Red Raider Baseball has now received its sixth preseason ranking within the Top 4 in the country from the major services, solidifying a consensus selection in the upper echelon of college baseball to start the season once again. The Red Raiders’ have seen lofty expectations across baseball media despite losing rotation pitchers Clayton Beeter and Bryce Bonnin to the MLB Draft, and reliever John McMillon and 2B Brian Klein to UDFA contracts. Tim Tadlock and company continue to put together impressive recruiting classes bolstered by the #1 JUCO classes over the last two seasons. That bears out as Texas Tech has seen multiple individual and team preseason honors come their way, but is it enough?
Even with the accolades as they are, it still feels as if Texas Tech is somehow flying under the radar, and that’s not a new feeling. The national media talks extensively about the SEC, in particular this season’s Florida Gators who somehow emerged from the shortened draft with an intact starting rotation. You will generally never find me singing the praises of one of the newer additions to the national college baseball landscape the 11Point7 Podcast. But in a particularly uninformed moment, one of their hosts asserted that the Red Raiders were not going to amount to much this season because they lost Josh Jung (who was drafted in 2019) and Micah Dallas (who is still on the team). In a recent episode of the Baseball America College Baseball Podcast, Teddy Cahill and Joe Healy found a way to talk about whether or not Texas Tech was on the level of UCLA, while also not talking about the Red Raiders at all. D1 Baseball.com is undoubtedly the most plugged into the sport and its contenders, and Texas Tech continues to “plug ‘n chug’ in the words of Kendall Rogers. Finding impressive replacements for major contributors and never seeming to miss a beat on a constant march towards longer and longer runs in Omaha. But somehow information about the team continues to be sparse at the national level, and the Red Raiders are one of the top four teams in college baseball without a single First Team All-American on the roster from any outlet.
Coach Tadlock is fond of telling his team “Be where your feet are.” As a reminder to stay grounded and keep working day to day, and pitch to pitch, rather than focusing on the rest of the noise. Knowing that, I’m willing to bet that the skipper is totally fine with eyes being on others while he and his coaching staff put together another impressive team focused on playing in the final series of the season. I’m sure the “I told you so” and “that’s why we picked them so high” comments will abound at the national level later in the season when the seemingly magic formula of roster management, lineup, and extremely hard work once again manifests itself in the Red Raiders sitting in the Big 12’s catbird seat. Despite national media looking elsewhere for storylines, and the majority of their Preseason All-American selections, they’ll of course have known all along.
Dinger Derby will have a Fall Recap and Spring Lookahead episode coming your way soon and there, we will talk about the newcomers coming to the Red Raiders this season, what we’re seeing for potential rotation and lineups, and who we expect to be a major contributor for Texas Tech that isn’t receiving enough notice from the louder voices around the sport.
Thanks for reading Red Raider Dugout!
