Gator Baseball 2023 Official Roster Tracker/Lineup???

Yes it should be Ty today with Auburn starting a LHP. Also hope Heyman starts behind the plate. Lineup should look something like....

2B- Kurland - hoping its Robertson but Sully unlikely to change in the middle of a series
LF - Langford - still finding his way on base
P/DH - Caglianone
SS - Rivera - probably hit one out today
1B - Riopelle - hoping when Auburn shifts to their RHP he is ready to jump on their pitches
C - Heyman - showing improvement behind the plate
3B - Halter - BA still climbing
RF - Evans - better against LHP
CF -Robertson - how long will his on base streak continue

 

Nailed it to a tee. Oh well that one was low hanging fruit. As the leader of the A-Team use to say, "I love it when a plan comes together." In the game thread I broke down Auburn's pitching choices and you could see after Vail was done their choices got very limited and in our favor. I left Nelson off their pitcher list because it looked like he was their main mid-week starter. Well once Nelson was a non factor and had trouble throwing strikes it was just a matter of waiting for the pitchers to implode. What was even better the Gators brought their A hitters today. These are the guys that should make up the majority of the starts going forward. If Cags is at 1B and Riopelle is catching then Heyman needs to be the DH. Then rotate them around where needed. Evans should start against LHP and Prevesk should start against RHP. Then switch them out with the arm side pitching change. Other than that I'll keep on arguing Robertson should be the leadoff but more to come on that later. I think Sully has it finally figured out other than Kurland in the batting order, and the starting pitchers of course.

 

It feels weird looking back and realizing Abner has not pitched since last Sunday. There's a few other guys that haven't pitched in a long time but Abner needs to be an every other day kind of guy.

 

Weekend wrap up.....
There's lots to discuss but the number one thing to say is the Gators won another SEC series and are now 3 out of 3 in SEC play. Sully likes to mention in 2017 we started SEC play going 0-3 getting swept at Auburn. The Gators are currently 7-2, 2 games behind a 9-0 Vandy, and in good position in 4th place to make a run as the season moves along. Remember, we were down 8-3 today in the 5th and Auburn still had their starter in, when doubt started creeping in, myself included. It was really nice to know Wyatt is back! Getting on base 6 times in 6 at bats with a homerun, scoring 5 times, not too shabby. I'm very happy that Robertson continues to find ways to contribute. Plus Heyman is showing everyone what his potential really is. I said before the season I thought if Heyman came to Florida he would be a starter at catcher this season at some point. If he keeps this up Riopelle will get plenty of resting opportunities and might be a good thing down the stretch.

FYI coming up I'll be posting my thoughts on Kurland's spot in the batting order going forward. Also including what I think the batting order should be and where I think it ends up by end of the season. Then I'm going to dig into our relief pitching and discuss what we should expect from Slater and others from Abner to Purnell. And last, I hope to share my perspective on the starting pitchers and how Sully might react over the next few weeks. Be back later.

 

Now for a deep dive on the future batting order...

It sounds like just about everyone is on the Robertson train. Even the postgame writeup mentioned Sully will be moving Robertson in the order. I said about 3 weeks ago we would be having a discussion on Robertson taking over the leadoff because Kurland was falling off. I don't say this for an atta boy Matherly but only because it seemed obvious the high school kid couldn't maintain a +400 average with SEC pitching on the horizon. I had been watching his average fall for over a month now and his hot start numbers just couldn't hold up. 5 weeks ago his BA was .500 and now its .333 and still trending down. But overall averages mean little where things are at now.

Let's compare SEC numbers between Kurland and Robertson. In conference Kurland is currently batting .220 with an OB% of .289. Both of these numbers are second to lowest of our starters other than the RF spot between Evans/Prevesk. Robertson in conference is batting .303 with an OB% of .439 both being 4th among everyday starters. That's 83 points higher in batting average and 150 points higher in OB%. Robertson even has 1 more hit than Kurland in SEC play. Granted Kurland is still more of a big hit player but that plays into the need to drop him down to backup other players that get on. Neither player has been very successful when leading off an inning lately. I don't have those numbers for SEC play but its obvious if you've watched the games the last three weeks. At the same time, you know when Robertson is on base his speed affects the other team. He has not mastered base stealing at the college level but he sure can get home in a hurry. The unknown yet is how will Robertson do handling SEC pitchers from the leadoff spot. His numbers have stayed consistent if not better since we started SEC play so I would not expect much more of a fall off. So here's my idea how the batting order should look this weekend.

CF - Robertson (L)
LF - Langford (R)
1B - Caglianone (L)
SS - Rivera (R)
C - Riopelle (L)
DH - Heyman (R)
3B - Halter (L)
2B - Kurland (R)
RF - Evans/Prevesk (L/R)

But beyond that I believe by the end of the season another batting order will appear. To get us ready for the postseason we still can make improvements. Like last year when Langford ignited our offense by leading off I feel we can see the same effect again. But it will be another leader that gets us there. That lineup might look something like this.

SS - Rivera - top 3 leader in most every area including OB%, best base stealer on the team !!!
LF - Langford - HRs will start to rise quickly in the last half of the season
1B/DH - Caglianone - should be our new season HR record holder
DH/C - Heyman - just getting warmed up and can backup Cags with his bat
C/1B - Riopelle - will he slump or won't he, I say won't he the later the season gets
2B - Kurland - his numbers might fall but he can still find his way into some big hit situations
3B - Halter - looks like he is going to make a run at making him some money before the season is over
RF - Evans/Prevesk - all depends which side the starting pitcher throws from
CF - Robertson - with him and Rivera on base this team will score plenty of runs