Mike Earley provides thorough fall update ahead of Houston exhibition

Texas A&M baseball is holding its final fall exhibition on Friday night against Houston, and admission at Blue Bell Park will be free! During the latest edition of TexAgs Live, head coach Michael Earley spoke about his team's progress and tonight's matchup with the Coogs.

Key notes from Michael Earley interview

• Football’s success helps our program a ton. The cool thing about our fanbase is that no matter how well our football team is doing, they’re going to show out. When it’s going well, they take it to another level. We’re all in, and you can see I have the black script Aggies hoodie on. We’re ready for this weekend.
   
• The reception on the recruiting trail has been great. The success we’ve had in the portal speaks for itself, and with the high school class, we helped flip it the other way. We’ve added four of the top 10 players in Texas. It’s going well. We’re using our connections all over the place because we have people from all over the country. We’re trying to get the best players to Texas A&M and keep the best players in Texas in the state.
   
• Twelve for 12 is trying to open up NIL to a broader base of a large fanbase. If you can contribute, that’s great. If you can’t, help spread the word. About two or three weeks in, it has really taken off. Caleb Longley has worked really hard on that, and I appreciate everyone who has contributed so far.
   
• It has been difficult to navigate the landscape of college baseball because we don’t know what the roster limits will be next year. Not a coach in the country can tell you what it will be. It’s not just six spots from 40 to 34. We have 47 players this fall. You’ve already recruited guys based on no cap. We’re operating as if the limit is 34 because it’s easier to add guys than it is to make those tough phone calls. You’re seeing that across the country, and what we don’t want to do is over-recruit to where we have to make those calls every year. There are schools in our conference doing that every year. We want to avoid that as much as possible. Will it still happen here? Absolutely. Will it happen as much as it’s happening in other places? No way.
   
• There are some differences during my fall practices, but not too many. Maybe the music is played a little bit louder. I like guys being themselves. If you do everything with respect, I’ll respect you. I don’t want guys to have fear when they play for me, and they know that as long as they don’t cross that line. Sometimes, when you give young guys that freedom, they cross that line. As soon as you send a message, they get it. They have a ton of freedom within our program.
   
• It was great to see our club react to the crowd a couple of weeks ago. You can’t replicate that. I thought the guys handled it perfectly. We had almost 6,000 people at that game. Guys like Matthew Bergevin and Myles Patton from Fairfield and Long Beach State didn’t have that many people at their home games, maybe all season. It was super cool for them, and I told them it was only 70 percent of the real thing.
   
• There’s maybe one or two guys on our roster who couldn’t play if we had a real series this weekend. Most of the guys that won’t play tonight could if they needed to. As a coach, I’m worried about them taking care of their bodies. Sports performance and nutrition are super important to me. We want to keep Jace LaViolette healthy, and he could play. I just don’t think he’s prepared for at-bats right now. He was running 21 mph the other day. He doesn’t need to play in this game, though. He’s fine.
   
• Did you say Kaeden Kent? He has made huge strides. He’s a year stronger, a year better. He has that confidence, and when you have the postseason he did, that can only propel you further. He has not changed how he works, and I used him as an example yesterday because of how he works. He’d be the starting shortstop today because of how he works. He has clicked with Longley. Kent and I were close when I was the hitting coach, but it was always a push-and-pull. The two of them are great. It has been a match made in Heaven. The issue between me and Kent is that we’re too similar. Longley’s heartbeat never gets above a certain level. They’re like best friends.
   
• If you want to go more analytically, Caden Sorrell attracts so many pro teams because of how hard he hits the ball in the zone and certain launch angles he hits it at features an elite metric. He was like one or two other college freshmen at that elite metric last year. There is nothing prettier than a left-handed swing, and he has that sweet stroke. If I could give my son one swing on this team, it would be Sorrell’s. He’s super competitive. When he gets in the box, he has bad intentions, and that got him in trouble early. Once he got better at controlling the zone, he doesn’t miss much.
   
• We have two really good catchers between Bear Harrison and Jacob Galloway. We have a good right-handed hitter with power, and we have a lefty who can control the bat. We don’t have Jackson Appel, but we tried to bring in two guys to spell that. They’ve done well. They have different styles of catching, but they’re good defensively. Harrison has some untapped power we’re trying to get to, and Galloway controls the strike zone. Troy Claunch has done a good job with them.
   
• Claunch has done well. In his role, he’s not allowed to do a lot of forward, outward coaching, so a lot of it is through us. I always knew he’d be a coach. You just know when you’re around those types of guys that they can do this because of how they carry themselves and how they talk to their teammates. He has a bright future, and I’m glad he’s here. He has been a huge help because I know nothing about catching.
   
• Ryan Prager has not thrown this fall, and Justin Lamkin is already shut down this fall. A lot of that is Jason Kelly’s call. I know what Lamkin can do, and JK wanted to work on a few things because we shut him down. Prager speaks for himself. He’s going to go to some biomechanics labs to try and get that one percent better.
   
• For me, I don’t sleep at night because of pitchers, but they’ve been great. Clayton Freshcorn from McLennan, his knock was he doesn’t throw the slider. If you saw his last couple of outings, the slider has been really good. JK has done a great job with him.
   
• Jackson Brasseux redshirted last year, and in his first outing, he didn’t throw a single strike but hit 98 mph. In his second, third and fourth outings, it got better and better. We’re finding pieces like Luke Jackson and Ty Baker. Players view performance differently than coaches view performance. Baker’s progression has been great, and guys do not like facing him. These guys are technically freshmen and doing this stuff.
   
• What Kelly does so well is make mechanical adjustments with guys. He sees those little things and has been really good about it.
   
• I hope this lineup makes a heck of a coach out of me. They’re really good. You might not see as much talent on a single roster ever again because of how the rules have changed. Think about Wyatt Henseler coming from the Ivy League and the COVID-19 stuff ending. They’re super talented, and there is a ton of depth. I struggle with how and where I’m going to play them all because I could hit a lineup of 13. They all work really hard, and the culture we have in the batting cage is something I would put up against anyone’s. They play games against each other. Kent screams at guys after he does something well. It’s comfortable and really intense. It’s so fun to be around.
   
• Gavin Grahovac did three sets of 10 off the tee on Monday. For 30 swings, he was 100 times better than I expected for a guy who broke his wrist. He has been doing ground balls. Hayden Schott is close to getting back to hitting. I’ll have some work to do in December. The winter will be a good time.
   
• I believe in lineup balance and like to do right-left depending on matchups. LaViolette and Grahovac will be high in the lineup, but the rest will work itself out. There is a ton of competition. We have guys. I don’t expect it to be the same all the time.
   
• I’m sure Terrence Kiel Jr. is one of the best players to play at high school. His football highlights are really good. Since he got here, he has really progressed. He can really run, but he has put the bat on the ball some. He’s an outfielder, but he has been playing second some to make him more versatile. He has been great. He gets after it every single day.
   
• Mike Elko has a unique ability to talk to people and make them feel like you’ve known him for years. What he has done has been great. I hope we can replicate that.
   
• Tomorrow’s football game? I don’t know. It’s going to be loud, and I’ve got it at 31-27 in favor of the Aggies.
   
• Elko is very present. I’ve been at other places, but Elko is more present. He’s at the meetings and all the other stuff that coaches are at. That’s not always the case. He seems like a normal guy, but I know behind those eyes that he’s a competitive guy like no other.