Louisville Baseball 2022 Season Preview
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The calendar has flipped into the month of February, and that means only one thing: a new season of college baseball is just around the corner. After missing the 2021 iteration of the NCAA Tournament, the Louisville baseball program is ready to bounce back in hopes of making the Big Dance, and potentially make another potential run at the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.
Head coach Dan McDonnell will be entering his 16th season with the program, sporting an overall record of 646-266, which is the second-most wins of any team in the country since his hiring in 2007. The Cardinals also return pitching coach Roger Williams, who has been with McDonnell at 3rd & Central since day one, as well as hitting coach Eric Snider and assistant coach Adam Vrable, both of whom are entering their eighth seasons at Louisville.
The first pitch of the 2022 season is set for Friday, Feb. 18 against Charlotte down in Tampa, Fla., with their home opener set for Tuesday, Feb. 22 vs. Xavier.
Offseason Primer
Louisville is no stranger to losing talent year in and year out, due to the amount of high level ball players they produce on a regular basis, but even by those standards, they lost a lot of impact players. Catcher Henry Davis was taken No. 1 overall, corner infielder Alex Binelas and second baseman Cooper Bowman were taken in the first five rounds, left-hander Michael Kirian, infielder Lucas Dunn and outfielder Luke Brown cracked the first ten rounds, and right-hander Glenn Albanese was selected towards the tail end of the 2021 MLB Draft.
And these were just players that the Cardinals lost to draft. Right-hander Luke Smith and left-hander Adam Elliott graduated; and infielder Tim Borden II, outfielder Jack Perkins and outfielder Trey Leonard entered the transfer portal. In total, six of Louisville's regular starters in the field, as well as three of their top five pitchers in terms of innings pitched, departed the program in one form or another.
Fortunately, Louisville isn't being left out high and dry in terms of their roster depth. The Cardinals secured another top tier recruiting class, landing the No. 6 class in the 2021 cycle, one which includes five top 250 prospects and nine in the top 500.
But even with another high level recruiting class in tow, Louisville has not generated the preseason hype that the program has been accustomed to. In fact, they are not ranked in any preseason Top 25 poll that has been released up to this point, any no player has received a preseason All-American honor.
As far as the schedule goes, it returns to a full 56-game slate, including 35 at Jim Patterson Stadium. Louisville plays teams like UConn, Xavier, TCU and Michigan during the non-conference portion, and hosts Notre Dame, North Carolina, NC State, Clemson and Virginia in ACC play.
Now that we're caught up, time to get into the actual team.
Position Players
As you can probably already guess, the 2022 roster is one of the younger - and relatively inexperienced - Louisville baseball squads in recent memory, and it shows up amongst the players out in the field.
The Cardinals are returning only three qualified hitters (2 PA/G, 75% of games played) from their 2021 team, and only one of them had a batting average over .250. Shortstop Christian Knapczyk (.297/.374/.385, 19 RBI) put together a solid season as a true freshman, and had several flashy defensive plays, but will have to cut down the amount of errors he had last season.
Left fielder/designated hitter Cameron Masterman (.240/.373/.432, 6 HR, 21 RBI) displayed his strength with the bat in his hands on several occasions, needs to improve his ability to actually put the ball in play. Center fielder Levi Usher (.216/.358/.306, 3 HR, 17 HR, 26 SB) still had a ton of speed on the base paths and in the outfield, but was miserable at the plate after having All-American aspirations.
As for the other six spots in the lineup, it will be filled with a mix players being thrust to a more prominent role, and even some freshmen. The most noteworthy player in this boat is Ben Metzinger (.235/.350/.431, 3 HR, 10 RBI), who will take over Binelas' old spot at third base. He had to miss the first month of the 2021 season ,was slow to get going, but had an incredible ACC Tournament.
The catcher spot will be, at least to open the season, platooned between Dalton Rushing (.254/.342/463, 4 HR, 14 RBI) and Jack Payton (.273/.407/.364, 2 RBI). First base will most likely go to Ben Bianco (.133/.235/.133, 2 RBI), but don't be surprised to see true freshman Will Cook get some time here. After not seeing any action in 2021 in his first year at the collegiate level, Logan Beard is now tasked with taking the lion's share of reps at second base.
For right field and designated hitter, several candidates are fighting for playing time. Chris Seng (.167/.167/.167) is the odds-on favorite to be starter at the final outfield spot, but Tyeler Hawkins (.286/.333/.357, 1 RBI) and redshirt freshman JT Benson and Isaac Humphrey could nab that spot as well. Redshirt freshman Drake Wescott is who is likely to be the DH to start the season, but keep an eye on true freshmen Kurtis Reid and Austin Bode.
If the previous five paragraphs didn't spell out how young this team is, I'll end this segment with this stat: Louisville returns just 29.7 percent of their hits, 23.5 percent of their home runs, 28.7 percent of their RBI's and 27.4 percent of their total bases from last season.
Pitching Staff
Louisville didn't lose as much pitching talent as they did amongst their hitters, but a sizable chunk of production is missing. In terms of innings pitched, the Cards lost three of their top five pitchers (Kirian, Elliott and Smith). Considering that pitching was not a strength of Louisville's last year, particularly in the final month of the season, there's a lot more unknowns with this group than the hitters.
Normally around this time of year, you start to have some semblance as to what the weekend rotation is going to be like. With the season less than three weeks away, not only is the starting rotation not set, there's still an open competition as to who will be a starter, period.
The best bet to be a starter is left-hander Luke Seed (2.64 ERA, 47.2 IP, 44 K, 29 BB), who started out as the midweek pitcher and worked his way into the Sunday spot of the weekend rotation last season.
As for the rest of the weekend rotation, the most likely candidates here are fellow southpaws Michael Prosecky (8.31 ERA, 8.2 IP, 10 K, 7 BB) and Carter Lohman (5.31 ERA, 20.1 IP, 26 K, 16 BB). Prosecky hasn't looked fantastic over his first two years in college, but had a really good summer in the Cape Cod League. The production has been up and down for Lohman in his time at Louisville, but is trending towards a breakout year.
A lot of players could be in line to become the midweek starter, but Jared Poland (3.94 ERA, 16.0 IP, 14 K, 11 BB) seems to be the most likely candidate. A former two-way player, he focused on pitching in 2021, and found success in light of a long term foot injury.
Now let's take a look at the bullpen. After a sensational freshman year, right-hander Kaleb Corbett (3.58 ERA, 27.2 IP, 33 K, 10 BB) is back, and could be Louisville's most likely All-American candidate.
Left-hander Tate Kuehner (3.55 ERA, 45.2 IP, 56 K, 24 BB) and Evan Webster (5.50 ERA, 34.1 IP, 25 K, 11 BB), as well right-hander Ryan Hawks could become go-to guys out of the bullpen during the middle innings. True freshman righty Will Koger, who was the No. 110 prospect in the class of 2021, is one to watch for as well.
Bottom Line
This won't be a team that many Louisville fans are accustomed to. It's by no means a star-studded roster, and the vast majority of spots in the field, at the batter’s box and on the pitching staff, will be filled with young or inexperienced players.
Louisville will probably lose a handful of games in non-conference play, and they'll probably struggle over the first couple weeks of conference play. But if there is anyone who can mold this team into a competitive ACC squad, it's Dan McDonnell.
The NCAA Tournament isn't exactly a guarantee, although it's more likely than not. What this team does have is a full offseason of development, unlike last year's team, so there is reason for optimism. Is this team going to make another trip to Omaha? Probably not, but there is loads of potential. They just have to tap into it and put it together on the diamond.
Projected Starters
Position Players:
- Levi Usher (CF)
- Christian Knapczyk (SS)
- Cameron Masterman (LF)
- Ben Metzinger (3B)
- Dalton Rushing (C)
- Ben Bianco (1B)
- Chris Seng (RF)
- Logan Beard (2B)
- Kurtis Reid (DH)
Pitching Rotation:
- LHP Luke Seed
- LHP Michael Prosecky
- LHP Carter Lohman
- RHP Jared Poland
(Photo of Louisville Players & Dan McDonnell: Matt Stone/Courier Journal, Courier Journal via Imagn Content Services, LLC)
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