Last May, the Arizona State baseball team sat around a television to watch the NCAA College Baseball selection show. They knew they were sitting squarely on the bubble, but given their 32-23 record and high-powered offense, the Sun Devils thought they had a good shot at playing in a regional.
However, as the last team was selected, the wrong Arizona school was selected, and the Wildcats would be heading to a regional despite being swept by the Sun Devils in Pac-12 conference play.
“It lit a fire under all of us and especially the returners,” sophomore outfielder Isaiah Jackson said. “We thought for sure, especially going into Stanford, we were No.1 in the Pac. We thought we might even be hosting a regional this year. We were real confident. Then we kinda just started to slow down.”
Despite missing out on the tournament, last season was a definite improvement from the first year under manager Willie Bloomquist. The Sun Devils won ten games more than they did the year before and were just one or two flipped games away from making the NCAA tournament for the first time under Bloomquist.
The main contributor to the team’s inability to punch their ticket was the team’s struggles on the mound. For the second consecutive year, ASU saw a bumpy pitching staff derail a season with great offense. By the time the pitching improved down the stretch, the offense finally hit a slump, and the season was over. In a span of 18 days, the Sun Devils went from potential regional hosts to looking from the outside in at the postseason field.
“Last year didn’t end the way we wanted it to,” Bloomquist remarked. “I’ll be the first to admit that we struggle a little bit down the stretch, but on the same token, you use that as motivation. We’ve got plenty of motivation. There’s not going to be a shortage of that around here, and you need to try to preach it. With a relatively young lineup last year with a lot of freshmen, you’ve got to finish the job guys, you got to finish it. Don’t leave it to chance.”
Later that summer, the Major League Baseball Draft proved that ASU was doing something right in recruiting to its pitching staff. All seven of their eligible pitchers were selected and signed to Major League teams, leaving just one arm who had significant innings last year in junior right-handed pitcher Jonah Giblin. It is safe to say that losing out on all those arms left Bloomquist and pitching coach Sam Peraza a bit surprised.
“I’d be lying if I sat here and said I was expecting all seven draft-eligible arms to get drafted and signed,” Bloomquist noted. “I guess we were doing something right from that standpoint, which makes me happy, and I’m happy for them On the flip side of the coin, it’s like, ‘Wow, now we’re back to the drawing board with a bunch of new guys again.’ (Peraza) has this work cut out for him again for the third year in a row on dealing with brand new guys.”
With the MLB’s decision to move the draft into late July to match up with the All-Star Game, the transfer portal became long devoid of high-tier arms that ASU could recruit to rebuild their pitching staff. Therefore, Bloomquist has no choice but to turn to his new stable of true freshman arms.
Entering their third year, Bloomquist and Peraza have finally brought in their stock of freshmen pitching talent to start building the ASU staff from the inside out. The first two years saw them recruit the starters in this position mainly from the transfer portal. Now, the Sun Devils will turn to these youngsters to not only build a base of strong pitching talent but also aim to make it back to the postseason for the first time since 2021.
“It’s tough to build when you don’t have we don’t have any freshman arms for two years in a row,” Bloomquist said. “That’s just part of what we dealt with, and we have to adjust with it, but we wanted to make sure we didn’t have that mistake again, so we have we have a lot coming in.”
Out of the eye-popping 32 newcomers on the roster, 21 of them pitchers, and of those 21 arms, 12 of them are true freshmen. It puts ASU in an interesting position for this upcoming year. If the heavy reliance on this group succeeds, then ASU will be set up for the next couple of years with a deep and experienced pitching staff. If the opposite scenario takes place, then it could lead to ASU taking a step back in 2024.
Over with the football team, head coach Kenny Dillingham has literally trademarked the phrase ‘Activate the Valley’ in the hopes of not only attracting more fans but also keeping the talented in-state recruits home. The baseball team has done a great job in that regard with their new group of freshmen. Of the 12 freshmen arms, six of them are from Arizona.
When asked who he views as the most impressive of the freshman arms entering Fall Ball, Bloomquist identified Tempe Corona Del Sol graduate Cole Carlon, who arrives at his hometown school off the back of a very impressive two-way season. According to MaxPreps, Carlon hit .375 with 28 RBI and five home runs, and he was even better on the mound. In the 61 innings he pitched, he pitched to the tune of a 1.95 ERA with a K-BB ratio of 90-32, and opponents hit just .230 against him. Perfect Game ranked Carbon as the No.2 left-handed pitcher in the state of Arizona.
“I’m definitely trying to get stronger, and the pace of the game is picking up a little bit,” Carlon said when asked what are his biggest adjustments to the college game. “You really got to know what you’re doing at all times and got to be mentally tough as well.”
While ASU is going to need a good number of these newcomer arms to step up, they still have a couple of capable returners. After missing the entire 2023 season with shoulder surgery, sophomore righty Tyler Meyer announced that he should be back by opening day. According to Peraza, Meyer recently suffered a setback in his recovery when trying to push a little bit too hard, but Meyer says that he is aiming for a return by the end of the fall and is hoping to be the meaningful contributor he was in 2022 come February of next year.
“I don’t see any reason I won’t be ready for February. That’s the goal,” Meyer said. “Ideally, we’ll be ready this fall. I think I should be full go at the end of the fall here in a couple of months. And then, if not, we’ll adjust, so we’re playing it by ear. Just have to listen to the body, to the arm, and do what it allows me to do. But I’m gonna push it as hard as I can to be ready, health permitting.”
“He had a tough surgery, and he’s worked his absolute fanny off on trying to get back healthy, and it’s progressing very well,” Bloomquist said of Meyer. “We’re very anxious and cautiously optimistic with him. If we can add him to a rotation that we already have, we have good problems. That’d be huge. It’d be a huge boost for pitching staff and be able to put other guys in different spots.”
Finally, the aforementioned Giblin is the only pitcher returning to this staff that contributed meaningful innings last season. Used in somewhat of a hybrid role, Giblin can be used in long relief, as well as a midweek starter, and was sometimes used as a Sunday starter during last season. His numbers, though, were not impressive, sporting a 5.51 ERA in 47.1 innings pitched. However, he provides experience for a team that is desperately going to need it.
“Throw strikes, fill the zone, and compete,” Giblin said when asked about what he wants the culture to be this year. “It sounds simple, and it is, but that is really it.”
As we have seen for the past two seasons, the ASU season will rise or fall on its pitching staff. And while they have relied on mostly transfers or players they did not recruit, Bloomquist and Peraza are looking forward to having a full stable of arms that they can say is their own. Having created relationships with all of them over the last three years it offers the staff an advantage because they are deeply familiar with those players.
“We’ve never really had a core group of freshmen arms to work with like I’ve had in other places.,” Peraza said. “It feels like previous roles I’ve had at different places. We’re like, okay, these are our guys we’re getting to build with these guys get to figure out where they’re gonna go. We can figure out a year from now where they’re going to be, and it’s refreshing that every arm you have to work with is different.
With so many innings up for grabs and nobody really solidified in any spot, the fall is going to be a crucial time for each and every pitcher to make their claim on one of those weekend roles and establish an effective rotation for the 2024 campaign.
“That’s what makes the fall critical and crucial for us,” Bloomquist noted. “With this many young guys, especially on the mound. Making sure that they’re gonna get battle-tested because of the offensive players that we have. They aren’t going to be able to make mistakes and get away with too often, so that’s good. We’ll test them. We’ll throw them right in the fire and see how they respond. There’ll be some that they can handle, some they can’t, and that’s the important part of the fall.”
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