5 Reasons To Be Excited

Today we continue our "Five Things.." series with our five reasons to be excited about the 2020 Clemson baseball season.

Today we continue our "Five Things.." series with our five reasons to be excited about the 2020 Clemson baseball season.

1: The return of Keir Meredith:

The redshirt sophomore missed most of the 2018 season due to two injuries and most of 2019 due to several injuries. 

one of the team’s fastest players, Meredith is a surefire base stealing threat and the type of player that turns singles into doubles, doubles into triples and any base hit into a threat to score.

A career .238 hitter with a .365 slugging percentage and .436 on-base percentage in 22 games (20 starts) over two seasons, has three doubles, a triple, homer, six RBIs, 11 runs, 13 walks, nine hit-by-pitches and six steals.

2: Pitching depth

While the offense is replacing 37 home runs from those three hitters mentioned above, it could take some time to figure out the offensive identity, although Clemson will likely play even more small ball than last year.

That means the pitching, which was a weakness a year ago, will have to be the strength this season. As surprising as it sounds, it should be. Sharpe and Mat Clark started a combined 25 games a year ago. Carson Spiers is back as the closer.

And the Tigers have some power arms this year. If Carter Raffield and Spencer Strider return healthy, both can get well into the 90s. Mack Anglin is one of a few freshmen Lee is excited about and offer more power at the pitching position

3: A new philosophy:

While the idea of stealing bases, playing station-to-station baseball, bunting and playing situational baseball may not be sexy for many around the nation, for the Tigers, they are willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done and this season they have the horses to do it.

"We spent a lot more time on the short game. We spent a lot of time on situational hitting, the hit and run, advancing runners, safety squeeze, just being able to execute," Lee said. "We want to try to create an offense that can score runs when it’s not conducive to scoring runs. When we play in a big ballpark Doug Kingsmore plays big early in the season. And when the winds blowing in, how are we going to score rooms on those days? We got to be able to manufacture runs, and do the little things, and do a better job of that. And I think we have the personnel that can do that. We’ve got a lot of team speed. We’ve got some guys that can run."

4: New coaching blood:

Head coach Monte Lee and former volunteer assistant and third base coach Greg Starbuck parted ways at the end of last season after a four-year run with the Tigers.

Starbuck caught a significant amount of flack from the fan base for his perceived baserunning blunders that ended with runners being thrown out at home, not sent home and questionable calls. But with the departure of Starbuck, Lee was able to infuse his team with a new energy in the form of volunteer assistant coach Jared Broughton (Dayton ‘13).

"Jared Broughton, our new assistant coach, he’s a base running guru," Lee said. "So he’s spent a lot of time with our guys trying to develop that aspect of the game more."

5: Davis Sharpe:

On a team in search of a superstar, the Tigers may look no further than sophomore Davis Sharpe.

The talented two-way player who was in the weekend rotation during the entire 2019 season and was a contributor at the plate, primarily as the designated hitter.

Sharpe was a National Pitcher-of-the-Year Award Watch List member and John Olerud Two-Way Player-of-the-Year Award finalist — he was the only freshman among the five finalists. Sharpe was named a first-team freshman All-American by Baseball America, D1Baseball and Perfect Game and a freshman All-American by Collegiate Baseball.