This is the hardest Baylor baseball team to handicap that I can remember. You expect there to be some level of new coach bump in performance, but I also can't remember a team with this many freshmen and first-year transfers expected to play important roles.

I think a lot will depend on whether Rigney is able to come back at some point in the spring, which would give us legit Friday and Saturday starters. Even then, the season might have already spiraled by that point.

Really I just want to see some level of improvement, particularly with the bats. It's been a long time since we've had any pop at the plate. Not expecting the moon but maybe a mid-pack Big 12 finish with a good showing in the Big 12 tournament and a maybe a backdoor slip into regionals. At least make the committee sweat.

I for one do not want to be a sunshine pumper with unrealistic pre season expectations. I don't want to predict a 3-4 place finish when I think the best we can do is 6.
A lot depends on hitting. I don't know how we good we will hit. If we hit .235 we won't win many games. If we hit .265-.280 we be decent. Especially if we hit more than 60 HR. We had 39 last year.

As our entire lineup will be mostly newcomers, it's impossible to predict with much accuracy. It will take a few years for Coach Thompson and staff to rebuild the roster. We, as a fan base, must be patient. I will say that in about three years we will be competing for the championship again. But this year, a.500 finish would be good.

I expect the Bears will not finish last, as predicted. Should be fun.

BornAgain said:

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I for one do not want to be a sunshine pumper with unrealistic pre season expectations. I don't want to predict a 3-4 place finish when I think the best we can do is 6.
A lot depends on hitting. I don't know how we good we will hit. If we hit .235 we won't win many games. If we hit .265-.280 we be decent. Especially if we hit more than 60 HR. We had 39 last year.

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And we have the producer of 2 of those home runs back this year. Gonna have to come from new guys.

I expect to attend a few games this year. I didn't last year. That's improvement!

CTbruin said:

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As our entire lineup will be mostly newcomers, it's impossible to predict with much accuracy. It will take a few years for Coach Thompson and staff to rebuild the roster. We, as a fan base, must be patient. I will say that in about three years we will be competing for the championship again. But this year, a.500 finish would be good.

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I think CT is correct. .500 may be the ceiling this year. Patience required.

10 wins is the ceiling.

Steady improvement with flashes of what is to be.

Last in conference play

What CT said. However, a .500 record now looks like a challenging goal.

Oh this team record wise is probably going to be below .500. Especially if the pitching continues to be as awful as it has been.

Jorkel said:

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Oh this team record wise is probably going to be below .500. Especially if the pitching continues to be as awful as it has been.

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Doesnt look like but one or two teams have pitching worth crap, so theres that.

We were 25-28 in Smitty's first year and didn't make a regional until year four. I think many of us made assumptions that we weren't as bad off in 2023 as we were after Mickey's last year, but I think that's proving to be pretty off-base.

Unfortunately we've got a lot of terrible baseball to watch before this team matters again.

Per what we've seen early on, it doesn't appear to be at all a stretch to compare our current baseball program to what our football program was when Steele took it over in 1999. It of course remains to be seen what Thompson will do with it and hopefully unlike Steele he'll get it turned around and relevant again as opposed to being a 4 year disaster that if anything made it even worse. Meanwhile, even assuming a lot of improvement as the season goes on, it's hard to see us not finishing dead last in the B12 as we potentially set a new conference record for runs allowed in a season.

Johnny Bear said:

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Per what we've seen early on, it doesn't appear to be at all a stretch to compare our current baseball program to what our football program was when Steele took it over in 1999. It of course remains to be seen what Thompson will do with it and hopefully unlike Steele he'll get it turned around and relevant again as opposed to being a 4 year disaster that if anything made it even worse. Meanwhile, even assuming a lot of improvement as the season goes on, it's hard to see us not finishing dead last in the B12 as we potentially set a new conference record for runs allowed in a season.

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Based on what we saw last weekend, yeah.

Bad pitching, mistakes all over the place giving away free bases and runs, anemic offense ... wow that was an ugly weekend.

This is gonna take longer than anybody thought.

losing Tre and others to transfer set them back at least a year. but Mitch is the man, they will get there.