Alabama Baseball 2023 Season Preview
It seems like the 2022 Alabama baseball season just wrapped up a couple of months ago, yet here we are once again. College baseball is upon us, and the Crimson Tide is ready to get 2023 underway.
The key theme around the 2023 Alabama baseball squad is experience. Outside of a few departures, the majority of the Crimson Tide's lineup and rotation return. While a pair of key pitchers will miss time, there is still a lot to look forward to for Alabama fans.
"Man, I'm fired up," Alabama head coach Brad Bohannon said in an exclusive interview with BamaCentral. "I'm always fired up for opening day. [...] We've got a really good group — a really older, mature group — and they came back in good shape. We're relatively healthy, so we're ready to rock and roll."
Bohannon is entering his sixth season as Alabama's head coach, and he arguably has his most experienced group of players yet. Last season, the Crimson Tide narrowly missed an NCAA Regional and finished in the fourth round of the SEC Tournament. With an overall record of 31-27 and a 12-17 record in conference play, it's understandable why Alabama missed out.
However, this year's team possesses the experience that last year's team did not — and with that experience comes growth.
Without further ado, here's the 2023 season preview for Alabama baseball:
Hitting
If there's anything that Alabama baseball isn't lacking, it's experience. While that translates well over to pitching, it does so to an even greater effect with the Crimson Tide's hitting.
Alabama will return almost all of its starting lineup this season, including outfielder Andrew Pinckney — one of the team's best batters from last season. Pinckney batted .303 last season with 48 runs and 32 RBI across 58 games. Two leading seniors also join Pinckney in first baseman Drew Williamson and shortstop Jim Jarvis. Williamson hit nine home runs and drove in 47 RBI last season, while Jarvis hit .267 and crossed the plate 47 times.
"You're talking about kids that have pro talent and kids that have been through the Southeastern Conference," Bohannon said. "That combination is really important."
Dominic Tamez, who returns at catcher, batted .289 with 34 RBI last year. Outfielder Caden Rose led Alabama last year in batting average at .326 and will also return. Two more experienced outfielders are William Hamiter and Tommy Seidl, whose bats also make a welcome return.
The Crimson Tide's starting lineup could look similar to last season. The major question mark for the team is third base, which Bohannon will have to replace after the departure of Zane Denton to Tennessee. However, the Crimson Tide brought in Tennessee Tech transfer Ed Johnson, who will likely be the starter for the team at the start of the season.
Outfielder Owen Diodati also parted ways with Alabama in the offseason and took his talents with him to Oregon. While his power will be missed, the Crimson Tide has a solid amount of outfielder talent to pull from to fill the hole he left behind.
Pitching
With RHP Garrett McMillan out for the foreseeable future with a rotator cuff injury and LHP Antoine Jean likely out for the season after having Tommy John surgery, the Alabama rotation and bullpen are without two key pieces to start the season.
That doesn't mean that they're lacking in experience, though.
On Monday, Alabama announced its starters on the mound for its opening weekend against Richmond:
- Friday: Grayson Hitt
- Saturday: Ben Hess
- Sunday: Jacob McNairy
Quite similar to its batting lineup, the Crimson Tide returns almost all of its starting rotation from last season. McMillan returns after anchoring the Friday starter spot last season and finishing with a 4.29 ERA and an 83:26 K:BB ratio across 86 innings pitched. However, his absence will be felt until he is able to make his return.
Alabama is in good hands with Hitt, McNairy and Hess, though. Hitt currently sits at No. 43 in MLB.com's overall prospects list for this year, while McNairy led the Crimson Tide in wins last season with a final record of 6-2. McNairy also possessed an ERA of 4.63 and struck out 63 batters while walking just 18 across 72 innings.
"I think any coach would tell you that there's no substitute for experience and this is by far the most mature group that I've ever had," Bohannon said. "When I say mature, I'm not just talking about the average age or the number of innings and at-bats that we have per player out on the field. They're just really mature in the way that they work and prepare and practice and compete, so for me it's been a really low-maintenance group and it's been really easy."
Hess will also look to improve in his sophomore season, in which he will likely play a key factor. As Alabama's primary midweek starter last season, Hess amassed a 4.54 ERA and looked good on the mound.
As mentioned earlier, Jean's absence leaves a hole in the Crimson Tide bullpen. However, two left-handed relievers also return in Hunter Furtado and Jake Leger — both of whom bring experience with them to the mound.
Hunter Hoopes and Hagan Banks are probably the two biggest right-handers to return. Hoopes finished last season with a 2.25 ERA while Banks held a 3.75 ERA in 12 innings pitched.
Regarding young talent, freshman Riley Quick will likely play a role in his first season. Quick was the top-ranked right-hander in the state of Alabama according to Perfect Game USA and was also named both the Alabama Player of the Year and Pitcher of the Year by the Alabama Sports Writers Association.
In his final season of prep baseball, Quick threw nine complete games — including six shutouts — all while limiting opposing batters to a .142 average.
Schedule
Alabama has an interesting set of nonconference opponents this season, starting with its opening weekend against Richmond. The Spiders finished last season 30-26 and reached the Atlantic 10 Tournament championship game before being ousted 10-7 by VCU, just one game away from automatically qualifying for an NCAA Regional.
The Crimson Tide then travels to face Pepperdine for its lone nonconference road series before returning home to host UIC. Alabama will then play its final three-game nonconference series against a solid Columbia team that reached a Regional last season.
Sprinkle in some midweek games against Tennessee Tech, UT Martin, Jacksonville State, Samford, Alabama State and South Alabama, and that wraps up the Crimson Tide's nonconference play ahead of SEC play.
Conference play in the SEC is always difficult and this year is no exception. Last season, nine SEC teams reached the NCAA tournament and the league has five of the preseason top-10 teams, including No. 1 LSU. This season, Alabama will play all of the teams in the West division, while facing Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt and Missouri from the East.
Two home-and-home series with UAB and Troy combined with games against MTSU, Southern Miss and Samford round out the remainder of Alabama's nonconference games. Last season, the Crimson Tide's performance during midweek games played a large part in why Alabama missed a Regional — no doubt making that a primary focus this year.
"Kids that are mature and have experience, they typically are more consistent — and this group has been pretty consistent so far," Bohannon said. "That's been a big thing for us because you look back at last year, we had some really big wins — we went 8-6 against the SEC West, teams that were in Omaha — but we also had some bad midweek losses.
"And you know, our best was good enough, we just didn't play our best often enough so that's kind of been the thing with this group so far."
It's no easy schedule for Alabama, but the nonconference schedule provides many winnable games. However, the tough SEC schedule will likely continue to prove troublesome.
See Also:
Alabama Has Another Tough Haul Ahead: 2023 SEC Baseball Preseason Coaches Poll
