Ole Miss baseball’s 9 biggest questions for 2019
Welcome to Starting Nine, the Clarion Ledger's weekly look at where Ole Miss baseball stands throughout the 2019 season. Every Monday, we'll touch on the nine biggest topics surrounding the Rebels as the team tries to make a push for Omaha.
College baseball season is practically here. The air is getting a little warmer, the grass is getting a little greener, and Opening Day is this Friday across the state of Mississippi. Southern Miss hosts Purdue down in Hattiesburg. No. 14 Mississippi State will welcome Youngstown State to Starkville. And in Oxford, the No. 10 Ole Miss Rebels will start off their season with a three-game series against Wright State.
Ole Miss returns a ton of talent in its lineup from its 2018 team that qualified for the postseason as a national seed, bringing back seven everyday starters from a lineup that averaged 6.9 runs per game.
This includes players like ALL-SEC outfielder Ryan Olenek and power threats such as Chase Cockrell, Thomas Dillard and Cole Zabowski.
Pitching wise, Ole Miss has much more to replace. Weekend starters Ryan Rolison, Brady Feigl and James Mcarthur have all moved on to professional ball, leaving the Rebels with three new contenders to match up against SEC lineups in the spring.
As always, the SEC is loaded heading into 2019. Ole Miss looks to be one of the contenders.
Here are the nine biggest areas Ole Miss needs to find answers in order to remain in contention when the summer rolls around.
1. Can Will Ethridge be 'the guy' on Fridays?
Junior right-hander Will Ethridge will be Ole Miss' first response on its quest to replace Rolison, Feigl and Mcarthur. After spending last season in the bullpen where he posted a 3.91 ERA in 26 appearances, Ethridge is slotted as the Rebels' Friday night starter this season.
He added a curveball in the offseason and has been nearly unhittable in the spring, logging a 1.64 ERA and 1.000 WHIP in 11 innings of intrasquad action.
2. How will the Rebels handle catching duties?
Nick Fortes was one of the most productive offensive catchers in college baseball last season, batting .319 with 11 home runs, 49 RBIS and 14 stolen bases. Replacing him behind the plate won't be easy, especially after freshman Knox Loposer was limited to seven at-bats in live spring action due to an injury. Outfielder Thomas Dillard should field plenty of reps behind the plate in the early going, but the Rebels can also call on juniors Hunter Nabors and Cooper Johnson if Loposer isn't ready.
3. Will the Rebels field a second base rotation?
Ole Miss has a good problem at second base. Senior Jacob Adams returns after making 48 starts last season, as does Anthony Servideo, who earned Freshman ALL-SEC honors in 34 appearances. Servideo certainly outplayed Adams in the spring, batting .276/.475/.483 compared to Adams' .138/.286/.310. But in-game performances are likely to decide this battle, and expect Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco to play both second basemen in equal splits until a starter reveals himself.
4. Can Houston Roth locate on weekends?
Junior right-hander Houston Roth made eight starts in 2018, seven in the midweek and one in the SEC Championship. Across those eights starts, Roth posted a 4.58 ERA with 48 strikeouts in 37.1 innings. The Oxford native is expected to transition into the weekend rotation this year, where locating will be a key. Last season, Roth walked 25 batters with four wild pitches and four hit batsmen.
5. Can a freshman crack the rotation?
Right-hander Gunnar Hoglund and left-hander Doug Nikhazy are two of the highest-touted recruits Ole Miss signed this season, and both are considered contenders to eventually make the Rebels' weekend rotation.
Neither lit up the mound in the spring, with Nikhazy pitching to a 5.19 ERA and Hoglund a 7.27 ERA. Meanwhile, junior college signee Zack Phillips pitched great in the spring, earning a 1.80 ERA and a 0.90 WHIP in 10 innings, and junior righthander Austin Miller made impressive strides by allowing just five base runners in nine innings this spring.
6. What will the outfield look like?
Will Golsan is gone. Dillard will have to spend some time at catcher. It seems intuitive that Olenek has a spot in the outfield locked up, and Cockrell will likely spend time out there when he's not designated hitting as he did 52 times last year.
But that leaves a mish-mash of batters contending for other outfield spots. Names like Tim Elko, Carl Gindl and Josh Hall will figure into the discussion, as will players like Servideo and Adams if both bats are deemed valuable enough to play in the everyday lineup. And that's not mentioning the two-way talents of Hoglund and Nikhazy, both of whom can play in the outfield in a pinch.
7. Who will step up in front of Parker Caracci?
The back end of Ole Miss' bullpen is set, with preseason All-america closer Parker Caracci manning the ninth inning for the Rebels. But who else will slot alongside him in the bullpen? Obviously players like Hoglund, Nikhazy, Phillips, Miller and Jordan Fowler will factor in if they don't crack the weekend rotation or earn the midweek starting job, but also look out for players like Kaleb Hill, Taylor Broadway, Greer Holston and Tyler Myers.
8. Where do the Rebels stand in the SEC?
Eight SEC teams rank among the Top 25 in the preseason D1 Baseball standings. That's true of the NCBWA rankings, the Baseball America poll and the Coaches Poll as well. In every major preseason poll, Vanderbilt and LSU rank as the top two teams in the country, and Florida ranks somewhere between third and sixth. The SEC figures to be a top-heavy league this season, and Ole Miss will need to do something to differentiate itself from the glut of teams like Georgia, Auburn, Arkansas and Mississippi State, all ranked in the same area as the Rebels.
9. Will there be a hangover?
No team wants to end a season on a two-game losing streak at home. Especially not when that team is a national seed that won the conference tournament in the toughest league in college baseball. With so many players returning from Ole Miss' 2018 squad, it'll be interesting to see how the Rebels respond to last season's elimination versus Tennessee Tech. Will the Rebels use the blown series lead as motivation to come back better in 2019, or will the aftereffects of regionals still be visible versus Wright State? That'll be the easiest question for Ole Miss to answer throughout Opening Weekend, and perhaps the most pressing one for the first month of the season.
Contact Nick Suss at 601-408-2674 or nsuss@gannett.com. Follow @nicksuss on Twitter.