ted burton
Yesterday we did an update to the latest happening in Michigan Softball's 2023 season. Today we will be doing the same for Michigan Baseball.
Baseball: Navigating the choppy seas
Last time we talked, Michigan Baseball was coming off their first B1G series of the season, having swept PSU at home to get some momentum behind them after a bumpy close to the non-conference schedule. We noted that they had a couple big arms but pitching depth and the offense overall needed to improve moving forward for the team to do lots of damage in the B1G. Half of that sentence did come true, while half is still a struggle.
The season results since last time: Michigan has played three standard B1G weekend series since the last installment, two of which on the road and one at home. The first was also very promising, a series victory down in Champaign, ILL, with a win over the Illini. Michigan claimed the Friday game with a big time performance at the plate from Jonathan Kim, who went 5/5(!) with 4 RBI and a run scored. The Wolverines scored early and often to build up to 12-2 lead behind a strong start from ace Connor O'Halloran. The bullpen did its best to try and let Illinois back into it, but ultimately sealed a 12-9 win. The Saturday game saw Michigan get a strong start from Chase Allen and more heroics at the plate from Kim, the go-ahead single in the 8th before a grand slam by Mitch Voit in the ninth put the game away. Having used all their quality arms to get the first two wins, Michigan started Walker Cleveland on Sunday which more or less amounts to waving the white flag, and the squad got crushed in the final game.
Still, it was a strong weekend and they followed it up with a 12-5 win over WMU in the midweek MACtion game. Nebraska came to town over Easter Weekend, the Friday game being a pitching duel for the ages between O'Halloran and Nebraska's Emmett Olson. Michigan tied the game in the 8th on a HR by Jonathan Kim to make it 1-1, but Michigan couldn't get it done in regulation despite nine innings of one-run ball from O'Halloran. Noah Rennard allowed two in the tenth and that would be enough for the Huskers to win it. The Wolverines responded by scoring six runs in the first two innings on Saturday to secure an 8-6 win, but the rubber match on Sunday went to the visitors as Jacob Denner was bludgeoned for six earned runs in 2.1 innings pitched and the Wolverine bats were held pretty quiet.
[Marc-Gregor Campredon]
Butler came to town for the mid-week game after that, an easy 13-2 Michigan win, and then Tracy Smith's squad headed back out on the road to Piscataway and a matchup with Rutgers. The weekend would deal with major weather issues and big time pitching woes. O'Halloran allowed four runs before he'd recorded an out on Friday, the first time all year he'd been lit up, so Smith opted to yank O'Halloran after just one inning, so the lefty could be saved for a later game in the series. In the process, he punted the game and Michigan lost 13-0, but now they had some ammo later on. The unusual strategy worked, as O'Halloran came in to game two of the series after Chase Allen had been beaten up early on. After being entered into the game, O'Halloran slammed the door on Rutgers, allowing one run over six innings, giving Michigan's offense time to claw out of a 6-0 hole, something they did on their way to a 13-8 victory. Ted Burton hit a three run homer and Joe Longo hit a two run blast before late offense from Jack Van Remortel got the game to the finish line.
The final game of the series was Michigan's second straight loss in a rubber match, played Sunday evening as game two was suspended and resumed on Sunday afternoon. The Wolverines had favorable arms available, but little offense early and a bad fourth inning for Noah Rennard did them in. Tracy Smith was tossed along the way for arguing a close play and that was all she wrote for Michigan's weekend. They returned home on Wednesday for a mid-week game against Toledo and lost an ugly one 10-7 to a sub-.500 MAC opponent. To make matters worse, they held a 6-1 lead early in the game, before pitching issues and poor defense unraveled the game.
[AFTER THE JUMP: what it means, individual performances, and MSU]
The dawn of the Tracy Smith era in Ann Arbor is nearly upon us. After Erik Bakich exited the program in favor of Clemson, Warde Manuel turned to former Indiana and Arizona State head coach Tracy Smith to lead the Wolverines into the future. It was a bumpy transition at first, with plenty of players entering the portal, but Smith did alright keeping a lot of the roster together, minus graduation/MLB guys he was bound to loss. As a result, a reasonable chunk of production returns from last season's Big Ten Tournament Champion roster. There are plenty of questions, though, uncertainty on the mound, sizable holes in the lineup, and a fresh new coaching staff. Let's get acquainted with all of them:
Who is Tracy Smith? Who are these new coaches?
Things are a bit different at the top and the Bakich --> Smith transition is the most important. I covered Smith back when he was hired in July, but the first thing to know is he's a much older and more veteran coach than Bakich was when he arrived in Ann Arbor. Smith was a solid coach at Miami (OH), winning the MAC a couple times, and then was hired to coach Indiana in 2005, where he replaced a former mentor Bob Morgan. At IU, Smith was an excellent coach, turning them into the no-doubt best-in-the-conference program by his last few seasons in Bloomington, finishing 2nd, 1st, 1st in the last three years. He won two B1G regular season titles and two B1G Tournament titles, taking Indiana to the CWS in 2013 and snagging the #4 national seed in the 2014.
The reason Smith was available for Michigan to hire is what happened after he left Indiana, a disappointing tenure at Arizona State. Despite exceptional recruiting, their on-field results were underwhelming, falling short of expectations repeatedly and never finishing higher than 3rd in the PAC-12, also never making it out of the regional in the NCAAs. There were reports of locker room problems, something that the ASU AD alluded to in his decision to fire Smith. It was not what you want from a coach that is coming to Michigan, and my feeling at the time of the hiring is it's all about which Tracy Smith this is. Indiana Tracy Smith would be a terrific coach... the ASU Tracy Smith would be a disaster for Michigan.
Still, this is a fresh start for Smith and as I wrote in July, maybe he just got out over his skis recruiting blue chip players at a national program like ASU and he's more suited to coaching in the B1G/Midwest, where his background is. It's too early to know anything about Smith at Michigan, but it is a very early decent sign that he was able to fetch several of Michigan's players out of the portal, convincing them to stay. Retrieving Jimmy Obertop and getting him to come back, for example, was massive. I'm willing to hope for the best as there is a wide range of legitimate outcomes with Smith. He needed to bomb out at ASU to be a candidate to come to a program like Michigan, but it's also not too often you get to hire a coach with multiple B1G regular season titles on his resume (something that Bakich never achieved).
[AFTER THE JUMP: Assistants, hitters, pitchers, expectations]
As is customary, one week after the NCAA softball season got underway, baseball is about to do the same. Indeed, Michigan Baseball is set to begin its season tonight against #14 Texas Tech in Arlington as part of the College Baseball Showdown. The Wolverines finished last season's COVID-modified season with a 27-19 record, good for 3rd in the B1G (27-17 in conference), but they were quickly broomed out of the South Bend Regional by UCONN and Central Michigan. Obviously there is a hunger for redemption inside the program as Erik Bakich chases his first regular season conference title, and the 2022 squad figures to be an intriguing group, with some legitimate stars but also a ton of question marks.
Your author is not a Michigan Baseball aficionado the way he is with softball, so I can't say that this will be as detailed of a preview as last week's softball one was, but my goal will be to cover all the bases (pun intended) and be a bare bones guide. After all, for a program as unfortunately under-covered as Michigan Baseball, any coverage at a major outlet such as this one is an upgrade, so I'm doing my best to chip that in at a basic level and bring a little more awareness to this less-talked about team. For the narrative of the preview, I'm pooling the statistics with my own knowledge, as well as the knowledge of that of my one-time colleague Austin Falco, perhaps the biggest Michigan Baseball fan and knowledge bank on the program out there.
Returning Hitters in the Lineup
Michigan rolls over a good collection of top talent who should provide thump in the middle of the order thanks to a stellar junior class. Ted Burton is one of the B1G's best hitters after slashing .342/.434/.667/1.101 in 2021, with all of those values ranking in the top ten in the league last season. His 7 HR weren't overwhelming, but he didn't break into the everyday lineup until a bit later in the year, so they (+ his 12 doubles) represented a high percentage of his total hits and hence the monstrous SLG clip. Burton gets on base and he hits for power, and will give the Michigan order a huge amount of punch. He's set to be Michigan's everyday third baseman.
The other two big boppers who give Burton protection are his fellow juniors Tito Flores and Jimmy Obertop. Flores can play the outfield or 1B and he got on base at a nearly identical .429 clip with an also identical 7 HRs, plus five steals. Obertop is your traditional slugger with monstrous power, not quite the doubles hitter of Burton, but his 11 HRs were tied for fifth in the conference last season. One of those 11 was a walk-off two run HR to cap in an improbable comeback against MSU in March that your author got to be on the broadcast for (and thus it is my voice in the below video):
MICHIGAN WINS!!!!!!
— Michigan Baseball (@umichbaseball) March 21, 2021
OBERTOP GOES OPPO 2-RUN BLAST & WE WIN 8-7 with 8 runs in the 9th! LFG #NCAABaseball #GoBlue! pic.twitter.com/vQC3laFjli
The downside for Obertop as a HR-focused hitter is he does struggle with the strikeout, an ugly 59 K in 153 ABs. Michigan would like to see that ratio come down in 2022, but you're not going to complain about having a .900 OPS guy in your lineup. The question with Obertop is where he fits in defensively, as it sounds like Michigan is going to try him behind the plate, but his experience there at the NCAA level is limited. If he can't fit behind the dish, DH or 1B is a logical place for him.
Those three will likely be joined by Clark Elliott, who isn't the same caliber of hitter (yet) but should be a consistent everyday hitter. Elliott is an outfielder who got on at over .400 last season and though he doesn't have a Burton or Overtop level of power, he did have 8 steals on 10 attempts, adding that speed dimension. Riley Bertram is a returning starter, but the kind where you are half-hoping that someone else steps up and takes his job, because Bertram was brutal in 2021 offensively. The Wolverines' starting 2B posted an OPS of .605 thanks to a very low batting average and being a soft hitter, zero HRs and only 6 XBHs total. There was a lot of hope for Bertram earlier in his career, and perhaps he can make a leap at the dish still, but right now he's merely a blackhole in the order, one where you're looking for an upgrade.
Jordon Rogers got nearly the same number of at bats as Bertram despite appearing in seven fewer games (and starts), being able to play both the OF and catcher. Rogers was a decently entertaining player last year, stroking some clutch hits against Rutgers, Minnesota, and PSU, but he still was a .682 OPS hitter. His experience in the lineup means Rogers will get his shot to stick for Michigan, but perhaps he's not sharpie'd into the lineup yet.
Elliott, Obertop, Burton, and Flores are four players who should anchor the top/middle of the lineup as known quantities. Bertram and Rogers would seem to have better than 50% odds to be consistent faces somewhere in the lineup as well. It is the remainder of the order that is more in flux.
[AFTER THE JUMP: hitters, pitchers, and opponents!]
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