The Bears started off their season successfully with a road series win at Houston, taking 2-of-3 from a Cougar team that went 37-24 last season and returned the majority of their major contributors. They face another stiff test tonight taking on the #2 ranked Stanford Cardinal in another road game, this time at Sunken Diamond in Palo Alto.
After losing six players to the MLB draft, the Bears had a lot of holes to fill and a group of six transfer players via the portal, grad transfers and JC transfers will hopefully help fill that void.
"Any time you lose six guys to the draft and they're all juniors, that's a pretty big blow,” Neu said. “We thought we were probably going to lose Dylan Beavers and Matt White but we thought we'd get the others back coming into last season. But it's so hard to predict the draft. It was kind of like a double-edged sword. They played better as the year went on and then we lost them.
"Any time you have a guy like Beavers who was going to be a Top 50 pick, you're going to have a lot of scouts at your games so the exposure level for the rest of those guys was really high and they took advantage of it. So I thought it was good for our program to develop those guys and see them do well. It creates some holes that you didn't expect you'd have to fill but I thought we were able to do a pretty solid job in the transfer portal, bringing in four guys that maybe aren't at the level of those guys but still have a lot of experience and have played so I think they softened the blow. And I think they could end up doing well. They just haven't been in our program three years like those guys."
With the transfer portal, you don't get to see these guys play so you just kind of look at their numbers and talk to people and do our research.
One of the prime players the Bears will lean on this season is Ivy League Player of the Year Kade Kretzschmar, a senior who hit .353 with 7 HR and 46 RBI last season. The senior will take Dylan Beavers’ spot in right field.
"We got him here and saw he had a great makeup and hard worker and really defends well in the outfield,” Neu said. “It's obviously a higher level playing here but I think he's going to be a good player for us. I think he'll be our starting rightfielder and hit somewhere in the middle to back part of our lineup. It gives us someone physical in the middle of our lineup. He's played pretty well in our intersquad games, too."
Another transfer slated to start in the field is soph first baseman Payton Schultz who hit .268 with 20 runs, 20 RBI, 13 extra-base hits and 2 HR as a true frosh last season.
"Peyton will be our starter at first base," Neu said. "Losing Martorella, we were able to get him out of the transfer portal from Long Beach State. I think he had close to 50 starts as a freshman there. Had a good year and a good summer, too. I think he was in the New England Collegiate Baseball League, which is a really good league. So that was another good addition and he's a good defender at first, too. I think Payton kind of did what Martorella did when he started out with a real solid freshman year and it gives us a presence that has some experience there and that's really helpful, too."
Another key ingredient will be junior pitcher Daniel Colwell, a low-slot lefty who’s a UCLA transfer.
"I think he's got a good chance to be a pretty good reliever," Neu said. "He went to UCLA as a recruited walk-on type player and gained more and more innings as he played and last year, he was one of their main bullpen arms. He was their main left-handed. So I think we'll use in that same type of role, where he'll have a lot of appearances. He's not only a good left-handed pitcher but he has a good changeup and has the ability to get right-handed hitters out, too. I think we can use him in a late-inning role but if we ever needed to use him in a swing role where he could potentially start a game as just a left-handed starter to give you a few innings, that's an option, too, depending on how the week goes or maybe a Tuesday game. He's just a veteran pitcher who throws strikes and has a lot of experience in the conference. I think he gives us a really needed bullpen piece."
The Bears pulled in a pair of JC transfers from nearby Santa Rosa JC who should see plenty of playing time this season, too.
Pitcher Tyler Stasiowski posted So 33 strikeouts in 33 innings, with 4-1 record with one save in 2022.
"I think he'll be in the pen for us," Neu said. "I think he was like fourth or fifth in the state in strikeouts at the JC level last season. He's got a really good slider. Definitely could start if we needed him to but his value really for us is more out of the pen against right-hand hitters, with kind of a downhill sinker/slider pitch that he can strike guys out with, probably as good of a breaking ball as we have on the team. He throws 88-91. With a covid year, he's a guy who's a little bit older and I think he was a really good add for us. We got him even before we knew how many guys we'd lose but I think his role kind of elevates a little bit more with the need for pitching after losing those three pitchers."
Another Santa Rosa JC addition is utility infielder Max Handron, a .385 career hitter out of Sonoma Valley High School who hit
Played in 34 games hitting .303 (43-for-142) last season with 15 extra-base hits (11 doubles, 2 triples and 2 home runs, scoring 33 runs and driving in 21.
"Max went to St Bonaventure out of high school and was kind of a 4-2-4 transfer in the covid year and then when their season got cut short, he transferred to Santa Rosa JC and was their starting shortstop for two years. So we brought him in as maybe a safety net for Keishawn (Ogans) before he went to the draft who could maybe play all the infield spots. I think him being a left-handed bat gives him some potential to start as maybe a platoon-type player with maybe the chance to start.
He could start at 2nd or 3rd. Dom Souto is our starting 3rd baseman but he's also our backup catcher so we'll probably use Dom to start some games so that gives Max the ability to potentially to play some 3rd base. At 2nd, Jack Johnston's our starter but he's a right-handed bat so we could maybe use Max off the bench to start against righties at times. His role could grow. He's a very well-rounded player who had two good years at Santa Rosa as their shortstop and he has two years of eligibility left even though he's played three years of college."
Stay tuned for more on this year’s freshman additions as well.
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