Alabama Baseball 2022 Season Preview

Everything you need to know about the Crimson Tide heading into its 130th season, including insight from head coach Brad Bohannon.

Here we go again.

It's spring in Tuscaloosa, Ala. once again, and that means it's time for Alabama baseball to take to the diamond. For three weeks now, bats have been cracking and gloves have been popping inside Sewell-Thomas Stadium during official practice sessions and scrimmages, with the Crimson Tide preparing to try and outdo its 2021 season that saw it make it to an NCAA Regional for the first time since 2014.

This year's team returns a good bit of talent from last season as well as sees a good amount of fresh faces. Head coach Brad Bohannon, who is usually positive heading into the season, is especially pleased with what he's been seeing from both his ole and new players thus far through spring training.

“It’s just been awesome,” Bohannon said in an exclusive interview with BamaCentral. “These kids have just done an awesome job of training and preparing and I couldn’t be more pleased with where we are. They’re as prepared to play a game against another team as any group I’ve been a part of.”

Bohannon isn't just positive about the Crimson Tide's spring training, though. In fact, he's on the record as saying that this Alabama baseball team is the most talented team that he's fielded in his five years as head coach of the program.

He doesn't shy away from emphasizing that point, either.

“I think we’re just better in every area,” Bohannon said. “We’ve got more depth up and down our roster — just better bodies, better athletes, more stuff on the mound — and I think the intangibles are even stronger. We’ve got a collection of individuals that love to play, love each other, practice really hard and I think anything that you can measure it’s better and I think it will continue to improve over time.”

Spring time at The Joe is always an exciting time of the year, but if what Bohannon has to say about his squad is true, then there might be even more of a reason for high expectations heading into the season.

Without further ado, here's your season preview for the 2022 Alabama Crimson Tide baseball team, including insight from Bohannon:

Pitching

Alabama returns a total of seven pitchers from last season, bringing back players that pitched a combined 136 of the team's 514 innings last year. Of those seven returners is redshirt-freshman Dylan Ray, who missed the 2021 season after having to undergo Tommy John surgery. The remaining returners are as follows: sophomore Eli Giles, redshirt-junior Landon Green, redshirt-senior Brock Guffey, sophomore Grayson Hitt, junior Antoine Jean, senior Jacob McNairy and redshirt-senior Hunter Ruth.

There are multiple ways that this season's rotation could go, but on Monday came the announcement of the Crimson Tide's opening-weekend rotation. Friday will see JUCO transfer Garrett McMillan get the team's first start of the season, followed by Jean on Saturday and Hitt on Sunday. That being said, Bohannon is high on his pitching staff, saying that there isn't much separation between his top nine or 10 guys on his roster. In some cases, that might cause some concern if the talent level of the roster isn't there to back it up, but in this case Bohannon seems extremely confident in his players' abilities.

Of all returning pitchers, McNairy brings the most innings with him from 2021 with 37. Green leads the returners in wins with three. However, there is more talent on this team than just in its returners.

Freshmen Luke Holman and Ben Hess have been solid throughout spring camp, as anticipated. Holman is a 6'4" right-hander, while Hess is 6'5. Both possess highly talented arms and will likely be a factor in midweek games in the near future. Top that off with McMillan, Trace Moore and Jake Leger, and the team brings a decent level of JUCO talent. There is also Hunter Hoopes from UNC Asheville and Brayden Gainey from Gulf Coast Community College. Additionally, Conner Ball, Braylon Myers and Nathan Shelton are all three local freshman talents that look to bring their A-game to Tuscaloosa this season.

Bohannon has arguably more depth on the mound than at any other point in his career at Alabama. However, what his pitchers do lack is experience. That being said, experience is gained over time, and we'll no doubt see the rotation evolve and develop as the season presses on.

Bo Knows:

“I don’t want to take away from those three guys because they’ve thrown the ball really well in spring training and even back in the fall, but we don’t have a lot of separation in our top nine or 10,” Bohannon said. “And this is the truth: there’s six or seven guys that I would have been very comfortable starting in a game this weekend. You’ll see several guys have extended outings. We tell the kids ‘If you’re going to go out and throw 60 or 75 pitches, it doesn’t matter if it’s inning 1-4 or 4-8.’ It’s a much bigger deal to the media and to the kids.

"But those three guys have all thrown the ball really well and they’ve earned this opportunity, but we’ve also got four or five others that will have extended outings and it’ll all take care of itself over time. Really the only thing that’s kinda set in the short-term is Brock Guffey will be used in some high-leverage situations — situationally as a lefty out of the pen — and Landon Green will close, so those are two roles that are pretty solid — at least in the short-term — and everything else will kinda evolve organically.”

Garrett McMillan
Alabama Athletics

Catcher/Infield/Outfield

With it being the day before the start of the 2022 season, Bohannon and his staff have likely still not narrowed down the starting lineup quite yet. That is, however, with good reason.

On the infield, Alabama has three returners that started the majority of games last season. Senior first baseman Drew Williamson batted .255 last season with four home runs and 12 doubles, and is the Crimson Tide's three-year starter at first base. Shortstop Jim Jarvis also returns for his junior year, while sophomore Zane Denton will return at third base after leading the team in hitting in 2021 with a .308 average, 10 homes runs, 10 doubles, 40 runs and 40 RBI.

Bryce Eblin returns and will likely play second base after splitting shortstop with Jarvis last last season. Stetson transfer Eric Foggo will also vie for playing time along with Davis Heller at first base. Freshmen Jimmy Thies and Will Hodo add depth, while centerfielder Caden Rose could possibly come in to play either second base or shortstop should need arise. Will Portera is a redshirt-freshman that could also see time at second and third base.

Catcher was the biggest question mark heading into 2022 with the departure of All-SEC catcher Sam Praytor. JUCO transfer Dominic Tamez has answered all of those questions and then some, though, bringing both solid fielding and a big bat with him to Tuscaloosa. JUCO transfer Graham Crawford could also see time at the position when Tamez needs rest, and Hunter Sute and Will Portera can also play the position should the need arise.

Six players are fighting for playing time in the outfield, each as talented as the last. Owen Diodati returns for his junior season, but has seen most of his action in the designated hitter spot. However, he will look to see more action in the outfield this season, as he was routinely played there during the team's preseason scrimmages. Will Hamiter was the primary starter last season, and could do so again. Caden Rose started 42 games in center field in 2021, so he will likely start there on opening day. Andrew Pinckney brings incredible speed and athleticism to his position, where he saw a decent amount of work in right field near the end of last season.

The shakeup comes in the newcomers in Harvard transfer Tommy Seild and freshman Camden Hayslip. Seidl has both power and speed in his approach, but hasn't played in a college baseball games since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hayslip, meanwhile, was a big signee for Alabama this season and could see time at any of the three outfield spots due to his natural talent.

While the pitching staff might be lacking in experience, the same can't be said for the Crimson Tide's fielders. The vast majority of opening day starters will have some SEC starts under their belts, and the fielding looks to be dramatically improved over 2021.

Bo Knows:

“It is crazy how fast the time has gone,” Bohannon said. “This is going to sound crazy to say, but I really feel like in some ways this is our first year, our first team. What I mean by that is recruiting is so advanced in college baseball, we start looking at these kids at 15, 16 and this is the first year since I’ve been here that we have a group of third-year players that we were able to recruit at a normal timeframe because when I got hired in the summer of 2017, all the top 100 players in the country had graduated high school in ‘17 and were going to be freshman in ’18. They had all signed with colleges and all the top 100 players in the class before had already committed to other colleges, so this is really the first year that we have a team that we’ve got some kids that have been here for three years that we got to hand-pick with a level playing field.

"If you wanna be good in the SEC, you gotta have some real bullets, some real talent. You gotta have experience, and then you’ve also got to catch some breaks. You’ve got to stay healthy and catch the teams at the right time and we took over a team in the summer of ’17 — that ’18 team we had some experience, but we were short in some areas. It felt like we were playing catchup every single year since then. We’ve always been new, and this is the first year that I certainly wish we had some more experience on the mound, but we got a lot of experience out on the field and the roster looks how we want it to look.”

Jim Jarvis, McNeese State, February 19, 2021
Alabama Athletics

Hitting

The chief piece in Alabama's hitting in 2021 is back for his junior season in Denton. But more than just him, the Crimson Tide brings a much-improved batting lineup to the table in 2022.

Like the experience that the Alabama players bring with them to the infield and outfield, they also bring that same experience to the batter's box. While Williamson and Denton's stats have already been introduced, Jarvis also hit .237 last season while playing at short. Eblin hit .342 in 38 at-bats with five doubles.

While Diodati slipped as the season carried on last year compared to his solid play during his freshman campaign that was cut short due to COVID-19, he is showing a lot of positives at the plate in spring practice. At designated hitter, Diodati batted .230 with 11 home runs and 40 RBI. Hamiter batted .271 with 11 doubles and 34 RBI. Rose himself hit four home runs. Pinckney hit .245 with six doubles due to his speed.

All of those numbers are decent, and they don't even tough the freshmen and transfers' numbers. Seidl hit very well against Alabama for Harvard when they played against each other back in 2020. Tamez brings with him a bat that hit .380 with 17 doubles and 12 home runs across 61 games for McClennan Community College. He also recorded 41 runs and 62 RBI.

If there's one aspect of this team that shows improvement in 2022, it's the offensive power that this team possesses. The talent and experience are finally both in place for Bohannon, two things that the Crimson Tide have possessed at different times, but seemingly never simultaneously.

Bo Knows:

“Well, we just hit a lot of balls hard,” Bohannon chuckled. “Everybody’s incrementally better and there’s going to be a lot of familiar names in the lineup and everybody that is on the team this year that was on the team last year, they’re noticeably better. They’re going to take a step forward statistically and we look like all these other high-end SEC teams.

"We’ve got a lot of great-bodied, athletic kids and we’ve got a nice mix of left and right. We’ve got some athleticism and some strength and I’m very, very bullish on the offensive piece. I think we’re going to have some length to our lineup. Every year that I’ve been here, you kinda get to the fifth batter and you’re kinda hoping to get some help and I think whoever hits sixth or seventh in the lineup is going to be a good player this year.

"We’re going to make that pitcher on the other team work to get all 27 outs and I think in some of the year previous we’ve had some guys in the bottom of the order that maybe just weren’t ready or it was bad matchups for them, but it was the best that we had and I think the opposing pitchers were able to able to kind of catch their breath at times at certain parts in the game when the bottom of the order came up and I think we’ll be much more competitive down there this year than we’ve ever been.”

Owen Diodati vs McNeese State - February 21, 2021
Alabama Athletics

Schedule

A schedule in the Southeastern Conference is always a tough one, and this season is no exception. In the SEC, you can be a very good team and still place seventh or eighth in the conference. Yes, it's simply that loaded with talent.

In D1 Baseball's preseason rankings, spots No. 2-5 are all in the SEC. Arkansas takes the No. 2 spot, followed by No. 3 Vanderbilt, No. 4 Mississippi State and No. 5 Ole Miss. LSU and Florida rank No. 8 and No. 9, respectively, while Georgia sits and No. 16 and Tennessee at No. 19. That makes eight of the league's 14 teams positioned in the top 25 before the season even starts.

Of those eight teams, Alabama will have to play seven of them during the regular season — all except Vanderbilt.

The non-conference won't be a cakewalk, either, with the Crimson Tide opening its season against a very talented Xavier team that bested Texas A&M last season in two games of its three-game series. In Alabama's second weekend, it will travel to Austin to face the consensus No. 1 team in the Texas Longhorns.

It certainly won't be easy, but Bohannon is of the mindset that the Crimson Tide can get the job done. Taking up such difficult weekend series early in the season will be a true test of the team's potential, and Bohannon is very aware of that.

Bo Knows:

“This is probably the toughest schedule that we’ve ever played and you look at the SEC and it might be the best the league has ever been,” Bohannon said. “There are four teams just in the West alone that are ranked in the top 5 in one of the major polls and the second week of the season we play the consensus No. 1 team in the country, Texas. Xavier opened the season last year at Texas A&M and beat ‘em two out of three and just a great mid-major program that’ll have a bunch of 22- and 23-year-old players out on the field.

"We’re gonna be challenged, and I think that’s where our program is at. We need to play some good teams before we get into league play so that we’re prepared for the rigors of the SEC. We finally have a group that I think is mature enough and talented enough to handle that. Whatever warts or shortcomings that we have, we need to figure out what they are the first couple of weeks so we have time to work on them and fix them before the Gators roll in here mid-March.

“Hopefully we can do like Nate [Oats'] group did and get a couple of big wins against Gonzaga and Houston — whatever the baseball version is of that. I think we’re all hopeful that basketball finishes strong and makes a deep run in March and hopefully baseball can do the same in June.”

Brad Bohannon, Spring 2022
Alabama Athletics

Published
Joey Blackwell
JOEY BLACKWELL

Joey Blackwell is an award-winning journalist and assistant editor for BamaCentral and has covered the Crimson Tide since 2018. He primarily covers Alabama football, men's basketball and baseball, but also covers a wide variety of other sports. Joey earned his bachelor's degree in History from Birmingham-Southern College in 2014 before graduating summa cum laude from the University of Alabama in 2020 with a degree in News Media. He has also been featured in a variety of college football magazines, including Lindy's Sports and BamaTime.