I've seen a lot of Gopher fans and other teams fans talk about our team for next year. South Dakota State Radio announcer was commenting on how the Gophers are only graduating five players. A lot of people have been saying this. People are also talking about Zach from North Dakota coming to Minnesota to pitch. After all Zach is from Delano. Let's take a look at the realistic scenario and the dream scenario.
Realistic Scenario - I've heard from good sources that it would be unrealistic to think the Gophers are going to return all their Juniors for next year. Some are probably going to get drafted and leave early. Secondly, Zach is a long shot in coming here, but having our pitching coach in hospice care makes it even more doubtful. With Zach being a pro prospect, he probably isn't going to come to a place where the pitching coach position is up in the air.
Dream Scenario - Gophers only lose five seniors and all their juniors come back for next year. Plus Zach comes here. If this happens John Anderson would have his best team ever, and it would not even be close comparing the dream team to his other ones.
Your starting rotation would be Zach, Fielder, and Gilbreath. Gilbreath had a stellar season in the Northwoods league as starting pitcher and he is heading out to Cape Cod this Summer. That's where all the top pitching prospects go. I guarantee he'll be a starting pitcher there and he'll be on the Cape Cod All star team. There is no way the coaches will keep Gilbreath in the bullpen next year, even IF Zach, and Fiedler are on the team. What about Toby? You would tell Toby that he is going to pitch in the mid-week games, but instead of giving him just 3 innings, you let him pitch as many innings as he can go. Your mid-week games would be based on the present more than the future. It would focus more on getting your fourth starter innings than giving a bunch of pitchers innings. Every year coaches decide how much to play for the present and how much to play for the future. With a team so talented, I'd play for the present, even in mid-week games. Zach, Fielder, Gilbreath, and Toby would probably be the best four man rotation in College Baseball.
Bullpen would be the only concern. You would not need much of a bullpen with those four starting pitchers. Having 4 Seniors (Glowicki, Hansen, Shannon, and Campbell) and 2 juniors (Fashing, and Manke), plus Lackney coming off the bench, it should be an above average bullpen considering how many upperclassmen are coming back.
Offense would be even more dangerous and powerful considering you'd only lose Dan and Connor. The rest of your starters and bench players would be back. It would be the best offense in College baseball. It's pretty close this year in accomplishing that feat. Our Home runs would improv dramactically with all our power hitters back.
It would be awesome if this happened in the dream scenario but it's a longshot. Then again the thought of the Gophers winning the Big Ten title this year was a longshot also.
