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YSU’s re-made baseball roster looks to have depth
By STEVE WILAJ
YOUNGSTOWN
When fourth-year Youngstown State baseball coach Steve Gillispie looks at his 2016 roster — which pairs 18 newcomers with just 15 returning letter-winners — he sees a team that is “more skilled than we’ve been in any of my years prior.”
Based on that skill-upgrade, this is Gillispie’s theory as the Penguins start their season with a three-game weekend series at Western Kentucky beginning on Friday at 4 p.m.
“I think we’ll give up fewer runs, score more and continue to play defense,” he said. “If you add that all together, that should mean more wins.”
After winning the Horizon League tournament in 2014 despite going just 17-38, YSU went 16-34 last year. Not a great season, but the 16 regular-season wins were the most for the program since 2010.
No doubt, Gillispie is expecting that number to jump again in 2016 — and hopefully by a significant margin — as long as the Penguins answer a key question.
“I think the key is how are they all gonna play together?” he said of his largely re-made roster of 12 freshmen, eight sophomores, nine juniors and four seniors. “But all in all, this team has great chemistry. They really have meshed well. They’re very competitive, very disciplined and focused on what they want to try to accomplish.”
Four position starters return from a year ago: outfielders Lorenzo Arcuri and Alex Larivee, catcher Jonny Miller and shortstop Shane Willoughby. The junior Larivee hit .325 last year, while he was also YSU’s leader in home runs (four), slugging percentage (.490) and on-base percentage (.421).
The four returners will likely be joined in the lineup by two transfers from the disbanded Akron baseball program — infielders Gerrad Rohan (South Range) and Billy Salem. Both are seniors.
Freshman outfielder Kyle Benyo — an Austintown native who played his high school ball in Florida for IMG Academy — should also receive an early opportunity in the lineup. He was picked by Baseball America to wind up as the conference’s Freshman of the Year.
“Both of those guys have 100 or so games-played together at the college level, so that helps a great deal,” Gillispie said of the Akron transfers. “The offense [in general] should be more athletic and more powerful. So we should have a better ability to drive the ball, which should turn into more offense and run production.”
That would help YSU’s pitching staff, which posted a 5.81 ERA in 2015 and is led by junior arms Jeremy Quinlan (a Brookfield grad who went 3-6 with a 4.82 ERA last season) and lefty Joe King (2-4, 4.18 ERA).
Gillispie mentioned “four or five” freshmen may get looks in the starting rotation, while junior transfer Michael Semonsen — a lefty from Los Angeles Harbor College who was named the conference’s top prospect in the 2017 MLB draft class by D1Baseball.com — will surely get his opportunity.
As for the bullpen, junior closer Kevin Yarabinec returns (4.70 ERA in 2015), while the shortstop Willoughby should see relief action as well.
“The pitching aspect may be a little question mark just in the experience of it,” Gillispie said. “But the depth on the pitching from a stuff and quality standpoint is really good.”
After this weekend’s season-opening series, YSU heads out west next weekend for a three-game set with college baseball power Fresno State, which won the national championship in 2008. The Penguins, who feature eight Californians on their roster (second only to 14 Ohioans), scheduled the series for specific reasons.
“To put us on that stage and to compete in that atmosphere, I think that’s a plus,” Gillispie said. “They usually draw 4,000-5,000 fans there. ...Also, [California] is a place we will continue to recruit from. So we wanted to put our team in front of some people out there and get the name out there.”