Jack's Mailbag Ep. 37: Answering your latest South Carolina baseball questions

We’ve officially crossed the halfway point in the regular season. With 26 games left to go, South Carolina has its work cut out as the Gamecocks will travel to Mississippi State this weekend for a three-game set.

The series kicks off Friday night with first pitch at 7 p.m. on SEC Network Plus. Before then, I’ll be answering questions from you, the fans, in my weekly baseball Q&A series, Jack’s Mailbag. This week, we’ll be discussing the starting lineup, pitching and more thoughts on the overall season.

If you would like to have a question featured in the next episode, I’ll create a post on The Insiders Forum at the start of every week, and you can ask your question there. Without further ado, let’s get into all the questions for this week.

washington cock: Jack, Paul Mainieri is going to be out of town for this weekend and has asked you to be the coach against Miss St.

1) What is your weekend pitching rotation?
2) Who is your closer?
3) Show me a batting lineup card for Friday and would it be the same for Saturday?

Thanks, buddy, and have a safe trip to Starkville.

1) Jake McCoy, Jarvis Evans Jr., Matthew Becker

2) Brendan Sweeney

3) This is what my starting lineup would look like below. The only thing I would change depending on the day is getting Jase Woita in as the DH. I would then take Evan Stone out and put Kennedy Jones in left field. I’m purely looking at guys who can get on base ahead of Nathan Hall and Ethan Petry.

1. Henry Kaczmar, SS

2. Jordan Carrion, 2B

3. Nathan Hall, CF

4. Ethan Petry, RF

5. KJ Scobey, 3B

6. Kennedy Jones, DH

7. Beau Hollins, 1B

8. Gavin Braland, C

9. Evan Stone, LF

randye12: Jack , what’s going on with Becker Sir ! Always liked his stuff ! Do we have any dominant pitchers who can throw heat coming in next year ? Seems like we haven’t had a dominant Friday night guy in a while . Thoughts ?

I think South Carolina pulled the plug on Matthew Becker as a starter way too soon. You’ve got to remember, he was easily the team’s best pitcher in the fall and the weeks leading up to the season. Heck, even when the season got going, he was pitching very well. What we saw was a situation where he had two rough starts against Clemson and Morehead State, both where there was either a tight strike zone or some bad luck, and then he got moved to the bullpen and hasn’t found a consistent role ever since.

That’s really the problem. It’s just moving pitchers around way too often. For Becker, it’s been like this throughout his entire college career. He’s never had one definitive role. It doesn’t help when you’re used to starting once a week and then coming out of the bullpen in multiple games in a weekend series. His stuff is very good. I like how his offspeed plays along with the fastball he throws. He has a nice mix of pitches. But I just think more consistency would help. It feels a little too late for that now, though. We’ll see where he ends up on the pitching staff moving forward.

They will have some nice freshmen arms coming in next year. There are four pitchers a part of the 2025 recruiting class. You can take a look at them here. And for as the dominant Friday night guy, it’s been a little while. I’ll say Will Sanders was the most recent dominant arm in that spot.

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vacock: What are our limitations in not getting the best players? What do we need to do? Isn’t it always an issue that it they are too good they go pro. How do other teams do it?

I don’t think I would call it limitations per se. I think it’s more so the players wanting to cash in on their value as soon as possible, especially when they’re being drafted out of high school. The real difference between baseball and other pro sports is that you don’t go straight to the big leagues. You’re going through multiple levels of minor league baseball before potentially being called up to the MLB. I guess what I’m saying is that some guys want to get that process started going faster than others. Some need that development by going to college for three to four years before pursuing a pro career.

You could always say money, but I don’t think that’s the main reason for not getting the best players. It’s all about talent evaluation and good scouting, in my opinion. I actually think South Carolina has done a nice job in recruiting over the years. It’s just that some programs seem to do a better job, and that’s going to happen.

Winning is also something to consider. South Carolina hasn’t been to the College World Series since 2012. I know the rich tradition can sometimes sell itself as well as the nice facilities, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of programs have all that and win more often than the Gamecocks have recently.

Hampton Rhodes: I liked Hall and Petry in the 3-4 spots, but who are we looking to fill 1-2 spots? Thoughts on keeping Braland as the starting catcher?

If you want to read my full story on South Carolina’s latest lineup changes, which is mainly about Hall and Petry hitting in the heart of the order, click here.

I also like Hall and Petry in the 3-4 spots in the starting lineup. It just makes the most sense when you think about it. As Mainieri told me the other day, you aren’t going to win games with these two hitting solo home runs. They need to have runners on base whenever they’re up at the plate. I think you could a lot of different directions with who hits leadoff and second. If you go by on-base percentage, Evan Stone and Jordan Carrion could fit the bill.

They’re both getting on base at a .395 clip. Then again, Mainieri wasn’t sure about Carrion hitting that high since he doesn’t hit for power. If that’s how he looks at it, I think Beau Hollins could make a lot of sense. For one, he’s a switch-hitter who swings a good bat and can put a charge into a ball. The only thing I’d say is that he’s a freshman, and that might be a lot to put on him. But it really just depends on what Mainieri is looking for. He wants someone who can get on base. That’s what those guys I’ve listed do.

As for Gavin Braland, I like keeping him as the starter. He might be hitting sub. 200 but don’t let that fool you. Every catcher for South Carolina hasn’t done much of anything at the plate this year. He’s done a nice job swinging the bat lately and also behind the plate defensively.

To wrap things up, I asked Mainieri about Braland the other day. Here’s some of what he had to say about him.

“You don’t see the most talented baseball player. It’s not real pretty. He doesn’t have a beautiful, fluid swing, or, you know, a lot of his actions are not really athletically, you know, graceful looking. But the kid has something special about him, in my opinion. In coaching, we call it the it factor. You can’t define it, but he’s got it. … I think Gavin is just one of those kids that he doesn’t get blown away by the moment. He’s very poised. He’s a very confident kid, man. He’s getting better. He keeps getting better the more he plays.”

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