Butch Thompson meets with the media, previews 2023 baseball season

AUBURN — Spring scrimmages are in full swing at Plainsman Park. This team is coming off of a season that ended in Omaha, but 24 players on the roster are new and will be expected to fill important holes in the lineup.

Scrimmages start this afternoon at 4 p.m. and will continue through the weekend. Saturday’s first pitch is 1 p.m. and Sunday’s will be 11 a.m. to finish off the weekend. Currently, the team has 11 squad games planned before the season officially starts.

Opening day is Friday, February 17th. Auburn is set to play Indiana in a three-game series before hitting the road to travel to California and compete against USC the following weekend.

Head coach Butch Thompson met with the media before Friday’s scrimmage to preview these next few weeks and the beginning of the season. Here is what he had to say:

“First day of practice, we’re excited for the Auburn baseball, the 2023 edition, getting kicked off,” Thompson said in his opening statement. “Hopefully you can tell in my first sentence or two how excited we are to get going.”

“These three weeks are the most important three weeks of our season,” Thompson added. “Our success will be in our preparation. There is a lineup to be made out with some new pieces, although we have some great returning pieces. I don’t think it will be as conventional of a lineup, I think it’ll look a little different.”

Auburn’s offense this season

Although this team has lost multiple power hitters to the draft, newcomers and returners have been proving themselves during the fall and Thompson believes that there will be people stepping up to fill the holes.

“This is physically the strongest team that we’ve put on the field since I’ve been here… I don’t think there’s any question about that,” Thompson added.

Ike Irish, true freshman, has shown a strong bat all fall semester and will get some playing time at DH and possibly even catcher. Justin Kirby is a graduate transfer from Kent State, where he finished last season with a .323 batting average and 15 home runs with 45 RBI’s. Kansas transfer Cooper McMurray will more than likely start at first base and is expected to be a power hitter as well. He finished second on his team in homers (9) and third in walks (23).

“Sonny (DiChiara) is gone, the Co-SEC Player of the Year is gone,” Thompson said. “So, Cooper McMurray, Kirby, the left fielder, it’s probably going to take more than one person to replace Sonny- and I would throw (Blake) Rambusch in there- those were two special pieces for us. But, we do have a lot.”

When it comes to returners, players like Cole Foster, Bobby Peirce, Nate LaRue and Kason Howell will be expected to step up to the plate and use the year of experience to their advantage.

The 2023 Pitching Staff

This season, Auburn has 13 new pitchers on their roster. There are still some question marks on who all will be in what role come February, but Joseph Gonzalez will be one of the three starters again this season.

Butch Thompson uses the analogy of “peacock feathers” when it comes to this staff because of the range of talent that the players have.

“Not many teams in college baseball lost three pitchers in the top five rounds, much less five pitchers in the top 12 rounds,” Thompson said. “I don’t think we lack talent from the awesome guys that left, but we absolutely lack experience of ‘I’ve done this before.'”

Tanner Bauman is a junior transfer from St. John’s River State. The lefty is a lower slot, low 90’s pitcher that you can expect to see a good number of innings from. He is also one of six new left handed pitchers.

Gonzalez, Tommy Sheehan, Chase Isbell and Chase Allsup are a few of the pitchers that will continue to see innings on the mound this season. Thompson told the media on Friday that Isbell will be moved from a “one inning reliever basically, to a starter.”

“This is more of a baton pitching staff until we figure it out,” Thompson said.

Other comments

— When asked about the preseason polls and Auburn not being in the majority of them: “It’s kind of fair, the head coach doesn’t even know what all we have and how things are going to lineup… They have no meaning.”

— Butch Thompson said he is “not ready to talk about the season yet” and that he will be telling his players that today.

— “No way shape, form, or fashion will we be at our best when we start. And we’re going to have to be pretty good, because we’re playing good people.”

— Cole Foster will move from second base to shortstop this season, replacing Brody Moore.

— “There’s a Chris Stanfield, there’s a Hayden Murphy, there’s a (Zach) Crotchfelt, there’s a (Drew) Nelson. These guys are going to be stars in our program… These players have three weeks to make the lineup out. It you want to be in it, let’s go,” Butch Thompson said.”