Pro signings and possible lineups

[cchusker]

Scott Schreiber hit 219 in A ball with 6 home runs in 234 plate appearances...Jesse Wilkening hit 270 in 67 at bats in A ball no home runs.......Jake Meyers enjoyed a solid 2nd season, hitting 278 with 42 extra base hits (8 home runs)..he is ticketed to start as Astros AA centerfield next year........one that got away....Alec Bohm (Wichita State #1 Phillies).....151 at bats in A ball....zero home runs

Seems early to predict lineups but it is only 2 weeks away...anybody have insight????? Outfield returns Hagge and Hallmark...after that looks like platoon situation unless someone can step up and provide power......infield has 7 new faces...quality freshman...a couple of them have to step up and do well..Schwellenbach is the real deal!.....if Roskam is catching who plays first?...Hopefully Roseberry can make the adjustment.......and as stated before...the five most important words in baseball....Pitching, pitching, and more pitching....who is healthy and can get the job done!

 

[Ackos]

DE was saying yesterday, that a lot of guys are going to see action during the pre conference season. Many positions have yet to be locked down.

 

[ShortSideOption]

Scott Schreiber hit 219 in A ball with 6 home runs in 234 plate appearances...Jesse Wilkening hit 270 in 67 at bats in A ball no home runs.......Jake Meyers enjoyed a solid 2nd season, hitting 278 with 42 extra base hits (8 home runs)..he is ticketed to start as Astros AA centerfield next year........one that got away....Alec Bohm (Wichita State #1 Phillies).....151 at bats in A ball....zero home runs

Seems early to predict lineups but it is only 2 weeks away...anybody have insight????? Outfield returns Hagge and Hallmark...after that looks like platoon situation unless someone can step up and provide power......infield has 7 new faces...quality freshman...a couple of them have to step up and do well..Schwellenbach is the real deal!.....if Roskam is catching who plays first?...Hopefully Roseberry can make the adjustment.......and as stated before...the five most important words in baseball....Pitching, pitching, and more pitching....who is healthy and can get the job done!

I was actually just thinking about starting a lineup thread, so good work!

The big key is the loss of Schreiber and Wilkening obviously. While i'm not super close with the baseball staff, I am able to interact with them a bit. If anyone has ever seen the movie 'Moneyball', the scene where Billy Bean is just yelling at his scouts "Everyone is trying to replace Giambi and Damon, i'm telling you, we can't do it." They go on to try and equal their output with 3 other players instead of 2 studs. That reminds me of this year a bit. While I would take Schreiber and Wilkening back in an instant over what i'm going to say, it could work out better for us. It sounds like last year, opposing teams just had to worry about these 2 guys. Erstad is thinking this year, there won't be as much to "pitch around" from top to bottom. So while we lose 27 HRs, with two guys, we may be able to get there with 5 or 6 guys, which could lead to a better lineup.

Outfield
Hagge returns and most likely will leadoff, Hallmark most likely will play center and figure in middle of the lineup somewhere as he got a lot better towards the end of the season. I woudl think we are just looking for our right fielder, which could come from Palensky who had 20+ HRs in JUCO, The third guy is who we are looking for.

Infield
Altavilla is starting obviously, and Roskam is at catcher. Can Hellstrom play first? He hit over .300 last year, so you can't really take his bat out of the lineup, DH always a possibility of course. Brett Hammitt and Cam Chick are highly touted true freshmen, Hammitt actually chose us over SEC schools. Henwood is back after starting some games, but his numbers were a bit underwhelming. Can Schwellenbach play infield? I think you see him as a freshman start at 3rd base, and work towards freshman of the year honors per 'Perfect Game'. Hes that good. What about Schanaman, as he is super athletic?

I'm certainly missing some guys that could be really valuable to our team, but the good news is, our recruiting class was really good. And I can't get into the pitching because I have zero idea who they are going to start and who they are going to have coming from the bullpen. I'm anxious to see the box scores with our first few weeks of games with this tough competition. We lose a lot of firepower, but return a ton of pitching. If we make it out of February 3-5 i'm going to be pretty pumped. Four games against Oregon State are going to be really tough.

We need to finish top four in conference, we need to get a few B1G wins under our belt, and we need to get to a regional again. Hoping we can get that done. I'm willing to give Erstad a pass once every three years if he's getting first or second in conference like he has. But we can't have two duds in a row. Not with the pitching we have back. I'm buying into the hype for their 2019 team, I think we are going to be really surprised and happy with what we see from our baseball team. We will just have to deal with the early season bad record due to relying on freshmen and who we play. Once it comes conference time, we will be really good. But i'm not trying to get anyone on this train, they gotta go show people. 2018 did enough damage.

 

[ShortSideOption]

Also want to point out that the year Darin Erstad won coach of the year, we started the season 3-6 because he scheduled extremely tough. Schedule is the same this season and we are going to be relying on freshmen. Don’t panic if it’s the same sort of start.

 

[HuskerDB]

I don't know much about the freshmen, but we're going to need at least 4 or 5 of them to be starters in the batting lineup. Roskum at catcher, Hellstrom at first or DH, Mojo in the outfield, and Altavilla at SS are the only players from last year that you can think are high probabilities to start. Hallmark is a possibility, but his bat wasn't a wow factor last year and his defense was definitely suspect. Other than Mojo, all of the returners were prone to strikeouts at an incredibly high rate and other than Hellstrom non had an above average batting average.

I have high hopes for our pitching this year, but unless the freshmen batters prove to have a wow factor I can see us losing a lot of 3-2 or 2-1 games.

 

[HuskerDB]

I'm also hopeful that Ledbetter can help the offense. I still think Kirby needed to be shown the door last year.

 

[cchusker]

Totally agree that we need both Roskam and Hellstrom in the lineup...C/1b or vice versa.......I expect Altavilla will rebound with a good season. Hagge and Hallmark both had some clutch hits last year and were basically consistent but that gives you 2 starting outfielders with little power. It would be great if Palensky can come close to matching his JC numbers...Hakel came in last year with decent JC stats but for whatever reason contributed little. One or more of the other returning outfielders hopefully can step up. Klenke is again listed on the roster as Utility...are we to assume he will be used as a pitcher and an outfielder....expect to see a variety of lineups early.

 

[ShortSideOption]

Totally agree that we need both Roskam and Hellstrom in the lineup...C/1b or vice versa.......I expect Altavilla will rebound with a good season. Hagge and Hallmark both had some clutch hits last year and were basically consistent but that gives you 2 starting outfielders with little power. It would be great if Palensky can come close to matching his JC numbers...Hakel came in last year with decent JC stats but for whatever reason contributed little. One or more of the other returning outfielders hopefully can step up. Klenke is again listed on the roster as Utility...are we to assume he will be used as a pitcher and an outfielder....expect to see a variety of lineups early.

Ya, coming back you have Hagge, Altavilla, Roskam, Hallmark, and Hellstrom. That’s 5 we can depend on and we should get a couple that hit over .300 from that group. Altavilla bouncing back is a must.

Newcomers like Palensky, Schwellenbach, Hammitt, and Chick all come in with some serious pop. Whether that translates to D1 baseball good, who knows.

What I’m excited about is I think our pitching can shut people down in conference. Are we going to be able to shut down Oregon State and other powerhouses? Probably not. But our rotation is no joke once we find the freshmen who can contribute.

 

[HuskerDB]

Ya, coming back you have Hagge, Altavilla, Roskam, Hallmark, and Hellstrom. That’s 5 we can depend on and we should get a couple that hit over .300 from that group. Altavilla bouncing back is a must.

Newcomers like Palensky, Schwellenbach, Hammitt, and Chick all come in with some serious pop. Whether that translates to D1 baseball good, who knows.

What I’m excited about is I think our pitching can shut people down in conference. Are we going to be able to shut down Oregon State and other powerhouses? Probably not. But our rotation is no joke once we find the freshmen who can contribute.

I think the 5 we can depend on is a stretch. Sophmore Altavilla was dependable -- Jr Altavilla was a complete mess. We do need him to bounce back. The only other one who was been dependable in my opinion is Hellstrom, and that was in a limited role as a Freshman -- hopefully he won't have a sophomore slump. I'll be happy if we can get 1 over 300 from that group and that they can do the little things right, like bunt and advance players.

I think we'll need to be good at small ball this year, because I don't see any power or high averages here -- unless it comes from the Freshmen. Unless we encounter a team who is willing to walk 9+ players a game we could be challenged to score 3 runs consistently. Puts a lot of pressure on our pitchers and defense.

 

[ShortSideOption]

I think the 5 we can depend on is a stretch. Sophmore Altavilla was dependable -- Jr Altavilla was a complete mess. We do need him to bounce back. The only other one who was been dependable in my opinion is Hellstrom, and that was in a limited role as a Freshman -- hopefully he won't have a sophomore slump. I'll be happy if we can get 1 over 300 from that group and that they can do the little things right, like bunt and advance players.

I think we'll need to be good at small ball this year, because I don't see any power or high averages here -- unless it comes from the Freshmen. Unless we encounter a team who is willing to walk 9+ players a game we could be challenged to score 3 runs consistently. Puts a lot of pressure on our pitchers and defense.

There won’t be a Schreiber, but our power will be better top to bottom. Won’t be able to pitch around just 2 people this year.

 

[HuskerDB]

Mojo will be DHing and Hallmark is moving to pitcher.

Means we'll have 5 new faces in the field. The freshmen class needs to really step up.

 

[pRED]

I was actually just thinking about starting a lineup thread, so good work!

The big key is the loss of Schreiber and Wilkening obviously. While i'm not super close with the baseball staff, I am able to interact with them a bit. If anyone has ever seen the movie 'Moneyball', the scene where Billy Bean is just yelling at his scouts "Everyone is trying to replace Giambi and Damon, i'm telling you, we can't do it." They go on to try and equal their output with 3 other players instead of 2 studs. That reminds me of this year a bit. While I would take Schreiber and Wilkening back in an instant over what i'm going to say, it could work out better for us. It sounds like last year, opposing teams just had to worry about these 2 guys. Erstad is thinking this year, there won't be as much to "pitch around" from top to bottom. So while we lose 27 HRs, with two guys, we may be able to get there with 5 or 6 guys, which could lead to a better lineup.

Outfield
Hagge returns and most likely will leadoff, Hallmark most likely will play center and figure in middle of the lineup somewhere as he got a lot better towards the end of the season. I woudl think we are just looking for our right fielder, which could come from Palensky who had 20+ HRs in JUCO, The third guy is who we are looking for.

Infield
Altavilla is starting obviously, and Roskam is at catcher. Can Hellstrom play first? He hit over .300 last year, so you can't really take his bat out of the lineup, DH always a possibility of course. Brett Hammitt and Cam Chick are highly touted true freshmen, Hammitt actually chose us over SEC schools. Henwood is back after starting some games, but his numbers were a bit underwhelming. Can Schwellenbach play infield? I think you see him as a freshman start at 3rd base, and work towards freshman of the year honors per 'Perfect Game'. Hes that good. What about Schanaman, as he is super athletic?

I'm certainly missing some guys that could be really valuable to our team, but the good news is, our recruiting class was really good. And I can't get into the pitching because I have zero idea who they are going to start and who they are going to have coming from the bullpen. I'm anxious to see the box scores with our first few weeks of games with this tough competition. We lose a lot of firepower, but return a ton of pitching. If we make it out of February 3-5 i'm going to be pretty pumped. Four games against Oregon State are going to be really tough.

We need to finish top four in conference, we need to get a few B1G wins under our belt, and we need to get to a regional again. Hoping we can get that done. I'm willing to give Erstad a pass once every three years if he's getting first or second in conference like he has. But we can't have two duds in a row. Not with the pitching we have back. I'm buying into the hype for their 2019 team, I think we are going to be really surprised and happy with what we see from our baseball team. We will just have to deal with the early season bad record due to relying on freshmen and who we play. Once it comes conference time, we will be really good. But i'm not trying to get anyone on this train, they gotta go show people. 2018 did enough damage.

I think Henwood had good numbers in the North Woods League last Summer. Always hard to know what that might foretell, but a senior with some confidence (and speed?) coming into his last campaign could help with the young talent. There will be some bumps and growing pains for the kids, so maybe a guy like that helps. Ah, forget the speculation, let’s get started so we can diversify from the misery that basketball has become. GBR!