Sean Kenny has been a major college pitching coach going on 20 years.
With stops over that at San Diego, Pepperdine, Maryland Michigan, he’s been fortunate enough to mentor numerous All-Conference players and All-Americans with a large number of those being selected in the Major League Draft.
So, when Kenny says this year’s Georgia’s pitching staff has the most depth of any program he’s been around, one tends to take notice.
“It’s not even comparable as far as the stuff. Our stuff here is so good and so deep with mid-90s fastballs … most of them. The minority is the guys who aren’t,” Kenny said. “I don’t know if it’s this league or this region, but every one of our weekend starters can show you 93, 94 mph, with (Tony) Locey, (Emerson) Hancock and Cole Wilcox (freshman) it’s going to be above 95. We’re really fortunate, which really speaks to the recruiting that Coach (Scott) Stricklin and Coach (Scott) Daeley have done. It’s a stuff staff.”
Third baseman Aaron Schunk, who doubles as the team’s closer, seems to agree.
“Lethal – It’s my word of choice,” Schunk said. “We’ve got a lot of dudes that can sling it pretty good and we’ve got some guys who can pinpoint where they want it. This staff is going to be really good.”
Although it’s probably wise to temper expectations until the Bulldogs – who open the season Friday against Dayton – get a least a weekend or two into SEC play, there is certainly reason for some optimism.
Last year’s staff fashioned a team ERA of 3.97 and averaged almost a strikeout per inning (532 in 539.2 innings), numbers Kenny truly believe will improve this spring.
There’s a lot to like.
“I think just experience, and the guys know what they need to do and I really think that includes the young guys because we’ve got a good group of them and they’ve been around the young guys now,” Kenny said. “It’s just a feeling of they know what to do; all I need to do is give them some direction for that day and it’s auto pilot.”
Otherwise, there’s not a ton of decisions involving his staff that need to be made.
Zac Kristofak (4-2, 3.83, 4 saves) and Schunk (2-2, 3.00, 8 saves) will once again anchor a bullpen that boasts plenty of other experienced arms.
Hancock (6-4, 5.10) slots in as the team’s Friday starter, with Locey (7-2, 4.28), Ryan Webb (1-5, 4.50), Wilcox, Will Proctor (3-2, 2.42) and C.J. Smith (1-2, 2.48) batting out during this weekend’s intrasquads to determine the rest of the weekend and mid-week rotation.
Stricklin expects to have those answers on Tuesday.
Locey, who’s added a split to his arsenal of pitches, would appear to be in line for one of the two remaining weekend starts.
“The slider has taken over as a pitch he can throw for a strike and his curveball has come back around where he will sprinkle it in,” Kenny said. “But the split is the pitch that he’s really developed and that’s the pitch that will take him from a setup, middle guy to a counted-on starter.”
Like many who follow the Georgia baseball program, Kenny is itching to see what the freshman Wilcox can do.
A projected first-round pick, Wilcox instead told Major League teams that he intended to honor his commitment to Georgia after spending last summer Team USA’s 18U squad.
In high school at Heritage, the 6-foot-5, 232-pound right-hander set a school record with 162 strikeouts in just three seasons, going 9-2 as a senior with a 1.59 ERA, totaling 95 strikeouts and 14 walks in 65.2 innings.
“The stuff is as good of raw stuff that I personally have ever coached. It’s not even close,” Kenny said. “We’ve been so lucky with a guy like Emerson and Cole back-to-back. That just doesn’t happen very often. You want to talk to him about game management and preparation but it’s not like you’re going to do re-do his delivery. You just talk about situational pitching. We’ve just got to get him in there and see somebody else.”
While Wilcox certainly figures to be mainstay in Georgia’s starting rotation, there’s still a bit of a question whether or not that will be right away.
According to Kenny, it may be a situation where he lets the freshman get his college legs under him in the bullpen before sliding him into a starting role.
“I think we’ll try to do that. Ideally, we’ll let him get his feet wet and just progress towards maybe a mid-week start and work his way into a weekend starter,” Kenny said. “He’s got weekend starter stuff, SEC weekend starter stuff. But let’s get him in there, let’s get him confident and just get him used to it. We were spoiled with Webb and Hancock and C.J. Smith how quickly they adapted to our league and our level. That’s pretty rare, but hopefully Cole will be in that same mold.”
