Schlossnagle Media Day Quotes
2/10/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Feb. 10, 2005
Fort Worth, Texas - Head TCU baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle sat down with the media today to discuss the upcoming season.
Really appreciate you all for coming out. We're really excited for the opening of our season. Obviously, there's been a lot of preseason "hype" I guess you could call it, or expectation for this club...you know, I think it's a good team, but we'll wait and see how we play out as we get into the course of the season and play in a different color uniform out there. I like our club at this point.
On who he is as a coach, philosophies, what he brings to the table:
From a philosophical standpoint, I'm really based on the experience of our student athletes and making sure they have a quality time here. I'm not a big believer that baseball is a career choice for most players, so for most of our guys, this is the end of their baseball career, not necessarily the beginning - not all, but most - so I'm a big believer in making sure they have a great academic experience and making sure they leave here with a degree. Part of that experience is making sure we win, and it's not a fun experience if you're losing. We're commited every day to making them better in practice. We spend a lot of time in practice organization and making sure practice is competitive and get a lot of action in practice and then try and get out of their way during the course of the game.
From a baseball standpoint, I'm a big believer in doing the things you do the most in games, practicing those things and not too many gadgets, but the fundamentals of pitching and defense and timely hitting.
On how the momentum from last year's strong finish carries over to this year:
It's carrying over through every facet of our game, from fundraising and season ticket sales to recruiting certainly felt a great impact. It helped us hold onto recruits who were drafted by professional baseball teams and it helped us sign seven or eight guys that we signed this past fall. Our players certainly gained confidence from that season, the guys who returned. I've always said confidence comes from doing it, you can talk about, you're going to do this, or people think, you're going to do that, but until you actually perform it on a field of play, it's hard to gain confidence from something that's not tangible. And we definitely had something tangible to take from last year.
On how TCU got such a good recruiting class:
TCU was already a great place, it was a place people wanted to go to school. And in the last 18 months or two years, the baseball program began to match everything else at the school. And certainly the facility, the ballpark, would probably be the biggest reason for that, because facilities represent commitment. And when kids come on their official visit, they come to see the school, it's the first thing they look at. And I think across the board, in all sports, all our facilities are at or near the top of whatever sport they're in, and baseball is the same. So what we try to sell is: what are you giving up in choosing TCU over maybe some of the more traditional places. And anything you might possibly be giving up is tradition in the College World Series. There's winning tradition here, a lot of winning tradition. But in terms of tradition in Omaha or post-season there wasn't as much as some of the other schools in the country. So now it comes down to, do you want to be a part of something special that's never been done before? Or do you want to carry on something that's going on somewhere else? And there's positives and negatives to both sides and the kids we have here wanted the opportunity to make something special at TCU. And that's why our staff is here, and those are the kind of players we have.
What are some of the positions you're most concerned about? Although I think we're talented on the mound, I would say my concern there is that we're just not very experienced, whether it be from a high school player coming to college, a junior college player coming to Division I, or maybe a Division I transfer that's coming in and having a lot more asked of him. I would say on the mound, it's an area of concern - it's not an area of weakness, I don't think - we just need to get into the season and find out.
We won't run very much, our team speed is average at best. We run the bases well, in terms of intersquad games, whatever that means, but in terms of team speed, we won't have a whole lot. But I think we'll get the chance to hit through the order and I think we're going to play pretty consistent defense.
The lineup at this point:
Friday night, starting catcher Kyle Dahlberg. He led Conference USA in throwing out base stealers. Andrew Walker will see a lot of time there as well, a very highly recruited freshman out of Houston. At first base, Spencer Jackson, another freshman from Elkins High School in the Houston area.
Second base, Shelby Ford, returning freshman all-American and pre-season all-American.
Shortstop is Stuart Musselwhite, senior transfer from the University of Houston, part of two Super regionals at the University of Houston. Last year he was hurt about halfway through the season, two years ago he played shortstop everyday. They played 65 games, he made 17 errors at short for a super regional team so that's a lot of great experience we're going to try to draw on.
Bo Cogbill will play third base, he was a really good third base once he solidified himself in that position.
We have an injury in the outfield, Matt McGuirk, a freshman outfielder who is really going to play a lot for us, is questionable for the weekend with a shoulder strain, nothing serious. He may play, but I won't know until almost gametime.
As of now, it'll be in left field, Austin Adams, who was the C-USA Tournament MVP last year. In centerfield, it'll be Keith Conlon, a junior college transfer from Weatherford, originally from Highland Park. And in right field, J.J. Estrada, who didn't have the greatest year for us last year, but all of a sudden had a great summer in the Texas Collegiate League and has really transformed that into some really good performances to this point.
And the designated hitter will be Chad Huffman. Lance Broadway will be the starting pitcher.
On the closing pitcher:
Right now Sean Ferguson. Transferred from San Jacinto College. Spent two years at University of Texas and then went to San Jac and then came here. Bo Cogbill will pitch a little in that role, too, a third baseman who can also pitch. But Sean, we signed him to do that. And to this point, he's been very effective.
That's a tough position for us to replace. Robbie Findlay was almost money in the bank for us last year. So if I had say, going back to your first question, an area of concern, it would be: how are we going to fill that role.
On the turnaround in J.J. Estrada:
I don't know. I mean, he swung and missed a lot last year. I talked to him the other day, and where he's from (Guatemala City, Guatemala), he hasn't played a whole lot of baseball. And he didn't play very much his first two years here for Coach Brown. There were a lot of other really good outfielders: Jake Duncan was an all-American player, so he didn't see much time. So last year, it was really his first time, really in life, to have a significant number of bats and certainly, he had been on the bench a couple of years. So I think, playing all spring for us, playing all summer with that wooden bat for that summer league, now he's got some confidence. He's always been a guy with tremendous ability. He's one of the first guys the pro scouts ask about when they come to the ballpark, in terms of his tools - his ability to run, throw, hit, hit with power, and play defense. And now, hopefully, his performance is going to match his ability. It has, to this point, he's hit the ball the other way a lot better, he's staying on the breaking pitches, and if he does that, it'll be a big lift, because he's a really good defensive player.
On Tim McGough:
He's in great shape. I tried to sign him at Tulane when I was at Tulane and he was deciding on Texas, or Baylor, or the other schools he was thinking about. He has as good of stuff as anybody in our club in terms of his ability to throw in the upper-80s, low-90s with a hard slider and a good change-up; it's just always been injuries. Now he's two years removed from Tommy Jones surgery and that's usually when they say you hit your stride. About three weeks before practice, he slammed hand between two weights in the weight room and had a little boxer's fracture so, he's just now hitting his stride in terms of getting his arm back. He's not hurt in any way, his pitch count will be a little bit less than those other guys, but we're going to go with his experience, the fact that he's a fifth-year senior, on Sunday.
On Conference USA overall:
Tulane certainly number one in the country, depending on which poll you look at. They return a club that is very, very talented, and also very experienced. I think, to be honest with you, we will match up with most teams we play in terms of ability, but that postseason experience is something we're developing in our program.
You look at East Carolina, Southern Miss, Houston, some of the programs who have been in the top four or five in the league, and they're all in transition. I don't know about their recruiting classes as well as our own. I think we'll be in the mix, no question, more so than last year. TCU's been in C-USA for three years, finished second twice, tied for fourth another time, so they've been going really well. So we'll continue to be right there with them. So, that last weekend when we go to New Orleans, when we play Tulane, hopefully there'll be something on the line.
On Sam Demel's progression:
We signed him for the intention of that, but you never know until you coach him. The only reason he's not going to pitch Friday is because Lance is a couple years older, and I just want to ease Sam into it. Sam is as special of a freshman pitcher at this stage that I've ever been around and not just because he has good physical skills, but he is absolutely not afraid of anything. He's been incredibly coachable, which has been a joy to be around. We've made some adjustments with his offspeed pitches, taking him to the next level, I think. Barring injury, he's going to be a guy TCU fans are really going to enjoy watching pitch the next couple years.
