Dirtbags 2014 Out-Of-Conference Preview: part 1

We're still waiting on the official announcement on the Long Beach State 2014 schedule, but the out-of-conference slate was recently announced on twitter (one of the two accounts the Dirtbags seem to have) and it's a thing of beauty. Though they're again going a tad heavy on the home games, next season's schedule has the potential to be the strongest in years, which is saying quite a bit. In the first of three posts, we take a look at some of the teams headed to Blair Field this spring...

Vanderbilt (2013 ISR: 4; RPI: 2) – The Commodores cruised to a series win against the Dirtbags to open what would be a historic season for VU. Frankly, in retrospect it's amazing Long Beach State even managed to win one game at the Hawk, given how good the Dores turned out to be. Vandy would go on be win a record 26 SEC games and become a national seed. In that three-game series, Vandy outscoured LBSU 31-19, despite being tied with 30 hits each. The difference would be Vanderbilt's trademark base on balls (18) and fearless baserunning (seven steals, plus more extra bases taken than I care to remember).

Vandy lost half a minor league team-worth of players to the draft, but will nevertheless open 2014 as one of the top teams in the nation. On the hill for Vandy will be Golden Spikes Finalist RHP Tyler Beede (2.32 ERA, 103 K/63 BB, 101 IP) who tossed five solid innings against the Dirtbags last February, albeit while struggling to manage a tight strike zone. Senior RHP TJ Pecoraro (5.97, 15/14, 34.2 IP) also returns but was hit hard in Long Beach State's Sunday win last year and will have to fight his way back into the rotation against RHPs Walker Buehler (3.14, 57/25, 63 IP), Tyler Ferguson (4.21, 21/11, 25.2 IP), and LHP Philip Pfeifer (3.68, 47/30, 63.2 IP). Ferguson and Pfeifer both had mediocre relief appearances against the Dirtbags last season.

SS Vince Conde (.307/.380/.458) is arguably the best of the few returning starters, though a plethora of part-timers from last year seem poised to become impact players. What will be interesting to see is what the Dores offensive approach will look like after losing five players that drew 30+ walks, and four of five players with 15+ steals in 2013, but rest assured the 2014 lineup will present a challenge for Dirtbag pitching it what's likely to be the first series of the season.

“Mini-Tournament” featuring Arizona State, Wright State, and UC Irvine – This series is actually going to include two games at home (versus Arizona State and Wright State) and one on the road (at UC Irvine). This will be the first tournament-style weekend for in Blair Field since the start of the 2010 season, and oddly enough it'll conclude with ASU playing WSU on Sunday, while the Dirtbags are down in Orange County battling the Anteaters. It's confirmed that this will be the second weekend of the season.

Arizona State (ISR: 15, RPI: 20) – Last season's series in Tempe resulted in a three-game sweep for the Sun Devils and one of the most anemic offensive outputs from the Dirtbags all year. LHP Ryan Kellogg (3.15, 54/17, 103 IP) is likely to get the ball for this Friday game. Kellogg tossed seven, two-hit, scoreless frames against LBSU a year ago, leading ASU to its second shutout of the series. Several of ASU's top hitters from last year are gone, but the Sun Devils bring in a strong recruiting class and a solid core of returners lead by SS Drew Stankiewicz (.295/.363/.396) and 1B Dalton DiNatale (.302/.397/.405).

Wright State (ISR: 202, RPI: 219) – Wright State returns to the southland after being swept at UCLA last spring, however the Raiders are an unfamiliar foe to Blair Field. Wright State finished fourth last season in the Horizon League; a conference whose only regional representative, Valparaiso, suffered an early season sweep to the Dirtbags. Wright State will see a lot of lineup turnover in 2014 but returns senior OFs Kieston Greene (.335/.396/.492) and Mark Fowler (.308/.383/.390).

UC Irvine (ISR: 29, RPI: 80) – The Anteaters are coming off a disappointing 2013 and saw further coaching turnover in the summer, resulting in the exit of revered assistant Pat Shine. However they did manage to take two of three against the Dirtbags last season (the first series since 2010 that didn't include a no-hitter!). Irvine enters 2014 with lower expectations and may not quite be the pitching-rich team they've been in recent years, but they return some star-studded hitters like 3B Taylor Sparks (.360/.388/.581), 1B Connor Spencer (.373/.443/.491), and SS Chris Rabago (.269/.325/.356). The Dirtbags will be heading to Irvine for the Sunday-finale of this tournament. The back of the Irvine rotation is currently up in the air but a strong returning candidate for this role is sophomore southpaw Elliot Surrey (3.95, 10/5, 13.2 IP). It's also been announced the Dirtbags' regular season will close with a home conference series against the Anteaters. 

Utah Valley (2013 ISR: 211; RPI: 232) – Utah Valley! It's Utah Valley you guys! A favorite of myself and writers like Eric Sorenson from two years ago make the trip out to Long Beach next season, their first in the re-vamped WAC. These Wolverines, however, are a far cry from the 2012 squad that won 47 games behind a .959 OPS. After seeing their run production drop by over 40% in 2013, the 2014 team will return a somewhat more experienced lineup lead by Sophomore’s 3B Stone Ramsey (.307/.402/.457) and 1B Mark Krueger (.323/.374/.453). On the pitching side Utah Valley also saw a slight regression in 2013, and lose 2012 Great West Pitcher of the Year RHP Adam Gunn, among others. Top returners include likely Friday starter RHP Devin Nelson (3.55 ERA, 61/17 K/BB in 78.2 IP) and reliever RHP Brian Whatcott (1.69, 19/11, 26.2 IP).

The Wolverines will likely be the Dirtbags' weakest weekend opponent next year, and their 2013 stats and RPI weren't that dissimilar from arguably LBSU's weakest foe last season; the Seattle Redhawks. The same Seattle Redhawks that came to Blair Field and won two out of three.

Up next: We round out the home schedule with one-forth of last year's College World Series field.

Reviewing "Baseball in Long Beach"; mainly the Dirtbag parts.

The Summer Leagues have been over for several weeks now, so apart from the occasional scrimmage or two (Dirtbags vs. Trojans on November 23!) we're about to enter the most dead part of the baseball year. Thankfully, Long Beach Register's Bob Keisser's new book Baseball in Long Beach was released just in time to help fend off any offseason withdrawals.

As pretty plainly expressed in the title, the book is an anthology of sorts of baseball in the 562, ranging from biographies of Long Beach-natives that went on to become baseball icons, to the history of college and prep baseball in the city. The book starts out modestly, giving due notice to the reverence the city's baseball community had for Press-Telegram sports editor Frank T. Blair, and the role Blair played in pushing for a ballpark that would serve as the city's baseball epicenter. Keisser quickly shifts gears, however, and covers the lives of favorite sons turned Hall-of-Famers like Bob Lemon and Tony Gwynn.

While these chapters are probably obligatory, many die-hard baseball fans, and certainly Long Beach fans, are already to some degree familiar with several of the stories referenced. The bios, however, serve as nice segues into the stories of lesser-known natives Bobby Grich and Vern Stephens, two should-be Hall-of-Famers who are profiled in the curiously titled chapters “Moneyball” and “Moneyball, Part II”. It's an interesting look if for no other reason than both Grich and Stephens's outstanding big league careers seem to have fallen under the radar as history has passed. Keisser examines how the advancement of sabermetrics have created a swell of Hall-of-Fame support for the previously dormant cases of Grich and Stephens. Though Keisser's use of advanced statistics creates a compelling case for both players, the overabundance of statistics referenced (advanced and traditional) occasionally causes the stories behind the players themselves to get lost.

Eventually, Keisser focuses Baseball in Long Beach on baseball in Long Beach, digging deeply into the the rich history of the area's several high schools. Covering high school baseball history for one specific city might seem like an awfully niche subject, particularly if the reader is a non-Long Beach native like myself, but one can't help but be impressed with the sheer volume of baseball talent that the area has produced, and Keisser allows no one of significance to slip through the cracks. Moreover, the overview Keisser gives serves as a nice foundation and backstory to the real heart of the book (as least as far as I'm concerned), the history of Long Beach State baseball and the rise of the Dirtbags.

In clearly laying out the history of the region's prep and Junior College baseball programs, Keisser sets up the telling of how a hastily assembled group of players on a perennial loser of a school managed to use it's lack of funding and facilities as a motivating force. You know the story of the mud-caked uniforms that became the then-49ers' signature look, but the book also focuses on other Omaha-bound LBSU teams, including the '93 squad which became the first to call Blair Field home, only to struggle out of the gate. One interesting anecdote referenced involved Coach Dave Snow holding “practice” on the track, rather than the baseball field, and running his team (the first ever to officially be known as the Dirtbags) after a disappointing weekend series. As Keisser puts it, in words that seem all too relevant today: “[the message] was clear – you didn't become a Dirtbag just by being on the team, and the coach was willing to do whatever it took to get that point across.”

There's a chapter dedicated to some of Long Beach State's biggest names in the major leagues, though Evan Longoria has noticeably little coverage. The portion on Troy Tulowitzski, inparticular, is intriguing, as it's obvious Tulo's passion for what it means to be a Dirtbag still plays a heavy role it the all-star shortstop's approach to the game.

Keisser's telling is truly comprehensive, as he goes on to cover the stellar career of long time big league scout Harry Minor; the Jeff Buroughs-lead Little League World Series teams of the '90's; several championship clubs from amateur leagues such as PONY and American Legion; and he provides anecdotes about the California Winter League, the old Pacific Coast League, and the multiple failed attempts at an independent league team in Long Beach (no mention of the American West Baseball League's proposed Long Beach Splash, who apparently folded this past summer before games were ever played).

Keisser's book is well worth a read, particularly if you're suffering from the offseason blues, and those with at least a passing familiarity of the region's baseball prowess should appreciate the thoroughness of Keisser's coverage. Bringing this back to the Dirtbags, I'll close with an excerpt on Long Beach State's status in the post-Snow era, as the Dirtbags enter 2014 still trying to find their previous glory:

“What's mostly been lost is that thing Snow always sought – players who buy in 100 percent to the type of play and discipline he wanted. There's been a lot of players excited to be a Dirtbag but very few with the discipline and commitment to play like one.”