Baseball America Ranks UM 15th Preseason
I like this year's team, but that's higher than I expected. Here's a link to the entire preseason poll: http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/2016-preseason-top-25/ For the uninitiated, Baseball America is one of the best sources of information on high school and college baseball.
January 25th, 2016 at 10:03 AM ^
That's shockingly high. It would be a lot of fun if we could make a bit of a run this year, it's been far too long. Gotta love what coach Bakich has been able to do.
January 25th, 2016 at 10:14 AM ^
I heard he was a monster recruiter when he was hired.
January 25th, 2016 at 10:06 AM ^
Baseball America is having an online chat at 2 this afternoon about the rankings. I posted a question about the Michigan ranking. I'll let folks know if they respond and, if so, what they said.
January 25th, 2016 at 2:43 PM ^
Here's what Baseball America's College Baseball writer Teddy Cahill said in response to my question:
Michigan, last year's Big Ten Tournament champion, checks in at No. 15. Is it aggressive? Yeah, you could probably say that. But I really believe in the Wolverines potential this season. There's a lot coming back from last year's team, especially on the pitching side where they'll have Nutof and Adcock at the front of the rotation. And Carmen Benendetti is one of the best two-way players in the country. He'll be good for them in the bullpen and in the lineup. Infielder Jake Bivens, the Big Ten freshman of the year, is back and outfielder Jonathan Engelmann could give the Wolverines back-to-back freshman of the year award winners. And the experience that the team got by winning the Big Ten Tournament and then playing well in the NCAA Tournament will be big. They've got some things to figure out still, but I think coach Erik Bakich has the program moving in the right direction and that they're ready to take this step forward this spring.
January 25th, 2016 at 10:07 AM ^
January 25th, 2016 at 10:10 AM ^
January 25th, 2016 at 10:18 AM ^
January 25th, 2016 at 10:21 AM ^
That seems to high to me. While I love our pitching rotation with Adcock, Nutof, and Hill, there's just so much offense to replace. I'm worried that teams might be able to pitch around Benedetti like they couldn't last year with our loaded lineup.
January 25th, 2016 at 10:41 AM ^
Unless I'm mistaken, Michigan will be starting at least 2 new players and at least 2 more who hit sub-.230 last season. That's a lot of improvement needed just to stay where they were (a top 50 team and maybe a borderline top 40 team that got hot at just the right time).
You're right, though; that pitching rotation will keep Michigan in a lot of games even when the bats are cold.
January 25th, 2016 at 11:06 AM ^
Hopefully Lugbauer and Slater can raise their batting averages and Bivens can recover from his end of season hitting slump. I'm interested to see how much Hector Gutierrez plays.
On the pitching side, I'm not exactly sure why Matt Ogden didn't come back for his 5th year. He was arguably their second best pitcher by the end of last season.
January 25th, 2016 at 3:34 PM ^
Oh, I guess I hadn't noticed that he wasn't coming back. That's too bad--every great team seems to have one of those long relievers who can come out of the bullpen when it's something like 7-5 in the 3rd inning and give you 5 or 6 great innings. It seemed like he was doing that just about every week during the Big Ten last year.
January 25th, 2016 at 10:44 AM ^
January 25th, 2016 at 5:44 PM ^
January 25th, 2016 at 10:46 AM ^
January 25th, 2016 at 11:02 AM ^
I hate to give any credit to Brandon but Bakich was an outstanding hire
January 25th, 2016 at 11:06 AM ^
Of all the stick that he (rightfully) gets, he always seemed very committed to improving the Olympic/non-revenue sports.
January 25th, 2016 at 11:19 AM ^
No doubt he was committed to improving the non-revenue sports, but he was actually pretty bad at that part of his job, too.
I don't think we can point to another non-revenue sport that (a) had a coaching change under Brandon, and (b) is better now than it was 5 years ago. I think women's basketball is the only one that clearly meets those criteria.
January 25th, 2016 at 2:39 PM ^
I think the jury's still out on Coach Arico. I still think she was a good hire, but this year's team is turning into a disappointment. I know they have a lot of young players, but this team has a ton more talent than Kevin Borseth's teams ever had, and they're buried in a tie for 8th in what is turning out to be a very weak Big Ten (with the exception of the two teams at the top). I was expecting an NCAA bid for this team, and that's looking very doubtful right now.
January 25th, 2016 at 3:07 PM ^
than Borseth's team did.
January 25th, 2016 at 3:15 PM ^
She hasn't taken a team with her own recruits to the NCAA Tournament yet. I wouldn't go as far to say she's on the hot seat, but going 8-10 in the B1G last year with almost everyone returning from 2013-14 and the addition of Flaherty was extremely disappointing. This year's struggles are a little more understandable with a young team, but hoping for better things next with Kysre and the other 2016 recruits.
January 25th, 2016 at 4:24 PM ^
No hot seat, but this is her fourth year at the helm, and it's not like everyone who played last year is gone. Flaherty, Thompson, Ristovski, Dunston, and Williams all played significant minutes. Flaherty was a consensus top 25ish player out of high school (her rankings were higher than those of Kysre Gondrezick), and there are several other players who were ranked in the top 100 by one or more recruiting service. Talent-wise this is a top-half of the Big Ten team, but so far it hasn't translated onto the court.
And by the way, I wasn't alone in expecting Michigan to make the NCAA tourney this season. The espn women's bracketology guy had Michigan in his preseason field.
January 26th, 2016 at 8:19 AM ^
Eh, he totally botched hires with Soccer (you seriously ousted Burns??), Tennis, and Track and Field. He seemed committed to putting his personal stamp on all programs, not just the revenue sports. Baseball is one he got right, but he didn't get all of them right.
January 25th, 2016 at 12:02 PM ^
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January 25th, 2016 at 2:48 PM ^
Can Harbaugh serve as a guest third-base coach? One game exposed to his EUTM and they'll be top 10.
January 25th, 2016 at 4:02 PM ^