College baseball is officially underway. Well, the three weeks of official practice teams get before the season is underway. Before the first practice of the season, Texas head coach David Pierce met with the media. Some notes:
--- Besides the COVID-19 roster rules from the Big 12, which sounded like the scene from The Hangover when Alan is at the blackjack table with the numbers flying through his head, the most interesting tidbit from the media session came when Pierce described their plan to build pitchers up this season. Since pitchers didn’t have their traditional workload followed by summer leagues, I was curious if Texas would build up arms slower than usual. They’re already at a disadvantage with just three actual weeks of practice before the season.
“We feel like our strength right now is depth, depth with our position players as well as on the mound,” said Pierce. “And I think that's really critical on the mound because of players being off so long. We're probably going to piggyback some guys, and some starts; double up some guys [and] be pretty cautious early on."
Pierce revealed Texas is scheduled to play 13 games the first 20 days with a four-game series against BYU and a trip to Houston following the State Farm Showdown. That’s going to put a lot of early pressure on the depth of the pitching staff as Texas builds arms up for the full season workload.
“I think we always have a little bit of thought there, depending on pitch count, depending on stress innings. But we did a little research on it. And one of the biggest issues is the layoff as opposed to the consistency. So, we try to encourage them to go out pitch in some type of simulated game. If it's, you know, in a facility or at a field with a catcher and three hitters, and actually break that. I know Ty (Madden) probably logged 60 innings, which is exactly what he needed to do. But the health factor just tells us that, for longevity, for our guys to have a shot to be healthy and good in April, May, June, we're going to have to be a little more cautious early on.
"I'm not real big on just an exact number when you talk about pitch counts. We've talked about that before, but stresse pitches versus number of pitches. So, we'll just pay attention. We kind of addressed it, looking at potentially eight to 10 guys extending them in the fall, and look at those types of guys as starters. And knowing that if we can get a guy to three innings or five innings, then we have help behind him.
"And I think when you look at opening day, you're going to see Ty and he's going to be ready. And I couldn't tell you how many pitches or how many innings he's going to throw, but we'll pay close attention to it. Let's say hypothetically, he only gets six, there's a good chance that fourth or fifth starter comes in as the second guy to piggyback that and utilize the backend guy if needed. We could potentially go with two types of starter guys just depends on the game, how the game is dictated. I think in Sean and my plan together it’s really who can extend, who we feel like have a possibility of being a true starter. And then it's much easier to go from extending and backing off as opposed to trying to jumpstart them.”
For those of you who have been asking about a schedule since like November, Pierce said it’ll be released Tuesday.
--- Again, the COVID-19 protocols sound like a headache. I think the most important guidelines focus on the pitchers and the catchers. Obviously, it would be a mess if a team is asked to play games with a catcher who isn’t actually a catcher.
“Oh, where do you want to start? I mean, we have so many. When you look at travel, looking at 30-man rosters potentially still being able to travel outside of 30 are non-conference games. When you look at thresholds for pitching it's three per game, up to 10 per a three-game series. And then the only other stipulation is catching, making sure that you have one full-time and at least emergency catcher, because we don't want to mess up the integrity of the game and putting somebody else back there that's never caught. I think that's the biggest concern.
“The key too is making sure we list our roster, our full roster going into the season. So maybe you are in trouble with a top five arm, but you have arms. You might lose that top five arm for the weekend, but you have to add that other guy that maybe you weren’t planning on using. So, we're going to present our roster at the beginning of the year, and every healthy body. So, we have a pool to pull out of.
“But other types of protocol or thresholds… we've even talked about if we have enough to play one game, we're still going to play that one game; if our pitching, let's say we have five pitchers, and the threshold says you need six to play two games. Then we're still going with the intent to go play the one game. If you have five, you can still opt to play two games even though you don't have the minimal. So those are going to give us some flexibilities of where we are. As far as position players, you feel pretty comfortable that guys are interchangeable. They can go from the infield to outfield and outfield to the infield to a point. So, we haven't really touched on that.”
Basically, coaches are going to aim to play as many games as they can as long as they have the catching and the pitching. Pierce said fortunately they didn’t lose any group workout time from COVID issues heading into preseason workouts.
--- When asked about freshmen arms, I found it particularly noteworthy Pierce stated that Tanner Witt and Aaron Nixon are working more on the pitching side than the hitting side currently. Both are two-way talents, although I think Nixon wasn’t likely to be in the mix at any position this season whereas Witt could be. Personally, I believe Witt has first-round ceiling on the mound and highest potential as a pitcher than position player.
“I thought Aaron Nixon took some strides. He's going to help us in the backend of the bullpen,” said Pierce. “Lucas Gordon is going to fight for a starting job, whether it be a Sunday, Tuesday, a double midweek, potentially that piggyback type of a starter. And then Tanner Witt, as good as Tanner has been coming in and, you know, being a name recognition type of player, he has made some huge adjustments in his delivery.
“So, we've kind of moved him and Nixon more so to the pitching side right now. They're still hitting but they're not playing a position because we feel like as freshmen, they can help us more so on the pitching side, and then still work towards becoming a two-way guy if that presents itself. But right now we'd like to keep them and push them towards pitching but I would say those three guys are the most impressive up to this point.”
Unsurprisingly, the Texas head coach also mentioned Lucas Gordon, a guy I believe is very much in the conversation as a possible Sunday starter and definitely in the mix as a midweek starter. He also mentioned Caden Noah, who I heard turned a lot of heads with his curveball this fall and his pitchability from the left side.
“I want to add one other guy. When you see him he's very unassuming. five foot nine left handed pitcher, Caden Noah, but he's going to throw upper 80’s; he's going to throw plus breaking ball with great spin rate on that and manages and commands the changeup. This is a young man, when you look at him say there's no way this is as a freshman at the University of Texas. But he's going to log some innings. He's really good and he commands the balls as good as any pitcher on our team.”
--- Besides the COVID-19 roster rules from the Big 12, which sounded like the scene from The Hangover when Alan is at the blackjack table with the numbers flying through his head, the most interesting tidbit from the media session came when Pierce described their plan to build pitchers up this season. Since pitchers didn’t have their traditional workload followed by summer leagues, I was curious if Texas would build up arms slower than usual. They’re already at a disadvantage with just three actual weeks of practice before the season.
“We feel like our strength right now is depth, depth with our position players as well as on the mound,” said Pierce. “And I think that's really critical on the mound because of players being off so long. We're probably going to piggyback some guys, and some starts; double up some guys [and] be pretty cautious early on."
Pierce revealed Texas is scheduled to play 13 games the first 20 days with a four-game series against BYU and a trip to Houston following the State Farm Showdown. That’s going to put a lot of early pressure on the depth of the pitching staff as Texas builds arms up for the full season workload.
“I think we always have a little bit of thought there, depending on pitch count, depending on stress innings. But we did a little research on it. And one of the biggest issues is the layoff as opposed to the consistency. So, we try to encourage them to go out pitch in some type of simulated game. If it's, you know, in a facility or at a field with a catcher and three hitters, and actually break that. I know Ty (Madden) probably logged 60 innings, which is exactly what he needed to do. But the health factor just tells us that, for longevity, for our guys to have a shot to be healthy and good in April, May, June, we're going to have to be a little more cautious early on.
"I'm not real big on just an exact number when you talk about pitch counts. We've talked about that before, but stresse pitches versus number of pitches. So, we'll just pay attention. We kind of addressed it, looking at potentially eight to 10 guys extending them in the fall, and look at those types of guys as starters. And knowing that if we can get a guy to three innings or five innings, then we have help behind him.
"And I think when you look at opening day, you're going to see Ty and he's going to be ready. And I couldn't tell you how many pitches or how many innings he's going to throw, but we'll pay close attention to it. Let's say hypothetically, he only gets six, there's a good chance that fourth or fifth starter comes in as the second guy to piggyback that and utilize the backend guy if needed. We could potentially go with two types of starter guys just depends on the game, how the game is dictated. I think in Sean and my plan together it’s really who can extend, who we feel like have a possibility of being a true starter. And then it's much easier to go from extending and backing off as opposed to trying to jumpstart them.”
For those of you who have been asking about a schedule since like November, Pierce said it’ll be released Tuesday.
--- Again, the COVID-19 protocols sound like a headache. I think the most important guidelines focus on the pitchers and the catchers. Obviously, it would be a mess if a team is asked to play games with a catcher who isn’t actually a catcher.
“Oh, where do you want to start? I mean, we have so many. When you look at travel, looking at 30-man rosters potentially still being able to travel outside of 30 are non-conference games. When you look at thresholds for pitching it's three per game, up to 10 per a three-game series. And then the only other stipulation is catching, making sure that you have one full-time and at least emergency catcher, because we don't want to mess up the integrity of the game and putting somebody else back there that's never caught. I think that's the biggest concern.
“The key too is making sure we list our roster, our full roster going into the season. So maybe you are in trouble with a top five arm, but you have arms. You might lose that top five arm for the weekend, but you have to add that other guy that maybe you weren’t planning on using. So, we're going to present our roster at the beginning of the year, and every healthy body. So, we have a pool to pull out of.
“But other types of protocol or thresholds… we've even talked about if we have enough to play one game, we're still going to play that one game; if our pitching, let's say we have five pitchers, and the threshold says you need six to play two games. Then we're still going with the intent to go play the one game. If you have five, you can still opt to play two games even though you don't have the minimal. So those are going to give us some flexibilities of where we are. As far as position players, you feel pretty comfortable that guys are interchangeable. They can go from the infield to outfield and outfield to the infield to a point. So, we haven't really touched on that.”
Basically, coaches are going to aim to play as many games as they can as long as they have the catching and the pitching. Pierce said fortunately they didn’t lose any group workout time from COVID issues heading into preseason workouts.
--- When asked about freshmen arms, I found it particularly noteworthy Pierce stated that Tanner Witt and Aaron Nixon are working more on the pitching side than the hitting side currently. Both are two-way talents, although I think Nixon wasn’t likely to be in the mix at any position this season whereas Witt could be. Personally, I believe Witt has first-round ceiling on the mound and highest potential as a pitcher than position player.
“I thought Aaron Nixon took some strides. He's going to help us in the backend of the bullpen,” said Pierce. “Lucas Gordon is going to fight for a starting job, whether it be a Sunday, Tuesday, a double midweek, potentially that piggyback type of a starter. And then Tanner Witt, as good as Tanner has been coming in and, you know, being a name recognition type of player, he has made some huge adjustments in his delivery.
“So, we've kind of moved him and Nixon more so to the pitching side right now. They're still hitting but they're not playing a position because we feel like as freshmen, they can help us more so on the pitching side, and then still work towards becoming a two-way guy if that presents itself. But right now we'd like to keep them and push them towards pitching but I would say those three guys are the most impressive up to this point.”
Unsurprisingly, the Texas head coach also mentioned Lucas Gordon, a guy I believe is very much in the conversation as a possible Sunday starter and definitely in the mix as a midweek starter. He also mentioned Caden Noah, who I heard turned a lot of heads with his curveball this fall and his pitchability from the left side.
“I want to add one other guy. When you see him he's very unassuming. five foot nine left handed pitcher, Caden Noah, but he's going to throw upper 80’s; he's going to throw plus breaking ball with great spin rate on that and manages and commands the changeup. This is a young man, when you look at him say there's no way this is as a freshman at the University of Texas. But he's going to log some innings. He's really good and he commands the balls as good as any pitcher on our team.”
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