Chop Chat
Fansided

FSU baseball: 3 things that need to improve in 2020

By Kelvin Hunt

OMAHA, NE - JUNE 26: A general view of a baseball on the field during batting practice before game one of the College World Series Championship Series between the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Oregon State Beavers on June 26, 2018 at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images)
OMAHA, NE - JUNE 26: A general view of a baseball on the field during batting practice before game one of the College World Series Championship Series between the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Oregon State Beavers on June 26, 2018 at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

FSU baseball saw the Mike Martin Sr. era end with a College World Series appearance. Here are three things that need to improve in 2020.

FSU baseball will begin the 2020 season as a top 15 team by most pundits, taking on the Niagara Purple Eagles Friday at 6 p.m. to start the season.

It’ll be the first year at the helm for Mike Martin Jr. as he looks to continue the success his father had for over 40 years in Tallahassee.

The Noles will have a talented team but will face one of the toughest schedules in the country, but it’ll be the little things that ultimately define how good they are.

I wanted to take a look at three things the Noles must improve upon if they wish to build on the success Mike Martin Sr created.  Here we go:

  • Fielding/Defense-As a former pitcher, nothing is more frustrating than humming along only to have your defense commit an error. The Noles have been awful in recent years and last year had a fielding percentage of .964 which was worse than the previous year. They had 84 errors with the bulk of them coming from the third base and shortstop positions. Teams can’t afford to give good teams extra outs, so this is something they need to fix in 2020.
  • Runners Left On Base-FSU baseball left 576 runners on-base last season compared to just 500 by opposing teams. That’s an average of almost nine runners left on base per game or one per inning. That’s too many runs left on the table to not capitalize upon.
  • Aggressiveness on BasePaths-Obviously FSU does a great job of getting on base with a .392 on base percentage and we see how many runners they left on base. The Noles are not an aggressive team on the basepaths as they only attempted 64 steals all season while being successful 73 percent of the time. They need to find a way to generate more runs, getting players in better scoring positions instead of doing things like sacrifice bunting is the way to go.

Final Thoughts

These issues have been persistent in the last few years, so I’m not sure if the 2020 season will be any different.

At least Mike Martin Jr. has verbally addressed some of these issues and knows they need to improve.

Next. FSU Baseball Faces Tough 2020 Schedule. dark

I do know these are big reasons why they continue to come up short each year. Pitching wasn’t the problem last year, it was defense and the offense scoring one or fewer runs in 12 games in 2019.

It’ll be interesting to see if these things can be improved under the watch of Mike Martin Jr.

Home/FSU Baseball