Part 1 – New player amenities already paying dividends

Part 2 – Talking development, experience benefits, whiff rates - Today

Part 3 – Taking a closer look at the team ahead of preseason practice – Friday

A large part of the fall for Georgia baseball coach Wes Johnson and his staff dealt with evaluation and development.

Considering we’re talking about a first-year skipper and a brand-new team, that’s certainly understandable.

With the first official day of preseason practice set for Friday, it’s time to start putting some of those individual plans into action for the benefit of the entire team.

“My big thing, and it’s always been my big thing, is development. Not only were we evaluating, but we were writing, a lot. I mean, we burned the candle at both ends writing some plans for guys and then evaluate how they were able to stick to that as well,” Johnson said. “Not just about their performance on the field, because I feel like with the development plans that we have come up with over the years if we can get guys to stay with that, then we feel he can improve.”

It’s certainly an older team.

Georgia was one of the busiest programs regarding the NCAA transfer portal, bringing in 18 new players.

Of the 18, 11 are seniors, including nine graduate transfers.

“The majority of the guys we brought in are in their last year to play college baseball. They want to win,” Johnson said. “And they want to get good enough to, you know, hopefully, and potentially play at the next level. So, when you get when you get, you know enough of those guys around, some things can happen and that's our hope right now is that we can continue to keep that momentum.”

So far, Johnson likes what he’s seen.

“The guys you know that they really came together. And worked out really hard,” Johnson said. “So, for me, my first fall evaluating I wasn't, I won't say like I was like, overly pleased. I mean I was. I was right where I thought I would be. We still have a long way to go. I like where their minds are. But now we got to get their bodies to get there as well.”

Bulldog baseball fans will learn their names soon enough.

Returnees like Charlie Condon, Charlie Goldstein, Fernando Gonzalez, Corey Collins, and Sebastian Murillo are certainly familiar.

Before too long, names like outfielder Dillon Carter (Texas Tech), outfielder Clayton Chadwick (Sam Houston), infielder Kolby Branch (Baylor), outfielder/catcher Logan Jordan (Campbell), infielder Paul Toetz (Purdue), pitcher Brian Zeldin (Penn), pitcher Josh Roberge (Southern New Hampshire) and pitcher Brandt Pancer (Stanford) will be as well.

The majority of that group – Carter, Chadwick, Jordan, Roberge, Zeldin, and Pancer each have postseason experience, with Pancer’s former team at Stanford playing in the last three College World Series.

“When you bring in that many good, or in our mind that many good players out of the portal that have college experience, there's a lot of competition. Even though they're pulling in that same thing where you see some guys, some guys in there and they're hitting in that cage late at night. They know what's coming on Friday when we start team practice; in three weeks decisions are going to be made,” Johnson said. “Obviously, we won’t stay with the same lineup for 56 games in the regular season, but they know that they've got that they've got to get some things done in those games to quote un quote, you know, put their mark on where they want to play and leave an impression in our mind when we go to write lineups.”

Another advantage to having an older team is players shouldn’t be affected.

That’s one of the areas Johnson and his staff were watching closely, especially during last October’s exhibition game against Florida, and to an extent, later against Kennesaw State.

Having a slow heartbeat – be it a pitcher or a hitter – is ultimately imperative to having success.

“I spent my time in the big leagues and this league is very similar. You're gonna play in front of big crowds. Once you get into your SEC weekends, it's going to be hostile at times,” Johnson said. “So, the guys who are able to slow the game down and actually embrace that and use it as adrenaline in the right way, those are the guys and those are the teams that have success and it's something we talk a lot.”

Something else Johnson obviously talks about a lot is analytics.

One of the subjects he’s often asked – his most important metric as it pertains to his pitchers.

Johnson calls it the “whiff zone.”

“I look a lot at what happens when the ball is in the strike zone. We call it the in-zone whiff rate. For the pitcher, it’s how much they get swings and miss when they throw it in the strike zone, and then what happens when the ball is in the strike zone for the hitter?” Johnson said. “People ask about velocity, what about movement? I can go through a lot of pitchers in college baseball that go right-handed, that go left-handed that don't throw hard, but just get in zones whiff rates. And so I look at that. That’s one of the stats I really track because I think it, you know because it tells you that there's something going on.

“It’s easy with Paul Skenes when he's throwing 101 to go yeah, just throw that. But what about the guy who's 90 and he's getting swing and misses? He's got some deception; he's got a lot of things.”