MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — When the Big 12 preseason baseball poll revealed West Virginia picked ahead of three teams, Randy Mazey wondered if his fellow coaches were joking.
The Mountaineers lost their top three pitchers to the major league draft, graduated their entire bullpen and must replace the three leading hitters. It’s the kind of steep rebuilding job that typically brings a last-place projection.
“We were picked sixth, somehow, and I can’t figure that out,” Mazey said. “I can’t imagine anyone in America returns less innings than we do.”
West Virginia opens the 2015 season with a three-game series against Clemson that starts Friday.
Junior left-hander Ross Vance (3-4) is the only returning pitcher who won a game last season, when West Virginia finished 28-26 and fell out of NCAA regional contention during the final two weeks. Vance (58 innings) and Chad Donato (3.1 innings) are the lone holdovers from a staff that threw 478 innings in 2014.
Gone are former Big 12 pitcher of the year Harrison Musgrave (an eighth-round pick of the Rockies), John Means (11th round, Orioles), Sean Carley (14th round, Yankees) and Corey Walter (28th round, A’s).
“We’ve got some guys but they’re all young,” Mazey said. “They’re going to take their lumps.”
Vance, after emerging as a weekend starter during the middle of Big 12 play, isn’t so anonymous this season.
“Nobody expected a lot out of me last year,” he said. “It’s kind of nice to be in a leadership role now. We don’t really know how good we can be, but I think we’re capable of good things. Our pitching staff is better than what people think.”
Freshmen BJ Myers and Conner Dotson, both of Flower Mound, Texas, are the most highly touted pitching signees. Romney product Shane Ennis figures to make an impact also. Circumstances dictate they will get plenty of opportunities to make early impressions, and Mazey expects to ride out their inexperience.
“Last year if we scored four runs we felt pretty good about it,” he said. “This year if we score four runs a game we’re not going to feel good about it.”
Among the top returning hitters are outfielder Brad Johnson (.318, 17 RBIs), first baseman Jackson Cramer (.242, 14 RBIs), catcher Cameron O’Brien (.259, two homers, 18 RBIs), outfielder Shaun Wood (.226, three homers, 13 RBIs), third baseman Justin Fox (.226, 10 RBIs) and leadoff-hitting shortstop Taylor Munden (.261, two homers, 19 RBIs, 13 steals).
“We’ve got enough experienced guys in the lineup to score some runs, but it’s all about pitching,” Mazey said.
The coach is still sour about how 2014 ended—the Mountaineers losing nine of their final 10 games after posting a series win against eventual College World Series participant Texas. Despite having seven players drafted, WVU wasn’t able to end its 18-year NCAA tournament drought.
“I’m guilty of talking about it more than I should because that was a great lesson for this year’s team,” he said. “That was a good team last year, or we had good players—let me put it that way. After beating Texas two out of three we had an RPI in the low 20s. We had a great opportunity right there and we didn’t do anything with it.
“If we stay together and we’re all about each other instead of being about ourselves, then this team can overachieve, where I thought last year’s team underachieved.”
The Mountaineers are scheduled to play 22 of their first 23 games on the road. The March 17 home opener against Waynesburg is slated to christen the new off-campus ballpark.