“Life threw us a curveball, and we just had to deal with it and move forward.”
Coach Paul Mainieri was not going to be the one to sulk over a soiled season after playing only 17 games before the SEC cancelled all spring sports in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. Just hours after he sent his players home, he was back in his office with his staff looking over the depth chart for the 2021 season.
“I didn’t look back, I just started looking forward,” Mainieri stated of the abrupt and dissatisfying ending of last season.
Now, the fall quickly approaches, and with more questions and not enough answers about what the future holds, it is up to Mainieri and his team to build a competitive squad while keeping his players safe.
Mainieri reported that six of his players and a couple of his staff members tested positive for COVID-19 while at home over the summer, but nearly all were asymptomatic or experienced mild symptoms. He and his program fully understand the gravity of the pandemic because of this.
“We are doing everything we can think of to control the health of the players while they are under our control,” Mainieri said. “We also are trying to educate the players on what to do when they are away from the game. Outside of all that, it is business as usual in trying to develop a championship team.”
Fall practice is going to look different this year. Two dugouts will be occupied for intra-squad games instead of using one dugout for all players, inactive players will be spread out in the stands, and instead of pitchers and position players having lockers with their similar teammates, they will alternate pitcher-position player so that there will be more space for both players when pitchers finish practice early and position players and the two pitchers stay out for the scrimmage to end practice. Just like the guidelines set out by Major League Baseball, close contact without a mask is prohibited, and spitting and high-fives have been banned.
The team has entered the six week “ramp up” period which consists of three phases. The first phase is a two-week quarantine period, which the players will have completed by next week. The second phase follows with two weeks of strength and conditioning to get the players physically ready to perform. Finally, the third phase concludes the pre-fall practice period with two weeks of individual baseball workouts before the team begins training together.
“After six weeks, if everybody’s doing well with it, then we’re able to start practice as a full squad,” Mainieri said. He tabbed September 20 as the opening of fall camp and October 30 as its conclusion should the plan hold together.
With 23 returning players and 17 new additions, there will be old and new faces once September 20 arrives. Mainieri is anxious to see how his players perform after some of their encouraging developments in summer leagues, which was organized largely in part to second-year hitting coach Eddie Smith.
“Several of our players went off and played in the summer leagues,” Mainieri said. “Eddie Smith deserves a lot of credit for that. He had the responsibility of placing kids this summer, and he was like Houdini. One league would cancel, and he would move them to another league. We ended up having several players play this summer and they all played extremely well. So, a lot of players were still able to gain some good experience this summer. All in all, I feel very excited about getting back to fall practice especially with having so many new players combined with the veterans we have.”
The Tigers return a loaded pitching staff, punctuated by an experienced weekend rotation of junior Landon Marceaux, redshirt-junior AJ Labas, and junior Jaden Hill as well as their primary closer senior Devin Fontenot. Trusted relievers like graduate senior and LSU’s No. 8 this year Matthew Beck, senior Ma’Khail Hilliard, senior Trent Vietmeier, and senior Aaron George will look to bolster the bullpen and be leaders to the talented young arms this year’s recruiting class brings. According to LSU Stats & Info, last year, in the 17 games the Tigers played, they held opponents to the lowest batting average in LSU history in 24 years. The only major loss was Friday night ace Cole Henry, who was drafted by the Washington Nationals in the second round of the 2020 MLB Draft, but Mainieri believes Hill, who came out of the bullpen last year, will fill his absence nicely.
“I feel like we virtually have the same pitching staff back, except, we’ve added to it with some really electric arms,” Mainieri stated confidently. “If you imagine we had the same rotation, which was really elite last year as we were getting ready to go, and I think it’ll be every bit as good this year, if not better, and then you add to that some of these young arms. I just think our pitching staff has a chance to be one of the best pitching staffs we’ve ever had.”
LSU loses three key hitters in Daniel Cabrera, Zack Mathis, and Saul Garza but returns veterans such as junior first baseman Cade Beloso and junior outfielder Giovanni DiGiacomo and looks for big second years out of infielder Cade Doughty, catcher Alex Milazzo, and infielder Collier Cranford. The Tigers also landed the highest ranked high school prospect in college baseball to not sign a professional contract in outfielder Dylan Crews, as well as Perfect Game top-100 prospects in infielder Jordan Thompson and outfielder/left-handed pitcher Brody Drost.
“I just have a feeling that we’re going to find the pieces of the puzzle, and it’s going to be a very good, solid lineup, and very good defensively,” Mainieri inferred.
However, it could all be for naught. With some conferences already cancelling fall sports, the future for Mainieri and his team is clouded. But with all the busy work that the Tigers have for themselves to prepare for this year, Mainieri believes that his players will be ready even with the threat of cancellation looming like a thunderstorm.
“We plan on playing baseball in the spring, and that all starts with us getting things going in the fall.”