#20 in Baseball America Preseason Poll

[SekShocker]

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/college/top-25/2008/265482.html

UCLA #1 is a bit of a surprise. IMO

[SekShocker]

A little editing on BA part would be nice. If you click on Wichita State for their lineup it has LHP Travis Banwart listed as the #2 starter. We are not getting any love from BA as they can't even get our pitchers names correct. At least we know what we've got in LHP Rob Musgrave.

[SekShocker]

Q: SekShocker from Iola, KS asks:
What made you put Wichita State at #20 instead of in the top 10? Do you think they have what it takes to make it to the CWS this year?

A: Aaron Fitt: Great pitching staff, but a lot of questions with the offense, and Gene Stephenson will be the first to tell you that. Their offense was just OK a year ago, and they lost Sublett, Brown and Schermerhorn. Players like Dusty Coleman, Ryan Jones and Cody Lassley have a lot of potential but need to prove they can do it. I do really like Conor Gillaspie and Josh Workman in that lineup, assuming Workman stays healthy. That might be the greatest X Factor with the Shockers, the health of Workman and Shafer (he's fine now, but he'll need to stay that way all through the year).

From Baseball America's chat session today.

[KC Shox]

Q: SekShocker from Iola, KS asks:
What made you put Wichita State at #20 instead of in the top 10? Do you think they have what it takes to make it to the CWS this year?

A: Aaron Fitt: Great pitching staff, but a lot of questions with the offense, and Gene Stephenson will be the first to tell you that. Their offense was just OK a year ago, and they lost Sublett, Brown and Schermerhorn. Players like Dusty Coleman, Ryan Jones and Cody Lassley have a lot of potential but need to prove they can do it. I do really like Conor Gillaspie and Josh Workman in that lineup, assuming Workman stays healthy. That might be the greatest X Factor with the Shockers, the health of Workman and Shafer (he's fine now, but he'll need to stay that way all through the year).

From Baseball America's chat session today.

I got no problem with his assessment with our offense. I our offense struggled last year and that was with Damon, Derek and Matt in the lineup. In fact, the offense has not been explosive for the past couple of years. This is no secret. That line up projection he is showing has what...5, 6 guys who are batting less than .300 and no power. Hard to argue with that.

[SB Shock]

There are 3 questions marks in my mind on this team:

1. Can they stay healthy - it feels like every year there are significant injurie(s) to someone.

2. Can the offense actually get better and take some of the load off of the pitching staff.

3. Who will step forward to reload the various roles in the bullpen (long reliever, middle/setup and closer).

[haysdb]

There are indeed many questions, mostly with the offense.

Cleanup hitter is a biggie. Aside from the RBI role, the #4 guy must consistantly make teams pay for pitching around Conor.

I'm not concerned about our bullpen. Granted, we don't know who will fill various roles, but our bullpen promises to be deep and talented.

We play an excellent non-conference schedule. We play 17 or 18 games against teams who finished in the top 50 in (Boyd Nation's) ISR last year. Most of these games are midweek games. Our #4 starter could be our single most important pitcher this spring.

[William]

not a problem, we will just start our 2-man in the 4th starter slot.

[newshock1234]

Baseball season cant get here fast enough

[haysdb]

not a problem, we will just start our 2-man in the 4th starter slot.

That's not something we have done. Not for a long time anyway. Brent keeps saying he's not morally opposed to that kind of thing, or going to a true rotation, but I don't see it happening.