A monster in the making?: What the Hawkeyes starting rotation could be in 2024
The college baseball season just wrapped up on Monday, but with the age of the transfer portal, there is no offseason. Transfer news and summer ball goes until the MLB Draft in July and then before you know it fall ball gets underway. Hawkeye fans have plenty of reason to be excited for next season, as they return a lot of key pieces from a team that made an appearance in an NCAA Tournament Regional for the first time since 2017.
It will be the starting rotation that will lead the hype train for next season, as Brody Brecht and Marcus Morgan return after taking a big jump in their sophomore season. The potential that Cade Obermueller brings with a similar freshman year to Brecht/Morgan has people wondering just how good this rotation can be next season.
“Taking the job and just doing my homework, it was obvious that neither of them were close to the best versions of themselves last year and that’s pretty typical of freshman when there’s expectations put on them,” said Iowa pitching coach Sean McGrath. “I thought both of them made really positive steps toward being the best version of themselves this year. You saw that at the end of the year.”
Coach McGrath joins us to discuss multiple facets of next season’s starting rotation, including a couple names to keep an eye on for a potential starting role.
Marcus Morgan
Marcus Morgan came to the Hawkeyes as a true freshman with a ton of expectations placed on him. He went through struggles that mirror many uber talented live-arm freshman across the country. Marcus struggled with walks and appeared in just ten games. This past year, he made a significant jump with 15 starts and a 3.72 ERA over 65.1 innings.
The beginning of the season still had its ups and downs. Through five starts, Marcus allowed 13 runs on 15 hits over 18.1 innings. He was taken out of the starting rotation for the Western Michigan and Maryland series’, as the coaching staff tried other starters in his stop. He was ultimately reinserted into the rotation for the Indiana series with a 6.95 ERA, but a new Marcus emerged after his short bullpen stint.
“(Marcus) worked tremendously with our sports psychologist Aubrette (Kinne), but apart from that it was really just ironing out the usage, while giving him a reset,” said Coach McGrath. “We really increased the cutter usage midway through the year. We added a little bit more of a sweeper to have two different sliders. He’s a really talented dude who can basically do anything he wants with a baseball in terms of movement and velocity.”
Mid-season reset: Marcus Morgan before and after April 8th
It wasn’t always the cleanest or prettiest outing, but more often than not, Marcus gave his team a chance to win the game. In games started by the talented sophomore, the Hawkeyes were 12-3. In seven starts in Big Ten play (excluding Penn St), he allowed just five runs and 16 hits over 37.0 innings.
“He was relentless. He’s got really great perspective and he never gave in. It was about the ongoing battle and I’m going to do this for my teammates,” said McGrath. “It was about getting ahead (in counts) and then when he didn’t, having the ability to not allow that to fester, but instead we were going to focus on scrapping and clawing our way back into counts.”
This summer Marcus is playing in the Cape Cod League with the Bourne Braves. He allowed two runs over 4.0 innings in his first start, but the summer in the cape is more about working through a new set of challenges in a new environment and growing as a person and player says McGrath. This fall and winter when he is back with the team is when they will go to work on a number of things to try to become a more consistent pitcher.
“The pitch plans were quite similar (to Brody) in that we set up largely middle of the zone to pitch with an insurance policy of wickedness within the entire zone. He can miss in every cardinal direction and still be in the zone and be competitive.”
“The next step for him is being able to go to more optimal locations and do that with multiple pitches. He could do that with the cutter, he could do that on certain days with certain pitches, but to be able to consistently have all five pitches and be able to go to varied spots within the zone and outside the zone is going to be huge.”
The most exciting thing that Coach McGrath said during our conversation? He said that Marcus has a super advanced pitch arsenal. One that you see in the big leagues and it would rival some arsenals of big league pitchers. Coming from a pitching coach that just spent several years in the Seattle Mariners organization, that is a glowing endorsement.
Brody Brecht
Brody Brecht, like Marcus Morgan, had a lot of expectations coming into his true freshman season, but spent the entirety of the year learning to harness his 100 mph fastball and a slider that hits 90. That led to 44 strikeouts over 22.2 innings, but also 27 free bases given up.
In his first start of this past season, Brody went 5.0 perfect innings with 10 strikeouts and made it through his first nine starts with a 2.38 ERA over 41.2 innings, including 66 strikeouts to 28 strikeouts. After that, he endured a five week stretch, where things went a bit haywire. He allowed 15 runs over 12.2 innings (10.71 ERA) and gave up 24 free bases. The most promising sign of all, was the fact that Brody bounced back and finished off the season with four good outings.
“It was huge. His ability to be coachable. His magnified recommitment to mental skills and understanding that it just takes what it takes and we said that to each other a lot,” said McGrath. “What he needs to focus on is having a really tremendous process and really tremendous preperation and he was able to own that at the end of the year, which was really exciting. It was huge growth, especially when he was combating a little bit of what was going on in the middle of the year.”
Over his last four starts, Brody went 6.0+ innings three times and allowed just six runs over 23.2 innings, with 30 strikeouts to 13 walks. Against Indiana in the Big Ten Tournament, he allowed three runs on two hits and four free bases over the first two innings, but hunkered down and retired 11 of his last 14 batters faced to get through 4.2 innings. Coach McGrath said that outing, not any of his four 6.0+ inning outings, was arguably the best of his season.
“That was a moment where it was like ‘Aha!’ he’s figured it out. He came out, kind of laboring, not a great first two innings, but he was able to settle in and be really quality from that point. That to me was the biggest indication of growth because in other instances that game would have snowballed.”
Now, Brody is spending the summer pitching the Cape Cod League with the Chatham Anglers, as well as with the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team. After that, he will transition into an exciting fall, where he can focus fully on baseball, now that baseball is in the rearview mirror. The importance of being able to focus on pitching for the entirety of the offseason cannot be overstated.
“Part of me enjoyed that he played football. I think that was a good little avenue to escape baseball and the stressors of baseball,” said McGrath. “To be able to work physically and mentally all fall will be paramount for him because he hasn’t gotten that yet…most guys throw 10 to 15 innings in the fall their freshman year and then pitch for 40 innings in the summer. I’m really excited about what he can do this fall and the work that he’s going to put in because it should pay huge dividends.”
His first full offseason with the baseball team will be focused on refining his pitches and working becoming a more consistent pitcher. That includes cutting down on free bases and being able to hit specific locations in certain counts.
“The biggest thing for him would be to stabilize the fastball and slider locations and be able to vary within the strikezone. A lot of what we did this year was set up in the middle allowing him to pitch with an insurance policy, where he can miss in all directions and still be in the zone.”
“To add the fastball in for him, I think that’s a huge weapon that he doesn’t yet have true commitement of and then, the development of the changeup. It was really good at the end of the year just picking our spots to throw it, but just find that complimentary third pitch that he has true convitioin over that we can increase usage of.”
Top 2, Not 2?: How good can the Morgan/Brecht duo be?
So, how good can the Friday-Saturday duo of Marcus and Brody be? Can they be one of, if not the best duos in the entire country? Coach McGrath compared the two pitchers to a duo he coached back at Elon in 2019.
“For me, the only other time I felt this way in a summer thinking about the next season was in the summer of 2018 and looking forward to the 2019 season at Elon,” said McGrath. “We had Kyle Brnovich, who was a Team USA guy and an All-American. We had George Kirby pitching on Saturday’s…I think they could be the best Friday, Saturday combo in the country.”
For reference, Kyle Brnovich has pitched at the Triple-A level in the Baltimore Orioles organization, while George Kirby is a starting pitcher for the Seattle Mariners and is one of the best strikeout-to-walk arms in the MLB.
Cade Obermueller
After Brody and Marcus, the starting rotation opens up, as Ty Langenberg is expected to get drafted and sign with a major league organization. There are several pitchers that will be vying for this spot, but it is hard not to put sophomore Cade Obermueller in line for the spot due to the talent that he possesses.
“He really embraces the attitude necessary to be really good in this game. The fastball and the slider, the action of those two pitches are off the charts,” said McGrath. “He was a freshman in the Big Ten and that’s not often a challenge that guys are ready for and prepared for. Some of the struggles we saw are not atypical for a freshman with electric stuff.”
Cade Obermueller vs Brody Brecht true freshman seasons
Obermueller is currently competing in the Cape Cod League this summer and has had some decent success in his first few outings with the Hyannis Harbor Hawks. In three appearances, Cade has eight strikeouts to just two walks over 5.1 innings. He has allowed just one hit and owns a .063 batting average against. As the number of successful outings pile up, Cade’s confidence will continue to rise.
“He’s done a really nice job out in the Cape and yes, some of that is summer ball effect. Swing rates elevate, chase elevate and players aren’t taking team at bats nearly as much,” said McGrath. “What is growing is the confidence and that is huge for Cade. To see him have the success he’s having right now is really exciting because a confident Cade Obermueller is nearly impossible to hit.”
If the coaching staff and the fanbase had their pick for the Sunday starting role, it would probably be Cade because of what his ceiling can be, with the pitch arsenal that he has. However, it will depend on a multitude of things, including how he progresses over the fall and winter.
“The best version of Cade is probably one that rivals and pushes Marcus and Brody because it could be electric…whenver you have a low to mid 90’s left-hander with a 70 grade slider, you hope that guy can pitch meaningful innings and in a starting role. However, it’s our job to bring in guys that are going to compete with him for that spot…I’m really excited about the competition that’s going to be here in the fall.”
Other names to watch?
Although it is fun to think about a Morgan, Brecht, Obermueller starting rotation, there are several other arms to keep an eye on. There are three main pitchers to watch this fall, as they will be competing for that final spot in the starting rotation.
Zach Voelker had a really good start to the season including, just two runs allowed and 13 strikeouts to just two walks over his first 14.2 innings of the season. Things came apart after that and he finished with a 9.00 ERA over his last 12 outings of the season. Still, he has a five-pitch mix and the tools to be a starting pitcher for the Hawkeyes.
“He’s got a stable of pitches that are mostly average or a little bit better than average, which is really nice to see as a starter and when I say average, I don’t mean that in a demeaning way,” said McGrath. “Voelker is an exciting one because the best version of him is one that can command the zone…He’s got to work to be able to bounce back and recover a little bit better than he was last year.”
Creighton transfer Anthony Watts started eight games for the Jays as a true freshman, finishing with a 5.15 ERA over 43.2 innings. Oklahoma State transfer Brant Hogue figures to have a shot at the spot as well, but he is currently rehabbing UCL repair surgery and will not be back to game-speed until January or February.
There is no doubt that the starting rotation battle will be an intriging storyline to watch as the fall season rolls around. Brody Brecht and Marcus Morgan’s developments will be watched closely, but so will those of the other pitchers vying for a spot in the starting rotation.
