WSU Baseball: News And Notes Before Miss. State

Jason Monda takes some swings against Bret DeRooy
at practice on Tuesday night.

Just a few things to pass along from todays teleconference with Coach Marbut at 11:30 and scrimmage; after the jump I have audio from a few player interviews and another chat with Coach Marbut.

Before we get to the audio though, let's talk a little positioning! Sounds like Jason Monda will be playing in left field to start off the season, an interesting choice but there is so much talent in the outfield it's really not that surprising. Kyle Johnson will be starting in center, where I figured Monda would be.

The starting rotation for opening weekend against Mississippi State will be as follows:

Friday: J.D. Leckenby (R)
Saturday: Kyle Swannack (R)
Sunday: Tanner Chleborad (R)

That's three righties and three pitchers who were not in the rotation last season, should be interesting. Leckenby is exciting, very exciting and I can't wait to see what he can do this year on Fridays. Swannack is a transfer from Bellevue College and the very little I've seen from him in practice is encouraging, let's just say he's talented. Chleborad is a hard-throwing freshman and the staff is incredibly high on this kid. I know that eventually they see Chleborad as the Friday night starter, meaning we could potentially have two aces in the near future if him and Leckenby develop as projected.

After the jump, some talk about our closer this season and audio from scrimmage.

EDIT: Just updated the post with the video from Coach Marbut's teleconference today!



Anthony Drobnick will move from the set-up role last year into the closer role this year, he pitched very well out of the pen last year and should be a good closing man.

Here's the stats from last season for Drobnick:

Player 2011	IP	AB	H	HR	K	BB	HBP	ER	ERA	WHIP	FIP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	Opp. Avg.
Anthony Drobnick	17.2	70	20	0	16	5	0	11	5.61	1.42	2.76	8.15	2.55	0.00	0.286

Small sample size, of course, but that 8.15 K/9 and 2.76 FIP are promising.

Coach Marbut had an internet chat with fans this afternoon over on the WSU Athletics website, if you'd like to check that out you can right here.

I'll be providing regular WSU baseball coverage here of course, but another great source online for WSU baseball analysis will come from Jeff Nusser at CougCenter and his subscription based Cougar Sports Weekly. Between the two of us we'll have you completely covered when it comes to WSU baseball!

For those perhaps wondering, the dimensions for Dudy-Noble Field, where Mississippi State plays, are as follows:

LF: 330
LC: 376
CF: 390
RC: 374
RF: 326

It's 330 down the lines and 400 to dead center at Bailey-Brayton, so the team will be playing in a slightly smaller stadium to start out the season, hopefully Ard and Jones can get off to a hot start.

Now for the audio! My fellow baseball writer, Adam Lewis, caught up with J.D. Leckenby, Taylor Ard and Coach Marbut for some preview questions about Mississippi State. I asked a few questions as well. Pretty interesting quote from Marbut about what might make him stop coaching, gotta listen to find out!

J.D. Leckenby - Miss. St. Preview (Click Me To play)

Taylor Ard - Miss. St. Preview (Click Me To Play)

Donnie Marbut - Miss. St. Preview (Click Me To Play)