WF baseball season preview: My Take

You better have an umbrella handy because it’s time to rain on this parade.

All that joy about a repeat trip to Omaha is about to be killed.

Don’t you know how foolish it is to book plane tickets and Airbnbs before a pitch is thrown?

OK, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get serious.

Wake Forest’s baseball program has retooled and reloaded as it aims to stay in the top tier of the sport. The price of having an older team that won 54 games last year was seeing so many key pieces drafted; the staying power of the Deacons is seen in bringing in high-caliber transfers and freshmen who fit this program’s new profile.

Not so long ago this was a spiraling program. It was once written by yours truly that, “When the Deacons hit, they don’t pitch. When the Deacons pitch, they don’t hit. And the defense has constantly been atrocious.”

Hardly the case now. Wake Forest has more talent than it did three years ago, but it goes deeper.

There was one quote that stood out above the rest when coach Tom Walter met with media before the first official practice last week.

“We’re very careful about who we bring in out of the portal because we can’t take a chance on them detracting from our team culture,” he said. “I told our team recently, ‘It used to be if you were talented enough but you didn’t make the clubhouse better, you could survive here. And it used to be if you made the clubhouse better but you weren’t talented enough, you could survive here.’

“Those days are gone. You have to do both now, which is a testament to our assistant coaches and the roster that we’ve built.”

Culture and chemistry, as much as an influx of talent, are the foundations on which you can visualize a team returning only two starters in the field and one weekend starting pitcher going from preseason No. 1 to finishing the season there.

It’s hard to pinpoint the most impressive thing about last season. Pitching is where the conversation starts. And then you shift to how improved Wake’s defense was. The explosiveness of a lineup that had five draft picks, plus another couple of them due to be picked in the upcoming drafts — it all registers impressive.

I always land on the most impressive aspect, though, being how many of Wake’s draft-eligible players had the best seasons of their careers.

That’s somewhere between abnormal and anomaly in college baseball. It’s a sport that places immense pressure under regular circumstances — the whole “being successful three out of 10 times makes you a Hall of Famer” cliché. Pile onto that the scouts behind home plate, the looming six- or seven-figure bonuses coming within a month or two of the end of your season, it’s reasonable to expect regression for draft-eligible players.

Last season’s surge of those Deacons was made possible by — again — culture and chemistry.

You’ll remember the names and numbers of last year for a long time. Wake Forest is going to get back to Omaha, maybe this year, maybe not; but last year’s team will always hold distinction as being the first one since 1955.

We’ll see how well this year’s crop of Deacons handles it.

In the nitty gritty details of this team, there’s one part of games that should grab your attention early.

There were already questions about Wake’s bullpen before news of Cole Roland’s injury. Without the only reliever who got significant innings for the Deacons last season, the first few weeks of the season are going to be Ground Zero for establishing relief roles.

That could go well. It could also cost the Deacons a few wins. There’s no way of knowing — other than the confidence that comes from pitching coach Corey Muscara.

I’m torn with one aspect so I’ll lay it out both ways:

- First, don’t fall for the “hunter becomes the hunted” storylines you’re bound to see. Wake Forest was highly regarded in the preseason polls a year ago and its hot start meant the Deacons were the team to beat in the ACC by April, perhaps earlier. And you weren’t the hunter when carrying a No. 2 or 1 ranking from early spring to Omaha.

- Although … the roster turnover on this team means most of the players in key roles, be it positions on the field or pitchers, didn’t experience that transition last year. Chase Burns, coming from Tennessee, is the only newcomer with an idea of what it’s like to be on the team everybody in the country wants to beat.

We’re here for a third time: It’s Wake’s culture and chemistry within the program, more than the top-end talent, that will make or break this team’s goal of not just returning to Omaha, but of winning the national championship.

So, with all that in mind, you should remember one thing:

Nobody is staying at the Omaha Zoo Hotel.

Editor’s note: This is the sixth and final part of a series of stories previewing Wake Forest’s 2024 baseball season. With the Deacons coming off a trip to the College World Series and reloading for another shot at Omaha, get a sneak peak at how they stack up before the Feb. 16 opener. If you’d like to read other entries in the series, links can be found here.