I love MLB and my son plays 15U ball now, but I have never seriously followed Cal baseball (or college baseball for that matter). However, Coach Neu seems to have the program on the right track (ah coaching again). Andrew Vaughn seems like a generational talent. But I don't know much more about the program than that.

Do we have a team capable of making a run at the Pac-12 title?

Will Brandon McIlwain play?

How is our pitching staff?

Funny but my son's varsity coach (my son plays intermediate but the coach oversees it all) is Paul Ah Yat. Apparently he pitched for Cal but transferred to Hawaii. Until last season, Sid Fernandez was the pitching coach at our school. I think he left because his son graduated or something.

Speaking of Paul Ah Yat, there is a guy named Chad Konishi, another Cal pitcher who transferred back to Hawaii. He is the athletics director of a private high school out here. He also does a lot of baseball coaching as well. Lots of Cal connections out here.

Massey rankings have us rated at number 32 in the country. Puts us at #6 in the P12. The Series against number 15 ranked LSU at LSU is the highlight of the ooc schedule. Also play three game series against Cal Poly SLO and Long Beach State both have been competitive.
I put us at 6-18 ooc and 8--22 in pac12. (14--40).

KoreAmBear said:

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there is a guy named Chad Konishi, another Cal pitcher who transferred back to Hawaii. He is the athletics director of a private high school out here. He also does a lot of baseball coaching as well. Lots of Cal connections out here.

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I believe Chad Konishi finished his playing career at Cal and graduated from Cal in 1994!!!

HC Neu returns nearly no pitching and negligible hitting from last season. I haven't followed Cal baseball for the past few years after bailing out on the program under Esquer. I did print out last season's stats and compared it to this season's roster and the vast majority of the pitching and the trio of .320+ BA% hitters have departed. Superstar Andrew Vaughn is a stud but will be pitched around quite a bit I would imagine. Hopefully, the football transfer, soph Brandon McIllwain, will be a suprize offensive weapon. Only 3 of the top 9 pitchers that threw 24 innings or more will return to Berkeley. Fortunately, all six recruits for the class of 2019 are pitchers: CCS (2), NCS (2), Sacto (1) and San Diego (1). The latter, RHP/1B Grant Holman (6-6 225), should be a two way player for Cal. He was selected as the San Diego County POY!

Max Flower and Darren Baker hit decently last year and will provide some base runners for AA Vaughn. It should
be interesting because the Bears have a ton of question marks entering the 2019 season. GO BEARS!

Jackieridgle said:

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KoreAmBear said:

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there is a guy named Chad Konishi, another Cal pitcher who transferred back to Hawaii. He is the athletics director of a private high school out here. He also does a lot of baseball coaching as well. Lots of Cal connections out here.

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I believe Chad Konishi finished his playing career at Cal and graduated from Cal in 1994!!!

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Ah that may be true. He became pitching coach later at UH.

I am heading to CWS for the first time this year, for a bachelor party. Given Vaughn, I sure hope we find some pitching. I would love it if the Bears can meet me in Omaha!

Baseball America came out with a preseason field of 64. Cal not even projected to be included in a regional.

I may go to a few games just for relief from Basketball. The one game I went to last year was good and so was the Mexican food and great prices

I went to a number of games last year and always in attendance was Dusty Baker. Think he has permission from the Giants to attend all of his sons game. Even saw him there last year when the Giants were playing at home against the Dodgers!. This was early in the season before the Giants went on the skid.