Top Questions Surrounding Baylor Baseball Heading Into Mitch Thompson's Third Season
With Baylor baseball’s Opening Day set for Friday, Feb. 14, against Youngtown State, it’s time to start breaking down some of the top storylines as the season approaches. Today, I’ll discuss my top questions surrounding the Bears heading into Mitch Thompson’s third season as head coach.
Can The Bears Avoid The Injury Bug & Break Through To The NCAA Tournament?
Last season, the Bears were ravaged by injuries and stumbled out of the starting blocks to a 1-7 record just two weeks into the spring.
In that short time frame, Baylor lost three starting position players for the season to injury — outfielder Hunter Simmons, outfielder Gavin Brzozowski and infielder Jack Little — and not too long after, the Bears lost infielder Will Pendergrass for the year as well. Even star outfielder Wes Jordan, who survived the early season injury scare, missed several weeks with a concussion in the middle of the year.
The Bears had their flashes from time to time but never truly got back on track after their sluggish start and closed the season with a 22-31 record while missing the Big 12 Tournament for the second consecutive year.
On a team with minimal depth, the struggling pitching staff and position player injuries were too much for second-year head coach Mitch Thompson to overcome.
Hindsight is 20/20, but had those position players stayed healthy, the Bears probably would have finished closer to .500. From an optics perspective, the program would have appeared to have taken a decent-sized step forward following a disastrous 20-35 campaign in 2023.
With that said, will Baylor break through and make it to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019? My answer, which may surprise some, is currently yes. Do I think this team will go out and win the conference and 40-plus games? No, but I think they are more than capable of finishing in the top third of the Big 12 and being on the right side of the bubble.
Many things went wrong last season, but the Bears are returning one of the top lineups in the conference and added one of the best pitching coaches in the country, Sean Snedeker, this offseason.
In the coming weeks, I’ll break down the roster more in-depth and explain my reasoning even further, but for now, here’s my brief overview:
This team has taken its lumps, but with a healthy roster, a revamped pitching staff and a lighter schedule, Thompson’s squad has the talent and experience to turn the tide, find ways to win together this spring and get back to the NCAA Tournament.
Expectations should be higher this spring, and rightfully so, in my opinion.
How Will The Non-Power Conference Arms Translate?
Entering the offseason, Baylor’s most significant transfer portal need was an influx of pitching. Last spring, the Bears were at the bottom of the Big 12 in virtually every pitching category and parted ways with pitching coach James Leverton as a result.
While believing that Baylor had a good enough returning lineup to compete toward the top of the conference, I thought that Thompson and his coaching staff would need to pair that with a handful of proven transfer arms from power conferences.
Instead, the coaching staff went a different direction and added a DIII ace from Hendrix College, a reliable reliever from Northwestern State and over five junior college pitchers.
While it wasn’t realistic that Baylor would land the most coveted pitchers on the transfer portal market, I was a bit surprised by the approach at the time, but I appreciate the coaching staff thinking outside the box.
The good thing about college baseball is that the “middle-to-upper class” of talent is far broader than football or basketball — teams can regularly get above-average players at the junior college or lower levels.
In this situation, Baylor took some chances on some lower-level arms and stuck to its junior college ties with Thompson, who was formerly the head coach at McLennan Community College for nine years before coming to Baylor ahead of the 2023 season.
By all accounts, it paid off this fall, with Snedeker, the first-year pitching coach, pressing all the right buttons with his new pitching staff.
Hendrix transfer lefty Bryson Bales (RSr.), a top performer in the Cape Code League this summer, is expected to be in Baylor’s starting rotation this season. Northwestern State transfer right-handed pitcher Caleb Bunch (Sr.) had one of the more impressive falls on the team and should be a lock-down reliever.
The coaching staff is also high on a pair of junior college lefties — Paris JC transfer Caleb Jameson (Jr.) and MCC transfer Stefan Stahl (Jr.) — and will count on them out of the bullpen. While they aren’t transfers, Baylor also expects significant contributions from southpaw Carson Bailey (Fr.) and right-handed pitcher Brayden Bergman (Fr.).
For Baylor to reach its ceiling this spring, the incoming arms must seamlessly transition to this level.
Which Position Players Will Emerge As Building Blocks On A Senior-Heavy Team?
This season is crucial for Thompson for several reasons, but from my perspective, he and his coaching staff must strike while the iron’s hot and take advantage of an older roster that’s far and away the most talented one he’s had across his three years at Baylor.
The 2025 edition of the Bears is a senior-heavy team with a ton of experience; most players have been in Thompson’s program for several seasons now, something that can’t often be said across the country in the modern era of college athletics.
Baylor is led by its trio of all-conference-caliber outfielders — Enzo Apodaca (RSr.), Ty Johnson (Sr.) and Wesley Jordan (Sr.) — who are all coming off fantastic junior campaigns.
As for the infield, it’s more of the same experience-wise, with catcher Cortlan Castle (Sr.), shortstop Tyriq Kemp (Sr.) and third baseman Hunter Teplanszky (Sr.) all expected to be in the lineup consistently. The Bears will also get contributions from Pendergrass, Simmons and Brzozowski, who all are returning from injury.
While Baylor must capitalize on its opportunity with an older roster, it must also show flashes of a bright future ahead.
Baylor has a promising core of underclassmen position players — infielder Travis Sanders (RSo.), infielder Jack Little (RSo.), catcher Brayden Buchanan (So.), infielder Pearson Riebock (Fr.), outfielder Samuel Jenkins (Fr.) and outfielder Hunter Snow (Fr.) — but most of them have yet to make a significant impact at this level.
Thompson has to balance leaning on his veteran players and finding ways to get his young studs on the field. This season can’t be a one-year wonder for the program, where they reach 30-plus wins but have no position players who are building blocks for the future.
The third-year head coach wants to build his program through high school talent; on paper, this is the most talented freshman class he’s had to date, and they’ll need to prove that this spring.