How Brooks Coetzee III has become the power hitter Notre Dame needed
The baseball that ended up behind the Frank Eck Stadium sign beyond the left field wall in South Bend on Tuesday was the result of a head coach getting exactly what he wanted from a star player.
The ball came off the bat of Brooks Coetzee III, marking the fifth time this season the senior right fielder has deposited one on the other side of the fence encapsulating a playing field. That’s no Niko Kavadas-like home run-producing pace, but it’s actually pretty darn close. Kavadas hit 22 home runs in 47 games last season. Coetzee is on pace for 18 if he were to play in that many this year.
Would Notre Dame head coach Link Jarrett have signed up for that before the season started?
“Yes,” said a smiling Jarrett after a 12-1 victory for the No. 1 Fighting Irish (12-1) over visiting Valparaiso (5-7). “He is filling a void that I really think our whole team is going to have to absorb. You’re talking about a ratio of home runs you rarely see in college baseball or Major League Baseball.”
Jarrett would have absolutely signed up for the manner in which each Coetzee homer has occurred; three to left field, one to left center and one to straight-away center. None have gone the opposite direction for the right-handed swinger. Sure, it’s aesthetically pleasing when a hitter sits on an outside pitch and slaps it the other way. But it’s also just as pleasing visually when he yanks it to the pull side.
And it’s more consistent, too.
“When the ball is on the inside part of the plate, there are times when that ball needs to be productively pulled,” Jarrett said. “We work on that with him because he gets so determined to stay on the ball that’s away from him, which is a good trait to have, but that ability to adjust whether it’s a fastball or a secondary pitch hanging there for you to pull it, he’s done a better job of that.”
That’s exactly what Coetzee did in the third inning Tuesday, too.
“They had been pitching me soft, then that at-bat I committed to sitting on the off-speed,” Coetzee said. “He gave me the curveball, and I put a good swing on it.”
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Coetzee’s homer came from the No. 7 spot in the lineup. It can be rare for players that deep in the batting order to be thrown off-speed pitches regularly, but the Notre Dame lineup is a different animal. Senior shortstop Zack Prajzner went into the game hitting .300 in the eight hole. The usual nine hole hitter, senior catcher David LaManna, got the night off but is batting .360 in nine games and eight starts this season.
When opposing pitchers scout Notre Dame, they quickly find out then can’t hum fastballs in the zone to the bottom third of Notre Dame’s lineup. Coetzee would make them pay for that. But they’re also quickly finding out they can’t misplace breaking balls. Coetzee has clearly made them pay for that, too. So what can teams do from the mound to get around the Irish’s depth?
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Hope they don’t miss their spots with anything in their arsenal. That’s about it — even after losing Kavadas.
“We’re athletes one through nine,” Coetzee said. “We run into some baseballs.”
Notre Dame has hit 14 home runs as a team through 13 games. Senior Jack Zyska has even hit three despite playing in just five games and starting zero. He sent a two-run shot to left as a pinch hitter Tuesday. Four players have combined for the other five, with senior first baseman and cleanup hitter Carter Putz being the one from that quartet who has two. Nobody has quite mashed like Coetzee, though, whose team-leading slugging percentage continues climbing.
The combination of Coetzee’s adjusted approach and being so effective deep in the lineup has been game-changing. Kavadas, of course, was a natural pull hitter himself. You don’t put up his All-American numbers without having the instinctual ability to connect on pitches and send them sailing inside the near foul line. Coetzee has coaxed himself into pulling more often with Jarrett in his ear, and his batting average is up to .380 from .274 in 2021 as a result. He’s also already only one home run shy of last year’s season-long total.
Unlikely to sustain? Probably. He’s not going to go 3 for 4 and finish a triple shy of the cycle every night. He’s also not going to face Valparaiso’s friendly pitching staff any more times. But he is going to bring attributes to the table Jarrett didn’t even get from Kavadas, which is saying something. Kavadas provided a whole lot. Coetzee could have much more to give.
“Brooks has so many dimensions to the game that quite frankly Niko didn’t have,” Jarrett said. “Brooks can bunt. He can really run the bases. He might be the best right fielder I’ve ever coached. It’s a different player. Does he have the raw firepower Niko had? It’s probably not an even-steven swap. But his completeness as a player, it’s just tough to find a way to walk away from a game where that guy has not impacted it.”
