tito flores
As promised, three weeks have passed since I last chronicled the happenings of the Michigan Softball and Baseball teams, so it's time to check back in. Softball was playing in the BTT when I started writing this, so I'm going to leave that one until early next week once we know the final result of Selection Sunday (likely not gonna be good!), but it feels like a good time to check back in on baseball. Nine more games have gone by and the regular season is nearing its conclusion. Once again we'll do a quick recap, check in on the B1G chase, recap the goings on with the team, and then preview the upcoming slate:
Baseball: Jostling for B1G Positioning
The last time I wrote about Michigan Baseball we were getting ready for a massive home series against Michigan State that represented the last truly difficult B1G series on the schedule. At that time, the team was sifting through choppy results in conference play and were firmly in the "must win the B1G Tournament to make the NCAAs" territory, so our focus was on seeding (and qualifying) for the BTT in Omaha. That remains true in this edition.
Season Results Since We Last Talked: That pivotal home series against MSU went pretty well! Michigan got out to a quick 5-2 lead in the Friday game and let strong pitching from Noah Rennard carry them, Mitch Voit working a clean and efficient ninth inning to nail it down. With the ace Connor O'Halloran going on Saturday, Michigan was situated in good position to get a series win at that point and that's what they got on Saturday. O'Halloran threw a complete game, striking out five and allowing three runs on 115 pitches. The Michigan offense gave him a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the first on RBI knocks from Joey Velazquez and Jack Van Remortel and those were all the runs he'd need en route to a 7-3 victory. Michigan's pitching depth again proved problematic in another Sunday defeat, but taking 2/3 from MSU was satisfactory.
That led Michigan into their bye week in the B1G, meaning it was time for a non-con tussle with Oklahoma State. That series meant nothing with the Wolverines far outside NCAA consideration as an at-large team, instead mostly serving to give this Michigan team some experience. They only ended up playing two games due to weather, with the Cowboys sweeping the Wolverines (not terribly surprising). O'Halloran pitched a decent game in the opener of the series, but two runs allowed in the 7th handed the Pokes a 5-3 victory. The second game was much messier, OKST using a 5 run fifth to take a commanding lead and eventually hanging on to win 8-5. Tough sledding for Tracy Smith's crew, but again not terribly meaningful in the long run.
The mid-week game against Kent State wrapped up a seven game home-stand, Michigan able to use more of their A-List arms for that one due to the shortened series against OKST. Michigan won it 7-5 on the back of homers from both Mitch Voit and Tito Flores, as well as an RBI double from Jonathan Kim. After that the Wolverines were off to Minneapolis, a three-game set that ended up being quite low-scoring. Michigan's pitching showed up, nine runs allowed in the three games. Unfortunately, they only scored six runs in three games, including being shut out in the Friday game. The Maize & Blue held a 2-0 lead headed into the bottom of the 8th on Saturday when starter Noah Rennard began to unravel and Voit was unable to salvage it. Thankfully, the brilliance of Jacob Denner on Sunday (complete game, one run allowed!) and a first inning three-run HR from Velazquez powered Michigan to a win in Game #3 that denied the Gophers the sweep.
[AFTER THE JUMP: B1G standings, notable performances, previews]
The dawn of the Tracy Smith era in Ann Arbor is nearly upon us. After Erik Bakich exited the program in favor of Clemson, Warde Manuel turned to former Indiana and Arizona State head coach Tracy Smith to lead the Wolverines into the future. It was a bumpy transition at first, with plenty of players entering the portal, but Smith did alright keeping a lot of the roster together, minus graduation/MLB guys he was bound to loss. As a result, a reasonable chunk of production returns from last season's Big Ten Tournament Champion roster. There are plenty of questions, though, uncertainty on the mound, sizable holes in the lineup, and a fresh new coaching staff. Let's get acquainted with all of them:
Who is Tracy Smith? Who are these new coaches?
Things are a bit different at the top and the Bakich --> Smith transition is the most important. I covered Smith back when he was hired in July, but the first thing to know is he's a much older and more veteran coach than Bakich was when he arrived in Ann Arbor. Smith was a solid coach at Miami (OH), winning the MAC a couple times, and then was hired to coach Indiana in 2005, where he replaced a former mentor Bob Morgan. At IU, Smith was an excellent coach, turning them into the no-doubt best-in-the-conference program by his last few seasons in Bloomington, finishing 2nd, 1st, 1st in the last three years. He won two B1G regular season titles and two B1G Tournament titles, taking Indiana to the CWS in 2013 and snagging the #4 national seed in the 2014.
The reason Smith was available for Michigan to hire is what happened after he left Indiana, a disappointing tenure at Arizona State. Despite exceptional recruiting, their on-field results were underwhelming, falling short of expectations repeatedly and never finishing higher than 3rd in the PAC-12, also never making it out of the regional in the NCAAs. There were reports of locker room problems, something that the ASU AD alluded to in his decision to fire Smith. It was not what you want from a coach that is coming to Michigan, and my feeling at the time of the hiring is it's all about which Tracy Smith this is. Indiana Tracy Smith would be a terrific coach... the ASU Tracy Smith would be a disaster for Michigan.
Still, this is a fresh start for Smith and as I wrote in July, maybe he just got out over his skis recruiting blue chip players at a national program like ASU and he's more suited to coaching in the B1G/Midwest, where his background is. It's too early to know anything about Smith at Michigan, but it is a very early decent sign that he was able to fetch several of Michigan's players out of the portal, convincing them to stay. Retrieving Jimmy Obertop and getting him to come back, for example, was massive. I'm willing to hope for the best as there is a wide range of legitimate outcomes with Smith. He needed to bomb out at ASU to be a candidate to come to a program like Michigan, but it's also not too often you get to hire a coach with multiple B1G regular season titles on his resume (something that Bakich never achieved).
[AFTER THE JUMP: Assistants, hitters, pitchers, expectations]
As is customary, one week after the NCAA softball season got underway, baseball is about to do the same. Indeed, Michigan Baseball is set to begin its season tonight against #14 Texas Tech in Arlington as part of the College Baseball Showdown. The Wolverines finished last season's COVID-modified season with a 27-19 record, good for 3rd in the B1G (27-17 in conference), but they were quickly broomed out of the South Bend Regional by UCONN and Central Michigan. Obviously there is a hunger for redemption inside the program as Erik Bakich chases his first regular season conference title, and the 2022 squad figures to be an intriguing group, with some legitimate stars but also a ton of question marks.
Your author is not a Michigan Baseball aficionado the way he is with softball, so I can't say that this will be as detailed of a preview as last week's softball one was, but my goal will be to cover all the bases (pun intended) and be a bare bones guide. After all, for a program as unfortunately under-covered as Michigan Baseball, any coverage at a major outlet such as this one is an upgrade, so I'm doing my best to chip that in at a basic level and bring a little more awareness to this less-talked about team. For the narrative of the preview, I'm pooling the statistics with my own knowledge, as well as the knowledge of that of my one-time colleague Austin Falco, perhaps the biggest Michigan Baseball fan and knowledge bank on the program out there.
Returning Hitters in the Lineup
Michigan rolls over a good collection of top talent who should provide thump in the middle of the order thanks to a stellar junior class. Ted Burton is one of the B1G's best hitters after slashing .342/.434/.667/1.101 in 2021, with all of those values ranking in the top ten in the league last season. His 7 HR weren't overwhelming, but he didn't break into the everyday lineup until a bit later in the year, so they (+ his 12 doubles) represented a high percentage of his total hits and hence the monstrous SLG clip. Burton gets on base and he hits for power, and will give the Michigan order a huge amount of punch. He's set to be Michigan's everyday third baseman.
The other two big boppers who give Burton protection are his fellow juniors Tito Flores and Jimmy Obertop. Flores can play the outfield or 1B and he got on base at a nearly identical .429 clip with an also identical 7 HRs, plus five steals. Obertop is your traditional slugger with monstrous power, not quite the doubles hitter of Burton, but his 11 HRs were tied for fifth in the conference last season. One of those 11 was a walk-off two run HR to cap in an improbable comeback against MSU in March that your author got to be on the broadcast for (and thus it is my voice in the below video):
MICHIGAN WINS!!!!!!
— Michigan Baseball (@umichbaseball) March 21, 2021
OBERTOP GOES OPPO 2-RUN BLAST & WE WIN 8-7 with 8 runs in the 9th! LFG #NCAABaseball #GoBlue! pic.twitter.com/vQC3laFjli
The downside for Obertop as a HR-focused hitter is he does struggle with the strikeout, an ugly 59 K in 153 ABs. Michigan would like to see that ratio come down in 2022, but you're not going to complain about having a .900 OPS guy in your lineup. The question with Obertop is where he fits in defensively, as it sounds like Michigan is going to try him behind the plate, but his experience there at the NCAA level is limited. If he can't fit behind the dish, DH or 1B is a logical place for him.
Those three will likely be joined by Clark Elliott, who isn't the same caliber of hitter (yet) but should be a consistent everyday hitter. Elliott is an outfielder who got on at over .400 last season and though he doesn't have a Burton or Overtop level of power, he did have 8 steals on 10 attempts, adding that speed dimension. Riley Bertram is a returning starter, but the kind where you are half-hoping that someone else steps up and takes his job, because Bertram was brutal in 2021 offensively. The Wolverines' starting 2B posted an OPS of .605 thanks to a very low batting average and being a soft hitter, zero HRs and only 6 XBHs total. There was a lot of hope for Bertram earlier in his career, and perhaps he can make a leap at the dish still, but right now he's merely a blackhole in the order, one where you're looking for an upgrade.
Jordon Rogers got nearly the same number of at bats as Bertram despite appearing in seven fewer games (and starts), being able to play both the OF and catcher. Rogers was a decently entertaining player last year, stroking some clutch hits against Rutgers, Minnesota, and PSU, but he still was a .682 OPS hitter. His experience in the lineup means Rogers will get his shot to stick for Michigan, but perhaps he's not sharpie'd into the lineup yet.
Elliott, Obertop, Burton, and Flores are four players who should anchor the top/middle of the lineup as known quantities. Bertram and Rogers would seem to have better than 50% odds to be consistent faces somewhere in the lineup as well. It is the remainder of the order that is more in flux.
[AFTER THE JUMP: hitters, pitchers, and opponents!]
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