Well, summer ball is over, and this is as good a time as any to make educated guesses as to which players will fill what positions. Granted, we don't have a fall ball roster, so we do not have all the names of players competing for spots, but the players about whom we hear nothing usually wind up as bench players or not make the team initially. The group of 30-odd players I know of will most likely contain our starters. I'm not here to talk about the bench.

The 2018 team has some drawbacks and advantages. Replacing the entire weekend rotation, the closer, and starting catcher will be tough. On the positive side most of the other starting position players return. This won't be a complete re-build like 2016, in which most of these players were freshmen and sophomores.

On with the position by position guesses:

Catcher: Jackson O'Boy (Redshirt Freshman)

Aside from the fact that he was a very good hitter in high school, I don't know much about him. He pretty much wins this one by default. Working in his favor is that the coaching staff thought enough of his ability to preserve his eligibility and not waste it having him do virtually nothing, as they did with Izaak Silva in 2012. A year of preparation should help him defensively. It just would have been nice if they'd done the same with Logan Denholm in 2016, but that choice was likely influenced by Houston Roberts' injury. This is assuming he was injured.

Speaking of Denholm, Bruce Galludet (sp ?) of the Davis Enterprise mentioned Denholm's pre-season leg injury, and that he would be coming back in an article following the last 2017 game. I don't doubt that he will be coming back, and that he will start. I just don't see him doing that at catcher. How many Aggie catchers, or even position players (other than redshirting freshmen) can you remember that missed entire seasons with injury and returned the next year to play exactly the same positions ? And a leg injury to boot ? This seems like a possible replay of Cameron Olson's Aggie career. I'd like to be wrong about this, but leg injuries are especially serious for catchers due to all the squatting they have to do during the game and practice. Given he will be a big bat in the lineup I don't know if the team takes the risk.

Houston Roberts rounds out the catching options of which I'm aware. Throwing out the 2016 season he has received very little playing time. I believe it was a big mistake to give Ontiveros, an exiting senior, the lion's share of the playing time available when Diaz rested in 2017. What did this do to prepare for the future ? I've never seen an Aggie at any position receive as little playing time as he did (excluding injuries) and wind up as a starter the next year. To date the majority of his collegiate baseball has come in the summer leagues. He did show some power for the Reno Rams this summer, but it came with a very low batting average. This year he will probably be the first reserve catcher.

First Base: Logan Denholm (Redshirt Sophomore)

First base was left vacant with the graduations of Mason Novak and Cameron Olson. Luckily Denholm already has a good enough bat to play here. He also played infield in high school, so this shouldn't be a big transition on the field.

It will be tempting for the coach to also play Ryan Anderson here, but with his defensive versatility it's kind of a waste. Also, he will be mindful of the fact that they finally received a healthy season from Anderson after they moved him away from the infield.

Second base: Caleb Van Blake (Junior)

In 2016 I liked the power potential I saw from his at-bats. It was especially nice to see him prove me right in person by homering off Sac State's best pitcher, and then 2 more times later in the season. There's not much doubt he can hit and defend. As he becomes more experienced the batting average will improve as it already has

There are a few other options to play here, pretty much anyone who doesn't get the shortstop job, but no standouts so far.

Shortstop: Brad Pluschkell (Senior)

For all my griping about the team not adequately preparing for the future the coach made the right call making Pluschkell the reserve shortstop to Jacob Thomas in 2017. At least you have a prepared guy you can plug right in that won't hurt you defensively. I expect he will have a better season with the bat. Seniors seem to do that a lot;-figure out hitting right before they leave.

If we were more forward-thinking Id' say sophomore Alejandro Lara or incoming freshman Kyler Arenado would start here, leaving Pluschkell in a super utility role, but I have a feeling that youth will not be served, not very often anyway.

Third Base: Cameron Briggs (Junior)

Briggs has the best bat for the job, and he received playing time there in 2017. I would like to see him get more extra-base hits, as this is a power position. There isn't a clear defensive favorite. If Briggs struggles offensively Alejandro Lara will likely take over, as he too has experience there. Lara had a very good summer season with the Humboldt Crabs.

If they are insistent on having Briggs continue to pitch, it would be a better idea to have him be a true utility guy, and hand the job to Lara.

Left Field: Ryan Anderson (Redshirt Junior)

Why mess with success ? They have enough infield depth that there's no reason for him to ever go back to third. History will show that's not a position where you want someone who isn't full-time.

With plenty of quality outfielders on the roster it's reasonable to expect they will rotate in others, and Anderson will occasionally DH.

Center Field: Alex Aguiar (Redshirt Senior)

Aguiar is one of the fastest players on the team, and he placed a decent center field in 2017. He also had a very good summer season for Humboldt, showing both power and speed. His main drawback is that he's a very streaky hitter.

He should hit well enough to stay in the starting lineup, but that will occasionally be at one of the outfield corners. The Aggies have three younger, center-field-capable outfielders who took big steps forward in summer ball. Junior Garrett Kelly hit very well for the Chico Heat, including SEVEN triples. Offense has always been what's kept him from more playing time. Redshirt Freshman Matt Smith earned some very positive reviews for his defense for the Geneva Red Wings. Colton Evans hit well and flashed speed for the Elmira Pioneers of the same league. Both Evans and Smith are probably building blocks for the future.

Right Field: Ryan Hooper (Redshirt Senior)

His 2017 offensive productiion makes this an easy guess. One concern is that he was apparently scheduled to play summer ball and didn't. That might not be injury-related, however.

Aguiar and anyone else in the center field mix are candidates to get some playing time here.

Designated Hitter: Guillermo Salazar (Redshirt Senior)

The Aggies usually mix things up at DH since defensive ability is irrelevant, but Salazar will definitely see a lot of his playing time here. They've moved him from 3B (his HS position) to the corner outfield positions over the years, but don't seem committed to starting him there. He isn't a slow runner, but there has to be a big reason for this.

Aside from Salazar it's any player any day.

Rotation:

The rotation was left a mess by the departures of all 3 weekend starters. Early on this does not look like it will be the team's strong point. Here are the most likely starters, according to my best educated guess.

Fridays: Matt Blais (Senior)

I have to throw out the facts that he primarily pitched on Tuesdays in 2017, and that he doesn't miss many bats, relying more on contact outs. What is definitely true is he is the only returning Aggie starter to have turned in a winning start that lasted 5 innings or more. He definitely pitched like an ace against Sac State, allowing just 1 hit. Unfortunately that one hit lost the game for him. I think Tuesday success doesn't always translate to weekend success (Look at Max Cordy's junior season), but for lack of a better, more experienced option, Blais is the de facto ace.

Blais was roughed up a bit pitching for the Healdsburg Prune Packers this summer, but it's not really that discouraging. The league website has pictures of all the teams' venues, and most look pretty hitter- friendly (small, closer outfield fences, less foul territory). Dobbins Stadium, as well as most of the parks belonging to the Aggies' regular opponents (Northridge and Nevada being more hitter- friendly) tend to favor pitchers. Even Sac State is fairly pitcher- friendly (not as much as Dobbins). I saw Rhys Hoskins hit maybe 2 or 3 homeruns in all the games I attended, and look what he's done in the pros !

Saturdays: Connor Loar (Senior)

After the Friday starter, the pitching role picture becomes pretty cloudy. Loar is not yet the clear favorite to start on Saturdays, but he did transition to the rotation for the Humboldt Crabs, and did very well. There are precedents of an Aggie reliever moving to the rotation for his senior season (Tom Briner, and Raul Jacobsen are two examples). He did start some for Chabot College as a sophomore. He fits in somewhere, perhaps not on Saturdays

Sundays: Alex Trautner (Redshirt Sophomore)

This ambidextrous Cabrillo College transfer can cause some headaches for opponents, as their coaches will have a little more trouble filling out lineup cards. What he has that no other pitcher on the Aggie staff other than Blais has (currently) is a full year pitching as as starter at some level above high school.

Tuesdays: Chris Brown (Junior)

Anyone who reads my posts knows I'm not a big fan of Brown, but he's the most experienced remaining candidate, and an apparent favorite of the coach. I'd much prefer to put Blake Hannah here, but I'm predicting who they will start, not stating my choice. Brown has had to have nearly pinpoint control to succeed thus far. He walks a guy, and it usually goes very downhill from there.

Brown did do a decent job in summer ball, doing a good job of avoiding walks. In fact he had a 3:1 strikeout ratio, which is very good.

Closer:

Anyone's guess really. Blake Peters was the closer in 2016, but didn't succeed there really.

Klay Worthan was a late inning guy for Sacramento City College, but he wasn't a closer. Also I have to wonder about his baseball- playing status for 2018. Typically you don't red shirt JC transfers, at least not junior transfers. You recruit them to provide experience. Redshirting them defeats that purpose. I'm concerned there may have been a pretty serious injury.

Incoming freshman Ryan Rodriguez supposedly throws harder than the average Aggie pitcher, but if they're seriously looking at him as a closer the coach should probably red shirt him, let him improve his control and velocity before he faces Big West hitters, and become a real bullpen weapon. It appears as though he has less experience pitching than many hs recruits for UCD. This could be beneficial.

Higher fastball velocity is not necessarily a prerequisite for an Aggie closer. Though there have been some low to mid 90 MPH pitcherslike Joel Needham and Justin Fitzgerald, there have certainly been guys who weren't.

For that reason I'm going to fall back on Aggie tradition here and guess it will be red shirt freshman Tim Wieser. I don't know how hard he throws, but he did average about a strikeout per inning for the Humboldt Crabs this summer. That's a positive since he was facing mostly older college players (mixed NCAA levels).

As to how well the team will do it's difficult to speculate. I will say that the last 2 times the team replaced its catcher and the entire weekend starting rotation (2013 and 2016) the win totals for those seasons were 19 and 17. Having a lot of returning offense will help next year's team but remember the 2013 team had Steven Patterson, and the 2016 one had Robert Garcia. I'm going to take the average for right now and guess 18 wins.