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T-Birds Baseball 2010: Numbers and Young Talent Create Depth

"The more the merrier" was the mantra for the T-Birds this fall, as a total of 46 players reported to the 2009 fall training camp. With so many players at their disposal this season, the coaching staff has all their bases covered.

"Depth should not be an issue for us," said Assistant Coach Cav Whitely. "At the end of the day, no matter what, we'll always have a guy who can step in for us without much of a talent drop on the field."

This will be vital for the T-Birds, who suffered through injuries to various key players over the course of last season and lost an unusual number to academic ineligibility as well. To help counter the latter problem this season, the coaching staff has hired an academic specialist. While there isn't much that can be done to prevent the bad luck of injuries, the depth of 46 players will help to mitigate the consequences.

"The beauty of having this many guys is that we can go on when someone gets hurt," said Whitely. "They can spend proper time in physio; they won't have to play through it, and they can get healthy before they get back on the field."

With sheer numbers on their side this year, the coaching staff can relax-or can they?

"With 24 position players and 22 pitchers needing development, the coaches had to be extremely organized," explained Whitely. "We needed to have really good time management and a lot of preparation before practice and weekend games."

But it's safe to say that, in the coaches' minds, the effort is worth the benefits provided by such a large team-especially since the team already had several holes that they needed to fill even before the fall started, as they lost the heart of last year's batting order, graduating Ryan Pilgrim and Jon Syrnyk and losing Scott Webster to academic ineligibility. Whitely says that the team is still working to find which players will fill those holes, but for now, it seems that shortstop Sammie Starr along with newcomer Blake Carruthers (OF) will help in that area. Carruthers, who redshirted as a freshman at Central Washington last year, is projected to be the new everyday centerfielder, replacing Syrnyk's prowess on defense and speed on the base paths.

Other incoming players who have the potential to immediately impact the offense are Andrew Firth, a true freshman infielder from Ontario, and Christian Jolley, a junior outfielder who transferred from Treasure Valley CC. Of Jolley, Whitely said, "He swung the bat really well in the fall, and we'll look to use his other tools: he's a fast left-handed hitter, and he's got a pretty good arm for his size."

But it's on the mound that you'll find, in Whitely's words, "the true strength" of the team for this coming spring.

"Anytime you have a staff that includes a healthy Mark Hardy, Shawn Hetherington, Matt Bannister, Eric Brown, Dan Britton-Foster and Taylor King, then you add to it incoming transfer Sheldon McDonald, who right now is projected into the rotation, you're going to have success there," said Whitely, noting that currently there are seven or eight pitchers with the potential to compete for a starting spot in the rotation.

Exciting additions to the staff are freshmen David Otterman and Cody Chartrand, the two strikeout leaders from the BC Premier league in 2009. "David could be pretty good: he has the same stuff as Hardy did as a freshman." Along with transfer Jordan Herbison and a new and improved Ashton Florko, the staff should be as solid as the 'Birds have ever had but with the depth they have been searching for.

The question for all of these young guys is whether or not they will develop to their potential and how quickly it will take them to get there.

"All of these incoming freshmen, because they're so talented, need to get a lot out of this year from the older guys," said Whitely. He noted that this applied in particular to Ryan Taylor and Keaton Briscoe, two freshmen middle infielders who are poised to take over after Alex White and Sammie Starr graduate this year. Whitely also mentioned Nick Senior and Andrew Madsen, two freshmen outfielders from BC, as players who have the potential to greatly impact the program in the near future-but it will depend on how much they develop this year.

And so the question remains, in Whitely's words: "How are you going to get our young guys enough innings in order to become who they're going to become? That's what the fall season was all about."

At the culmination of fall camp, the team split into two teams and played an intrasquad seven-game series, the stakes for which weren't merely bragging rights: the losing team had to run 300,000 stairs and do hours of field work. That task fell on Team Black, who lost to Team Navy in six games. "[The result] was a surprise," said Whitely, "because most of Team Black were returners: there was only one freshman in that starting nine…That bodes well for the future."

That is not to say that the newcomers stole the spotlight in the fall. Returning players who had notable fall performances were Sean Pisarski, a sophomore outfielder, Greg Densem, who will take over the starting catching duties in his second year, Jordan Padrinao, who missed last season due to academic ineligibility, and Bob Foerster, who will need to step in at first base this year.

Regardless of the concerns about who will play where and how to fill which holes, the verdict stands: one through 46, these guys are good.

"This is the most talented group overall, from player to player, that we've ever had," said Whitely.

"Now it's going to be how hard the guys work in the weight room and the classroom to see what comes out of it: who gains the most weight, who is the strongest, who is healthy, and who's good to go come February and playoff time."