs probably with the exception of Jake Berry likely having one of the weekend starting spots already nailed down.
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Now that the 2023 draft order is set (Pirates won the first every MLB draft lottery), 2023 mock drafts are popping up.
Kyle Teel is coming in as a solid first rounder.
Jake Gelof is is a borderline first rounder / compensatory first rounder (typically still considered a first rounder) / very early 2nd round pick.
2023 class signee OF Jonny Farmelo (Westfield High School in Centreville, VA) is looking like a fringe first rounder.
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Baseball added its seventh 2026 commit yesterday.
He’s a catcher from Hummelstown, PA (Lower Dauphin HS) that also plays football and ice hockey.
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D1 Baseball is ranking their incoming transfer classes for the 2023 season. Ours checked in at 18th overall which was third best in the ACC behind NC State’s and Wake’s.
We had three of their Top 100 impact transfers in OF Ethan O’Donnell (15 overall - from Northwestern), LHP Connelly Early (32nd overall - from Army), and RHP Brian Edgington (94th overall - from Elon).
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Perfect Game released their preseason Top 25 last week. We came in at 19th.
Others of note…
1 - LSU
5 - Wake Forest
7 - Louisville
9 - Miami
13 - UNC
15 - VT
21 - NC State
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We’ve also added our first transfer for the 2024 season in Penn grad transfer LHP Owen Coady.
He’ll play for Penn in 2023 where he’s been named a team captain before coming to UVA this summer. I believe he’ll be able to play two seasons here should he want as his freshman year was 2020.
He was a big get for Penn out of high school in the 2019 class as Perfect Game had him 240th overall in the recruiting class.
He’s put up good numbers at Penn, mostly as a reliever. It will be interesting to see his role this season with the Quakers.
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wut
so basically you have til you are 14 years old in baseball to be any good?
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Hokies have five 2027 commits (8th graders) right now.
We haven’t dipped into that class yet, thankfully.
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What percentage of committed kids this early (2026) are expected to actually end up playing for their college?
If you have about an hour to kill and want to watch Coach O’Connor talk about baseball recruiting with a fringe MLB player’s dad (Tyler Beede from Vandy), here you go.
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I really don’t know that I could answer.
Overall, I’d say most as there are about 300 D1 programs alone and baseball is like hoops in that there’s a thriving D2, D3, NAIA, and JUCO world too.
For us, I’d put the number around 80% to 90% will still be Hoos assuming they hold up their academic end of the bargain or don’t get drafted and go directly into the professional ranks.
Overall, I’d say only about 50% of kids committed this early are going to play for the team they’re currently committed to.
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Actually will add this to my podcast playlist.
Currently sits at 1 in the queue: this one (Im not a big podcast guy. But I can imagine a future where literally every person has their own podcast and podcasts are used as a new standardized form of communication)
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Is anyone going to the opening series in Wilmington?
Friday the 17th vs Navy, Saturday - UNC-W and Sunday - Ohio
Trying to make it to the Saturday game, possibly Sunday.
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How are they treating the Spring sport athletes where their entire 2020 season was cancelled? For Fall and Winter, it’s as if the season didn’t exist for eligibility reasons, so if you played or didn’t play, it didn’t matter. You got to play 4 seasons other than that one. You don’t get to play 5 seasons other than 2020 if you didn’t play in 2020.
If it’s the same for Spring, then he’d have 1 more season to play right? Or did the NCAA give the Spring athletes a 5th season of eligibility outright?
Looking at it again, I think I probably did the math wrong. It looks like he should have just one season with us.
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