With their first season on the diamond wrapped up, now South Arkansas Community College heads into their first formal offseason.
As college teams across the country finish their seasons in the coming weeks, players will begin to head out and play in the numerous summer leagues, but SouthArk coach Cannon Lester said the bulk of his team would likely take the summer off to rest and prepare for the 2023 season, especially considering the Stars played 57 games with the vast majority of the players being freshmen who had never played that many games before.
“I would say the majority of them are going to take the summer off and recharge,” Lester said. “They played a lot of baseball. That’s the most baseball that most of them have ever played by far. It’s a grind. They experienced that. They see what that’s like now. They’ve got a new collegiate league in Hot Springs. They’re playing on Saturdays and Sundays, and we’ve probably got four or five guys playing in that. Most of those guys were redshirts, so they just need some AB’s and some innings, but the rest of them are going to take the summer off and hopefully continue to transform their bodies and get physical.
“Coach (Hayden) Dow sent our weightlifting stuff out to those guys. It’s a big part of what we do, and we’ll be ready to recharge when we come back in the second or third week in August.”
Summer is also a time where Lester will be out recruiting, and with the experience of having gone through the Region 2 schedule, he can recruit more specific players after having to build a team from scratch last year.
“It’s huge,” Lester said. “We see how the conference plays. We see what works and what doesn’t. Murray (State) is going to the World Series and man they were physical. They hit a lot of home runs. It’s a very homer-driven league, especially with the wind sometimes. You need guys that can keep the ball in the park and attack.
“We don’t need to give up free bases on the pitching side. On the hitting side, we honestly want guys that can drive the ball out of the yard, but also play some good defense. I think we ended up turning the most double plays in the conference, so we were really good there. It looks like we’re going to get I think 90 percent of our AB’s coming back next year. We’ve got Trace (Shoup) and Roc (Hawthorne) coming back, and they were probably two of our best hitters this year.
“Clay (Burrows) and Eli (Lasyone) and Elijah (Nichols) will be right there in the middle. Ryan Riggs ended up having a really good year offensively and had some bad luck early. We’ve got some other guys coming in that we think can fill that power role. We’re really looking forward to that and seeing how that goes. We have a lot of arms coming back too.”
One area where Lester wants to concentrate on during the offseason is with the pitching staff.
“There’s no doubt. We had exit meetings and we told them all, ‘Hey, some of you had a really good year, some of you not so much,’ but I think we’ve all gotten better and grown,” Lester said. “But here’s the deal, we told them, ‘We’re bringing guys in to try to replace you. We’re not bringing guys in that are similar to you, we’re trying to find guys that are better.’ With that being said, we’ve got some guys that had some good years and have some good stuff.
“That’s our main thing. That was our one goal for our upcoming recruiting class was we’re going to have competition. At the end of the year, we rolled out about seven pitchers that we probably really trusted and about 11 position players and that was it. I’m not going to say they got comfortable at times, but when you know someone right there that is coming in behind you, and you’ve got to do well because they’re doing well, I think that pushes you in a good way.
“I’ll be honest, we didn’t have that this year. For the most part, we pretty much rolled the same three, four or five starters out there and we pretty much rolled the same one, two, three or four bullpen guys out there and that was it. I think it hurt some of those pitchers and even position players.
“They knew there was nobody else there pushing them and that’s our main goal next fall is competition. I heard Tony Vitello at Tennessee say that the biggest difference between last year and this year is competition, and they’re having one of the most dominating years I’ve ever seen.
“Guys are pushing each other left and right, and it’s making everybody better. I’ve really taken that to heart. I’m really looking forward to the competition side of it next fall with what we’ve got coming in.”
While the Stars should have a number of starters back, Lester is hoping to bring in more depth at a couple of spots.
“We’re probably looking at starting with around 50 guys this fall,” Lester said. “That’s what we’re looking at. We’ve got some two-way guys coming, so those numbers can be skewed on the position player side or pitching side, but we’re hoping to start with 21 or 22 arms that are pretty good, maybe one or two more. Our whole infield pretty much is coming back and our whole starting outfield plus a few more.
“We’re really looking to bring in some catching help to help Riggs back there. He was kind of our only guy back there this year that could really do the job, so we want to find some catching depth. I think the power bats are a big deal, so we’ve got two coming for sure, maybe three or four power bats coming in that can hopefully fill that void.
“I think we ended up hitting 40 home runs with about 100 doubles, which isn’t bad, but we’re looking at the 70 or 80 mark next year. That’s what we’re shooting for, and I think we can with some of the guys we have coming back and some of the guys we have coming in.”
Three names to keep an eye on during the summer are pitchers Denym Padilla, Jordan Nelson and Parker Goodman, who all missed this year due to injuries.
Lester said Padilla and Nelson should be able to get on the mound during the summer.
“His rehab has been going really well,” Lester said of Padilla. “I know he threw a bullpen yesterday (Tuesday), and that’s probably his third or fourth bullpen. He’s feeling really good. We’re hoping he’s going to go play some (American) Legion this summer here in town. He’s staying and working. I look forward to seeing him.”
Nelson could play a critical role for the Stars next year.
“He’s got big upside. He was up to 94 (miles per hour) in the fall. He’s really been working a lot,” Lester said. “He said his arm is feeling better than ever. He just finished his throwing protocol, which takes two months to get finished. He’s going to start to get on the mound some this summer and get some work in, which is what he really needs.”
But while the news is positive on Padilla and Nelson, Lester said that Goodman likely won’t pitch this summer, but he is hopeful he can return once fall practices start.
“His has been kind of a funky injury because his shoulder just came out of the socket just randomly,” Lester said. “He said it happened some when he was a little kid. The doctors are shutting him down for a while.
“They’re not exactly sure on him, so we’re probably going to take the summer off with him. The doctors have said he should be fine once fall comes back around, but his is kind of slow.”