Gator Baseball 2023 Official Roster Tracker/Lineup???

My oh my. I guess I owe Jacob R an apology. Guess who is starting at first today, Deric Fabian. I guess if he can hit over 350 on the season he can play about anywhere.
Also surprised Sully made the quick move to start Shelnut at third today.

 

I'm glad everyone got to see what Cade Kurland is all about today in his first time out there. The kid can bat the ball around. Is it just me or does his base body frame remind me a little of Jud Fabian's. Makes me wonder if a few years from now Kurland will be hitting homers with ease.

 

I believe on the post game interview we got an idea from Sully of his plans. He said Game 1 he just wanted Kurland to get a feel for it and had him sit. Then game 2 Kurland starts and Deric moves to first. Sully also said he will move some more guys around for Sunday. My guess Riopelle is at first, Heyman is catching, Shelnut is back at third, Kurland gets another start at second. Sully said he hasn't decided if Cags will also start as the DH instead of waiting and putting him at DH after he comes off the mound. Sully said Cags will eventually also start games as DH whenever he is pitching so why not throw him in there from the beginning to get used to it. His words not mine.

 

Halter's great play throwing out the bunt attempt.

 

You must not be reading my posts! LOL
Sorry to steal your thunder but in my lineup guess my comments about Evans were....
R - Evans RF - my choice for most improved hitter
Graciously I must say no one had any notion that Ty was going to be leading the team in so many categories. This was like the kid got a shot of adrenalin and announced he has arrived. I will say I made that statement in disbelief if Fabian was really as good as some were saying. And comparing all returning hitters Ty really had the opportunity to improve as much as anyone in the lower half of the stat sheet.

 

Reflections after the first weekend
1. Some of this has to be taken with a grain if salt and considering the competition so I will focus on the improvements with a view towards the future. For instance everyone that played much has an OB% of 400 or higher except Cags, Fabian and Halter. Cags I'm not worried about. Fabian has started like last year, low average but he gets on base more than you think. Halter is still blowing in the wind. What that does say is our hitting lineup is 7-8 deep assuming Cags can handle it as a two-way player.
2. Robertson and Langford are the two hitters I look for improvement over the next 17 days. Oddly even though Robertson was on base 6 times they never gave him an attempt to steal. Maybe Sully is trying to hide something, I don't know. That will be an easy improvement to watch for.
3. Special note about Kurland, as I've been saying, the kid can put bat on the ball and put it in about any part of the park. I'm not surprised as much about Kurland's play but more about Fabian playing first. I get Sully needs a Saturday first basemen with Cags at DH and Riopelle behind the plate. But Heyman or Lastres could play first on Saturdays and give us some pop low in the order. Shelnut could play first and keep his bat in the lineup and have Halter at third as a defensive specialist. I still feel Fabian is better as a backup at SS and 2nd. I'm in the position that the Saturday starter at first is still a work in progress.
4. Wow about Cags, that's the best I've seen him pitch. In preseason he had some control issues but he was working thru them. He was getting his work in as @74nole would say. But it looked like he had the best control of the three starters. Again only one appearance to go on. Makes me wonder how many weekend sweeps we can get this year.
5. Props to Jameson, Fisher, Neely, Purnell and Tejeda. They all came in and pitched about an inning, facing a combined total of 17 batters, and gave up no runs, no hits, not even a walk. Now let's see how they develop over the next 10 games.
6. USF went 1 out of 3 this weekend against #13 Maryland winning Game 1 on Friday. Hunter Mink's twin brother Tanner got the win in relief. Who knows what pitchers we will see but the Bulls hitters did score 14 runs against a ranked team this weekend. Look for them to give us a challenge especially in our game on Tuesday in Tampa. The game on Tuesday is a "Green Out" so beware. There best hitter so far is their third basemen, Sankovich, who has 7 hits in 12 ABs. Maybe after Wednesday night we can say his average "Stank-A-Bit".
***Special shout-out to Hunter Mink for getting the Friday night start for the Bulls and going 4 innings before giving up 3 runs.
7. Trust me I'm not going to say anything about our defense with no errors on the season. I wouldn't want to jinx us in any way.
8. It needs to be remembered that Sproat went almost 6 innings and didn't give up a hit in a seven inning game, only 4 outs away. He will be on the mound this Friday night when we face Cincinnati. Hopefully he can extend the no hit streak another 3 and 1/3 inning. It would be a nice stat to consider.
9. Batting averages and OB% really can't be looked at yet but props to Evans, Riopelle, Kurland, Rivera, and Shelnut for great starts this season. I'll do a better comparison after the next five games to see who shines best.
10. It was good to see Mike Rivera out there as our first base coach. Hopefully this year he can spread some of those magical memories from 2017.

 

At scrimmages, Cags was inconsistent mainly because of arm side high misses. But they were more sporadic. Each time you could see him gather himself and refocus. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not. Usually after a second you would hear some encouragement coming out of the dugout and another refocus. The approach was get right back up on the horse and do it again to get him through 3 innings. That's what I thought was so amazing that he didn't show hardly any need to refocus for 6 innings. Good days are ahead for Mr. Caglianone.