10/21/2022 baseball Edit

Link Jarrett not defining roles early in his first FSU baseball offseason

Curt Weiler • TheOsceola

Senior Writer

In his first offseason at his alma mater, Florida State baseball coach Link Jarrett has quite a roster overhaul on his hands.

On the mound, FSU is replacing three starting pitchers who made 42 combined starts last season as well as a few prominent relievers.

In the field, the Seminoles are replacing four batters who had 200-plus plate appearances in 2022, some of them team veterans and others critical one-year transfers.

It leaves Jarrett and his coaching staff with a lot of important holes to fill before the season begins in February. Luckily for them, they’re back on a newly-renovated field at Dick Howser Stadium for fall ball and beginning to answer some of those questions.

For Jarrett, though, this fall camp isn’t about locking in who will be where come season time. It and Saturday’s two six-inning exhibitions vs. Kennesaw State, which start at 1 p.m., are for figuring out exactly who is capable of what.

“I’m not interested in defining roles right now. I'm really not interested in trying to solidify any positions. I just want to feel how they look and sense how they handle different things as they move around,” Jarrett said before Tuesday’s practice. “We have infielders that clearly are capable, now what suits their skill set and our team to be the most efficient? I don't know that yet so I'm working through that. Every one of these days we're out here as a team, I learn a little bit more…

“You know the history of some of the guys and where they've played, you know the capabilities of some of the arms and I'm learning more about this stuff every day. Now that we've gotten into the scrimmages, it's a little more clear who's capable of what.”

What Jarrett has to replace this offseason doesn’t mean there are no encouraging pieces that he should be able to build upon. Wyatt Crowell emerged as a very reliable long reliever last year and should step into the weekend rotation. Outfielders Jaime Ferrer and James Tibbs are back after strong 2022 seasons as true freshmen. Returning shortstop Jordan Carrion is back for a second season after transferring from Florida. It also helps matters greatly that Jarrett convinced FSU’s top two high school commits, infielder Cam Smith and outfielder Jordan Taylor, to delay their professional careers and enroll at FSU.

Beyond just learning more about the players he’ll be coaching to start his FSU tenure, this fall has been getting his players used to the frenetic tempo he runs practices at, one where something active is happening at almost all times.

“The first few days the tempo, I think, with which we operate was new,” Jarrett said. “You combine that with new information and new language and new verbiage and new tactics of how you do some of the team fundamentals, it's a lot. As we got to day three, I saw them start to really settle and once we got to days four and five, I felt like they had a better handle on things.”

First look at field renovation

FSU baseball diehards will flock to Saturday afternoon’s exhibitions for their first look at this year’s squad.

The reaction to the new-look field at Howser may not be as overwhelmingly positive as it will be to the team.

In addition to the new sod which has grown into fresh grass that was placed before Jarrett was hired, there’s now more turf in foul territory behind home plate and down the first- and third-base lines. It’s not entirely new as there was previously some turf in foul territory. Now, the turf extends all the way to the baselines, which are painted onto the turf, in addition to the entire batter’s box now being turf instead of dirt, meaning it doesn’t have to be painted each day or maintained.

Baseball purists may decry the change as a shift away from history, but Jarrett sees it as something which will be easier to maintain and more consistent in how it plays relative to grass.

“The introduction of a little more artificial turf, most notably at the plate, it reduces the maintenance. You guys (media members) walked out on that turf, it feels like you're on a dirt surface,” Jarrett said. “You've watched the evolution of artificial turf in the last 10 or 15 years, it's fantastic. Those batter's box lines are down, the foul lines will be down, except for obviously the clay, 24/7. So as we get into this a little further, we'll have the bunting set up before practice and the guys can come by and see everything that's going on. The companies that did it, (FSU baseball director of operations) Chip (Baker) and I really meshed our time and efforts into making sure those companies understood what we wanted and how we wanted this thing to play and look and it was fun. I've gone through similar projects at other schools. We needed this and it helped and our facility staff was very gracious in allowing us to have some flexibility to get this thing the way we wanted it…(They) were very supportive in allowing me to put my stamp on the playing surface and the dugouts and the cages and it is going to help everybody."