Michigan State University Athletics
2005 MSU Baseball Preview
2/17/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Feb. 17, 2005
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Entering his 10th season, Michigan State head coach Ted Mahan appears to have found his fountain of youth in 2005. Mahan returns six upperclassmen out of 15 letterwinners from last year's 33-26 team that finished in a tie for third in the Big Ten with Michigan. One major goal the Spartans hope to accomplish this season is capturing the program's first Big Ten Championship since 1979. Mahan admits that it will be a challenge with a young, talented team.
"I think we're going to be a very talented team and that will offset our youth," Mahan said. "We want to see if our young guys are going to be ready to compete in the Big Ten, and our older players are going to get better to compete for a Big Ten Championship."
Leading the way for the Spartans as captains this season are red-shirt junior Tim Day (West Chester, Ohio) and senior Erik Morris (Orchard Lake, Mich.).
Day, who received a medical redshirt in 2004 after suffering an elbow injury, has a chance to rank among the MSU career pitching leaders in wins and strikeouts by season's end. He has won 14 games over his first two seasons in a Spartan uniform.
"Timmy is certainly our No. 1 pitcher and he pitched very well this fall. He has shown signs of getting back to where he was a couple of years ago," said Mahan.
Morris is the leading returning hitter for the Spartans after batting .321 with 10 home runs, 50 runs scored and 44 RBI as a junior in 2004. He will be called upon by Mahan this season to play several positions, including first base and catcher.
"Erik is very valuable to our team and has been versatile for the past three seasons," said Mahan. "He is a tremendous competitor and we'll use his versatility to our advantage."
In addition to Day and Morris, Mahan expects greater contributions from the other key returning upperclassmen -- juniors Alan Cattrysse (Chatham, Ontario), Jeff Gerbe (Shelby Township, Mich.), Chris Toepper (Portage, Mich.) and Oliver Wolcott (Plymouth, Mich.).
"We've got some guys who have been around for three years and those guys certainly need to lead us on and off the field. They're all good students off the field as well, but we're looking for big things out of these guys on the field."
Mahan has also added former Bradley standout John Musachio to his coaching staff as a volunteer assistant coach to join assistant coaches John Young and Dylan Putnam on the bench for the Spartans.
"I think John is a great addition to our staff and we have a great coaching staff," said Mahan. "We've got a lot of experience with JY; Dylan has been around for three years as the pitching coach and he has gotten better every year, and now we've got a young guy who has a lot of energy in John Musachio."
The MSU coaching staff welcomes an incoming class of 13 true freshmen and two junior transfers that Mahan expects will make a quick impact on the Spartans' run toward a conference title this season.
"We are going to rely on seven or eight freshmen again, like we did last year, and that's going to be one of our keys," said Mahan. "We have to have the same production out of this freshman class this season because we are so young."
PITCHING
After sitting out the 2004 season due to injury, Day looks to return to the form that earned him Louisville Slugger Freshman All-America honors in 2002 as he takes over for the departed Bryan Gale as the No. 1 starter in the Spartans' rotation this season.
 Redshirt junior Tim Day begins the 2005 season only three victories shy of cracking the school's all-time career wins list.  | |
"We look for him to take the ball on the first game of the weekend and we expect to win many of those games with his leadership," said Mahan.
Sophomore Craig Brookes (Naperville, Ill.) is tabbed as a starter for MSU. He filled in as the fourth starter near the end of last season, while compiling a 4-2 record against Big Ten competition.
Junior college transfer Chris Malec (Lindenhurst, Ill.) enters his first season in a Spartan uniform as another possible starter. Malec, a left-handed pitcher, brings an impressive resume to East Lansing as he was named the Illinois Junior College Player of the Year in 2004 and earned first-team NJCAA Division II All-America honors at the College of Lake County.
Freshmen Mark Sorensen (Northville, Mich.) and Mike Takashima (Rochester, Mich.) and red-shirt sophomore John Dwan (Libertyville, Ill.) will battle for the final two spots in the starting rotation in addition to pitching in relief when needed.
Past starters Gerbe and Toepper will anchor the MSU bullpen this season to give the Spartans great depth on the mound.
"Gerbe and Toepper will be counted on this season as relief pitchers with a lot of experience from their first two years of pitching as starters," said Mahan.
Mahan is also looking for contributions out of the bullpen from freshmen Peter Wolff (Lake Bluff, Ill.), Drew Mahan (Okemos, Mich.), Mike Monterey (Farmington Hills, Mich.), Matt Trausch (Charlotte, Mich.), Nick Smith (Shelby Township, Mich.), Nolan Moody (East Lansing, Mich.) and Chris Cullen (Tecumseh, Ontario).
INFIELD
MSU returns four starters to an infield that looks to provide a lot of help defensively for the pitching staff this season.
Erik Morris inherits the starting assignment at first base with sophomore Sean Walker (Round Lake, Ill.) serving as an alternate starter when Morris is playing catcher. Red-shirt freshman James Keyton (Lanisng, Mich.) will also serve as a backup at first in addition to being used in a designated hitter capacity for the Spartans.
Wolcott returns for his second season starting at second base. Last season, he batted .306 with 31 RBI, and led the team in stolen bases with 14. Wolcott finished the season among the Big Ten offensive leaders in stolen bases and triples.
 Junior Oliver Wolcott finished among the Big Ten offensive leaders in stolen bases and triples last season. | |
Sophomore Troy Krider (Coldwater, Mich.) is penciled in as an everyday shortstop after starting 52 games last season. Krider tallied an MSU single-season record 156 assists and batted .299 in his freshman campaign.
Freshman Steve Gerstenberger (Fort Gratiot, Mich.) is the leading candidate to start at third base for the Spartans. Gerstenberger prepped at Port Huron Northern, where he hit .410 in his senior season with 43 stolen bases and 25 RBI.
Mahan expects sophomore E.J. Daws (Bozeman, Mont.) and freshman Max Miller (West Bloomfield, Mich.) to serve in reserve roles throughout the season in the middle infield.
"I feel that we have a nice blend of younger guys and older guys in the infield; hopefully, we'll have the right mix of players coming together before the season opener," said Mahan.
OUTFIELD
Sophomore Ryan Basham (Lowell, Ind.) returns for his second season as the starter in left field for the Spartans. Basham lived up to his name with a .297 batting average with 27 RBI and a team-best 15 doubles as a freshman. He was named to the Big Ten All-Tournament Team after hitting .500 (8-for-16) over three games in the tourney.
Sophomore Adam Tripp (Saugas, Calif.) and freshman Ryan Sontag (Newport, Mich.) will compete for the starting spot in center field. Tripp played 36 games in center as a freshman for MSU, while Sontag batted .410 with 48 RBI last season at Jefferson High School.
 Junior outfielder Alan Cattrysse was named the Big Ten's Outfielder with the Best Arm by Baseball America last month. | |
Cattrysse rounds out the outfield as the starter in right field. Last season, he was fifth on the team in hitting with a .309 average with 63 hits and 31 RBI, while alternating starts between the infield and outfield.
Junior transfer Jamey Embree (Grosse Pointe, Mich.) and freshman Tony Clausen (Jenison, Mich.) will serve as backups in the outfield. Embree arrives in East Lansing after spending the past two seasons at the University of Detroit, while Clausen and Sontag will see double duty in the outfield and in the bullpen as left-handed relief pitchers.
"We've got six good outfielders that we think are ready to play and they're the best defensive players that we have had in the outfield in quite some time," said Mahan.
CATCHING
Walker will open the season as the starter behind the plate for MSU. Morris also will see action when Walker is starting at first base.
 Catcher Sean Walker became the fourth Spartan in past five seasons to earn Louisville Slugger Freshman All-America honors last season from Collegiate Baseball. | |
"We really feel that we have three solid guys behind the plate and we're going to split up the time a lot to keep them healthy throughout the season," Mahan said.
SCHEDULE
Mahan hopes his young MSU ballclub will persevere through 16 road contests during the first three weeks of the 2005 season.
"We've got an awful lot of games on the road with a young team and that will be one of the true tests for us this season."
Michigan State opens the regular season with a three-game series against Centenary Feb. 25-27 in Shreveport, La. After returning from Centenary for few days, the Spartans then leave for Jacksonville, Fla., where they will take on Western Michigan, Brown, North Florida, Campbell and Toledo at the annual Kennel Club Classic during their spring break trip.
MSU then travels to Gainesville to face nationally ranked Florida in a three-game series March 11-13. The Spartans continue their 13-game road swing with a three-game series against Bradley in Peoria, Ill.
The Spartans open the home portion of their schedule with a four-game homestand at Kobs Field beginning with a March 24 contest against NAIA powerhouse Indiana Tech and continuing with a three-game series March 26-27 against Western Illinois.
"We're opening conference play on the road against some quality competition, but this will provide a measuring stick of how well our team does this season," said Mahan.
Michigan State hosts four games this season at Oldsmobile Park in Lansing, Mich. The Spartans battle Central Michigan on April 13, Michigan on April 29 and May 1, and Western Michigan on May 11. The Spartans conclude the regular season on the road with a four-game Big Ten series May 21-23 against Northwestern in Evanston, Ill.
