Season preview: Wake Forest baseball
Deacons look to improve on déjà vu all over again outlook entering season
A bevy of power bats in the lineup. A pitching staff that’s supposed to be improved and features a potential first-round pick. Pledges to live up to that deadly term, “potential.” Assertions that there’s enough talent on this roster to reach Omaha.
If it all sounds familiar it’s because, well, it is.
While the epicenter of the COVID-19 shutdown seemed to be basketball, the spring sports were the ones not even halfway through their seasons a year ago when the plug was pulled.
Wake Forest’s baseball team played a game in Conway, S.C., on March 11. The next day, the world as we knew it changed.
Here we are, almost a full year later, and some things haven’t changed. Including the strengths for the Deacons’ baseball team.
The NCAA’s ruling that last season didn’t count against eligibility for spring athletes combined with a five-round MLB draft means a lot of the same personnel is back across college baseball.
Wake Forest returns as much talent and production as any team in the country.
The Deacons will get bonus years from position players Chris Lanzilli, Bobby Seymour, Shane Muntz and Michael Ludowig, and from pitchers Antonio Menendez and William Fleming.
It’s a nucleus that knows what it’s capable of — and knows that, given lackluster 2018 and ’19 seasons and a rocky start to last season before the shutdown, it hasn’t played to the best of its ability yet.
“It’s my fourth year now — we’ve kind of underachieved in my eyes and I’m sure the coaches’ eyes, so definitely — I think we’re all going to take a leap and we’re going to see what we can do this year,” Seymour said.
“I think these guys come here with the idea that they want to take this program to Omaha and they want to be the people that do it,” coach Tom Walter said. “It’s not something that we talk about more or less than other years.
“But you can feel it because they know.”
Here’s what to know about Wake Forest’s baseball team heading into the season:
Key returners
Catchers: Brendan Tinsman, Shane Muntz
INFs: Bobby Seymour, Michael Turconi, Pierce Bennett
OFs: Chris Lanzilli, Michael Ludowig, Derek Crum
Utility: Adam Cecere
RHPs: Ryan Cusick, Antonio Menendez, William Fleming, Shane Smith
Impact newcomers
3B Brock Wilken
RHP Rhett Lowder
RHP Teddy McGraw
RHP Camden Minacci
LHP Crawford Wade
The influx of returning talent means there aren’t nearly as many newcomers who will step into big roles — that’ll be a common theme for most teams.
Wilken replaces William Simoneit, whose time as a Deacon was shorter than deserved, at third base. The 6-4, 225-pound freshman is also listed as a catcher on the roster, and was ranked the 82nd-best recruit in the country by Perfect Game.
The other four key newcomers will all start the season coming out of the bullpen, where inexperience is almost the overriding theme.
Injury report
There’s one significant note here: Wake Forest will be without junior Brendan Tinsman until at least the series at Miami (March 12-14).
Tinsman is ailing from a hamate injury, Walter said. So the Deacons will start the season without their third-year catcher who hit 10 home runs as a freshman and was hitting .291 when last season was cut short.
Schedule
There will be no degree of easing into this season for Wake Forest.
Normal college baseball seasons hold 56-game allotments, and in the ACC, 30 of those are conference games.
This season won’t be normal.
Teams are limited to 50 games this season and the ACC added two additional conference series. It means 36 of Wake Forest’s 50 games will be ACC games, and it means the Deacons won’t have the luxury of a few nonconference weekends to iron out their lineup and/or pitching staff.
Notre Dame comes to town next weekend.
“You’re talking about having one series and we’re right into it,” Walter said. “And (last year) … Notre Dame in the first conference weekend of the year swept (North) Carolina on the road.
“They’re coming in with a lot of confidence.”
Of course, there’s a bright side of this. At least, that’s the way reigning ACC player of the year Bobby Seymour sees it.
“Those early games, you definitely get the jitters out. But once ACC play starts, it’s a different animal,” Seymour said. “You go out there, the adrenaline is going more. I’m excited to get going with ACC (play) real quick.”
Lineup
1. Pierce Bennett (2B)
2. Michael Turconi (SS)
Turconi was emerging as the Deacons’ best leadoff option when last season ended, but Walter wants to put him at a spot where he can be more productive driving in runs.
“I want to get more production out of Michael Turconi, I want more RBIs, I want to put him in more leverage spots than you typically get as the leadoff hitter,” Walter said.
That’s meant finding a leadoff hitter, and that’s been Bennett, who appeared in five games last year as a freshman.
3. Chris Lanzilli (LF)
4. Bobby Seymour (1B)
Wake Forest’s version of the Bash Brothers, Lanzilli and Seymour are two of the best hitters in the ACC.
Lanzilli has had more pop in his bat — 31 career homers against Seymour’s 17 — while Seymour has hit for the better average (.328 to .314). The best friends shared the same disappointment in going undrafted in last year’s draft, but that’s turned to motivation for their fourth season together.
5-9. Shane Muntz (DH/C), Adam Cecere (UTIL), Michael Ludowig (RF), Derek Crum (CF), Brock Wilken (3B)
It will be interesting to see how these spots in the lineup shake out, and there figures to be some mixing and matching as the season goes along according to who’s producing.
Muntz and Ludowig have been steady and productive for a few seasons. Cecere hit four home runs and drove in 12 runs in just 29 at-bats last season as a freshman — his production might be too valuable to be left out of the lineup.
Crum was in contention with Bennett for the leadoff spot, so don’t rule him out from appearing there at some point this season.
Rotation
Friday/Saturday starters: Ryan Cusick/Antonio Menendez
Sunday starter: William Fleming
Midweek starter: Shane Smith
Perhaps a little surprising here, given Cusick’s status as a projected first- or second-round pick and how many swing-and-misses he’s capable of generating. Cusick struck out 43 batters in 22 1/3 innings last season, a ridiculous 17.33 k/9 innings rate, and made the most of his pandemic summer by pitching for the High Point-Thomasville HiToms.
Cusick’s task for the past several months has been developing his curveball as a reliable third pitch to complement his fastball and slider. He prefers to ignore his status as a draft-eligible prospect — and that’s actually easy for the 6-6, 235-pound righty.
“I don’t really look at that stuff. I don’t even have subscriptions, so even if I wanted to, I can’t look at them,” Cusick said of the prospect rankings.
But Cusick has, at times, struggled with control and pitch efficiency at Wake Forest — 47 walks in 88 career innings tell part of the story, while a career-high of six innings for an appearance tells the other part. A Friday night starter who never pitches into the seventh inning is no friend of an inexperienced bullpen (we’re getting to that).
If it’s Menendez as the Friday night starter, it’ll be another developmental step from seldom-used bullpen arm to long reliever to midweek starter to the marquee position in a college rotation.
“Menendez is throwing the ball really well and he’s going to be a starter for us this year. He’s earned that,” Walter said.
Menendez is the Swiss Army Knife of the Deacons’ staff, coming at opposing hitters from different arm angles with a slew of off-speed pitches. Whether he pitches on Fridays or Saturdays, he’ll present a unique challenge.
Fleming was hit-or-miss — pun intended — last season, his first as a starter after recording nine saves as the Deacons’ closer in 2019. In wins against Illinois and Brown last season: 14 innings, six hits, three walks, three runs, 17 strikeouts. In losses against Long Beach State and Louisville: 8 2/3 innings, 12 hits, eight runs, three walks, five strikeouts.
That trio won’t have much room for error in holding their spots in the weekend rotation.
“A guy who’s pushing all of those guys right now is Shane Smith,” Walter said of the redshirt sophomore. “Shane Smith has been throwing the ball really well and he’s kind of been pushing to get in the mix there. One of those guys will probably move to Tuesday.”
For now, it seems Smith will be the Deacons’ midweek starter — with the chance to be used on weekends as needed. Smith was stellar in the closer role last season, pitching five innings with one run, one hit, one walk and nine strikeouts.
Bullpen
This is where you get to the inexperience on Wake Forest’s roster.
Of the five main options out of the bullpen that Walter brings up, three are freshmen — Camden Minacci, Teddy McGraw and Crawford Wade. A fourth is Eric Adler, who pitched all of 4 2/3 innings last season, and the fifth is Brennan Oxford, with all three innings he pitched last season.
Wade and Oxford are the lefties in that mix. The closer role is likely to be determined, at least early in the season, by situation and whoever has the hot hand.
“We’ve got kind of a whole list of guys we can kind of mix and match,” Walter said.
Walter threw in the possibility that Rhett Lowder, a freshman pitcher, could be used as a midweek starter if Smith is needed during a weekend.
Freshman lefty Hunter Furtado is another name to keep in mind — Walter said he’ll likely be called upon for situational appearances this season, and that the role could expand if he gains better command of his breaking ball.
My Take
I’ll throw one of these in here at the end.
If it’s hard to get overly excited about this season, given how the two-plus seasons after reaching the super regional in 2017 have gone, that’s warranted.
Tepid optimism might be the best approach here.
Walter is an eternal optimist. It’s difficult to come away from talking to him — especially at this time of the season, when optimism peaks — without feeling like this is the season everything will come together.
“Nobody puts more pressure on us to win than I do,” Walter said. “Whatever anybody’s expectation for the program is, whether it’s the AD or our moms or our parents or even our players, my expectations are higher.
“Again, I don’t feel any additional pressure than I normally would because, again, my own clock is ticking and we need to get this program to Omaha.”
I’d stop short of saying this is a put-up-or-shut-up season for this program. Committing the resources and time into building the pitching lab — and what’s on tap for the future — means this staff likely has staying power at Wake Forest.
It’s not a secret this program has underachieved in the past couple of seasons. And the more seasons like 2019 the Deacons have, the tougher it’s going to be to apply the “wait til next year” trope.
But here’s the thing about tepid optimism: It can become unbridled just as quickly as it can turn into pessimism.
As noted, there’s no easing into this season. Wake Forest’s fourth game of the season will be against Coastal Carolina. The fifth, sixth and seventh games will be against an ACC foe. That elusive hot start, if it comes together, will go a long way.
“I think this could be a year when we actually, finally all mesh together and it’s not just – this could be a year where we actually put everything together and I really think we could do something special this year,” Seymour said.
And so it begins.
Season preview: Wake Forest baseball
Last couple seasons I felt there was way too much overconfidence from team and staff prior to season. Just let the play do the talking. Quiet confidence.
Great update Conor. Thanks.