Baseball America College Top 100 Draft Prospects - Anthony Kay #23 | The Boneyard

Baseball America College Top 100 Draft Prospects - Anthony Kay #23

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Excited to see what Kay will do as the ace. Just hope the offense can give him consistent run support.
 
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Excited to see what Kay will do as the ace. Just hope the offense can give him consistent run support.

Kay will be the ace of what potentially could be a terrific pitching staff for UConn. I doubt that he will be used in relief this season, but I have to think that since he has shown that he can be tremendously effective in relief only adds to his draft value.
 

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Excited to see what Kay will do as the ace. Just hope the offense can give him consistent run support.

Hopefully we will see some of the younger players break out onto the scene. I am a huge fan of the top of our lineup with Sundberg leading off and a core of Yahn-Melley-JDD, but we have some pretty gaping holes that will need to be filled. If one of the former JUCO guys (Gnesda, Krueger, D'Andrea) can give us solid offense right off the bat to make up for the production Davey gave us, I'll be pleased. It would also be nice for a couple of the freshman to break out and hit the way Yahn did last year.

Kay will be the ace of what potentially could be a terrific pitching staff for UConn. I doubt that he will be used in relief this season, but I have to think that since he has shown that he can be tremendously effective in relief only adds to his draft value.

I have no doubt that whichever team drafts him could switch him to the bullpen to fast-track him and have him in the big leagues by 2017, 2018 at the latest. However, part of me is selfish and wants Kay to become our first bona fide MLB starter since Charles Nagy. Barnes is still great (and as a Red Sox fan I have extra impetus to root for him to succeed), but the longer he goes without solidifying a spot the less likely that becomes for him.
 
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Hopefully we will see some of the younger players break out onto the scene. I am a huge fan of the top of our lineup with Sundberg leading off and a core of Yahn-Melley-JDD, but we have some pretty gaping holes that will need to be filled. If one of the former JUCO guys (Gnesda, Krueger, D'Andrea) can give us solid offense right off the bat to make up for the production Davey gave us, I'll be pleased. It would also be nice for a couple of the freshman to break out and hit the way Yahn did last year.

As you say, the top of the lineup should be fine. I suspect we'll at least be ok at catcher with the combination of Susi and LeFevre, and with Hill at 2B. As I've said before, the outfield corner spots are the big question marks, and those are the spots that really worry me. Unless a couple players break out of the gate hitting, it could be a real big drag on the offense.

The other thing I'm wondering about is how many pitchers will end up on the 35 man roster. If you take the 14 returning pitchers and add in five freshmen (Rossomando, Poulin, Cate, Polonia, and Hintze) plus Avery Point's Doug Domnarski, that adds up to 20 pitchers. That would leave only 15 position players. 10 returning players from last year, plus four freshmen (Susi, Toppa, Malandro, Lambrecht) plus either juco transfer Gnesda or perhaps Krueger. That leaves one player cut from the squad that will be interesting to see.
 

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As you say, the top of the lineup should be fine. I suspect we'll at least be ok at catcher with the combination of Susi and LeFevre, and with Hill at 2B. As I've said before, the outfield corner spots are the big question marks, and those are the spots that really worry me. Unless a couple players break out of the gate hitting, it could be a real big drag on the offense.

The other thing I'm wondering about is how many pitchers will end up on the 35 man roster. If you take the 14 returning pitchers and add in five freshmen (Rossomando, Poulin, Cate, Polonia, and Hintze) plus Avery Point's Doug Domnarski, that adds up to 20 pitchers. That would leave only 15 position players. 10 returning players from last year, plus four freshmen (Susi, Toppa, Malandro, Lambrecht) plus either juco transfer Gnesda or perhaps Krueger. That leaves one player cut from the squad that will be interesting to see.

I know that on the football and basketball boards, speculation about specific players not rejoining the team is verboten, but history shows us that in general Penders has no problem dropping relief pitchers from the roster.
 
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Hopefully we will see some of the younger players break out onto the scene. I am a huge fan of the top of our lineup with Sundberg leading off and a core of Yahn-Melley-JDD, but we have some pretty gaping holes that will need to be filled. If one of the former JUCO guys (Gnesda, Krueger, D'Andrea) can give us solid offense right off the bat to make up for the production Davey gave us, I'll be pleased. It would also be nice for a couple of the freshman to break out and hit the way Yahn did last year.



I have no doubt that whichever team drafts him could switch him to the bullpen to fast-track him and have him in the big leagues by 2017, 2018 at the latest. However, part of me is selfish and wants Kay to become our first bona fide MLB starter since Charles Nagy. Barnes is still great (and as a Red Sox fan I have extra impetus to root for him to succeed), but the longer he goes without solidifying a spot the less likely that becomes for him.
Agreed top of order can be solid...my main concern lies with replacing our best hitting catcher in quite some time and a second baseman who had an unreal season. I think pitching could be as good or maybe even better than last year but the bottom of the order is such an unknown. hoping offense can somehow not take a step back from what was already an inconsistent one at best.
 
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I know that on the football and basketball boards, speculation about specific players not rejoining the team is verboten, but history shows us that in general Penders has no problem dropping relief pitchers from the roster.

College baseball seems to be unlike most college sports in a number of ways. For instance, I really don't know if other college sports have an NCAA limit on the number of players on the spring season roster that baseball does. So not only is there a limit of players receiving athletic scholarship money (27), but the total number of players on the roster as well.

You mentioned that Coach Penders has not been shy about cutting relief pitchers from the team to reach the 35 man limit in the past. Despite my current roster speculation, it wouldn’t be a big surprise to me if a pitcher does get cut, since 17 to 19 pitchers usually make the spring season roster. Usually a couple of freshmen hurlers (whether they were redshirted or not) are among those who don’t return to the team in the fall. This time around, all of UConn's freshmen pitchers from last season were back on the fall roster. From what I could tell they all did pretty well playing in summer ball, so that will make this final cut or two a bit more interesting than normal.
 
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Agreed top of order can be solid...my main concern lies with replacing our best hitting catcher in quite some time and a second baseman who had an unreal season. I think pitching could be as good or maybe even better than last year but the bottom of the order is such an unknown. hoping offense can somehow not take a step back from what was already an inconsistent one at best.

I like what I've read about Susi/Lefevre, enough to think they can be a productive catching team, and I think Hill has shown enough in his first two years to think he will be at least ok at 2B. In neither case am I expecting them replace the offensive production of McDowell and Siena, but at the same time I don't expect UConn will be hurting at those positions. That is not the case in the corner outfield spots. In a worse case scenario, it is quite possible that at both positions we could be longing for the return of the offensive production of someone like Jon Testani, and it wasn't as if he was a big run producing force last season. I'm just hoping that Stefanski, Toppa, or whoever else ends up in the outfield manages to assuage my anxiety and show some offense.
 
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