Five most important Iowa Baseball players for 2023

The Iowa Baseball season is quickly approaching, with just just 15 days remaining until the Hawkeyes take the field down in Port Charlotte, Florida against Indiana State. Rick Heller is entering his tenth season as head coach and feels pretty good about the group he has.

“This team in my opinion has a chance to be pretty special if we really work hard over the offseason and go to work on some things,” said Heller this past fall. “We definitely still need to work on some things, that’s a given, but come February if these guys get after it, I think we have a chance to be pretty good.”

Every year, each team has players that you know are going to be critical to the success of the team. Maybe it is a returning All-American, an incoming transfer or someone that is looking to make a jump in production from the year before.

Today, we look at the Iowa roster and pick out the five players who will have the most impact on how far the Hawkeyes go this season.

5. P Will Christophersen

The Hawkeyes lost their three most reliable arms out of the bullpen in Dylan Nedved, Ben Buetel and Duncan Davitt. The first few arms out of the bullpen this year will be completely different from last season, but Will Christophersen is a returning player that could be in for a big year.

Will dealt with an injury throughout much of last season and he was limited to just 13 appearances. His best performance of the season came after he took nearly a month off. He came in against Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament to strike out five Boilermakers over 2.1 innings and keep Iowa alive for another day. On the year he finished with 25 strikeouts to just six walks in 14.2 innings of work.

The big key will be his health this season. If he can stay healthy he will be one of, if not the most important piece in the Hawkeye bullpen. It would not be surprising if Christophersen was able to fill a role similar to the one that Dylan Nedved had a year ago. He has a chance to be the veteran leader of the bullpen group. D1Baseball named him the #27 overall college prospect for the 2023 draft class.

4. P Ty Langenberg

Trenton Wallace won Big Ten Pitcher of the Year in 2021. Adam Mazur put together an outstanding campaign in 2022 and won Big Ten Pitcher of the Year. Now, it is Ty Langenberg’s turn to try to make it a three-peat for the Hawkeyes. Both Perfect Game and D1Baseball have him tabbed as the top pitcher in the conference in their preseason previews.

Langenberg took over the Sunday spot in the starting rotation last year and finished with a 7-2 record, as well as a 3.71 ERA. He followed it up with a big summer in the Cape Cod League with the Hyannis Harbor Hawks and is set to be the Hawkeyes new Friday ace.

Why is how Ty pitches this season so important? The Hawkeyes have been very successful in weekend openers over the last two seasons and it is a big reason why they have been able to consistently win weekends. They are 20-2 in their last 22 weekend openers and have not won a weekend without winning the opener since the 2020 Cambria Classic in Minneapolis. They have not won a traditional weekend series without winning the opener since 2019 against Cal St Northridge.

While Langenberg is looking to make it three Big Ten Pitcher of the Year awards in a row for Iowa, his main task will be trying to get the Hawkeyes off on the right foot every weekend.

3. 1B/P Keaton Anthony

Talk about coming out of nowhere. Keaton Anthony was talked about highly by the coaching staff when he came in as a freshman, but never got a chance to showcase his talent in 2021, as a hamstring injury held him to one at bat all season. Fast forward to last season, he started 53 games for the Hawkeyes and boom, he’s named Big Ten Freshman of the Year.

Anthony batted .361 and hit 14 home runs, while leading the team in five other hitting categories. There was a chance he could have gone in the MLB Draft, but he did not get offered the money he wanted, so he returns to Iowa City for another season. He will be on the short list for Big Ten Player of the Year.

Meanwhile, last fall Keaton not so quietly put together a very impressive set of pitching performances and has forced his way into potentially being an important arm on the Iowa pitching staff. It is not yet clear what his role will be, whether it is the Sunday starting spot or a bullpen role. However, if Iowa finds themselves in an NCAA Tournament regional at the end of the year, the season will have Keaton Anthony’s fingerprints all over it.

2. P Marcus Morgan

1. P Brody Brecht

The final two on our list get lumped together because this past fall Coach Rick Heller called them the wildcards on the pitching staff.

“That’s the big wildcard for this team. What can those two guys bring to the table for us? If they are two guys that we can trust, this staff is pretty good.”

Many expected both Brecht and Morgan to come in and light the world on fire as highly touted freshman, but that wasn’t quite how things panned out. Marcus appeared in just ten games, as trouble with walks (21 in 15.1 innings) kept him from taking the mound more often. Brody was a little bit better, appearing in 17 games. He struck out in incredible 44 batters in 22.2 innings, but walked 25.

Still, they could be argued to be #1 and #2 on the team in terms of raw pitching talent. That is evidenced by D1Baseball ranking them in their top six for college prospects in the 2024 draft class.

How much they can contribute this season will have a direct correlation to how good the Iowa pitching staff can be. If they contribute similar to last year? The pitching staff will still probably be pretty good. If they pitch at the level they are capable of? They aren’t the only pieces that have to fall into place, but the Hawkeyes could have a really good pitching staff on their hands if Brody and Marcus can figure things out this season.