Takeaways from Nick Mingione, Kentucky Baseball's 2022 Media Day

It’s February, there’s still ice and snow on the ground and you still shiver as you leave your house in the morning. Yep, it’s baseball season.

Kentucky Baseball unofficially kicked off their 2022 season with their annual Medi Day on Tuesday afternoon. We heard from head coach Nick Mingione along with a few players about their expectations heading into the new campaign. Let’s dive in.

Pitching is the strength for Kentucky

Mingione made it very clear before anyone had a chance to ask him a question that he considers this pitching staff one of the best he’s ever had while in Lexington.

“They consider themselves the tip of the spear. I’m excited about our pitching staff, this is the first time we actually have pitching experience. Maybe the most that we’ve had since 2018.”

Kentucky is returning nearly every single one of their starters from the year prior, plus added some starting depth through the transfer portal. The mixture of Cole Stupp, Zack Lee and Ryan Hagenow seem to lead right now in terms of getting weekend starts. One of those starts would assumingly go to Mason Hazelwood, who’s been recovering from Tommy John surgery since last March.

We found out on Media Day though that Mingione plans on starting Hazelwood from the bullpen to ramp up his innings before going for long outings. It honestly could work out for both sides as well. Kentucky has enough starting depth where seeing Hazelwood come from the bullpen wouldn’t be an issue. Equally, adding another consistent lefty arm into this bullpen will do wonders for this team. Assuming he stays there for an extended time.

“We return every single SEC win on the mound,” Mingione noted. “So all of our SEC wins, they’re all back. Which is something that I’ve never been a part of before, so the experience will be there. I love the fact that our pitching staff has different pieces. We have different arm angles, we have different arm slots. We have four-seam guys, we have two-seam guys and all these different types of pitches that I’m excited about and it obviously gives me a lot of peace heading into the season.”

The leader in the clubhouse when it comes to the mound appears to be Cole Stupp once again. The junior pitcher was the Friday night guy for essentially the entire season last year. He got his toes wet in SEC play and got bit a little. But he’s already shown everything Kentucky needs to prove he can be that big-game guy.

“I just call him Mr. Consistent,” Mingione added. “He’s the same guy but also the same player… just proud of him and the growth he’s made with his delivery, with his velocity, the leader he’s been.”

Poaching the portal is the play for Kentucky Baseball

It appears as if Nick Mingione did his studying over the past couple of years. Mingione and the Kentucky program brought in eight transfers over the offseason, and Mingione believes they will be a true catalyst for this team.

“Baseball, much like other sports on our campus, we have taken advantage of the transfer portal. I call it the portal power,” Mignone quipped during his press conference. “We actually brought in eight guys out of the transfer portal, four pitchers and four positional players… Those guys will play significant roles.”

Mingione went as far as to say that the program hit a “grand-slam” with the transfer portal. Almost everyone that was brought in to Lexington had some sort of postseason or preseason honor from wherever they came from. That includes John Thrasher, who joined Ryan Ritter in receiving third-team All-American honors in the preseason.

“One neat thing about the portal is that as soon as their name is in there, you can call them. So we’ve spent a lot of time talking on the phone… Obviously it starts with athletic ability but we want to have good, competitive people that understand ‘Hey when you come to Kentucky, you’re going to be loved but you’re also going to be held accountable.’ There are standards to how hard we’re going to push you in the weight room and on the field. We just want people who are going committed to getting better in all areas of life.”

The transfer portal seems like to go-to option these days in college sports, and Kentucky thinks they found an elite group to add to their roster.

Positional players look to be improved

Ryan Ritter does, and should, get first nods when talking about the positional players on the team. Coach Mingione sang his normal praise about Ritter’s absurdly elite glove and his improvements at the plate over the offseason. Mingione however did mention that some other returning players could make a huge impact on the overall state of the team.

“Jake Plastiak really is the alpha male of the group, he’s going to slide over and be our first basemen. What Jake says, goes,” Mingione said while giving out a laugh. “He’s basically, in a lot of ways, running not only our positional players but running our team.”

That certainly was ear-rattling to hear at first. Jake Plastiak only has recorded 67 at-bats in a Wildcats uniform, recording a .209 average. Mingione seems to have high expectations though, so I don’t want to doubt that he’s seeing something that we all don’t. We’ve yet to see Plastiak really perform on the field, but if he brings some immense value as a leader, it makes it worth it.

Mingione also sang praise for the complete transformation of Chase Estep, who I immediately need to go see play now after hearing this from his head coach.

“The most improved guy for me from a year ago was Chase Estep. When you think about mentally, physically, when you guys see him, what he’s done with his body, he looks incredible. Behaviorally, what he’s done offensively, he is a special, special player. Looking forward to a big year and just proud of the growth he’s made.”

Estep was always the epitome of average, but in the best way possible. He never had major issues in the field, never went into any huge slump. He’s always been a consistent presence wherever you put him. If he breaks out and reaches his full potential though, you have an all-conference type of player on your hands. That’ll be exciting to watch.

There should be major turnover when it comes to the outfield as well. All things working smoothly, you would have three new guys roaming the grass. John Thrasher, a preseason All-American, Hunter Jump, and Adam Fogel would set the ideal outfield. Though, we found out at Media Day that Fogel may miss the beginning of the season due to a minor injury.

Kentucky’s season will officially begin on Feb. 18 down in Jacksonville, AL for a weekend series against Jacksonville State. UK’s home-opener is scheduled for Feb. 22 at Kentucky Proud Park against Southeast Missouri State.

Hear everything else Coach Mingione had to say from Tuesday’s media opportunity: