BFT on College Baseball

This weekend, the college baseball season officially starts. It may be D-III baseball beginning their seasons, but there is a great deal of talent that is disregarded. I am going to give a brief overview of the upcoming seasons for the two college programs I barely played at over the next few days: University of the Pacific, a D-I program in Stockton, CA, and Willamette University, a D-III program in Salem, OR. Just a reminder, because no one I have ever met that does not know Willamette will get this right, the way to pronounce Willamette is easy. It's Willamette, dammit. Easy rhyme to figure it out. We'll start with a projection of Willamette's upcoming season that starts this weekend in Claremont, CA, against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

Willamette University should be the best team in the Northwest Conference (NWC). There is no question from the talent they have. The program only lost three players, really, in Dawson Campos (RHP), Dylan Ross (RHP), and Tyler Esquivel (RHP and OF). Two of those three players were freshman, and Tyler was a transfer junior. There were zero seniors on the roster last year. Nearly every player is returning, they are adding some great freshmen, and they are all adding a year of experience. Willamette finished their season last year falling in the NWC championship to rival Linfield College. They will come back this year with a vengeance. They have the best talent in the NWC, and the added year of experience will only make them better. Connor Bailey is the best LF in the NWC. Mason Fessler, Eric Del Prado, Cole Pursell, and Jack Brett all provide interchangeable power in the lineup. Tyler Janitz, Troy Conway, Kyle Paguio, Perry Van Eckhardt, and Joey Faudskar have the uncanny ability to get on base, but they also have a great team defense.

The pitching staff took the majority of the hits from players that left, and there were only three, but the pitching staff is deep. Matt Steindorf has two different deliveries, and he is effective with both deliveries to mess with hitters. Brandon Nelson can throw strikes with all of his pitches, but even better, he can locate all of his pitches to generate poor at bats for hitters. Nathan Gilman (Gator), busted his butt to work into the starting rotation last year, and he earned every inning he threw. The bullpen is off the charts as well. Mason Cook, Dawson Enright, Nolan Boggini, Jett Gallagher, and Brendan Natuzzi close out games for the Willamette baseball team that will give them the ability to win games, even if the offense has an off day. No one should sleep on Ben Whitten, either. Ben Whitten is a tall and lanky starter that will not overpower you, but teams will not be able to figure him out.

This Willamette roster will be successful. They will go as far as they want to. There is no roster in the NWC that has more talent than Willamette. It will be interesting to see how the freshmen will fit in to this deep roster. At the end of the day, look for Willamette to win their first NWC title since 2001.