I have to say... I am highly disappointed in this year's media guide. At least last year, IIRC, each player had an outlook and we could kind of get a feel for what their roles might be and what they might do and where they might play. We could kind of see where certain players might redshirt or if someone would start rather than be a closer. None of that this year. They do have player profiles where they talk about the player and what they have done, but no outlook. Very disappointed in that.
They also have 5 pages of the same thing. It is stats from last year... the same stats for 5 pages, at least as far as I can tell.
They also don't seem to have updated some things. For instance, the bio for Coggin still states, “I’m excited for and appreciate the opportunity to reunite with Coach Mingione,” Coggin said. “The University of Kentucky is a special place and I can’t wait to get started.”
The media guide claims UK had the number 5 overall class in 2022, with the words transfer class in parenthesis. Not sure who or what ranks us as top 5, so I have no idea what source they are using for this. I know D1Baseball did not have us in the top 25 of newcomer classes. It also says the 2021 class was ranked 25th. I know Perfect Game had us ranked 37th. So, again, not sure where they are coming up with that number. It says 2017 was ranked 7th. PG has us ranked 6th. It states 2018 was ranked 23rd and PG had us ranked 12th. So, these are interesting. Would be nice to know the source.
At the beginning it states how many players we have returning and how many we lost, including starters. We have 17 lettermen returning and we lost 16 lettermen. It states that we have 8 starters returning and 5 starters lost. 4 of the 8 returning are position players and the other 4 are pitchers. I am guessing that for position players they are counting anyone who started over 20 games. So, the returning starters would be Church, Anu, Estep, and Ritter. I really don't know how they got 4 returning starters at pitcher. We have Stupp and Lee who are obvious, then Harney who had 6 starts, Hagenow who had 7 starts, and Hazelwood who had 5. So, not sure which ones they counted in that. I am guessing Harney and Hazelwood, but don't know how they count those two without counting Hagenow.
Here are some thoughts:
Nolan McCarthy is listed as a straight outfielder. Not listed with the infield. Typically he's been listed as a utility guy, so this seems like they may have moved him into the OF permanently.
Tanner Kim is also listed as an outfielder. He was listed as both an OF and a 1B prior to coming to UK. PG had him as the 46th best 1B in the country coming out of HS. So, it seems like they are wanting him just in the OF for now.
Liebert is listed as both a catcher and an outfielder.
So, this is a lot of OF options. Still unsure of who actually starts out there and what that might look like.
I do think it is kind of interesting how quiet things have been with Ryan Hagenow. 2nd highest ranked player to ever go to UK and yet he doesn't seem to have much of a blip at all as someone who will play a major role in 2022. He might still play that role, but things have been kind of quiet about him since last year. It does mention that he suffered a minor injury at the end of 2021 that limited his innings. Don't think I had heard that before, but it was kind of a guess that it happened given that they stopped using him.
It does confirm what we believed to be true, that Travis Smith is likely to miss the 2022 season.
Not really a whole ton of information to take from this guide, but there were some tidbits that were helpful I suppose.
They also have 5 pages of the same thing. It is stats from last year... the same stats for 5 pages, at least as far as I can tell.
They also don't seem to have updated some things. For instance, the bio for Coggin still states, “I’m excited for and appreciate the opportunity to reunite with Coach Mingione,” Coggin said. “The University of Kentucky is a special place and I can’t wait to get started.”
The media guide claims UK had the number 5 overall class in 2022, with the words transfer class in parenthesis. Not sure who or what ranks us as top 5, so I have no idea what source they are using for this. I know D1Baseball did not have us in the top 25 of newcomer classes. It also says the 2021 class was ranked 25th. I know Perfect Game had us ranked 37th. So, again, not sure where they are coming up with that number. It says 2017 was ranked 7th. PG has us ranked 6th. It states 2018 was ranked 23rd and PG had us ranked 12th. So, these are interesting. Would be nice to know the source.
At the beginning it states how many players we have returning and how many we lost, including starters. We have 17 lettermen returning and we lost 16 lettermen. It states that we have 8 starters returning and 5 starters lost. 4 of the 8 returning are position players and the other 4 are pitchers. I am guessing that for position players they are counting anyone who started over 20 games. So, the returning starters would be Church, Anu, Estep, and Ritter. I really don't know how they got 4 returning starters at pitcher. We have Stupp and Lee who are obvious, then Harney who had 6 starts, Hagenow who had 7 starts, and Hazelwood who had 5. So, not sure which ones they counted in that. I am guessing Harney and Hazelwood, but don't know how they count those two without counting Hagenow.
Here are some thoughts:
Nolan McCarthy is listed as a straight outfielder. Not listed with the infield. Typically he's been listed as a utility guy, so this seems like they may have moved him into the OF permanently.
Tanner Kim is also listed as an outfielder. He was listed as both an OF and a 1B prior to coming to UK. PG had him as the 46th best 1B in the country coming out of HS. So, it seems like they are wanting him just in the OF for now.
Liebert is listed as both a catcher and an outfielder.
So, this is a lot of OF options. Still unsure of who actually starts out there and what that might look like.
I do think it is kind of interesting how quiet things have been with Ryan Hagenow. 2nd highest ranked player to ever go to UK and yet he doesn't seem to have much of a blip at all as someone who will play a major role in 2022. He might still play that role, but things have been kind of quiet about him since last year. It does mention that he suffered a minor injury at the end of 2021 that limited his innings. Don't think I had heard that before, but it was kind of a guess that it happened given that they stopped using him.
It does confirm what we believed to be true, that Travis Smith is likely to miss the 2022 season.
Not really a whole ton of information to take from this guide, but there were some tidbits that were helpful I suppose.
