FSU baseball: Thoughts on announced starting pitching rotation

FSU baseball will get the Link Jarrett era officially underway when they open the 2023 season with a three-game series against James Madison Friday night.

There’s a lot of buzz surrounding the program under the new leadership, and facility upgrades have taken place under FSU AD Michael Alford.

Pitching was one of the biggest strengths of the programs under the old regime, but that’s likely one of the biggest question marks going into 2023.

Noles247 reports Link Jarrett has announced a starting rotation going into the opening series against James Madison.

It’ll be the trio of Carson Montgomery, Jackson Baumeister, and freshman Jamie Arnold. This rotation is nowhere near a finished product, so I won’t be too critical.

Obviously, Link Jarrett has seen these guys throw at all of the scrimmages and believes they provide the best option to win from what he’s seen.

I’m a bit surprised at least one of either Wyatt Crowell or Conner Whittaker was not in the starting rotation.

Montgomery has an MLB arm but has struggled with consistency and efficiency in the past. Baumeister throws heat but has struggled to locate the fastball, and his offspeed pitches were inconsistent. However, he’s developing offspeed pitches, which he needed badly.

These guys will likely be on pitch counts early in the season, so nobody expects them to go seven innings of shutout ball or anything. I’ll be looking to see how sharp Montgomery is with locating his pitches and how he responds if he runs into adversity.

He would crumble at times early in his career in those situations but showed some resolve and improvement last year. Baumeister has to cut down on the walks and work on getting ahead in counts.

Jamie Arnold is advanced for a freshman, but I’m curious to see what he does on the big stage. I’m curious how Link Jarrett will use the rest of the arms coming out of the bullpen. Outside of Crowell and Whittaker, there isn’t a ton of experience returning from last year’s team on the mound.