Virginia Tech Hokies Baseball 2023 Roster Review

Baseball is Long, and Pro Baseball is Murder on College Baseball

Yes, we said the quiet part outloud because it deserved to be said. Baseball is a life sport, and the dreams of devoted baseball players are always aimed at the Big Leagues, and the huge money that those games bring in the door. A college degree, nozzomush... That’s kind of a sad situation but not much different from many of the other big revenue sports in the transfer era.

Tech is no different, and the big exposure and lofty finish last season meant lots of pro scouts looking at lots of player with promises of big money contracts in the majors. Well, that’s not actually the case, and minor league contracts range from “okay” to “pathetic”, but telling a young baseball player that his degree in business administration, or communications, or even engineering (we had one of those for a few years) is a better bet than playing baseball and riding a bus for a meager living just can’t get past the dreams of the guaranteed multimillion dollar contract in the majors.

This season the Hokies are lucky enough to get back quite a few experienced players. That didn’t mean that Coach John Szefc (pronounced “Chef” for you noobies) didn’t have to work high school recruiting and the transfer portal really hard. He has been forced to replace a huge chunk of his lineup and bench players, and restock his bullpen.

The Players

So, let’s take a general look at the entire roster before splitting it out into position players and pitchers.

Coach Szefc has nine pitchers returning to the staff this season and that’s a good thing. Most of those nine pitched in games and have solid experience on the mound either as starters or relievers. This is really important for those mid-week non-conference pitch-by-committee games that can make or break a schedule.

He returns nine starting quality position players including a few big stars who shined last year. That doesn’t seem like he has to replace too many players, but he did reach into the transfer bag and pull out two graduate students and another mid-career transfer or two. So far though the Hammerin’ Hokies look like they are back in good order, looking to make strong contact.

There have even been a few notices of watch lists for kudos and ribbons.

The NCBWA has put Starting Pitcher Drue Hackenberg, and Outfielder Jack Hurley on their second team roster, and Reliever Kiernan Higgins on the third team.

Jack Hurley has also been noticed enough that he’s on the watch list for the Golden Spikes Award for the end of the season.

Position Players

So, the core of the lineup, and with the DH rule in place, the offensive as well as defensive players on the team, is solid. The nine returners marked with an asterisk (*) in the chart, played significant time and made serious contributions to the team in the playoff run last year. It will be interesting to see how they handle the pressure on their return, and also how they work with the new players. There are several transfer players, in the mix, Coach Szefc picked up a couple of graduate students (Chris Cannizzaro - Bucknell and David Bryant Radford from the transfer portal). Eddie Eisert and Chris Sparber transfer in from NC State and Louisburg College in Jersey, respectively. If these players work out as well as transfer Eduardo Malinowski, they will be happy additions to be sure. Malinowski is back this season, BTW.

2023 Virginia Tech Hokie Baseball Position Players

The reality remains that the experienced core of this baseball team has played in pressure situations and pushed the limits in their season enough to grab a top seed in the NCAA tournament that netted Blacksburg/Virginia Tech hosting 2 playoff rounds for the first time in ages. (The softball team did, too, and the town was hopping happily in the early summer months.)

The Pitchers

The position players are important, they are your offense and your field defense. As the season grinds, they have to grind along and actually get better each series. The same can be said for pitchers. College Baseball rarely has lights out pitching. The best arms are often pulled into the majors, and keeping a quality hurler on the mound is really difficult. Tech is really lucky this season. Eight returning pitchers are heading up the bull pen this season including two of the best staring pitchers that we have had in quite a while, Drue Hackenberg and Griffin Green. There are several other relievers who are solid starters for the pitch-by-committee games and can put up a good core three to four innings in middle relief mode as well. Returning Relievers are marked with single asterisks (*) and the returning ace starters in doubles (**). The reality is that the team will follow the path of the pitchers. If they are good the team will win its share of games. If the pitching struggles, the team will, too.

2023 Virginia Tech Hokies Pitching Staff

The keys to the kingdom go through the mound at English Field.

The Guy

He’s a bit taciturn. He’s really quiet and that can be a bit surprising given his occasional fire off the bench when he thinks things are a bit messed up, and as the season heated up and the wins started top pile up to something special about to happen, Coach John Szefc even smiled... and “bigly” too! More than a few times. Everyone says that he’s a “teacher” and given his impact on this baseball program he’s a really really good teacher at that.

There is a lot of talent credit to be handed out for last season, and a lot of talent kudos to be on the lookout for this season, but one thing is for sure the reason for all the hoopla and the anticipation for 2023 is this man, right here:

Good Luck to Coach Szefc, his staff, and the Hokies who he coaches. We certainly hope that 2023 gets even better than 2022. It sure was fun, let’s do that again!