Q&A with TCU baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle
9/22/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Sept. 22, 2005
FORT WORTH, Texas - TCU baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle sat down Wednesday to answer questions about the upcoming season. Fall practices are scheduled to begin Oct. 4 and continue through Oct. 30.
Q: With the departure of Lance Broadway, how do you replace a player of that caliber in your rotation?
"I don't think there are too many schools in the country that can replace someone like Lance Broadway. We are talking about the 15th pick of the first round of the Major League Baseball draft. Those guys don't grow on trees.
"We're going to need pitchers, who played a significant role on our team last year, step up. Players like Sam Demel and Brad Furnish are going to have to elevate their game, as they should be expected to do, since they are a year older and year more experienced. We're going to have guys who didn't pitch a whole lot last year be ready to accept a more challenging role. We are also going to count on several of our new pitchers to earn a spot in the rotation and perform at a very high level."
Q: What are your impressions of the team after a month of individual workouts?
"I am not so sure about my impressions of this team. The individual workouts are an opportunity for us to get them in shape for fall practice, to get their arms and legs in shape and to get their hands ready for an awful lot of swings that we'll take during fall practice. Individual workouts are basically to get the guys ready to play.
"To this point, it has been a very coachable group and a group that is willing to work hard and learn new things. They've been very accepting of what we've asked them to do. We really won't have a great impression regarding the personality of our team until we get into some competitive environments like those we simulate in fall practices."
Q: What effect will the summer season have on the younger players in the program, for example with Sam Demel in the Cape Cod League and Zach Ashwood in the Alaskan League?
"Summer baseball is very important to the overall development of everybody in the program, specifically the younger players. We had a luxury last year in that we went through the entire season without any significant arm injuries or setbacks in our pitching staff.
Pitchers like Zach Ashwood needed to get a lot of innings this summer, which he did up in Alaska. Omar Arif was able to do the same in the Central Illinois Collegiate League and he performed extremely well, ending up as an all-star. He was named by Baseball America as one of the top 10 prospects out of that league. Jake Friemel was able to get a lot of innings up in New England and Will Skelton was also able to get some good innings out in Colorado. We also had some players in the Texas Collegiate League who fared well.
"Summer leagues are very important and we'll wait to see what the effect is. I think the Cape Cod league was beneficial to Brad Furnish two summers ago and hopefully Sam and the rest of the guys will benefit from that as well."
Q: How have the freshman matured from a year ago?
A: "Certainly, I think that is something to be evaluated on an individual basis. The two guys that stick out in my mind are Matt Carpenter and Andrew Walker. They stayed here this summer and they actually worked out with the football team. (TCU strength and conditioning coach) Donny Sommer did a great job with those guys getting them in great shape, significantly better than when they arrived on campus and even from when we finished the season. You can definitely tell the difference in their approach to academics and their approach to life skills. We are hoping that transfers into the baseball area of their lives as well."
Q: Who are you looking to be the leader of the team with the departure of Kyle Dahlberg and Stuart Musslewhite?
"That is a definite question mark for this club because Kyle and Stuart were certainly dynamic personalities who were very experienced at a high level of college baseball. To this point, I think Shawn Ferguson, Keith Conlon and Austin Adams, among other guys, have shown the ability to step forward and have displayed some leadership-type characteristics. I think Chad Huffman, who is with the football team right now, has a lot of those same characteristics. It's just unfortunate for us and fortunate for the football team that he's with them. Chad will be with us by late December and into January, whenever football season is over. I think leadership takes time to develop and I'll know more in that area once we get through fall practice."
Q: What are your goals for fall practice?
"Goals for fall practice for us this year will be to play as often as we can. We're going to try and go for four weeks, which will be the longest fall practice that we've had since I've been at TCU. We've usually gone three, but we are working really hard right now to get our guys in shape so that we can go four weeks.
"We really need to see this team in a competitive environment. We have several young players who we really can't evaluate until we see them in an intersquad or game-like situation. We are going to have to develop some players at catcher. We're also going to have a new shortstop, which will more than likely be Bryan Kervin. We have a couple new infielders in Steven Trout, Ben Carruthers, Corey Steglich and returnees Justin Roland and John Dao who we need to get some answers from as well. We will also need to figure out who's going to play first base.
"In the outfield we feel pretty good about Keith Conlon, Matt McGuirk and Austin Adams, but Ryan Pack had a really good summer in the Alaskan League that has helped him. We are expecting great things from Ryan because he certainly has a lot of ability. We have some younger players who we feel can make an impact in the outfield as well. Chase Kiecke was a redshirt freshman for us a year ago.
"We really need to get into a competitive environment. There's only so much you can tell from batting practice. Both from a pitching and position player standpoint, we need to get our guys into competitive situations and instill some team-teaching type things from an offensive and defensive standpoint."
