Missouri Baseball Preview: Tigers poised to bounce back in 2022

The 2021 season didn’t quite go as planned for Missouri baseball, as the Tigers finished with a 15-36 overall record and were one of two teams left out of the SEC Tournament. This year, however, Mizzou welcomes plenty of new faces and the Tigers believe they have the pieces to make noise in the SEC East.

Missouri opens its season on Friday against Nicholls, but before the Tigers baseball season gets underway, On3 spoke with Matt Michaels to preview the roster and team expectations. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Matt Michaels is a color commentator for Missouri baseball on Mizzou Radio. He can be reached on Twitter at @MattAndAMic.

What would be your projected weekend rotation and who fits in as a midweek starter?

I think that it’s kind of difficult to project that right now because it might be evolving throughout the season. I think it’s no surprise to anybody that Spencer Miles returns for Missouri, and he should be the ace of the staff. He kind of was thrown into the fire last year as someone with that level of potential. He took his lumps a time or two last season, but he did really well on the Cape this offseason. I think he had like a 2.54 ERA in the Cape before his time was up, and he really performed well there. So, he’s got a great attitude and is a leader on the team. I think eventually, he slots into one of those weekend roles. I’m almost certain we’ll see him this weekend.

Then from there, it might be an issue of who’s healthy and who’s right at a certain time. They had a couple of promising freshmen last year in Zach Hise and Ian Lohse, who went down with injury and who are expected at some point this season to be available to pitch for the club. Even like the transfer from Charlotte, Austin Marozas — I think right now, he might start the season on the shelf, as they’re being real careful with him, but he could make an impact down the line. They’re real high on Austin Troesser, who is a local product. He only pitched a couple of times last season, but he’s throwing hard and the staff really likes the way that he’s progressing. Carter Rustad, of course, transferring over from San Diego. I think he’s likely to factor in, especially early on in the weekend. But midweek, I really think that those spots are anybody’s game right now. I don’t see Missouri’s staff saying, ‘Hey, here’s the one midweek starter or the two midweek starters we’re going to have.’ I think it’s going to be a bit of a mix and match until they really get a feel for how some of these players perform in longer stints. Once we get closer to the SEC schedule, how they play to the competition will be important.

With a fluid rotation, who do you think Missouri will rely on in the bullpen?

There are a couple of options. With Austin Cheeley transferring in from Middle Tennessee, I think we’re definitely going to see him factor into that back end of the bullpen. He fits the profile for it. He’s 6-foot-8, 250 pounds, got a great attitude and mentality about the way that he pitches. So it makes sense that he will feature pretty heavily there.

Also, just in the course of the past week, the staff mentioned a freshman — actually walk-on named Tony Neubeck. In Steve Bieser’s last media day, he was pretty clearly saying that Tony has really developed as a pitcher. He’s added miles per hour to his game, and he’s a left hander who’s getting guys out right now. So, I think we’ll probably see him at least early on factor into Missouri’s plans in the bullpen, from a place where people weren’t necessarily expecting it coming into the year. There are a couple of bullpen pieces, but I really think a bullpen by committee is going to be the way they do it for a while, since there are so many new faces, especially on the pitching staff. It’s hard to make a true projection about where everybody shakes out right away. I don’t think they have any sort of set idea on, ‘Hey, these are our only bullpen guys,’ at least not yet. Like if somebody is going to come out and start to give them longer stints, then they’ll be in the mix for a midweek start as much as they would on the backend on a weekend. They’ll try to mix and match it as much as they can because at least right now, there’s a bunch of players with ability. We just don’t know if it’s a bunch of players who are going to translate that ability in the ways that they need to on the field yet. It’s something everybody’s waiting to see.

Who will Missouri rely on for production on the offensive side?

The offense has had moments in early seasons over the course of the past several years in the SEC where it looks like things had come together, and there’s a bit more explosiveness. But then, the SEC, as it does to a lot of teams, it slows them down a little bit. But I can say they’ll rely — certainly to start, and probably really for the whole season — on their core of returners. That would be Torin Montgomery, Josh Day and Luke Mann.

The stories on all three of them — I mean, Montgomery came from Boise State and probably was the most consistent that last season. His swing is visibly improved. You can tell he’s got a faster swing and should have more plate coverage, so he has a chance to really break out. If you look at his stats, he fits that SEC mold of a player who has an opportunity to stick and stay at first base and really play physically in the lineup.

Luke Mann is just raw, left-handed power, plain and simple. He hit some of the longest home runs last season for this team. He’s got all the potential in the world, but he really struggled throughout the course of the season with adjusting to the pitching. He is taking more of a gap-to-gap approach, as I know pretty much everybody is trying to do this here. And at least from what I’ve seen in the lead up to the season, he’s applying that very well. He had a very good year out on the Cape, so Missouri is looking for him to be a leader. I think that they were looking for Luke to be a leader offensively last season, and it didn’t pan out for him. But a lot of things didn’t pan out between injuries and the losses piling up. There’s almost a sense that this is a season to look up because last year, they were a more talented team than what their record showed, and they truly believed that. They’re kind of looking to prove that this season.

In the case of Josh Day, I felt like he was about ready to really break out and establish himself as one of the better shortstops in the league, or at least somebody you have to look at all the time. Again, he fits the physical profile, was starting to hit for more power, and then he got hit by a pitch on his hand in the middle of the season, After that, he just really struggled to regain his form and his power stroke. He did what he could with the bat, but it limited part of his offensive profile. And he really has a chance to break out this season and establish himself as an everyday guy. He’s good in the field at shortstop, he’s athletic, he does everything that the club wants him to do. I think that those three proved to be the core of the offense, no matter which way you slice it.

Some of the young players that come in have a chance to contribute, too. I think we’ll see Carlos Pena, who was highly touted and was a was a top 100 recruit by some folks’ measures. I think he’s going to play a lot of right field for this team. I believe that the competition within the clubhouse has probably made this team a little bit deeper than it was last season. So if the injuries do come, they can weather them a little bit more. But when you’re relying on freshmen to play a lot, it becomes a question of how they produce. Even a name like Nander De Sedas, he comes over to Missouri from Florida State and is highly touted, and I believe Nander is going to play 100%. But he’s being pushed by others like Justin Colon, who comes in as a freshman and has really impressed in the early season. I think that depth is something offensively that will serve this team well, and they’ve been looking for it for a few years and have not found it all the time. The depth of this team is going to be a lot more consistent when it comes to who plays in the field doesn’t necessarily drop off what you do with the dish.

Missouri struggled last year. If you had to pinpoint one weakness, what would you identify? How is Missouri hoping to combat that this season?

When they’ve been at their best offensively under Steve Bieser, they’ve found ways to get on base and have been very patient. Pitch selection is something that the club works on all the time. It’s part of his offensive philosophy. Last year, it seemed that they got away from that a little bit, and it got the team in trouble sometimes, especially against some of the better pitching in the league. I think getting back to that philosophy and getting back to a philosophy of finding ways on base any way you can is going to serve them well. If they do struggle, it could be just when the competition steps up, are they going to find different ways to get on base, if maybe the bats themselves are a little bit cooler? With Missouri, it’s always been a question of the power generated there. I think if I’m going back to the memory banks, there wasn’t a 10-home run hitter on the club last year, and they could really use that, and could probably use that in a couple of places when you SEC play. There’s been a bit of a power drop off. So, to see if this team has the physicality to win some games where their pitching isn’t getting its best performance is a question still to be answered.

What would you say Missouri’s ceiling is this year and where do you see them finishing in SEC play?

It’s interesting because I feel that the team every single season — and the goal since Steve Bieser arrived — has been to find their way into an NCAA Regional. I mean, the team in 2019 absolutely was a regional-caliber team. It’s just that the resume at the end of the season, in the eyes of the committee, didn’t stack up with some others. But if you watch them play day-in and day-out, and some of the wins they had, the way they played against teams that were very good — towards the end of the season, they even took a win on the road at Vanderbilt for the first time — I mean, that team could have played in regional. They just didn’t get there because in the end, the team didn’t pass somebody’s eye test on paper.

Last season, they had a team with talent, but they didn’t quite show what they had. I think for Missouri, first things first, they don’t want to find themselves in the two that are left out of Hoover, and you know in this league, that’s a really difficult thing to do. Because in any given season, any team could find themselves having a bad year and out of the SEC tournament. So I would expect them to have a bounce back and find their way there again, even though it’s a difficult league. And I think that from the team’s perspective, it’s find your way into an NCAA Regional. Put yourself at that spot where you can have over 30 wins in the season, and get it moving again. I know that maybe from the outside looking in fans would just say, ‘Well, have a .500 year and that might be okay.’ But when it comes to the league, I would say in the East, they’ve got the potential to be up there right in the middle of the pack in fourth or third. Now everything might have to go right in some of those cases, considering the teams that they’re playing against on a week in and week out basis. I mean, their cross-schedule in the West doesn’t do them any favors this year either. But I look at it and say, if the pitching bounces back and throws strikes and does not get into the walk problems that they had last season — and by all accounts that’s going on right now, they’re not finding themselves in that trouble with control — they have a chance to go out and win weekends in the league. I don’t see a reason why Missouri isn’t capable of doing something like that if they get to progression from all these new faces they’re hoping for.

Who are your early picks for Missouri’s MVP this season?

I’d say on on the offensive side, I’ll put Josh Day out there. I just think he’s ready to have that type of season all around that puts him on the level of SEC regulars that you really have to know about. I think he’s ready to take that step forward, and that’s not to give short shrift to Mann or Montgomery, who I put as the other two offensively in that category. It just seems like Josh was so close to breaking out last season. Hopefully he’s able to stay healthy, and if so, I think he’ll show that he’s able to get locked in and be a very strong regular. So I’ll go out on a limb and say that I picked Josh Day to have a really fine season, but any of those three — if Missouri is going to have success offensively — those guys are probably going to be driving the bus there.

Pitching is just absolutely such a wild card. But Spencer Miles just has such a good makeup and he doesn’t really get rattled. It sounds like he understands what he did that got him in trouble last season. He started to overthrow when he got into bad situations. He tried to be perfect. I think he’s probably going to be more relaxed this year, and it really will help him out. I mean, he’s not a 7.00 ERA pitcher. He just isn’t. What the numbers say about him from last season isn’t the type of dude that he is. It might be a bit of a cop out to say, ‘Well, if he’s the leader of the staff, that’s it.’ But seeing enough of him, I think he could be up there. And beyond that, pitching wise, it might be a question of, ‘Hey, who’s healthy and who’s ready to go,’ because there’s so many wildcards on this team that we just haven’t seen perform at this level yet.

And who would you pick to be Missouri’s newcomer of the year?

There could be so many there. I’ll say this, Austin Cheeley — if you’ve read a little bit, you know, his story. Unfortunately, he was he was so ready to play for his uncle (pitching coach Brian DeLunas), and unfortunately, he passes right before the season. But by all indications, he’s handling that so well. Steve Bieser even went out in his media day and said that it’s probably helpful that he’s on this club. Austin lost his dad at a younger age, and now he’s lost his uncle right before the season. The way he’s dealing with it, Steve believes is an example to everybody else. It’s impacted him and it’s impacted this club, but at the same time, they also go forward with resolve. I mean, ‘do it for DeLunas’ is their motto now this season. That’s what they’re going to go out there and do. In some ways, whether he does it in a way that is vocal or not, he seems to be taking on a leadership role. I think Cheeley could end up having a real fine season as well.

Then, to pick one of the freshmen as well, I’d say I’m really excited to see what Carlos Peña can do. The outfield is going to be more in flux in the early part of the season, but I mean, he’s a top 100 dude, and in the SEC it seems like you have to have a ton of those dudes. But Missouri hasn’t had them all the time. So I think that everybody’s really excited to see where that potential lands with Peña. I’d offer Peña as someone who is able to go out there and have an impact right away.

Also have to mention Carter Rustad coming over from San Diego, and I wonder how he is going to translate being back in his home state, and maybe being a little bit more comfortable while trying to compete in the SEC. It could end up being him just like you could end up being any one of them. It’s hard to pick out, but if I had to, I’ll throw Cheeley out there, because I think he’ll really step up, and I’ll throw Peña out there just because I like the potential of what he can end up becoming for this team.