Notre Dame baseball adds transfers from UCLA, St. John's
The College World Series is in full swing in Omaha, Neb. Last year, Notre Dame was a part of the fun. This year, the Fighting Irish did not make the NCAA Tournament.
Now they’re making moves aimed at getting back to the postseason.
In the last week, Notre Dame added transfers from UCLA and St. John’s. Joshua Hahn comes to South Bend from the Bruins, and David Glancy arrives from the Red Storm.
Glancy hit slashed .283/.390/.533 with 29 home runs in 137 games played over four seasons at St. John’s. The right-handed hitting outfielder became a routine starter as a sophomore. This past season, he started 44 of 45 games and hit .284 with a career-high 13 home runs. He drove in 37 runs, down from the 43 RBI he accounted for in 2022.
Hahn slashed .256/.359/.378 in four seasons in Los Angeles. He had by far the best season of his career this year in hitting .326 in 31 games played, 19 of which were starts. Swinging from the left side of the batter’s box, Hahn, also an outfielder, is not as much of a power hitter as Glancy. He has seven home runs in his college career.
Notre Dame had the worst team batting average in the ACC this season. The Irish hit .250. Two of the four teams in the ACC that had a team batting average over .300, Wake Forest and Virginia, made it to Omaha.
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Notre Dame did not have a successful season at the plate in head coach Shawn Stiffler’s first season, and the players who carried the team to the cusp of a postseason berth were all graduate students. The players with the top four batting averages on the team — Zack Prajzner (.306), Vinny Martinez (.301), Carter Putz (.290) and Brooks Coetzee (.255) — all exhausted their eligibility this past season.
It’s on newcomers like Hahn and Glancy as well as incumbent underclassmen to guide Notre Dame to a rebound season at the plate in 2024. Of course, improved coaching from hitting coach Logan Robbins would go a long way, too.
Martinez was a success story in coming in from Stanford at this time last year. He hit .203 in 2022 and climbed over .300 in 42 starts in 2023. Something similar from Hahn would work wonders for Notre Dame, but the Irish are going to need much more than that to be a serious regional contender next spring.
