I'm back with a much more contemporary username. Who is this deleted user guy ? He seems really smart.

Took a couple months off from posting things online, even Facebook. This year I'm hoping more people contribute insight because I'm going to post less often + try to focus on the positives, remember why I enjoy these games.

Not a whole heck of a lot has happened in the last two months. UCD is as secretive as ever about the baseball team, and chances are good we won't see a roster until next Friday or the day before.

Not that it's difficult to guess most of it. The schedule press release said 27 returning letterwinners (I'm assuming redshirts fall into that category if they're on the roster). Of the 32 with eligibility at the end of the season 3 are not with the team and at least 2 of those 3 are no longer at the university period. So which 2 guys from the 2016 roster aren't returning ? Probably a catcher (there are 5 of them otherwise) and an outfielder that didn't play much last year (there are likely 2 new ones).

With at most 8 new players, at least half of them junior college transfers, this team can definitely not use the excuse that they're young. You have a lot of returning infielders and corner outfielders who had significant playing time. Center Field is the only position where that's not really true. If the team hasn't already picked a theme for this year it should be "No excuses !"

The pitching staff should be pretty experienced. The transfers all appear to be JC guys who have played 2 years each. Assuming he makes the team Tim Wieser should be the only freshman pitcher. Wieser sounds like a kid to really root for. Per a local newspaper I read online it appears as though he's overcome a great deal of grief, loss, and adversity to make it to UCD.

Not many UCD baseball tidbits out on the web. Either the college baseball world just doesn't care or the university is really good at keeping things under wraps. The only mention Baseball America gave to the team in its BW conference preview was to list it as one of the conference members. They did manage to spell Davis correctly. That kind of slight makes me want to see the Aggies light up every single golden boy pitching prospect on the list. Sac State didn't do much better with BA, even though they will contend in the WAC. Just too many bad teams in that conference for that not to happen. They're replacing North Dakota w/Cal Baptist ? Underwhelming..

As for news, there isn't any, just some interesting factoids. Jed Moscot and Austin Amante, redshirt pitchers in 2016, both transferred to Cuesta College (JC). At least one of them missed last season with pretty serious injury Don't know what happened to Joey Chapman.

I saw an interesting article about the Humboldt Crabs summer league baseball team, specifically Zach Stone's performance. They were talking about his recurring shoulder injuries (the exact reason he didn't pitch after his 2nd start in 2016) and how he had talked with the UCD coaching staff and understood his college future would likely be in relief. If it's true, it makes sense. You don't want to risk re- injuring it with too heavy a workload. That certainly would strengthen the bullpen, although he would be more of a typical closer. assuming he closes- 1 maybe 2 innings. NO 4- 5 inning relief appearances like the team used to do with Max Cordy +Harry Stanwyck.

Lastly, this isn't news but merely speculation on my part, but what happened to Ryan Steindorf ? I thought he looked like he had some real potential on the pitching mound but his summer team released him early despite not pitching poorly and he was literally the last selection for the Blue/Gold World Series. You sometimes can't read much into fall ball but there's really something being said when you're the last kid on the playground picked for a team. I thought he was a better selection than some of the players picked ahead of him. Position considerations certainly have merit. It makes me wonder if he was injured pitching in the summer +was working as a position player (outfield?). That would make some sense. The coach did praise his bat when he was recruited +as a position player there are a lot of guys. I'd like to see him succeed as a pitcher though.

The home opener is 2/21. Come Sun or cloudiness with occasional sprinkles of rain I will be there.