Head Coach Kevin O’Sullivan previewed Florida’s upcoming season live on the radio last week. Here’s everything he had to say.
On whether the team’s positions are settled or if there are spots still up for grabs…
“No, I think we’re at a point now where things have somewhat gotten settled, some guys have separated themselves but obviously the first four weeks of the year we, you know we try to figure out our team the best we can, move some guys around, lineup changes and that type of thing before we start conference play in March so, but no we have a pretty good feel for the position players and obviously the pitching is a little bit more confusing at this point if that’s the right word. We’ve got some freshmen we’re going to have to lean on and some guys who are going to have to grow up here in the first month or so for sure, certainly out of the pen.”
On the weekend rotation…
“I mean right now obviously you go into it with kind of an idea and a blueprint of what you think is going to give you the best chance to win. Right now, if the season were to start tomorrow, we would go Cade Fisher on Friday, Liam Peterson on Saturday, freshman, and we’d do Cags on Sunday for the simple fact that he’s got to play first the first few games of a weekend and if you pitched him on Saturday or Friday for that matter then obviously that would disrupt his ability to play first. And he’s certainly thrown the ball much better this fall and this early spring. You know and then we’ll still use Brandon at the back-end of the game. Obviously, he can be used in a lot of different ways in terms of he’s not just a three-out type of pitcher to get a save. He can get you a two inning save relatively easy kind of like we used Michael Byrne. You know if something were to happen with one of these three starters whether it be performance or somebody gets hurt or one of those things then obviously Brandon can move back into the starting rotation and we’d have to probably rely on a younger pitcher to finish a game. But I think the first four weeks, like I said, is going to be really telling on which freshmen are going to be able to handle this or not.”
On the importance of a closer at the collegiate level…
“I mean we went through years where we didn’t have a closer and it was miserable. I mean it’s one thing to fall behind early in a game and kind of regroup and get the team ready to play the next day but when you kind of, when you need some games in the 8th and 9th inning and you do it quite a bit because you don’t have a reliable guy to get the last few outs of the game, not only is that game demoralizing but it could certainly leak into the next day. Those are really painful losses, so I’ve always looked at the closer role as one that, obviously your Friday night starter is probably the most important piece of putting a staff together, but the closer for me, in my mind is 1A or 1B so to speak of the importance of having somebody to close out games. I mean let’s just be honest, you know the college game is different than the pro game in terms of the emotional side of it and those types of things, so you have to have somebody at the end that’s got some confidence and some mental toughness, and you know, be able to field the position, be somewhat athletic, hold runners, and be able to handle that role. And they are not easy to come by, so yeah we do place a lot of emphasis on the guy that finishes games.”
On how he identifies who should be the setup man for the team…
“I think it just kind of evolves and like I said over the first four weeks you kind of figure out who can do what and who can’t do what, you know you used Slater as an example. I mean, everybody’s role is important. I mean very rarely do you see starting pitchers ever go complete games. Now you’re looking at quality start used to be seven innings with three runs or less. Then it became six innings and three runs or less. Now it can be argued that the starter gives you five innings and gives you three or less, it’s a quality start. But to have a guy like Ryan or Fisher Jameson who has come a long way, those guys are really valuable to bridge the gap to your closer, and that’s where you know some of these freshmen other than Liam, who potentially will pitch on Saturdays, are gonna have to shoulder some of that load. They’re gonna have to give us three, four, five, six outs on a weekend, on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday or like I said if we use Ryan Slater or Fisher Jameson on Friday and Saturday in both games, then on Sunday some of these freshmen are gonna have to help us. And that’s kinda where maybe if there’s a question mark that’s where it lies. You know we’ve got five or six that have had extremely successful falls and I would anticipate they’d be able to help us and, you know like I said over the years we’ve used freshmen and we’ve relied on freshmen so this isn’t anything new. We’ve had success with freshmen like I’ve said, other teams use freshmen they have success and we certainly go into this with the idea that they might be lacking experience obviously but you know they came here for a reason and you’ve known me long enough we’re not gonna baby, we’re not gonna treat them any differently than anybody else. I mean obviously the alternative is they’re sitting next to me during a game and not contributing so, yeah. We’ll get after it and these guys are gonna have to help us.”
On Effects of NIL on baseball…
“Yes, most definitely. You’d be remiss if you didn’t take that part of it and embrace it. The bottom line is if you want to be active in the portal and be in contention for the eight, 10, 12 really good players that go into the portal every year then you have to have NIL money, that’s just the bottom line. If you’re not in that position where you can compete with NIL money, well, the chances are they’re not gonna come to your school. That’s obviously a work in progress, we are all learning as we go along here, but the bottom line is we are going to have to be competitive in NIL space and fundraising for that situation.”
On the strength of the offense…
“We have some guys in the outfield that have played, and obviously getting Colby Shelton from Alabama was a huge plus for us, his ability to play shortstop – which was the biggest question mark coming in – certainly worked its way out where he can handle that. Getting Cade back at second who’s had a Freshman All-American year, Cags back at first. Dale Thomas is kinda like our spark plug so to speak and we are feeling great about our catching situation. We have three catchers we can really rely on – obviously Luke had a great freshman year, Tanner Garrison from Coastal who’s probably the best one defensively out of the three, at least right now. And Brody Donay is gonna give us a chance to have some real power in the second half of the lineup so we’ll see. We feel like we’ve got a chance to be productive offensively. I get asked the question every year, “Are we gonna bunt more?” and that type of thing, we certainly work on it on a daily basis but the fact of the matter is you can’t bunt your way to Omaha that’s for sure and the SEC is built around power pitching and power hitting that’s the way it is. If you want to get to Omaha you have to have success in the SEC. And then obviously unfortunately the field play is a little bit different in Omaha. You can catch it on the right day where the wind isn’t blowing, where it’s blowing out but if you catch it on the wrong day when the wind is blowing in then obviously that doesn’t factor into your strengths. I do feel like we are gonna have a chance to be pretty good offensively as well hopefully.”
On strength of schedule…
“Certainly, you look at these preseason polls, which I don’t put any stock into them, but you know the point is obviously Vanderbilt is going to be very good, Arkansas is going to be very good, LSU is going to be very good, and arguably like I said all four of us are going to be ranked in the top five or six in the country. In a perfect world hopefully, you would’ve had a schedule where you play one of those three at home but we got to go on the road and play LSU, we gotta go back-to-back weekends and play Vanderbilt and Arkansas. Back-to-back weekends are tough. I mean, ideally what you’d like to have with your schedule is alternating home and away, so if you go on the road, you have a tough weekend, you kinda get back home and regroup and get your players back on track but those back-to-back weekends are difficult. But, you know what, we can’t control the schedule, obviously the SEC office comes up with it and at the end of the day we’ll certainly be battle-tested and ready to go when postseason comes around.”