FSU baseball mashing home runs at a historic pace this season

Entering this week, it had been 16 years since a Florida State baseball team mashed 100 home runs in a season.

That changed on Tuesday.

Behind four home runs in the Seminoles' 12-9 win over Georgia Tech in their ACC Tournament opener at Truist Field in Charlotte, FSU is now up to 103 home runs on the season.

It's just the seventh time in program history that an FSU team has surpassed the century mark in home runs. With quite a few games left on the possible radar this season, the 2024 Seminoles are now tied with the 2008 team for the sixth-most homers in a season in FSU history.

Beyond that, though, this is the first FSU team since 2008 to even surpass 90 home runs in a season and just the second this century. Additionally, these Seminoles will have a chance with a powerful finish to potentially double the homer output of last year's team, which hit 55 home runs — the fewest in a full season by an FSU team since 2014 — in 54 games.

It's safe to say this team won't break the program record of 146 home runs hit by the 1985 team. However, that team needed 82 games to set that ridiculous record— teams nowadays max out around 70 games with very deep postseason runs — and that was also the final season before FSU extended the right-field fence at Dick Howser Stadium much higher to make it a bit less of a short porch.

That being said, it seems reasonable this FSU team could reach as high as third in FSU's record books (currently 114 by the 1997 team) if it extends its season long enough.

Also, it bears mentioning that this team measures up incredibly favorably with those all-time FSU offenses when comparing the number of home runs per game they are averaging.

That's right. This FSU team is on pace to average the most home runs per game in program history by over a full tenth of a home run. These Seminoles may not play enough games to knock that 1985 team off the pedestal, but they are hitting homers at a higher rate than any other FSU team.

That's saying something considering the number of sluggers that have donned the garnet and gold throughout the program's history and considering we are now in the BBCOR era with deadened bats relative to the so-called trampoline bats of the mid-2000s.

Having the ACC home-run leader in James Tibbs III (24 homers this season, tied for 11th nationally and the most by an FSU player since Buster Posey hit 26 in 2008) certainly boosts FSU's power numbers this season. So does having three other players with double-digit homers in Jaime Ferrer (16), Marco Dinges (13) and Cam Smith (13).

While a few FSU teams have had three players with 13+ home runs in the same season, this is the first FSU team in program history that has four players who have hit 13+ home runs this season.

Beyond the top-of-the-lineup guys, though, the depth of FSU's lineup also possesses some power. Eight Seminoles have five or more homers this season, tied with a few other FSU teams for the most players with five-plus home runs since the 1997 FSU team had 10 players with five-plus homers.

I may not be able to sum up how impressive the power of this FSU lineup has been than Tibbs himself, who was interviewed on the ACC Network immediately after Tuesday's win.

"We talk all the time, we're a bunch of three-hole hitters that are put together and figured out how to play. We've done a great job of that this year," Tibbs said. "From day one, I just saw it was different. I've thoroughly enjoyed this."

Up Next

No. 5 seed FSU takes on No. 4 seed Virginia on Friday at 11 a.m. With the Cavaliers run-ruling GT 13-0 in seven innings Wednesday afternoon, it makes that FSU-UVA game essentially an ACC quarterfinal matchup to determine who wins Pool D and advances to Saturday's semifinals.

While starting pitchers haven't yet been announced, it seems likely FSU will start its ace, Jamie Arnold (9-3, 2.40 ERA), vs. the Cavaliers.

UVA, on the other hand, used its ace, Evan Blanco, vs. GT on Wednesday. While he threw six shutout innings to secure his seventh win of the season, that likely rules him out for the rest of the weekend and definitely for Friday's game. As such, FSU is likely to have a starting pitching advantage compared to whoever UVA sends to the mound Friday morning.

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