Marshall University Athletics
Waggoner's 2015 Herd Features Depth, Versatility
2/11/2015 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
By STEVE COTTON
HUNTINGTON. W.Va. - Throughout his Marshall baseball career, fifth-year senior Josh King has bounced back and forth on the mound between starter and reliever.
The Troup, Ga., product, who received a medical redshirt when his 2014 campaign was cut short after six starts, is poised to do even more bouncing around in the weeks to come.
King, who has long bantered about his prowess as a hitter to anyone who would listen, has added an infielder's glove and a bat to his equipment tote and is in the mix for playing time at second base, in addition to his mound work, as Marshall prepares to open the season Friday to start a three-game series at Florida A&M.
That is just one of the experiments that Marshall Coach Jeff Waggoner will be conducting over the next month as he looks toward the Conference USA portion of the schedule, which starts when the Herd hosts UTSA in mid-March.
"When they came here, Josh King and (current Arizona Diamondback farmhand) Aaron Blair were both two-way players," said Waggoner on the eve of his ninth year as the Herd mentor. "King hit really well his first fall with Marshall, but I liked both of them so much as pitchers I made them stick with that. Both of them, though, kept riding me constantly about letting them hit.
"Finally, this fall I gave in to King and told him to play the field and win a job if he could. Well, he's done very well. He's a competitor and brings energy to the infield and to the lineup, and he's earned a chance to do that, too."
King will come out of the Herd bullpen to start the season as he builds back his right arm strength following Tommy John surgery, but if all goes well might work his way back as a weekend starter at some point in C-USA play.
That starting rotation is another element that will be sorted out over the next month, and Waggoner thinks that the Herd will finally be dealing from a position of strength and depth.
Senior Matt Margaritonda and junior Chase Boster, who won Collegiate All-American third team honors this summer for his work with the West Virginia Miners in the Prospect League, have the inside track as weekend starters, but then things get very interesting.
Junior Lance Elder is back at full strength, nearly two years removed from Tommy John surgery after impressing as a weekend starter as a freshman. But even before King is added to the starting mix, Elder is being challenged by several others, including junior college transfers J.D. Hammer, Callaway Kirkpatrick and Heston Van Fleet, as well as freshman Fernando Guerrero.
"The Sunday starter spot is a real battle among a lot of guys, and that's good," Waggoner said. "We have several good contenders, and whoever doesn't win that will give us good options for our midweek games, which is where we've struggled a lot of years.
"Now it looks like we have enough depth among the starting pitchers that we'll have good options in the midweek games, plus those guys will provide competition to get back into the weekend rotation, keeping everyone sharp."
One name conspicuously absent from that list is Michael Taylor, the junior who has started more games than anyone else for the Herd over the past two seasons. The Herd staff thinks the 6-foot-6 right-hander has the potential to be a light-out guy at the back end of the bullpen.
"Michael has shown he can be a starter, but we're taking a long look at putting him in the bullpen," Waggoner said. "His arm makes him a guy who could be a mid- to upper-90s guy if he's just needed for one inning.
"With his size up on that mound and the big downhill angle he gets, letting it rip for one inning at a time could be dynamic at the end of a game."
The Marshall pitchers have the luxury of throwing to a backstop, Matt Reed, who was named to the Johnny Bench Award watch list as he started 41 of the team's 51 games as a freshman last season.
There's also experience returning in the infield, as Sergio Leon and Andrew Dundon started all 51 games a year ago, while T.J. Diffenderfer played in all but three games as he led the squad with four home runs and 29 runs batted in, and Aaron Bossi started 42 games. It's not as simple for Waggoner, though, as penciling them into the lineup just as they were in 2014.
"We're looking to move Dundon from second base to third and solidify that a little more," Waggoner said. "Sergio Leon has been our shortstop for three years and he's there again, but he's being pushed by (freshman Andrew) Bladt.
"Second base is a big battle. You have King proving himself as a real option. D.J. Gee was a junior college All-American and he can play there or in the outfield. Chad Roberts is a freshman who can make in immediate impact for us, plus Bossi is a veteran with a lot of experience and versatility."
A year ago Marshall had the tough task of replacing a four-year standout in center field after Isaac Ballou embarked upon his professional career in the Washington Nationals' organization. The Herd didn't miss a beat as freshman Corey Bird took flight as Ballou's replacement not only as the center fielder, but also as a left-handed-hitting leadoff man and the team's top base stealer (15-of-20) on his way to C-USA All-Freshman honors.
While Bird is set to anchor the outfield again this season, there are battles both to his left and right, especially until sophomore Cory Garrastazu can return from surgery to repair the wrist injury that ended his freshman campaign after only 16 games.
Robert Fajardo gained valuable experience in the outfield last season, while junior college transfer Billy Sager and freshman Austin Norman are in the mix along with some of the potential infielders like Gee or even King. They're all also potential designated hitters, as is JUCO transfer Ryne Dean.
"There are a lot of things to still sort out before we get to conference play," Waggoner said. "Especially until we get Garrastazu back in right field and we see how King's arm comes back and where he fits as a pitcher and also what he might do as a position player.
"But that's what the non-conference games are for."
As Marshall packs its bags for Tallahassee, Fla., and the opening series against FAMU's Rattlers, the Herd coach feels much more prepared to start the year than has often been the case, and a good part of that credit is due the Chris Cline Athletic Complex.
"The indoor facility helps us most defensively, which is where we've often struggled to start the year because we just haven't had the place to work on that," Waggoner said. "We have a place now where we have actually taken a lot of ground balls, worked on our bunt defense and relays, things that we just couldn't do a lot of years.
"You can sure replicate real-life situations a whole lot better in our new facility than you can in Gullickson Hall. We've also had better weather this year than most years, so we've been outside a decent amount. It might be 30 or 40 degrees, but there's nothing like being on a real diamond and so we go do that whenever we can.
"Hopefully this all means we'll be a lot sharper in these first weeks of the season than we are some years."
The second weekend of the season sees Marshall at Mississippi State for two games each against the top 20-ranked Bulldogs and Alabama A&M. "That's one of the best venues in the nation and I wanted to put our guys in a tough environment," Waggoner said.
The Herd will next travel to Wake Forest for two games apiece against the Demon Deacons and Towson State, then has home games scheduled against Rhode Island (three) and Akron (one) as a final tuneup to the always-challenging Conference USA schedule.
Waggoner's team has 24 home dates on the schedule, including eight at the YMCA Kennedy Center diamond on Route 2 in Huntington. Ten more are set at Appalachian Power Park in Charleston - three league series and an April 28 date against West Virginia. Two C-USA series (six games) will be played at Epling Stadium in Beckley
It's no surprise that Rice, a consensus top 25 team in the preseason rankings, was the unanimous C-USA No. 1 in voting by the league coaches. The Owls' Blake Fox was selected as the league's preseason Pitcher of the Year, while catcher John Clay Reaves was the Player of the Year. Fox and Rice closer Matt Ditman were both named preseason All-Americans by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.
The Owls were followed by FIU, Old Dominion and Southern Miss in the poll, while Marshall checked in at No. 10 among the 12 league teams. The top eight teams will advance to the league tournament at Southern Miss in late May.
Marshall plays 10 league series, and Rice is the only C-USA club the Herd won't see in the regular season.
"Our seniors are taking on the challenge that they need to get to the Conference USA Tournament (for the first time since 2010), but to me that's a starting point," Waggoner said. "I have even bigger expectations and, to me, it's about challenging for a conference championship.
"We have a squad that has high character and the guys listen and they're coachable. If our guys commit themselves to continuing with hard work and improvement throughout the entire season, making themselves better every day between now and the end of the year, we can be right there where we want at the end."
This story first appeared in this week's edition of the Herd Insider.
