Fall baseball practice is in full swing in Aggieland, and on Saturday afternoon, Texas A&M will host Lamar for an exhibition game at Olsen Field. During Tuesday's edition of TexAgs Radio, Jim Schlossnagle stopped by to discuss how practice is going, facing Lamar and more.
Key notes from Jim Schlossnagle interview
- We're excited to play. We've been going at it since the end of August in skill hours and fall practice. We've had two or three weeks of intrasquad games. It's going to be a long day on Saturday as we're going to play 17 or 18 innings. It will be good to see somebody else and see how some of the new guys react to playing somebody else.
- The first message to our team was that the run to Omaha was the 2022 team. We returned some players, but this is a completely new team. You'd like to take the lessons we learned last year to make us better, but the past never equals the future. Think about Mississippi State at this point last year as the defending national champion. They didn't even make the SEC Tournament. Our run does give us somewhat of a basis for new guys coming in because of the success, but nothing is guaranteed. You have to stay healthy, and you have to play well. To top that, you have to remember that it's tournament baseball, and Tennessee not getting to Omaha after having a great year proves that too. We want to be in the NCAA Tournament and competing for a conference championship, which should give you a chance to host. We're a long way from that right now, but it's certainly a luxury to return so many position players. That's a luxury we didn't have last year.
- Each of our returning guys has done it in their own way. There are some guys that are more vocal. The thing we won't have is a leader that's a catcher. Troy Claunch was that guy. He was like a special quarterback. In baseball, it's rare, and Claunch was as good as any I've had. We're not going to have that this year. We have new players there, and they're talented. Some might argue they're more physically tooled than Claunch, but as far as the intangibles that Troy brought, we're not replacing that. We're going to have to suck it up at different places. Austin Bost, Trevor Werner, Brett Minnich and Ryan Targac have done really well. Nathan Dettmer has done it in his own way on the pitching staff side, as has Chris Cortez, who I believe will play a big role.
- A hot topic is people wanting to see a roster, but for me, you have to earn your way onto the roster. We have several guys still trying to make this team. We have 20 new players, and a lot of them are on the mound. We will try to throw a lot of them on Saturday. I would say we're infinitely more talented on the mound, and the floor of our team is much, much higher. There are some guys who pitched for us last year that couldn't make this team. The higher-end pitchers like Dettmer, Cortez and a transfer from Quinnipiac named Brandyn Garcia. Will Johnston has taken a huge leap. Matt Dillard will play a huge role in our bullpen. I think we have more talented guys on the mound that we're putting on the bus, but now it's about getting them in the right seat on the bus.
- I'm really excited about Kaeden Kent if we can give him enough time to get used to this league. I think he's going to be a really good player. Hunter Haas will play a big role on our team. From a position player standpoint, this is a tough team to step in and play because of all the guys we have returning.
- I'm excited about this group, and I'm excited to see them play another team on Saturday.
- Jace LaViolette has been awesome. For a player to have a high profile in the draft to turn down money is special. He has come in and worked his rear end off. He has been great to coach. He has great awareness and great humility. You have to have those things to be coachable. We have really challenged him, and we're challenging him to play something other than center field. There has been some learning curve with him playing in left and right. One of the challenges he is having is that we have plenty of talented and diverse left-handed pitchers. There have been days where he has been the hammer and days where he has been the nail. He's going through a growing process, but what an awesome guy and awesome talent. He's going to turn into something special as an Aggie.
- Targac could bounce around if everybody is healthy. Werner will probably play the majority of third. Haas and Kent are battling it out at short. I call Targac "BTU" because that's where everybody pays their utilities. He could play anywhere on any given day. Austin Bost has gotten better at second, and his skill set is still getting better. He has worked hard at turning the double play, and he has gotten better. There can be days where Bost gets a break at second and Targac plays there. There are days I can give Jack Moss the chance to DH and have Targac play first. Maybe Werner gets a day off, and Targac can play there.
- Things are great. Personally, I love living here. Everything about it has been awesome. Professionally, I don't want the success of last year to hide the fact that we have to keep growing this program, and that is from a facility standpoint and an atmosphere standpoint. My vision is to have this program be the standard of college baseball, and we aren't there yet from the atmosphere, ballpark or service to the fan standpoint. Last year cannot hide that. This is a team that we're likely to lose a lot of players off of, and all of this is tied together from a recruiting standpoint. If we want to be in the upper echelon, we still have a lot of growth in front of us. We have some big, big steps to take, and that's my focus outside of the day-to-day of making this team better.
