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Message: [QUOTE="dbmill, post: 3851160, member: 2504"] Quick summary of this Chris Jones preseason interview with Coach Hourigan. The key thing that comes up in this review of the position players is depth. There are simply a lot of guys who can play and potentially find themselves into the lineup. At catcher, very effusive in praising both Pat Winkel and Ciaran Devenney. UConn baseball fans definitely know about Pat, who is certainly the No. 1 catcher, but with a lot of four game weekends, including a scheduled double header in each Big East conference series, Devenney is going to be seeing a fair amount of time behind the plate as well. As for Devenney, the coaches love his power, his defense, and has a great throwing arm that comes into play on stolen base attempts. Previous interviews with the UConn coaches have indicated Devenney could get time at D.H. when not catching. Backup Ryan Hyde and David Christoforo have both have shown some ability as well. Hyde as a walk on has improved as time has passed, and Christoforo moves well for his size. At any rate, lots of depth behind the plate. Reggie Crawford at 1B and Christian Fedko at 2B take care of that side of the infield. Christian has shown continued improvement with his defense and has gotten himself into better shape which has helped his speed. Sounds like Zach Bushling is pretty much penciled in as the leadoff hitter. In this interview he is called an on base machine, a prototypical leadoff hitter. I'm inclined to think that he can be counted on playing somewhere on the left side of the infield, depending who else is playing over there. Bushling is described as having Woodworth type versatility. There are several candidates for the last spot in the infield, including Andy Hague, David Langer, and Bryan Padilla (who gets some comparisons to Anthony Prato). Todd Petersen and Chris Brown (nice preseason, although I don't recall him getting mentioned in any fall ball interviews or tweets) also get mentions as well, as all have been doing well either in fall ball or preseason. If someone is slumping, there are certainly other options to go to. Plenty of depth in the outfield as it is a crowded place as well, where there are plenty of players who can provide offense and quality defense. Chris Winkel will be in CF and Kyler Fedko in RF, although it is more like having two excellent center fielders out there at the same time. Erik Stock's excellent hitting from last season gets him a big mention for the last outfield spot. Ben Maycock has apparently cut back on the strikeouts and is hitting to all fields without putting a dent into his power potential. Kevin Ferrer can certainly hit as well, and his defense has apparently improved over last season. Simmons also gets a mention as another excellent defensive outfielder candidate who also has a nice left handed stroke at the plate who potentially could see time. And Korey Morton may be one of the fastest players UConn baseball has seen. Hourigan just loves the outfield defense on this team. No real mention of who may end up getting at time at D.H., although there would seem to be plenty of potential candidates, especially if someone is streaking with a hot bat. With the D.H., one of the spots on the left side of the infield, and in left field, there are basically three open spots with plenty of candidates to potentially fill them. [/QUOTE]

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