FSU baseball: 3 things Noles need to improve in 2021

FSU baseball will begin the 2021 season as a top 25 team by most pundits and begins their season on February 19.

It’ll be the second 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 finished the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season with a (12-5, 1-2 ACC) record with several losses by one run. However, they were finally able to end an 11 game losing streak against the No. 1 Florida Gators.

It was a small sample size, but several things that caught my eye last year.

Here are three things the Noles must improve upon if they wish to compete for ACC and National Titles:

• 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 .950, which was worse than the previous year(.964). They had 32 errors, which was double the amount of their opponents. Teams can’t afford to give good teams extra outs, so this is something they need to fix in 2021.
• Too Many Strikeouts-FSU batters do a good job of getting on base with an on-base percentage of .415. However, they struck out 36.5 percent of the time(212 of 580). That’s too many strikeouts for a team that’s wasn’t necessarily a power-hitting team. They need to put the ball in play and force other teams to play more defenses.
• Aggressiveness on BasePaths-This is an area that seemed to be improving last year. FSU does a good job of getting on-base with a .415 on base percentage, but I’d like to see them become more aggressive on the base paths. They were successful on 19 of 22 stolen base attempts last year. They need to find a way to generate more runs and stealing bases helps to do that along with putting more pressure on opposing defense.

Final Thoughts

These issues have been persistent in the last few years, so I’m not sure if the 2021 season will be any different.

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

The pitchers were the strongest unit on the team last season, and they have a long list of arms they can go to in 2021. If they can improve the offense and give the pitchers some help with better defense? There’s no reason the Noles can’t make some noise this year.