Georgia Tech’s baseball program celebrated in July when eight of its players were selected in the MLB draft, tied for fourth highest in Division I and the most at Tech since 2010. The coming season, which begins Friday with a home series against Miami (Ohio), brings a challenge for coach Danny Hall to compete in the ACC after such a massive talent drain.
“We’re not ranked in many polls, and that’s a good thing,” said Hall, at the start of his 30th season at Tech. “If I was voting in a poll, I probably wouldn’t rank us right now, either. I think we have to prove ourselves to see where we’re going to go.”
From their lineup that finished ranked in the top 10 in Division I in batting average, scoring, slugging percentage, on-base percentage and home runs per game, the Yellow Jackets lost 65% of their at-bats and 69% of their home runs to the professional ranks, most notably first-round pick Kevin Parada (school-record 26 home runs in 2022) and fellow All-Americans Chandler Simpson (NCAA-leading .433 batting average) and Andrew Jenkins (.381 batting average).
Last season’s team and this season’s, Hall said, are totally different.
“We need to be a way-better pitching team and play way-better defense, particularly infield defense, than we did last year,” Hall said.
Banking on improved pitching and defense has become something of a tradition at Russ Chandler Stadium. For where hitting rarely has been a problem, getting opponents out has. In the past 10 season, the Jackets’ slugging percentage has ranked in the top 50 nationally eight times. Over the same decade, Tech’s ERA – a reflection of both pitching and fielding – has not been in the top 50 once and outside of the top 150 seven times, including 227th last season. Long of bat and short of arm, the Jackets finished 36-24 and reached the NCAA Tournament, where their season ended in the Knoxville, Tennessee, regional.
“We’ve been placing a lot of time on defense, pitching, bunting, stealing bases – everything – so we’re ready to manufacture runs any way we can,” said John Giesler, a candidate to start at first base.
Tech, picked fifth in the ACC Coastal Division, isn’t just replacing most of its batting production. The Jackets also lost pitchers who covered 59% of the team’s innings and made 46 out of 60 starts, perhaps most notably Marquis Grissom, son of the former Braves outfielder. And it wasn’t as though the Jackets’ pitching was so deep as to deny younger arms opportunities. The Jackets ranked 207th in Division I in walks per nine innings.
Against Miami (Hall’s alma mater) this weekend, Tech will start Dawson Brown (son of Tech great and six-time MLB All-Star Kevin Brown) on Friday, Logan McGuire on Saturday and Jackson Finley on Sunday. Brown and McGuire primarily pitched out of the bullpen last season. Finley is a two-way player who pitched a total of four innings after returning from Tommy John surgery.
“I think for the fall, the majority of the time, we were focused on first-pitch strikes, winning 1-1 counts,” Finley said. “But the overall goal was to be more consistent with throwing strikes, especially with off-speed pitches and not worrying so much about getting strikeouts. Just getting the ball in play to where our fielders can make plays and get more outs.”
Hall expressed his utmost confidence in his coaching staff, including associate head coach and hitting coach James Ramsey, pitching coach Danny Borrell and volunteer coach Zeke Pinkham. (The Jackets staff is augmented by perhaps the only undergraduate assistant coach anywhere who made four MLB All-Star games – Tech great Matt Wieters, who has returned to campus to finish his degree after his 12-year MLB career.) Going into his fourth season since coming to Tech from coordinating the Yankees’ minor-league pitching, Borrell is being counted on to bring along a staff that can hold up its end.
“I think he continues to grow and learn about the college baseball game,” Hall said of Borrell at the end of last season. “The easiest thing to say and cut right to it – we have to win. We know that.”
Despite losing the likes of Parada, Simpson and Jenkins, it won’t be a surprise if the Jackets end up mashing the ball. Outfielder Stephen Reid (.333 batting average in 2022), third baseman Drew Compton (58 RBIs) and middle infielder Jadyn Jackson (.252 batting average) are Tech’s returning everyday starters. A player to watch is Angelo DiSpigna, who transferred from Mercer after leading the Bears in home runs (15) last season. A freshman of note is first baseman Carsten Sabathia, the 6-foot-4, 240-pound son of Cy Young Award winner C.C. Sabathia.
“He’s going to be a very good player one day,” Giesler said. “You watch his (batting practice), he puts balls over the batter’s eye (wall) like nobody’s business.”
After a dry spell in which they made the NCAA Tournament once from 2015-18, Jackets have made the past three (not counting the 2020 season canceled by COVID-19). Last season, though Tech failed to make it out of the regional round, its 11th consecutive tournament appearance without advancing to a super regional (or College World Series).
After coming up short against top overall seed Tennessee, Hall and his staff studied the top teams in the conference and country and tried to divine answers. One was that the most successful teams generally were among the better teams in their leagues at hitting, pitching and fielding. He cited Oklahoma’s 2022 team, which didn’t hit for power, but got on base consistently. The pitching staff ERA ranked sixth in the Big 12, but the Sooners avoided giving up walks.
“They didn’t have a bunch of guys that could hit home runs, but they could bunt, they could steal bases, they could put pressure on the other team, and that was a winning formula for them,” he said.
The Sooners rode that formula to a second-place finish at the College World Series. Where the Jackets’ journey ends this season remains to be seen, but it sounds like Hall is eager to try a different path to get there.
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