The Alabama Crimson Tide Baseball team had a rough 2018 season, but head coach Brad Bohannon is confident the Tide will improve in 2019.
The University of Alabama baseball team wrapped up the 2018 season last in the SEC with a 8-22 SEC record and a 27-29 record overall. Bama’s major problem in 2018 was pitching as they let up 10 or more runs on six different occasions.
Although we will see many familiar faces on the mound this season, such as Sam Finnerty, who will likely be the Friday night starter again this season according to Bohannon, we will also see some new faces such as Wil Freeman, and Casey Cobb who are both JuCo transfers from Jones County Junior College and Chattahoochee Valley Community College respectively.
Head coach Brad Bohannon said that the 2018 pitching staff has to be the most unique staff he has ever worked with and we should expect to see “musical chairs” when it comes to the rotations we see this season.
“It will be musical chairs on the pitching staff, I think the first four weeks of the season you may see seven, eight, nine guys get an opportunity to start a game,” said Bohannon.
With the addition of at least 10 freshman onto the roster, Bama has a young team without much experience, something head coach Brad Bohannon pointed out on Monday “It’s pretty rare at this level to have so many new faces, I hope we don’t ever do it again, but again, I’m so grateful for our older players, they’ve done a tremendous job…”
Bohannon praised his returning players for acclimating the new guys into the program and showing them the ways of the Tide. With such a young and new team Bohannon said it was almost like coaching an entirely new group.
One of the only things the Crimson Tide did well in 2018 was when they played at home. Bama had a 22-13 record when playing at ‘The Joe’ last season, a mark that can be improved upon, but not bad at all, especially considering that these 22 wins were out of their 27 total wins.
Bama is definitely headed in the right direction with Bohannon at the reigns, Alabama’s 2017 recruiting class was ranked number 85 in the nation according to Perfect Game, but Bohannon’s first recruiting class at Alabama, the 2018 class, was ranked number 23 with the 2019 class sitting at 25.
Bohannon has always been a fantastic recruiter and he is already showing it in his second season at The Capstone.
Bohannon said he expects Alabama to at least compete in the SEC within the next couple of years even with the strength of the conference. In the preseason rankings the SEC has nine teams sitting in the top-40 including four in the top-11 with LSU and Vanderbilt holding the first and second spots, according to Baseballnews.com.
Bama kicks off their season against Presbyterian on Friday, February 15th, and SEC play kicks off a month later against Ole Miss on March 15th with Arkansas and Florida following in consecutive weeks.
2018 was head coach, Brad Bohannon’s first year at Alabama but he says he is much more comfortable going into the 2019 season and he’s ready to get the Crimson Tide back on track.
