Summering in the Portal: How ASU overhauled its baseball roster

Like he had done so many times during his first season at the helm of Arizona State baseball, Willie Bloomquist looked up and down his roster sheet during the middle innings of a Friday night game. He began to wonder how he would possibly get 27 innings out of his pitching staff throughout the series.

This edition of his somber tradition was especially bleak. Stanford was ranked No. 9 in the country, and its lineup was chock-full of future major league talent. This evening in early April, the Cardinal were pouring it on. As they’d do the next day. And the day after that for good measure. ASU surrendered an astonishing 34 total runs during the series.

Bloomquist didn’t know exactly what to expect from his first season as head coach, but he hadn’t necessarily anticipated these types of struggles. ASU treaded water for most of the season, and while the Stanford series was the worst of it, the need for monumental roster reconstruction was never more apparent than it was in Palo Alto.

After the Sun Devils were swept in dominant fashion, he turned to his coaching staff and said, “That’s what a true top 10 team looks like, and we aren’t anywhere close.” Six months later, he spoke from his office at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, about two miles from the skeleton of Packard Stadium, where he made his memories and built a dominant legacy as a player. “I realized exactly how far away we were during that weekend,” Bloomquist said bluntly. The bitter frustration he felt after losses like the ones at Stanford during his first season felt similar in many ways to how he would feel after a loss when he patrolled the middle infield for ASU in the late nineties. That frustration was now accompanied by the enormous weight of complete and total responsibility. As a player, he took more responsibility than the average teammate, but he never had his name attached to the head of his beloved program.

And that attachment would have been a lot more glamorous back then too.

From 1997-1999, Bloomquist was one of the centerpieces of three of the most robustly successful Arizona State baseball teams since the program won its last national championship in 1981. Pat Murphy’s ASU teams chewed up and spit out opponents then and throughout the 2000s. In Bloomquist’s sophomore season in ‘98, the Sun Devils made it all the way to Omaha and eventually the national title game before falling to USC. He’s not used to losing in maroon and gold.

As badly as he wanted to compete and win against the cream of the Pac-12 crop, the reality of ASU’s roster and depth, especially on the mound, was a binding constraint.

“It was like going into a gunfight with a switchblade,” Bloomquist lamented.

Bringing in a strong freshmen class was important, of course, but what ASU really needed was immediate impact guys with experience. Naturally, they turned to the transfer portal, populated by a record number of eligible bachelors. The coaching staff had multiple eyes on the portal each day as soon as they were eliminated in late May.

What Bloomquist, recruiting coordinator Sam Peraza and the rest of his still-ripe staff set out to do over the next three months would rival the efforts of some of the most premiere, high-powered baseball programs in the country. Bloomquist said he wanted a seat at the table. In the minds of the best players in the transfer portal, he may as well have been at its head. They got down to business and didn’t stop until the eve of the fall semester. When it was all said and done, Arizona State picked up 13 Division I transfers over the summer and added eight more from the junior college ranks. When a freshman class of 12 is factored in, a whopping 33 of 45 players are embarking on their first seasons as Sun Devils.

If you spent time at Phoenix Municipal Stadium last spring, you’d need to do some serious roster study to get familiar with the new look Sun Devils before opening night in February.

“Above all else, we hunted experience in the portal. Guys who had shown they could get it done at this level,” Bloomquist explained. “Teams that are successful in the postseason, for the most part, they’re older teams. Immediate impact guys with experience are guys we circled early on.”

It’s not just the volume of transfers that’s impressive. It’s the quality. As the summer went on, Bloomquist and Peraza were consistently making college baseball headlines for landing immediate impact talent that directly fit each and every area of need. Baseball America and D1Baseball.com each lauded the haul as the No. 2 ranked transfer class in the country. Only perennial powerhouse LSU (and its astonishingly deep pockets) was considered better.

How did they do it? A relentless commitment to pursuing players that could quantifiably make the team better where it was needed and personally recruiting guys that fit the bill not only based on their on-field ability but based on character that parallels Willie Bloomquist’s vision for his alma mater. It was never about any one player when ASU made annual reservations in Omaha. That culture is something they’re trying to replicate, and recruiting the best talent as well as the best character consumed their days during the sweltering summer months.

A day in the life of the ASU baseball staff this summer resembled more that of a stock trader on Wall Street than of a college baseball coach. Bloomquist, Peraza, and the rest of the staff worked the phone lines from the early hours of the morning until late at night. Timing was so key, and the margin for error so thin that even a 20-minute delay in contacting a recruit could be the difference in gaining a valuable first impression or not. “There would be times where we thought we got to a guy right away, like within an hour of when he even got in the portal,” Peraza explained. “But once we got on the phone with him, we found out ten other schools had already been in contact.”

The administrative side of things, just keeping track of the sheer volume of players available, was not something Bloomquist anticipated. Over 1,000 division I players hit the transfer portal between May 20 and the July 1 deadline. What the staff really needed was a full-time secretary to help keep track of the multitude of appealing names. The grind of modern day college baseball recruiting is every bit as intense as football or basketball. “And there’s only three of us,” Bloomquist added with an exasperated grin.

It’s three officially, but the massive portal haul ASU achieved has the fingerprints of every single staff member. Assistant coach​​es Travis Buck and Mike Goff had their ringers on full blast all summer long as well. The recruiting aspect of their jobs, whether it’s the portal or high school prospects, takes a village. The will of one or two staff members used to cut it in baseball; now, it takes the manpower of an entire staff, some of whom are unpaid volunteers.

“I told everyone at the beginning of the summer, hey, we’re going to have to get out of our comfort zones a little bit here,” Bloomquist said. “And maybe, more importantly, get outside of their specific role and expected hours they need to spend here.” The urgency of the operation was underscored during a late afternoon practice in October. Bloomquist, tossing batting practice from behind a screen, reached into his pocket and retrieved his ringing phone. He spoke for a few seconds before jogging towards the first base dugout and flipping it to Buck, who seamlessly continued the conversation as Bloomquist darted back to the mound to focus on the task at hand. “Usually, if we’re really after a guy, we will have multiple coaches making contact with him,” Bloomquist explained.

No one was better suited to sell a recruit on the facilities and how things worked inside the building at Phoenix Muni than Bloomquist and Peraza. They practically lived there over the summer. The coaches’ locker room, generally used as a place to change in and out of game and practice attire for the staff, looked like a hotel bathroom. Toothbrushes, mouthwash, and shaving cream populate the dual sink setup. A worn couch sits facing the front of the room, with a coach-sized imprint sinking the leather cushions below the crest of its framework. As Peraza leaned back on the couch, he removed his cap and ran a hand through his hair. “Place feels a little like home,” he gestured to his surroundings. “Probably a little too much.”

Peraza wasn’t just a recruiter. He also played chauffeur. “There was a span of two or three weeks where it felt like we had someone here on campus every single day,” he recalled. “I remember dropping one off at the airport and picking one up an hour later. It was definitely time consuming.” Perhaps sticking an Uber sticker on the inside of his windshield to generate some passive income and skip the lines at Phoenix Sky Harbor would have been a prudent move. “I may as well have,” Peraza said with a grin.

Even when he was away from the facility physically, Bloomquist’s mind was centered on his summer project. A family vacation in early July didn’t do much more than act as a change of scenery for the daily barrage of phone calls, both directly to recruits and to a network of connections the staff has to trusted voices close to a prospect of interest. “My wife and daughters kept asking me when I was going to look up from the phone or computer,” Bloomquist recalled. “It was nice to be able to look at the beach and the ocean while I did the same thing, I guess.”

***

Ross Dunn was one of the first dominoes to fall, committing on June 18. A left-handed pitcher from Florida State, Dunn’s raw stuff, coupled with his impressive pedigree at the Division I level, make him exactly what the doctor ordered for a coaching staff that endured far too many poor performances on the mound in 2022. Arizona State’s 6.76 team ERA was the worst in the Pac-12 by a full point. Its 428 runs allowed were also last. No other pitching staff allowed more than 400. Frankly, it was bad baseball on the mound at Muni in 2022. The issue was addressed swiftly and effectively in the early days of the summer.

Right-handed pitcher Khristian Curtis shortly followed suit, announcing he’d be heading to Tempe on June 29. With a history of elbow injuries defining his still-young college career, he felt many coaches saw him as a liability rather than an asset. The way his injury was treated by the staff at his former program in Texas A&M left him desperate for a program that would nurture him back to health without the guilt or pressure surrounding him in College Station. When he got into contact with Peraza and Bloomquist, there was no guessing game.

“ASU was the first school to call me. I was in the portal for maybe 30 seconds when they called,” Curtis recalled. “It showed me how interested they were. Coach Peraza told me, ‘we need guys like you.’ It was incredible to hear.” No longer would Peraza give other programs a 20-minute head start. This time, ASU was first in line for a pitcher they fully intended to treat as an asset rather than a liability.

This isn’t an exact science. Peraza has no way of knowing exactly how Curtis will turn out. What he does know is that if all goes according to plan, he will have landed one of the most electric arms in the Pac-12 by doing something the staff considers to be basic, making a recruit feel like they have a home at ASU. “He’s a guy with such tremendous upside,” Peraza gushed. “That’s a risk we were absolutely willing to take. And we’re really pleased with what we’ve seen so far.”

The early additions of Dunn and Curtis brought an end to ASU’s recent reputation as a program that fields the best of the best at the plate but can’t pitch well enough to pose any real postseason threat to college baseball’s 21st-century blue bloods.

Not all recruitments are that intense. Some are layups, as was the case with former UCLA outfielder Nick McLain. The name should ring a bell. He’s the younger brother of Sean McLain, who, after three seasons at ASU, was drafted in the fourth round by the Dodgers about three weeks after Nick pledged his commitment to the Sun Devils. Bloomquist and Peraza didn’t have to shed much blood, sweat, and tears with this one. The youngest McLain had his sights set on Tempe sooner than he’d like to admit.

“When I moved into UCLA, I just had this feeling I wouldn’t fall in love with it,” McLain explained. “I love Arizona, my family loves Arizona and Tempe is, well. It’s Tempe,” he said with a signature McLain brother grin. He feels like the transfer portal has given him a mulligan on his college baseball experience. Arizona State was always the right destination. He pledged his commitment to be a Sun Devil on June 22.

“I didn’t want to mess it up twice,” he said. “If I were to have gone somewhere else in the portal and I was disappointed in that decision, I would have never lived that down.”

Most of the players who transferred in this year echo a similar sentiment when recalling the decision process. After talking to one or both of Bloomquist or Peraza, players felt valued and at home. Some even without stepping foot on campus for a tour. For former San Francisco right-handed pitcher Owen Stevenson, the hardest part of the decision was phoning the coaches of other programs that had recruited him to give them the bad news.

“If you had told me at ten years old that I’d be playing baseball for ASU, I would have been the happiest kid alive,” Stevenson said. “So yeah, I had my list of pros and cons and everything for each of my options, but nobody was really touching these guys.” Stevenson was floored by the manner in which he was pursued by ASU compared to his other Division I suitors. What stood out to him most? Attention to detail. “I could tell they had a plan, and then they laid it out. It was something I immediately wanted to be a part of.”

The amount of new faces at Phoenix Muni this fall has made for an odd phenomenon for the returning players in the program. They’re firmly in the minority, like a posse of popular high schoolers suddenly outnumbered by a wave of new students pulling up in expensive rides and crisp new letterman jackets. In this scenario, however, everyone gets along swimmingly. For the most part.

Florida transfer Timmy Manning, a left-handed pitcher who decided to join the movement and commit to ASU on the 28th of June, spoke highly of each of his incumbent teammates. “Except Campos, he sucks,” Manning joked loudly as returning catcher Ryan Campos walked by. “Easy,” Campos warned. “You want low strikes this year?”

***

Bonds have been formed between the new guys as well, like that of Luke Keaschall and Drake Varnado. The middle infield duo, Keaschall from the University of San Francisco and Varnado from Arkansas, has been in lockstep since they arrived on campus in August. It’s not just the symbiotic nature of their defensive positions that draws these two together. They’re wired almost identically. Soft-spoken and simply addicted to baseball. Both wasted no time in choosing ASU, committing in the middle of June. That doesn’t mean their recruitment was unrivaled. “There were other programs waiting, especially with Keaschall,” Bloomquist said. “A couple made a late push, but we were going to do everything in our power to win those battles.”

Since winning that battle, the coaching staff has been able to enjoy the enterprising work ethic of Keaschall and Varnado up close.

“Honestly, I don’t know too much about the town; I spend most of my time at home or here,” Keaschall explained as he glanced at Varnado with a knowing grin. “I love being here, whether it’s taking ground balls, being in the weight room….” Varnado interrupted before Keaschall could finish the rounds. “Or in the cage. We’re in the cage a lot.” The two are already finishing each other’s sentences.

While they transferred under vastly different circumstances, both Keaschall and Varnado were drawn to ASU for the same reason. Keaschall was among the best players in the West Coast Conference in 2022. He took his .305 batting average and .947 OPS and fled the dumpster fire that is the San Francisco baseball program for greener pastures like the one he’s found in Tempe. Varnado rode the bench for one of the most successful programs in the country across the two-year span of 2021-22. He didn’t feel that he would consistently get on the field for the Razorbacks, so he tried his luck in the portal just like Keaschall did.

Bloomquist was the architect of this once-unlikely friendship. “Again, we were hunting experience first and foremost,” Bloomquist reiterated. “Keaschall checks that box and then some.”

He checks another box, too. Nino Giarratano, Keaschall’s former head coach at San Francisco and a former assistant under Pat Murphy at ASU during Bloomquist’s playing days, offered a strong endorsement when Willie came calling about the do-it-all shortstop. “He told me he’s the player that reminded him most of me,” Bloomquist said. “So I knew then we had to go after this guy. Then we had Luke out here on his visit, and I could tell he just embodied everything we look for. We had to have him.”

***

Good recruiting comes in many ways, but a program’s allure can’t always be articulated. After one recent practice, Stevenson leaned back against the bench in the home dugout and chuckled. He caressed the stitches of a ball he had been tossing back and forth between his hands as he spoke. “Sorry,” he apologized as he noticed the tick. “I’m always playing around with grips.” He tossed the ball toward shallow right field with a flick of his wrist. Much like the comforting presence of a baseball, the Arizona State staff brought an inexplicable sense of this just feels right.

“I can’t even explain it, really,” Stevenson said after taking a moment to try and articulate the way he felt about ASU before committing. “Sometimes in your life, things just feel so right, whether that’s baseball or just in general. This happened to apply to both.”

There’s a common denominator here. And it’s not the top-notch facilities or the excellent weather. It’s a collective belief. These players were heavily sought after as soon as their names hit the portal. For the most part, they had no reason to hold ASU in higher regard than any other suitor prior to making contact with the coaching staff or touring the school and baseball facility. Transparency, respect, and relentless pursuit of players who mirror the core values of the program was the pitch. And it was a resounding success.

The tangible fruits of their efforts won’t be known until spring. Games aren’t won or lost based on recruiting rankings. The Pac-12 will once again be strong, with powers like Stanford, Oregon State, and Arizona not going anywhere. But a year after futily battling these programs and their guns with that aforementioned switchblade, Arizona State’s arsenal is primed to compete for one of the conference’s top spots. As for what Bloomquist set out to do between May and August? Mission accomplished.

“I’m not going to say we’re definitely going to win a national championship,” Bloomquist conceded. “But we at least look the part getting off the bus now. We’re in a much better spot than we were a year ago at this time; I can sleep a little better at night knowing that.”