The 2020 Baseball Season Looks Promising
STILLWATER – John Helsley wrote an article a few days ago talking about the possibility of renewed hope for Oklahoma State fans based on the upcoming seasons on the diamond, both baseball and softball.
It starts off talking about how the basketball seasons continue to slide for both the men and the women. The Cowgirls suffered a 109-79 road loss to Texas Tech and the Cowboys dropped to 0-8 in conference play with an 82-69 road Bedlam loss to OU.
Well, there’s absolutely hope for the spring Oklahoma State fans because both baseball and softball look to have really solid seasons. Softball looks to make another run at the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City, and with the talent they returned, as well as brought in, I think they’ll get there.
This article will be about baseball, but softball is having a media availability Monday afternoon and I’ll be there, so we’ll have an article coming up soon about that.
But as for baseball, the Cowboys pretty much open up the 2020 season with the same level of schedule difficulty they ended 2019 on.
The Pokes 2019 season ended a few outs away from another College World Series berth as they fell in the third game of a three-game season to Texas Tech in Lubbock.
Before that they faced a tough group of teams in the Regional in OKC: Harvard, UConn and Nebraska.
The Cowboys start the 2020 season with a tough road trip as they’ll face a salty Grand Canyon team in Phoenix, AZ and then will face preseason No. 9 Arizona State before heading back to Stillwater.
This is a different looking team than it was a year ago as they lost leaders, and big-time bats, in Trevor Boone, Colin Simpson, Andrew Navigato, Bryce Carter and talented arms in Jensen Elliott, Logan Gragg, Peyton Battenfield and Joe Lienhard.
But there’s a talented group of newcomers, plus the return of some key pieces that’s really going to bolster the lineup. Newcomers like Kaden Polcovich, a transfer who was named Big 12 Preseason Newcomer of the Year and right-handed pitcher Bryce Osmond who was named Big 12 Preseason Freshman of the Year.
In terms of returns, there’s position players like Hueston Morrill, Max Hewitt, Carson McCusker, Cade Cabbiness and Alix Garcia. Then there’s pitchers like Ben Leeper, Parker Scott, Noah Sifrit, C.J. Varela and Brett Standlee.
“The kids came back from Christmas break in great shape,” said coach Holliday. “There’s a lot of great motivation in the first semester from the things this team learned together playing on the field in some fall scrimmages and having a productive fall. It’s a little bit of a race the day the second semester starts up to the first pitch. So, everybody in the office and everybody in the locker room have been on the same page. I feel real good about the way we’re going about things.”
Not to mention an all-star coaching staff that might be one of the best in all of college baseball. Josh Holliday brought back Marty Lees, who most recently was the head coach at Washington State. During his time at Oklahoma State, 2013-15, he brought in back-to-back recruiting classes ranked in the top-five nationally and he’s once again the recruiting coordinator for the Pokes.
They brought in volunteer assistant Matt Holliday, who’s responsible for the Pokes’ offensive development and outfield play. As we all know, Matt played in the MLB for 15 season and was a seven-time All-Star selection and a four-time Silver Slugger Award winner. Oh, and he helped win a World Series (2011) with the Cardinals.
Melissa Morales/OSU Athletics
Last, and certainly never least, they added one of the greatest hitters college baseball has ever seen as a student assistant, Robin Ventura. He was a three-time All-American at Oklahoma State where he posted a .428 career batting average and he still holds the Cowboys’ career records in hits (329) and runs (300). He also ranks second in school history in doubles (71), home runs (68), total bases (608), RBIs (302) and slugging percentage (.792).
“I’m really comfortable with everybody and the way we prepare each day,” head coach Josh Holliday said of his new-look coaching staff. “Our focus and our plan is really clear. We know what our task is, we know where we’re pushing the team right now in certain areas, things we know we’ve got to get better at and things that we know are going to be critical to our season. So, we’ve got a clear plan. We meet each day; we’ve got a great energy amongst the group. Very cohesive bunch of coaches and I think when you feel that amongst one another, you just go out and invest in the kids and you pour yourselves into the kids.”
Like I said, 2020 should be a fun year to be a Cowboy baseball fan.