Georgia Baseball Tools and Re-Tools During Fall Practice
Georgia baseball began fall workouts with a solid group of position players and a pitching staff bolstered by new faces and now healthy veterans.
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The University of Georgia baseball team opened fall practice Sunday night at Foley Field.
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Scott Stricklin, now in his third season at the helm, welcomed 17 lettermen and 18 newcomers.
Stricklin compared this fall to his first two seasons in Athens for Georgiadogs.com. “As a staff, we feel like we’ve got both feet on the ground. We feel good where we are in the program. We’ve got momentum. It’s a building process, and I feel like we’re headed in the right direction, and now we need to translate it in to wins.”
The Bulldogs return seven starting position players, including junior centerfielder Stephen Wrenn, junior right fielder/catcher Skyler Weber, sophomore left fielder Keegan McGovern, senior first baseman Daniel Nichols, senior shortstop Nick King, junior second baseman Mike Bell and third baseman Trevor Kieboom.
Wrenn batted .324 with eight home runs and 28 stolen bases last year, all team highs. Wrenn, along with Nichols (.296-6-33), Weber (.245-3-36) and Bell (.240-4-25) were the top run producers in 2015. In their first season wearing the red and black, McGovern (.268-3-17) earned Freshman All-SEC honors while King started all 54 games at shortstop, batted .242-1-15 and was 16-for-19 in stolen bases.
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The Dawgs also return top pitcher, junior right-hander Robert Tyler. Tyler projects as a first round draft pick in 2016. He went 3-0 with a 1.00 ERA for USA Baseball’s Collegiate National Team this past summer after being limited to 23.2 innings for the Bulldogs as a sophomore.
Tyler will be the cornerstone of a retooled rotation as six Bulldog pitchers signed professional contracts last June.
Along with Tyler, Georgia’s top returning pitchers are senior Mike Mancuso (0-1, 2.25 ERA, 28 innings) and sophomore Bo Tucker (1-1, 2.03 ERA, 31 innings). The Dawgs look forward to welcoming back to health senior Heath Holder, redshirt-junior David Gonzalez and sophomore Drew Moody. Holder and Gonzalez missed all of 2015 recovering from injuries while Moody pitched just 9.2 innings.
Nine of the new Bulldogs are pitchers.
“We have a talented bunch of newcomers who are going to challenge for at bats and innings on the mound,” Stricklin told Georgiadogs.com. “It’s a hard-working group that will help us.”