Winning the number’s game: Wedge believes WSU baseball is ‘doing better than most’
The COVID-19 pandemic abruptly ended the 2020 season for the Wichita State baseball team and will certainly affect seasons to come.
Many things have happened since WSU was 13-2 and riding a 12-game winning streak when the Shpckers’ season was canceled in March:
- The 2020 MLB Draft was cut from 40 rounds to five rounds, which hurt the chances of WSU prospects like Jake Hamilton and Paxton Wallace of being drafted.
- The NCAA approved a blanket waiver to extend the eligibility for all athletes in spring sports, meaning all five of WSU’s seniors were given the chance to return for the 2021 season.
- For the 2021 season only, the NCAA lifted its 35-man roster limit, raised the scholarship counter from 27 to 32 and lifted its 25% scholarship minimum.
Manager Eric Wedge was already in the midst of a rebuild, as this spring was his first season at the helm at WSU, and it might have been tempting for him to load up the roster like many others are doing in college baseball.
“Roster management is huge right now and I believe we’re doing a better job than most,” Wedge said. “There are some big-time programs that have twice that number of people, which I think is irresponsible. You can have as many people as you want on the roster, but at the end of the day, when you’re talking to kids and promising things, you can still only travel with 27.
“The fact of the matter is that we’re going to make sure we have a number that is responsible where everybody comes into camp and has a chance to make the team. It’s not just for us, we’re here for the players.”
Wedge said he knows of some Division I programs with as many as 80 players, a traffic jam created by large senior classes that decide to return and large incoming freshmen classes that were planned to replace those players.
That problem didn’t exit for WSU, which had just five seniors on its roster this spring. Of the five seniors, starting third baseman Alex Jackson, weekend starter Preston Snavely and mid-week starter Tommy Barnhouse are returning to WSU for the 2021 season with starting outfielder Jacob Katzfey and backup catcher Chris Diehl leaving the program.
Wedge was already keeping a tight roster in his first season, as WSU began the spring with only 31 of a possible 35 roster spots filled. From that number, eight players have decided to move on from the program since the spring — although Katzfey is the only loss from WSU’s regular production.
WSU did add three transfers this offseason, most notably former Maize standout Corrigan Bartlett, a senior outfielder who had a .310 batting average and was named first team all-Atlantic 10 at Saint Louis in 2019. The Shockers also added a pair of left-handed pitchers in Spencer Hynes, a 6-4 junior transfer from Houston, and Gareth Stroh, a senior transfer from Nebraska who went 10-16 with a 4.34 ERA at Purdue and was a third team all-Big Ten pick in 2017.
With the three transfers and a double-digit incoming freshmen class, Wedge thinks WSU will have around 40 players this fall.
“The grand design is making sure we have a nice balance of upperclassmen and underclassmen here that all appreciate what it means to be here and all be on the same page,” Wedge said. “I made it very clear when I came here and I followed through on that. People are going to be here for the right reasons and if they’re not, they won’t be here.”
The Shockers surprised many by their strong start, as the 12-game winning streak saw their RPI rise to No. 16 in the country before the season was canceled. And that was without a single at-bat from Wallace, who was out with an injury and was expected to be WSU’s star hitter after a breakout 2019 season.
Instead, it was freshman Couper Cornblum who emerged as a breakout star.
From the lineup, Ross Cadena (catcher), Garrett Kocis (first base), Jack Sigrist (second base), Jackson (third base), Cade Clemons (shortstop), Cornblum (outfielder), Hunter Gibson (outfielder) and David VanVooren (outfielder) are all back.
All three of WSU’s weekend starters also return in Hamilton (2-1, 4.26 ERA), Snavely (2-1, 2.95 ERA) and Liam Eddy (2-0, 1.73 ERA) with Barnhouse (2-0, 0.00 ERA) and closer Foster Gifford (four saves, 0.00 ERA) also back on a staff that finished with the 39th-lowest team ERA in the country at 2.91.
“I love the fact that these kids have another opportunity to come out and make a statement and more importantly, be a part of the program and build this thing up to be a power,” Wedge said.
“We never got into conference play (in 2020), so we don’t really know how good we are. I know our mindset is going to be better than most. I’m confident the returning players have an understanding of what we’re looking for and I expect them to hold their new teammates accountable.”
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