Gator Baseball 2023 Official Roster Tracker/Lineup???

This is my thinking as well. I don't mean to make much of this info Sully spoke of. Mainly trying to imagine what his thinking might be. I don't think Fabian showed the right defensive skills for third base. He looked more comfortable from his feet like a SS but most attempts at diving for a ball were missed. I am very interested to see how Fabian bats in live game action before I become a believer.

 

Not surprised but really bummed I just saw the tweet that Saturday's practice was moved to Friday. Oh well but here's a really good article from Gator Baseball that confirms much of what we have been thinking.
Gators Notebook: Sproat's Rise, Wyatt's World, More Tidbits - Florida Gators

 

Very useful info here 77. Its certainly looks like Riopelle is the Game 1 and 2 catcher (Friday/Saturday) and Heyman is in for Game 3 with Cags. This has been Sully's pattern for the spring apparently. I agree the PBs are a concern and Lastres is better at throwing out runners but it is what it is at this point. It seems Riopelle is hitting one out almost every report we get so putting him behind the plate gives Sully another bat to consider instead of putting BT in the DH spot. Sully has a value judgement to make and BT has more experience than most other catchers in the league. But believe you me, when we face Vandy and Bradford gets on, I'm hoping Lastres is behind the plate.

I wonder if Waldrep is our best starter on windy days. Seems his ball has better movement for the types of pitches he likes. Going to store that nugget in the back of my mind when we make it Omaha and there's a stormy day coming.

I wouldn't put to much into Cags distance. I expect Sully will be fine if he only goes 3-5 innings in the preseason and then have Neely a few innings in reserve. Neely could certainly look good on Tuesday's but my guess Sully will use those early midweek games for the new guys to get a feel and still use Neely on weekends with Cags.

Halter has dropped back in my thinking as well. I'm going with Robertson still at leadoff. Halter will probably end up in the bottom third of the order with Kurland and the DH. I'll put out my final guess at the lineup this week and a hint it won't change much than what I have on Page 1.

Much appreciation that you made it out today. It really was killing me not to make it out one last time. Oh well, not making the trip up just gives me even more anticipation for this Friday. See you there.

 

It just hit me. We are only 4 days away from @Gatorgal04 's first game thread.

 

Oh to hear the players take the field and the crunch of the infield, the pop of the catchers glove, the announcement to play ball, the crowd's chanting for another strikeout victim to sit down, the bat connecting with the ball as it takes flight into the night air and soars over the fence as the crowd rises to its feet. Its almost here....

 

Alright baseball fans, time for a little bonus coverage. I was happily able to make it out to the scrimmage today. Thanks to @gatorjjh for passing along the info. It was very, shall we say, interesting. I'll start by saying Sully had Rivera hitting in the DH spot so he could shake up the infield less than 4 days from the opener. Example, Halter was at short and Fabian was at second, Thomas at short with Kurland at second. Talbott and Alvarez were at 3rd. This ended up a recipe for (disaster no) mayhem (yes). There were plenty of errors and entertaining plays all around. I wasn't there to focus on pitching. I was hoping to key in on the batting order and lineups but that got crumpled to the trash quickly. Here are my notes. Believe me, it gets messy.

Double trouble kind of day. I'm asking myself, was this the kind of day the team is tired of playing each other and is ready for the real thing? Our infielders seemed lost at times, out of place. Lots of doubles, pitching all over the place, and way too many errors. Sully can't be pleased. Bad day catching for Lastres and Heyman, lots of balls in the dirt. Purnell was sharp as the closer at least. With Riopelle moving to catcher for Purnell might be a sign Purnell is our closer this Friday. You have to wonder about our relief pitchers at this point. Hopefully they figure it out in the next month. And wouldn't you know it, the one player that hit the HR today was............
Deric Fabian. Could he be the DH, I don't know yet.

Blue Starters
1b 6 Shelnut
2b 23 Fabian
SS 5 Halter
3b 9 Alvarez
C 16 Lastres
RF 2 Evans
CF 11 Robertson
LF 33 Blair
P 17 Tejeda

Orange Starters
1b 15 Riopelle
2b 4 Kurland
SS 1 Thomas
3b 32 Talbott
C 28 Heyman
RF 43 Prevesk
CF 25 Schiekofer
LF 36 Langford
P 10 Nesbitt

 

Top 5th Orange batting 17 p
36 3-2 count, ground ball SS, diving stop error over throw to first runner on 2b
24 DH FO to LF
15 ground ball to 1b, off glove, play at plate runner safe batter advances to 2b catcher throws one into CF error, runner advances 3b
4 ground out to 2b 4-3, scores run from third
1 FO to RF
2-0 Orange

Bottom 5th Blue Batting 10 p
11 bunt 5-3 error on throw 11 out at 1b on wide turn
2 double down LF line
14 DH ball in dirt runner steals 3b Double to LCF run scores
6 double down LF line run scores runner, batter caught in run down between 2nd and 3rd
5 ground out 1-3
Score 2-2

 

Top 6th 17 p
25 loud single to LF
28 FO to 2b
43 runner goes, line out to RF, runner out at 1b, double play, Sully not happy runner 25 gave no attempt to get back

Bottom 6th 10 p
23 HR to LC bullpen
16 FO to CF
33 ground out to 1st unassisted
9 walk 3-2 count
11 walk 4 pitches
2 SO
Blue 3-2

 

Top 7th 27 p
32 ground out 6-3
36 single liner to LF
24 ground out fc 6-4 runner out at 2b
15 runner goes single up the middle runners on 3rd and 1st
4 ball in dirt gets away runners advance score a run Double to LCF run scores
1 SO looking
4-3 Orange

Bottom 7th 49 p
14 pop up to shallow center falls in, runner to second, no one at third runner takes third, no one at home runner scores, I guess you call it a double
Note catcher 28 tried to cover third but throw was late thus no one was at home
6 walk
5 SO
23 3-2 count walk
16 WP runners advance PB thru catchers legs runners advance 1 run in
Inning stopped
5-4 Blue

 

Top 8th 27 p
25 double down LF line
28 walk
43 double down RF line 1 run in runners at 2nd and 3rd
32 SO
36 walk bases loaded
24 SO
15 triple to deep RCF, clears the bases, Evans tried to make play crashing into fence, ball bounced out of glove
4 ground out 5-3
Orange up 8-5

Bottom 8th 49 p
16 SO
33 single up the middle
9 single thru the 4 gap runners 2nd & 1st
11 line out to SS
2 SO caught looking

 

Top 9th 41 p 15 c
1 ground out 1st p covering
28 ground out high hopper p covering 1-3
25 3--2 count walk
43 SO ends it
Orange 8-5

Not sure why they ended it other than time or maybe Sully had seen enough and didn't want to end it with another bad inning.

 

Clearly you can see now why I called today the Double Trouble day. I've never seen so many doubles in 4 innings of baseball. The LF got a workout today. The errors came in bunches. I'm surprised Sully didn't march out on the field in the middle of it to chew out a few players. Cags pop up to shallow CF for instance. I get he made it to second but as soon as he stood up the dugout is yelling no ones on third so Cags takes off. The third basemen had gone to second because SS and 2nd basemen had both ran to cover the pop fly. So no one is on third. Now the catcher takes off to try and beat Cags and hopefully make a play. But instead when Cags makes it to third the dugout is yelling no one's covering home. And off goes Cags to cross home plate. There were a few laughs in the stadium I must say, myself included. Again Sully had jumbled the lineup so most infielders were not thinking clearly.

 

Props to Deric Fabian for getting a hold of one. It was a good swing plane kind of swing and the ball just seemed to float right out of the ballpark. Also Riopelle almost had a grand slam but the ballpark held the high flying ball in the deep part of RCF. Evans got to it at the warning track at full stride but the hard contact with the wall made the play almost impossible for any outfielder. He took awhile before getting up but props to Evans for the attempt and Riopelle for the big game clinching triple.