Baseball season gets started Friday with a three-game series with Wagner in Raleigh. Here’s a breakdown of what I’ll be looking for this year.

Schedule

NC State has not played a power 5 non-conference game since February 2020 when the Pack swept Iowa, Purdue, and Minnesota before the season got shut down. This will be the third consecutive season without a non-conference power 5 game. How is this possible? 

It’s inexcusable that a program as good as NC State schedules as poorly as they do. There’s an endless number of solid non-power 5 teams within driving distance that aren’t on the schedule: VCU, Charleston, Campbell, Charlotte, Liberty. SEC country is not far away, NC State should be playing a non-conference series against an SEC team every year.

This year's schedule is bad again. Belmont is solid but the rest of the non-conference series are layups. ECU and Coastal are really good but there’s only three games against those two combined.  UNCW is fine. Other than that, nobody moves the needle. This is going to be a problem come tournament time, as it was last year.

Health

I told James repeatedly last year that the season would come down to the health of Sam Highfill, Matt Willadsen, and Chris Villaman.

Highfill battled a back injury all year, was never himself, and eventually got shut down – and State fell short of the tournament.

Same thing applies this year. Highfill, Willadsen, Logan Whitaker, and Justin Lawson all need to be healthy.

Aaron Fitt from D1Baseball has noted a couple of times that Highfill’s status is up in the air after his back injury from last year. Good news is it appears he has been on the mound in preseason scrimmages. Fitt also noted Willadsen had offseason surgery on his hip, but has recovered well and should be good to go.

Lineup

Gino Groover is the headliner this year. He’s a potential ACC player of the year candidate and all-American. Carter Trice is the most accomplished addition to the lineup.

It’s not always a good thing to be old in baseball, but State has a lot of guys who have played multiple seasons of college baseball already: Noah Soles, Dom Pilolli, Kalae Harrison, Trevor Candelaria, Parker Nolan.

Payton Green and Jacob Cozart were talented freshmen who really emerged late in the year, and I think they are key cogs this year. Eli Serrano is the only freshman I project to start, and it’s worth noting he will be a draft-eligible sophomore in 2024.

Defense

State’s issues defensively were well-documented last year, and I think you saw a concerted effort to address that in the portal.  This is another case where being old has benefits, as it could certainly help the Pack play cleaner baseball. Nolan should slot right in center and Harrison is a glove-first player. Cozart is one of the best defenders behind the plate in the country.

Questions still remain: Can Green and Groover handle the left side of the infield? If not, things get dicey. How does State replace Jarrett, Hood, and Brown up the middle?

My biggest question is where does Carter Trice fit in? It’s a numbers game right now. Daniel is running our projected lineups, and right now there’s one too many outfielders. I’m currently leaving Soles out of the lineup, but can that actually happen?

Trice was a utility player at ODU.  In fact, he primarily played infield. If that happens, that’s an easy solution. In the Fall, Trice battled injuries and has appeared headed for the outfield or DH since. State’s best offensive lineup includes Trice at second base. Will it play out that way?

Overall

Elliott Avent has this program in a place where you know what to expect year in and year out, and I don’t expect this year to be any different. This team should hit its way to the NCAA Tournament and will be very competitive in a loaded ACC, especially the Atlantic Division.

I would not project this team to be heavily in the hosting mix, although that’s primarily due to the schedule giving them very little margin for error. They’ve got to be nearly perfect to get to the top 16, and there’s too many questions around the defense, Highfill’s health, and the bullpen for me to project that.