Gator Baseball 2023 Official Roster Tracker/Lineup???

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Exactly right, with the year Rivera is having Deric is enjoying the ride and playing catch with one of the best SS in college baseball. The more he can follow his lead the better he hopes to be next year.

 

I thought about shaking it up even more and suggesting Heyman at C and Riopelle at 1B but Sully trusts Riopelle catching for Sproat and Waldrep. Even though the starters are struggling, Sully likes how mature Riopelle is handling those days.

 

Time to pay some rent!
And now an introspection on relief pitchers such as Slater....(drop in photo of someone doing yoga meditation)

Some on here are jumping at the idea to make Slater the closer and even a replacement starter if things don't improve. I believe many of us react too quickly instead of digging deeper. I for one reacted too quickly on Sproat after having such a great SEC opener. I thought he had shown what I had been seeing all practice long and dominated from the mound. I expected he was back to what we saw the end of last year and would lead these pitchers thru the SEC season. I had visions of SEC Pitcher of the Year. Boy was I wrong.

With Slater I dug into his past. Last year he was amazing up until SEC play. He had an ERA of 0.69 after going 5 innings against Jacksonville, only giving up 1 hit. He looked to be starter material. Then things got rough and his ERA kept going up and up to 5.63 in early May and he finished with a 5.34 ERA on the season and 6.55 in conference play. If you recall Slater was a part time closer last year after Purnell had his struggles. So he's used to the role of closer. This year is better and he has a 3.80 ERA on the season. He has been sporadic though having a pattern of a few good days and then a bad day it seems. On 2/24 he got roughed up against Cincinnati giving up 3 runs in under 3 innings with 2 hits and 4 walks. Then on 3/4 Florida Atlantic got to him with 4 runs in 3 innings on 5 hits including a HR with 2 walks. On the other side he's had really good appearances against South Florida, Siena and now Auburn. Sure you are probably screaming, at least he's been better than Sproat or Cags. I hear you but 2-3 inning relief with under 50 pitches is much different than starters trying to go 6+ under 90 pitches.

A special note on Purnell, looking back at 2022, its hard to believe that Blake had a 0.00 ERA all the way up until 3/20/22, the third Alabama game. Up until that point he had made 11 appearances and only given up 1 unearned run. The problem is we only remember the way he finished last year and his continued problems this year. I believe that's why Sully is still giving him chances this year. He is so wild though I don't think it should ever be a weekend game if we are not up by more than 5. I feel for Heyman when he is trying to catch Purnell or any other of our catchers.

My point about Slater is not to make him a starter or key closer. He really needs to be a long reliever and either set up the closer or let him stay in if we have a good lead and see if he can close it out like this past Sunday. Ficarrotta is trying to be in the same role but isn't quite there yet. Both of these pitchers can be up or down and might not be the best to close one out on a consistent basis. For now our closers should be Neely and/or Abner. Nesbitt is the in between guy. I expect him to start the next FSU midweek game but otherwise Sully will keep him ready for the weekends when a starter gets run out early. If a starter gets injured then Sully will turn to either Neely or Nesbitt depending how they are pitching when needed. Sully must continue to develop Arroyo, Hartzog, and Fisher but in limited appearances. Midweek games against BCU, FAMU and N Florida will need to be covered as much as possible by arms like Tejeda, Purnell, and Jameson in hopes of saving the other arms for the weekends.

As for the starters going into Tennessee week, that's for another post to come.

 

I woke up this morning thinking about Abner pitching since he didn't pitch this weekend. My guess Sully will give him the option to either pitch a bullpen or enter the game for an inning.
I checked the last time we played them and the pitching rotation was Nesbitt (4), Ficarrotta (4), and Purnell (1) for the 7-0 win.

 

Yep I don't even think we see Nesbitt since our starters have been so shaky. Fic actually pitched against BCU the last two times we played, each time going 4 innings and not giving up a run. If we come out despondent, not scoring runs, then I think Sully has to use Fic at some point. This is the type of game that makes me wonder if we are scoring runs will Sully use better arms late like Abner, Fic, and Neely to get the early run rule or does he go with Purnell and Finnvold late that might give up runs and extend the game. Thursday's coming up fast. Ideally we wants to use rarely used arms (i.e. high ERA guys) and get the run rule early.

 

That's my pick. Waiting to confirm. Arroyo might be another interesting possibility. Unless you think Coppola can make it back in time from making that movie, after finishing a few more dunks.

 

Pitching Matchups

BCU LHP Alec Mendez (0-0, 1.93 ERA)
Florida RHP Yoel Tejeda Jr. (0-0, 8.38 ERA)

 

If Finnvold comes out to pitch, you might not want to lookup his ERA.

 

I suppose with BCU starting a LHP that will probably give Evans the start in RF. After they switch to a RHP then I hope Prevesk gets some time as well. If Robertson gets to lead off I hope we see him lay down a bunt or two. The last two times Tejeda started Heyman was the catcher. Hopefully that continues tonight. Batting order might look something like Robertson, Langford, Cags, Rivera, Heyman, Riopelle, Kurland/Thomas, Halter/Shelnut, Evans/Prevesk. I'm not putting much thought into these guesses cause Sully might give a few guys time off or switch things up.