Butch Thompson, Auburn baseball focused on the next three weeks

The Auburn Tigers have a lot of work to do to figure out the starting nine and rotation before Indiana comes to town.

Auburn head baseball coach Butch Thompson doesn't care if his baseball team is ranked or unranked to start the season. 

"Nobody knows. In all honesty, I don't know what we have. [...] I loved the (2021) team and I'm sitting here last year and I'm like 'you know, is Sonny (DiChiara) any good? Is he going to hit .270 here as well?' It's not sized up. [...] Really, what I care (about) is what the guys in this locked room think."

As Auburn starts up fall practice in preparation for their February 17th home opener against Indiana, Thompson sees the next three weeks as the most important weeks of the schedule. 

"With last year's team, we got about week six or seven of SEC play when I was meeting in the room with the team and I said this is the most important week of the season. The difference between last year and this year is I feel like that's in the preseason. These three weeks are the most important weeks of our season. Our success will be in our preparation."  

Thompson is proud of the fact that Auburn sent eight players to MLB last year, all of which hadn't previously been drafted, but losing that many players at once pose challenges for a ballclub to overcome. 

"Not many teams in college baseball lost three pitchers in the top five rounds, much less five pitchers in the top twelve rounds. I don't think we lack talent, but we lack experience." 

Auburn's pitching will be led by returning junior Joseph Gonzalez, the sinkerballer from Puerto Rico. Putting up a 3.22 ERA in 15 games last season (covering 78.1 innings pitched), "Gonzo" is being handled a bit carefully to start spring practice. 

"Joseph, the best way I can say is he beats like a diesel engine. He's slow to get going in games, and he's sometimes slow to get going in January. I think you know what he means to our program. We're going to give him a little more time, but we're not really spooked by him."    

Gonzalez is being protected a bit by this staff because he's a known quantity, and the only pitcher at the start of spring practice that the coaching staff knows exactly how to deploy. 

"I'm going to do everything in my power and coaching to leave Joseph out there for six or seven innings. He's earned that. He's demonstrated that. He's shown that. The rest of these guys - take a Chase Isbell, moving for a one inning reliever, basically, to a starter. He's going to have somebody like (Tanner) Bauman sitting right there or (Tommy) Sheehan right behind as a piggy back."  

One appealing aspect of this year's pitching staff is the variety in distinct looks that they can give opposing hitters, via varied arm slots and quality options of both left and right-handed varieties. 

"One of the features of this staff I like as much as any staff I've ever had: I've been using the analogy of a peacock spreading its feathers. We've got Tanner Bauman [...] with a lower slot, a low 90's lefty special. We have more left-handers to get us all the way to every slot and then we have the full range of right-handers all the way down to (John) Armstrong, who's a lower slot."

(Armstrong is considered a "sidearmer", as his arm is much closer to horizontal than vertical).

John Armstrong delivers a pitch :: © Jake Crandall / USA TODAY NETWORK

Success in baseball for a pitcher is predicated on making a hitter uncomfortable, and having every potential approach angle to the plate covered makes it easier to mix and match visual "sight pictures" for a hitter. 

Chase Allsup pitches in fall exhibition action :: Eric Starling/Auburn Daily

For example, RHP Chase Allsup throws from a high 3/4 slot. From that slot, he features an above-average fastball with good velocity, sitting 94-96. To play off of that, he throws two distinct breaking pitches in a curveball and a slider. The slider, sitting in the low-80s, mostly moves horizontally (away from a right-handed hitter, towards a left-handed hitter). His curveball also features the same horizontal break, but owing to the lower velocity (high 70s) also adds about five inches of vertical break, coming in lower in the strike zone than the slider. This provides an effective variety of movements (or "breaks"), velocities, and pitch locations to keep a hitter uncomfortable when they're properly "sequenced", or structured in deliberate and intentional patterns. 

Now, imagine a hitter that spends two or three at-bats adjusting to what Chase Allsup can do and then faces a low-slot lefty reliever/piggyback with his own horizontally-breaking slider, a backward-breaking changeup, and a fastball with plenty of ride up in the zone.  

The first few weeks of spring practice will be crucial for identifying who is ready to take on those crucial roles, because as Thompson put it, "the list is short." 

"The coaches make the lineup out in the pre-season; when games start, the players make the line-up out." And the way the coaches are giving the players a say in who is in the lineup? "Play as much baseball as we can. As many squad games as we can - I have eleven planned right now - and then make them play the game a little faster. Practice should be quicker than the game. [...] We're going to push a little tempo." 

As Thompson said, this three weeks is crucial, because Auburn doesn't have the advantage of starting off against inferior opponents like so many other programs typically do in February. 

"A lot of people think this Indiana team that we open with is going to be a big mover in the Big Ten - that's an amazing opponent to open up with that will match us athletically from game one. And then you travel across the country (to Los Angeles, versus USC) for week two. This is going to be great for our ball club. This ball club has a chance to get better and better as a season goes on, month by month as the calendar turns over." 

"We're excited to get going." 

Auburn welcomes back former pitcher and #1 overall MLB draft pick Casey Mize of the Detroit Tigers for the 21st Annual Auburn Diamond Club Preseason Banquet, held on Saturday, Feb 4th at 6:00 pm CT. Tickets are available at auburndiamondclub.com. The 2023 season opens with a three-game series against Indiana, beginning Friday, February 17th.

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