The 2023 Kentucky Baseball Mega-Preview
Kentucky opens its 2023 season on Friday. The Bat Cats Central Mega-Preview sets the stage for this season.
Kentucky baseball is nearly back. Depending on when you read this newsletter, you’re likely just a few days, if not hours, from baseball. This story aims to provide the casual baseball audience with a crash course preparing for this season. There’s still quality information for the fans who follow the team closely, but you’re unlikely to learn anything new.
To that end, if you’re new to the newsletter, thanks for being here! I’ll link all my preview pieces here at the top, so feel free to check out each story for in-depth previews of the schedule, the lineup, and the pitching staff, plus a Q&A from January with head coach Nick Mingione.
Let’s get to it.
THE COACHING STAFF
Nick Mingione, head coach (7th season)
Dan Roszel, pitching coach (4th season)
Will Coggin, assistant coach/recruiting coordinator (4th season)
Nick Ammirati, volunteer assistant (2nd season)
Brock Doud, Director of Operations
Jake Scott, Director of Player Development
Need to know: Kentucky maintained continuity on the coaching staff among the paid positions for the fourth straight season. Pitching coach Dan Roszel and recruiting coordinator Will Coggin were hired in the summer of 2019, while volunteer assistant Nick Ammirati was brought on to replace former assistant Todd Guilliams. Guilliams left for a full-time position at Utah with former Kentucky head coach Gary Henderson. With the NCAA recently announcing the addition of a fourth full-time assistant in baseball, Ammirati is in line to become a full-time coach on July 1.
Head coach Nick Mingione enters his seventh season at Kentucky with a 176-129 (.577) overall record. He was the 2017 SEC Coach of the Year after leading the Wildcats to their first-ever super regional appearance.
KEY PLAYERS LOST
RHP Tyler Guilfoil
RHP Daniel Harper
LHP Mason Hazelwood
RHP Sean Harney
3B Chase Estep
SS Ryan Ritter
2B Daniel Harris
LF Hunter Jump
CF John Thrasher
RF Adam Fogel
Need to know: Guilfoil, a First-Team All-American by Baseball America and a First-Team All-SEC selection, produced one of the best relief seasons in Kentucky history. He finished 3-1 with a 1.59 earned run average and threw an impressive 51 innings out of the bullpen. The Houston Astros selected him in the 8th round. Right-handers Sean Harney and Daniel Harper had solid senior seasons as well. Mason Hazelwood returned from injury and helped out of the bullpen for most of the season.
Positionally, eight of nine starters are gone from last year’s team. Ryan Ritter (4th round, Colorado Rockies) and Chase Estep (9th round, New York Mets) were drafted following their junior season. Jake Plastiak, Daniel Harris, Hunter Jump, John Thrasher and Adam Fogel were all starters last season and are now gone. Oraj Anu, primarily a designated hitter, battled injuries in his Kentucky career and graduated following the 2022 season.
KEY RETURNEES
LHP Tyler Bosma
RHP Darren Williams
RHP Zack Lee
RHP Travis Smith (redshirted in 2022)
C Devin Burkes
OF James McCoy (redshirted in 2022)
2B Emilien Pitre
Need to know: Tyler Bosma and Zack Lee will likely start the season in the weekend rotation. Darren Williams, a seventh-year senior from Maysville, Kentucky, is back after UCL surgery. He’ll start in the bullpen but is someone to watch for a weekend spot should Kentucky need to make changes.
This is semantics, but I included right-hander Travis Smith and outfielder James McCoy as returnees even though both redshirted a year ago. They’re newcomers to the lineup, not to the program. Smith, a former top-100 recruit from Walton-Verona High School, and McCoy could emerge as the best young talents on the roster. Look for Smith to start as the midweek starter while McCoy will likely be a corner outfielder. He could project as a 15-plus home run player as a redshirt freshman.
Devin Burkes projects as the only returning starter from the 2022 team. He went on a tear in the season's final month, finishing with a .378 average and 1.270 OPS in 37 at-bats. It was a small sample size, but 29 of those at-bats came against SEC competition. Could it have just been a hot stretch for a few weeks? Possibly, but Burkes was Kentucky’s best hitter at the SEC Tournament and earned a spot on the SEC All-Tournament team.
THE NEWCOMERS
Transfers (12): RHP Logan Martin, RHP Ryder Giles, RHP Zach Hise, RHP Seth Chavez, SS Grant Smith, 3B/IF Isaiah Byars, 1B Hunter Gilliam, 2B Patrick Herrera, C/DH Chase Stanke, OF Ryan Waldschmidt, OF Kendal Ewell, OF Jackson Gray,
Freshmen (6): LHP Aaron Blum, LHP Hayden Smith, RHP Carson Applegate, RHP Drew Lafferty, OF Lukas Schramm, C/IF Austin Fawley
Need to know: Baseball America ranked Kentucky’s transfer class No. 6 nationally. It’s headlined by Sewanee right-handed starter Logan Martin, Big South All-Freshman outfielder Ryan Waldschmidt, EKU outfielder Kendal Ewell, and starting infielders Grant Smith, Isaiah Byars and Hunter Gilliam. Chase Stanke, a Minnesota transfer, will likely be the DH.
The freshman class is small and likely won’t see too many major contributions, at least not early in the season. Austin Fawley and Lukas Schramm project as future starters, possibly as early as next season, but they’ll have some work to do to move up the depth chart this year. Drew Lafferty is the most intriguing pitcher among the group at this point and should get a chance to earn a role as the season progresses.
FUTURE RECRUITING
Kentucky’s 2023 high school class currently has 16 players committed. Among the highest-ranked recruits in the class are Nebraska catcher Eli Small, Ohio right-hander Tommy Skelding, Wisconsin infielder Ethan Hindle, Mississippi first baseman Hudson Brown, Kentucky left-handed pitcher Evan Hart and Tennessee left-handed pitcher Ben Cleaver.
The Wildcats’ 2024 and 2025 classes are heavy on high-end pitching talent. Indiana RHP Bradley Ferrell (2024), Kentucky RHP Zak Spurrier (2024), Kentucky LHP Leighton Harris (2024) Tennessee RHP England Bryan (2024) and 2025 Ohio left-handed pitchers Luke Pappano and Hunter Richardson are all ranked in the top 200 nationally by Perfect Game. Future classes are still being rounded out, but the Wildcats seem poised, particularly in 2025, to have one of their highest-ranked classes in recent years. Read more about Kentucky’s commitments and view their scouting reports.
PRESEASON PROJECTIONS
The Wildcats were picked to finish sixth in the SEC East in the Preseason Coaches poll. Kentucky was also projected to finish sixth in the East by Baseball America and D1baseball.com. None of the current Wildcats were selected for the preseason All-SEC Coaches Teams. The Wildcats finished 33-26 (12-18 SEC) in 2022, good for sixth in the SEC East.
D1baseball.com projected 11 of 14 SEC teams to make an NCAA regional this year, but Kentucky was not among the teams picked.
BIGGEST STORYLINE
Several storylines will dictate how successful this season ultimately is for Kentucky. How well does Logan Martin adjust from Division III Sewanee to Friday night starter in the SEC? Can potentially eight new starters mesh enough to produce better offensive statistics than last year’s group, which finished near the bottom of the league in most offensive categories? Will former top recruits Ryan Hagenow or Mag Cotto blossom in their junior season? All of those (and more) are important questions.
But the biggest program storyline is whether Kentucky can return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017. In my and many others’ opinion, the Wildcats were snubbed from the tournament in 2018 after finishing with a 34-22 record and top-30 RPI. They were listed as one of the first four teams out of the field. Had Kentucky made it, it would’ve been the first time in program history that it made two consecutive NCAA appearances.
It’s been tough sailing at times since that 2018 season. The Wildcats saw 21 players drafted from the 2017 and 2018 teams, which was the most of any college baseball program in the country during those two years. Kentucky went 7-23 in the SEC the following year as it could not replenish its lost talent.
The COVID-19 pandemic canceled the 2020 season before league play began, but the Wildcats were just 11-6 overall and had been swept twice in the non-conference before the shutdown. The 2021 team improved to 12-18 in the SEC but finished No. 68 in the RPI, giving little case for a postseason bid. Last year’s team had an identical 12-18 league record but made a run to the SEC Tournament semifinals for the first time since 2014. Those wins helped give Kentucky a 13-17 record against RPI top 25 teams. The Wildcats finished with a 47 RPI but didn’t qualify for the tournament, though last season was an obvious improvement in overall win quality. Kentucky was the only team in the regular season to claim a weekend series against No. 1 overall seed Tennessee.
Still, it’s fair for Kentucky baseball supporters to expect more from the program. Since the NCAA Tournament field expanded to 64 teams in 1999, the Wildcats have participated just five times. Kentucky didn’t make the tournament in the current format until the remarkable 2006 SEC championship season under John Cohen. From 2006-2017, Kentucky’s longest NCAA Tournament drought was three full seasons, which took place early in the Gary Henderson tenure from 2009-2011. The dry spell will stretch to five years if Kentucky misses the field this year.
Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart has been patient with Mingione. Rather than make 2021 a “prove it” year since Mingione’s contract was set to expire in 2022, Barnhart proactively extended it for three years through 2025. The obvious takeaway from that is Barnhart believes Mingione is the best person to lead the program. I’m sure Mingione wants nothing more than to reward Barnhart’s patience and prove that he’s the man for the job for the long haul.
UP NEXT
The season opener at Elon is set for Friday at 4 p.m. The two teams play at 2 p.m. on Saturday and close the series at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Friday and Saturday’s games can be streamed on FloBaseball, but a subscription is required.