David Esquer discusses future of Stanford baseball, need for new leaders

David Esquer recognizes that Stanford is in a good spot right now, but he’s hoping to keep the Cardinal there.

His team made it to Omaha this season, but with any offseason the goal becomes keeping the level of success high moving forward. With many of his athletes moving on with their careers, Esquer explained where he believes Stanford goes from here.

“We’ve got some guys — we’ve had great luck of kids who maybe don’t play any role and then all of a sudden step up just by experiencing the program,” started the Cardinal skipper. “But obviously it’s going to start with Malcolm Moore and Braden Montgomery. Those two guys will be cornerstones of our team.

“We’ve got kids in the pipeline, just champing at the bit to play. Jimmy Nati sat on the bench, but helped us get here. Temo Becerra got some great experience. And Trevor Haskins, who was our starting shortstop going into the season, but because of the injury and sick just never got healthy enough to play the season. But he’s the guy that had the big walk-off a year ago against Texas State. He’ll be a year better and year older. Some of the pitching we’ll get back between Nick Dugan and Matt Scott, they’ll just be better than they were this year.”

Additionally, the Stanford manager believes his program’s recruiting class will help a lot, and he’s also waiting to see how the MLB Draft shakes out.

“We’ve got a very nice recruiting class coming in with some really good arms. We’re going to have to maybe replace some of those home runs that we had this year,” added Esquer. “And we’ll see how the draft treats us. We expect that we could lose quite a few of our players. But I’m always hopeful that we create a program where if it’s not exactly right for them to leave it’s a win-win. They feel comfortable coming back. They’ll get better. They’ll get a year older. They’ll maybe make themselves even a better prospect.

“And I think that’s kind of the measure of my program. If I get some kids that if the draft doesn’t work out and they’re 100 percent comfortable coming back, that’s the program I want to have. I feel like we have that.”

In the end, David Esquer believes Stanford is in a much better spot than it was a couple seasons ago, and the sky is the limit for the Cardinal.

“Quinn Mathews is an example of that, Brendan Beck, Alex Williams — those guys didn’t balk at coming back for a senior year because of the program and culture we have,” said the Stanford manager. “Maybe we’ll get a surprise or two.

“But I’m just so thankful that the way those players have left our program — and I’ll continue to say they left it better than we found it even though they found it pretty good.”