College baseball general discussion thread

#7
#7
There's a college baseball preview article at the athletic in which certain coaches were interviewed. Here's some excerpts pertaining to the Vols.

College baseball's best players, teams to watch in 2023: The Athletic's coaches forum

Who is the best player you saw last year who is coming back in 2023?

Vitello: It’s hard to pick anybody other than Crews. Part of that is his freshman year, there is already a body of work that is hard to ignore. And this summer, I had the good fortune of watching Team USA a little bit since we had a couple of guys out there, and if you stick out among that group, that is a whole ‘nother deal, because that is the best of the best. He kind of sticks out, whether it’s the SEC, which is one of the best conferences in the country, or if it’s among Team USA, which has many of the best prospects in the country.

Who is the best pitcher you saw who is coming back?

Corbin: I don’t think there is any question. (Chase) Dollander at Tennessee. He, to me, is rare. He is the best pitcher.

Vitello: I’m a little bit skewed from being at the Team USA thing. But the Southern Miss pitcher who transferred to Florida, Hurston Waldrep. That would be my asterisk, if you take it from the summer, but if you were talking about college baseball only, Campbell’s kid (Cade Kuehler) threw the hell out of it against us (in the Regional). He was really fun to watch. When they threw their guy (Thomas Harrington) that went in the sandwich round this year, we thought, “OK, we are getting to miss him.” Well, s—, they have another first-rounder. He is one that sticks out to me for sure.

Esquer (Stanford): I thought the kid at Tennessee, Dollander, was pretty special. I’ll go with him. I watched him enough. He was really good.

Bakich (Clemson): The kid at Tennessee (Dollander) is supposed to be the real deal. The kid (Paul) Skenes at LSU is supposed to be the real deal. I’d pick one of those two guys.

Team that might surprise in 2023?

Corbin: People will say that it’s not a surprise, but I’ll say Tennessee. Tennessee (last year) had one of the best teams in the conference since I’ve started coaching here and I would assume people may think there may be a little bit of fall-off. If they lose a couple more conference games, that would be a fall-off, but I think with their pitching and their offensive guys coming back, maybe it’s not a surprise, but to me, that is a team that I think is going to play just as well as they did last year.

Vitello: Grand Canyon is on our schedule. Hell, with their shortstop (Jacob Wilson) and with some of the other talent they have … sometimes when you get a new coaching staff, you can combine the good with the old — because (Andy Stankiewicz) was obviously really, really good — and then you get a new burst of energy from a new staff, and their facility is phenomenal. There is certainly a home-field advantage there for several reasons. Their shortstop might be one of the few who could be better than ours (Maui Ahuna), so that is a team that sticks out.
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#17
#17
OldTimer said:
I’ll give CTB credit, he took a doormat and made them a contender every year……
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All I know is that Tennessee owns a 4 game winning streak against him and his program will have gone two calendar years without a victory against us by the time we play each other again. Have fun checking bats and supporting those whistlers Tim 😁
 
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#21
#21
chuckiepoo said:
View attachment 536286
…fits the timeline.
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Little do most know, but David Price actually quit the team his freshman fall (and unenrolled from school after the first semester) to start working fulltime.

Corbin and the staff had to jump through many hoops (such as going to parents house, spending some % of the Xmas holidays with him, etc.) to get him to rejoin.

A few years later, we got to see a Tennessee-bred kid close out playoff games for Tampa Bay!
 
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#23
#23
@Freak you‘ve probably seen this by now, but I’m on my mlb.tv app thru my cable provider and it is now showing mlb network. It now says the lineup today features the afternoon and evening game tonight with the Vols.
 
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#24
#24
cardvolfan said:
@Freak you‘ve probably seen this by now, but I’m on my mlb.tv app thru my cable provider and it is now showing mlb network. It now says the lineup today features the afternoon and evening game tonight with the Vols.
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That's good for you but my cable provider doesn't support MLB network. 😁
 
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