Intel and Analysis on Texas Baseball's postseason push, health of the team and Schlossnagle's hopes for college baseball

Texas head coach Jim Schlossnagle took the stand for one of the warmest press conferences yet in Austin today. It’s really starting to feel like postseason baseball at the Disch with the way the turf felt.

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Schlossnagle was chatty, and the media got the chance to ask him about a number of different topics.

Firstly, an update on 2B Ethan Mendoza:

The only thing I know as of now is he’ll be able to DH. I don’t have enough information yet to say he’s going to be able to throw anytime soon. Certainly, I don’t think this weekend.

As a result, Schlossnagle outlined some of his 2B options, with the most likely name seemingly being Jayden Duplantier. Matchups do matter, so Schlossnagle may even give Temo Becerra a look there with a new corner infield, or even Callum Early.

Texas has struggled to find production from its third outfield spot this year, and while Maddox Monsour has taken that burden as the starting CF the last two weekends, result haven’t been the best, especially against Tennessee

Maddox played good defense; he’s a better offensive player than he’s shown, we believe. He certainly had a rough weekend.

That raises the question, how healthy is veteran OF Dariyan Pendergrass, who has been sidelined since the Alabama series, and where could he factor in?

Dariyan I think is super close to playing, could very well play Thursday evening. Looked good yesterday. We’re trying to build his workload up, though his speed is almost back 100%, but being able to build his workload up to where he can be on his feet for three hours, for three straight days, and not risking that hamstring if something else happened to it, that’s the kind of challenging part right now. We want to win games. You want to put the best team out there so it could be matchup driven. It also could be, you know, Dariyan for a day, and then not for a day, and kind of got to let our Sports Medicine people (decide). That’s where the Catapult data really helps us. The Catapult data we get, let’s just say to use the number 700 to the measurement of an average SEC game, can we get him to that? Yesterday, I think we got him to 600 something in practice. Can we do that again today? How does he feel from that? Is he sore? Do we need to go lighter?

It seems likely that Pendergrass will get a shot this weekend, though there’s still time to monitor his workload. The ‘Catapult’ data he was referring to are the new-age sports bra/vests that track the vitals of a player, and can be tuned to capture the stress it may put on a player to play in an SEC game. For Pendergrass, it seems close, but they still need to figure out if he can play in the field for a full three hours on his recovering hamstring.

Texas SP Ruger Riojas was scratched from his Saturday start this past week with soreness, though he did throw on Sunday. Though we still haven’t gotten a definitive word on Riojas’ exact ailment, it seems like it’s an overall problem with his arm. Still, Schlossnagle isn’t concerned with his workload.

With Ruger, I don’t see any reason to think that he couldn’t do what he did last week.

We asked Schlossnagle if this is a week he’d look to go conservative with his players, given the litany of small bruises and injuries going through his roster. He clarified that it won’t be against Missouri, but that likely will be the case in the SEC tournament.

Next week would be more of that, where if you got to the conference tournament, if you play more than one game, how do you manage that? That’ll be the challenge. But we’ve got to get there first. think someone told me we can finish second or ninth. So I don’t want to finish ninth. I sure would like to finish second. We’re playing this weekend straight up, with the exception of Pendergrass and Mendoza. In terms of the pitching, yeah, we’re playing it straight up, where guys are pitching. We’re going to pitch to win.

Schlossnagle confirms the same rotation will be used, even with the short week. Volantis Thursday, Riojas Friday, Harrison Saturday.

By our guess, the starting lineup will see Mendoza DHing all three days, a matchup-based decision at 2B, and Pendergrass getting at least one start in center, with Monsour taking a rest.

Schlossnagle added more on injuries.

These are all different. It’s Adrian Rodriguez with a lingering hand thing; it’s the weirdest thing for (Anthony) Pack in the weight room, which was just throwing a medicine ball. No on ever gets hurt doing that, and he strained his wrist. He’s fine, 100% fine now, but pitchers are just built to get hurt. They’re all going to get hurt at some point in their career.

With the academic semester over, it really is crunch time for these players. The postseason is rapidly approaching, and the players can fully commit their time to baseball. But what that looks like is different for every player.

What had that conversation with the team about, ‘What can you be doing now if every guy got half a percent better,‘ and we did a thing where they (were asked) ‘What is one area of your game or your life that if you could snap your fingers, you could be better at’, and most of it’s controllable. I could be better at my sleep, I could be better at my nutrition, right?

Most soft tissue injuries are somebody’s fault. Whose fault is it? Is it the coach’s fault? Because the workload wasn’t managed well? Is it athletic training? Is it strength conditioning, or is it the player who’s not doing what he’s supposed to be doing? The player has a big piece in this. If you’re not getting the right amount of sleep, we give you the path like you’re at freaking Texas, you have every resource to be successful. Shame on you for not taking advantage of it. And so, we had a conversation about that, because this is the time of year. They all want to be pro players. Here it is, buddy, there’s still 24 in a day, but you have more that you can invest versus spend, right? Am I spending my time playing some video games? There might be a time for that. But how are you investing your time? And that’s really where it all is. Are they eating? We have a few guys on this team that’s tough to keep weight on. Sure would like to have that problem, I would. And so are they doing what they’re supposed to be? The baseball stuff is probably not going to change the time, you know, might spend a little more time on bunt defense if you’re playing a certain team or something like that, but it’s more of the controllables, like the real controllables that a young person can control. Are they doing it? That’s what makes this job super challenging, because I’m just going to bed at night hoping that they make the right choices. Just like your children, I mean, good luck.

“We finished practice today, we finished earlier than normal because we started earlier than normal. What are they going to do with the rest of their day? We can’t dominate that time. You guys say you want to go to Omaha. If that’s what you want, you want to win a national title, then if that’s your goal, then your habits and your routines have to reflect that, and if they don’t, shame on you. But we can’t wait. I can’t control all that. All we can do is give them the resources and the education, and they have to make the choices.

He was then asked about the confidence in his bullpen going forward.

Yeah, good, actually had some real good surprises. I think Cody Howard’s been an awesome addition. Brody Walls has gotten some great experience. Burns has been great…. Cozart is obviously great, Crossland good. They’re not going to be perfect, but Leffew’s been outstanding. Howard has been a big, big plus.

This, of course, raised the question of a fourth starter and long relief arm, vital pieces to a championship run in regional and Omaha play.

It’s important, we’ve auditoned a lot of guys. We may audition one more next week. Beyond that, it’ll just be, what does the matchup look like? Can Kade Bing go out there and give us three innings? Do we have to have an opener? Are there relievers like Howard or Walls, can they start a game, or do they need an opener to then come in as a relief pitcher? What’s the matchup like, if we do host a regional, and it all depends on who you play and what that guy’s like? I’ve been a part of playing four seed that has a real starting pitcher and, yeah, one of the first three pitchers has to pitch that game. That’ll determine a lot.

On the audition process:

I think the ability to get through the lineup more than on time, certainly the endurance. For some people, it’s human as well. Can the human handle starting a game? The waiting, the anticipation, all of that stuff. Can they just be a pitcher? Ethan Walker can just be a pitcher. He’s not going to be phased by anything… Other guys want to get different sleep, act like a starting pitcher, which throws them out of the routine, and overthink it. I think we’ve got good options; we may look at one more next week.

Noted that Walker could be that fourth starter, and that the SEC tourney and Omaha ballparks are friendly to pitchers like Walker who throw strikes.

On Temo Becerra’s hot streak:

There were some changes that he made with Tulo in his swing and his approach and his batting practice, and then kind of trying to free him up a little bit. He was swinging pretty hard, versus kind of the contact hitter that he always has been. Every good hitter in a streak, you get some luck, right? I mean, he hooks the ball down to the third base line against Mississippi State, that you know, if it’s a foot the other direction, you know, Ace Reese catches it. So some of that’s that. But no, he’s been awesome. He’s been clutch. No matter where you hit him. If you hit him clean up. He doesn’t try to do too much. If you hit him further down, he’s just the same guy every day, but there were some swing changes he made.

Mentioned that the Sunday game gave his team confidence, and that there are clear differences between a confident and an unconfident hitter at the plate.

Schlossnagle has no worries with Carson Tinney’s one hit over the last two weekends, citing his ability to reach base on walks and clipping high fly balls foul or to the track.

He was also asked about Ruger Riojas and noted that, if the five-for-five rule potentially coming to college sports is accepted, Riojas would definitely return to Texas with his added year of eligibility.

IT took that chance to ask him about the broader game of college baseball, and what he believes are necessary changes for the sport going forward. We got a lot.

From a game-playing standpoint, I wish our game would mirror Major League Baseball as much as possible. So, for instance, the pick-off rules, I’d like to have those. Offensive time-outs, I’m not a huge fan of. Anything that will speed our game up, I think would be a positive. I’m not quite sure on the whole, a pitcher has to face three batters thing, but that probably good, probably a good thing to, again, speed the game up. I think there’s a chance. I don’t know what’s going to happen with the Major League Baseball negotiations, but if there’s more TV opportunity for college baseball, I think we need to be prepared for that. And what I mean is how can our game be as good, as viewer-friendly as it can possibly be. So I think that’s a positive.

Schlossnagle, despite his reputation for lengthy games and pitching changes, is all in favor for speeding the game up, mirroring MLB as closely as possible.

Bigger picture, certainly like everything else, we’d like to have some guard rails on NIL and revenue share and all that kind of stuff to somewhat level the playing field. I’d like our postseason to look different. I’d like the season to be pushed back. Have the season start in March, not in the middle of February. I mean, it’s a cold weather sport, even in Austin, Texas, as you guys know. And I think our postseason, if we had 32 Best two out of threes, followed by 16 Best two out of threes, followed by eight best two out of threes, then you would truly get the best teams in Omaha, because your postseason would mirror your regular season, versus a regional is nothing like the regular season.

Schlossnagle is in favor of the regional games more closely resembling the regular season, where a team would need to win three best of three’s to get to Omaha, almost closer to the NCAA basketball tournament’s process of getting to the elite eight.

Schlossnagle is also in favor of pushing the season back and believes there may be support from other coaches behind that, but knows there are a lot of factors that play into this.

I think there’s a lot of momentum for pushing the season back once everybody kind of gets to that. There’s so many other bigger topics right now, nobody wants to discuss it, but I think there will come a day, for sure, in my mind, that some level of baseball gets pushed back. Is that all the teams? Is there a Super League or a top 60-80, teams? I think if there were that, then you’d see a lot of changes. But right now, getting everybody to vote for the four stuff, you know, financially, what does that look like? Is it better financially, because you can make more money at the games and maybe less travel for the northern teams? Or is it worse financially because you have to keep the players here in the summertime when they’re not in class? Our President’s willing to do that, right? Our President is willing to have athletic competition when kids aren’t in class. That doesn’t sound very collegiate, you know. So I think there’s a lot of voices, but I do think pushing the season back could be a good thing, and then restructuring the postseason, I think, would be awesome.

He also added his thoughts on the MLB Draft

I would love to see the draft earlier. I don’t mind the draft during Omaha. It only affects eight teams. I think the draft should be on Tuesday and Wednesday after the Super Regional. Super Regionals end on Monday. If whoever player X wants to be with his family, then they can enjoy that on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then leave them on Wednesday night to go to the World Series and enjoy it. It’s just it’s super tough on everybody to have it that way.