‘Very confident we will play.’ How TCU baseball is preparing for 2021 season amid COVID
TCU baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle couldn’t have asked for a better fall camp.
The team never had to shut down, although a few players were in and out amid COVID protocols. The team showed great potential in every facet, from pitching to position players to leadership. And, quite simply, having some sense of normalcy of being on a baseball field proved therapeutic for the longtime coach.
All of it has Schlossnagle excited and believing the team is capable of getting back to the College World Series for the first time since 2017.
“Our goal, as always, is the College World Series,” Schlossnagle said. “The fall to this point couldn’t have gone any better than it has.”
With that being said, Schlossnagle touched on a number of topics as he readies for the 2021 season amid a pandemic.
On roster management amid COVID (there isn’t a 35-man roster limit for the upcoming season. TCU, for instance, has 46 players on its roster): “It’s a culture thing, something that we constantly talk about. From Day 1, I’ve told everybody, ‘You’re going to get coached like crazy.’ In a normal college baseball season, barring injury, if you’re the 12th or 13th pitcher, it’s hard to get innings. But this year you may not pitch for a month — and in the blink of an eye, you may pitch this weekend.
“The No. 1 core value of our program is to be selfless. It’s really going to get tested. There’s no doubt about it. Forty-six players and I’m not planning on cutting anybody.”
On planning for playing time scenarios such as at catcher with a veteran in senior Zach Humphries and a promising freshman in Kurtis Byrne: “Considering I literally have no hobbies, my kids are grown, I have lineups written all over the house. I’m being facetious, but we’re constantly talking about those things in coaches meetings and over lunch. … Our goal is to get back to the World Series, so we’re going to play the best guys on any given day.”
On if college baseball is as talented as ever with no roster limits and the number of players returning after MLB reduced the number of draft rounds: “I really think it is. I think college baseball from a pitching standpoint this year will be as talented — this is my 30th year of coaching — this will be the most talented year that college baseball has ever had. It’s going to last for a while, too, even if they cut rosters back.”
On TCU’s outlook for 2021: “I’m super excited about our team, but every coach I talk to is saying the same thing. I have no idea what kind of season that we’re going to have, I just like our team — talent, experience, chemistry, depth of pitching, depth of position players.”
On importance of simply playing baseball next season: “I wish the general public, not just baseball, not just athletics, we’ve heard a lot about the side effects [of shutting down] but not as much as we should’ve heard of it. The side effects of this time mentally on all people, not just college-aged kids but especially college-aged kids, you can’t imagine how tough this is. It’s not a war. They’re not digging ditches, but it’s really tough.
“Just to be on a baseball field, be out under the lights and playing baseball and watching these guys do what they love to do and frankly doing what I love to do was very therapeutic. We all need it. Our players need it, our fans need it. We’re looking forward to baseball. I’m super excited and very confident that we will play and we will play close to 56 games or at 56 games.”
