A year after David Pierce managed to reload instead of rebuild, the Longhorns enter the season with the potential to once again make a run to Omaha.
On the verge of a trip to the College World Series, head coach David Pierce’s most significant season with the Texas Longhorns was abruptly interrupted by a fly ball lost in the lights of Sunken Diamond during the Palo Alto Super Regional last year.
It’s important to remember how close the Longhorns came to making history by traveling to Omaha for the 39th time in a row, even though they had lower expectations after Pierce decided to restructure his coaching staff in the 2022 offseason in response to a season that began with high hopes of winning the program’s seventh national championship.
Texas should have those aspirations for every season, and even though the 2024 Longhorns are ranked No. 16 nationally and second in the Big 12 in D1Baseball’s preseason poll, the team is more than capable of competing for a trip to Omaha before Friday’s UFCU Disch-Falk Field season opener against San Diego.
Despite this, Pierce reorganized his coaching staff for the fourth time in the previous five offseasons following the Stanford defeat. He removed pitching coach Woody Williams after just one season, taking over that position himself, shifting Philip Miller back to an on-field position, and rehiring Troy Tulowitzki as Director of Player Development.
The biggest move is Pierce taking over as pitching coach. Pierce served as Wayne Graham’s assistant at Rice before taking on head coaching positions at Sam Houston and Tulane.
In an interview with Texas Sports Unfiltered, Pierce said, “I really enjoy and feel comfortable doing this, but I still have the ability to be involved with the team because I have great people around me.” “My goal is to remain the head coach and have the ability to effectively manage the team; I don’t want to be the pitching coach exclusively.”
After a very stable staff throughout his first eight years as head coach, Pierce has had difficulty in the last few years recruiting the appropriate players to surround him. Pierce hired Williams, who barely lasted one season on the Forty Acres in his first Division I job, after firing volunteer assistant Phil Haig in 2019 in favor of Tulowitzki. Pierce had previously moved longtime assistant Sean Allen into the pitching coach position. Allen was fired after the 2022 season.
“Being in the thick of things and having done it for a while, I kind of know what I want to see and what to expect, so it can be combative at times,” Pierce stated in January.
Chris Gordon, the Hitting and Pitching Development Coordinator and a former pitching coach at Duke, provides analytical and logistical support to Pierce.
Without Chris Gordon, who is an expert in analytics and proficient in daily setup and preparation, I couldn’t accomplish this work. Pierce remarked, “I couldn’t do it without someone who could come in and kind of set the stage and have all the prep done, and then I could coach.”
Stability on the field should help the Longhorns; the 2023 squad lost eight players, including standout pitchers Tanner Witt and Lebarron Johnson Jr., and important players Porter Brown, Jack O’Dowd, and Peyton Powell, to the 2022 MLB Draft. However, the 2023 draft was arguably more fortunate for Texas than any other in the previous 20 years.
During an appearance on On Texas Football, Pierce stated, “We had five guys that we got back that we didn’t expect to get back.”
The signing class also included pitcher Travis Sykora, who was long thought to be a near-certain pick in the first round of the draft. More crucially, however, Pierce’s program saw the addition of first baseman Casey Borba and outfielder Will Gasparino, two of the top 100 prospects in the game.
In contrast to the 2022 offseason, when first baseman Gavin Kash transferred to Texas Tech and became a star for the Red Raiders, former closer Aaron Nixon left for Mississippi State, and talented pitcher Josh Stewart left for Texas A&M, Texas did suffer some attrition through the transfer portal. Most notably, after failing to capitalize on an extremely promising freshman season, starting shortstop Mitchell Daly left for Kentucky.
Although two preseason losses hurt those efforts—Duke transfer first baseman Luke Storm is stepping away from baseball for personal reasons, and Notre Dame transfer left-hander Will Mercer is out for the season due to injury—the staff was able to largely add depth through the portal instead of trying to find starters because the MLB Draft worked out in favor of Texas. Prospects to keep an eye on are LSU and McLennan College transfer pitcher Grant Fontenot, Blinn transfer pitcher Gage Boehm, San Diego and Chabot College transfer outfielder Casey Cummings, and Penn transfer outfielder Seth Werchan.
After a significant roster overhaul the previous season, the 2024 Texas team had a better balance of returning players and gifted rookies.
“We’ve got a great mix of youthful energy and experienced leaders, and we’ve added some depth,” Pierce remarked.
The program’s identity and culture, which emerged late in the previous season after splitting the Big 12 title with a convincing performance against West Virginia to end the regular season, are carried over by the returnees. This helped the team emerge from the significant shadow of the 2021 and 2022 teams and set the stage for three intense games in Palo Alto.
“At a place like Texas, where everyone knows that there’s that chance, that real aspiration of playing for a national championship, and it’s pretty evident through our building of, that’s the goal, that’s the plan, and so that’s the standard, you could see them kind of taking the identity of who they are now as a team,” Pierce said.
Pierce claims that the Longhorns are in a better roster position as a result of the growing pains experienced in 2023 as well as the favorable MLB Draft results. In contrast, last year’s team struggled to establish roles in the starting rotation and bullpen, relying on young players at multiple positions and in depth.
We have the potential to be a cohesive squad since there are many strong parts, in my opinion.
