Ty Neal’s 2nd Season Ends In Disappointment, Foundation Built For Future Success

Ty Neal’s second season as the skipper of Cincinnati Bearcats’ baseball team ended in about the same way as his first; a sub-.500 record with just six wins to speak of in the American Athletic Conference. On record alone it looked like UC regressed this past season, from 22 wins to just 15 in 2015, and you might be questioning why Whit Babcock replaced Brian Cleary two years ago.

At the time the reasons seemed pretty simple. Despite Cleary acting under the weight of less than the maximum allowable scholarships (thank you, Mike Thomas), his baseball teams never strayed from the middle of the pack. The argument could be made that he was able to do what he could with limited resource. UC never won the Big East under Cleary but they never finished dead last, either.

The problem was that more often than not the Bearcats deviated towards the bottom of the conference. Plus the players seemed more interested in postgame shenanigans than the games themselves. It was all in good fun but was indicative of a culture not conducive to success. Can you imagine if Tony Pike, Mardy Gilyard, and Isaiah Pead constantly photobombed Brian Kelly during his postgame interviews? He’d have them running wind sprints up and down Nippert’s steps faster than they could say

Ty Neal did away with all of that when he came to Cincinnati.

He hit reset button on UC’s baseball program from day 1, drilling down as far as he could go and rebuilding the Bearcats from the bottom-up. Neal emphasized the basics that make all baseball teams great; flawless fundamentals, unwavering teamwork, and that innate desire to do whatever it took to become better and eek out wins.

It was a culture shock to a program that was comfortable simply meandering through the baseball schedule, unaware if not uninterested of the fact that they were missing the NCAA Tournament more seasons than not.

Neal also went about reinvigorating the roster. He signed a massive recruiting class heading into this past season, including the #1 shortstop and fifth ranked overall player from Maryland Manny Rodriguez. Neal wound up adding twice as many freshman to the roster (21) as he had returning players (11). That’s perhaps the most encouraging aspect about the future of UC’s baseball program.

The Bearcats only graduate pitcher Ryan Atkinson this season. They’ll probably also lose Ian Happ to the majors, likely UC’s first ever first round MLB draft pick, but between the both of them Cincinnati’s hardly losing the core of their team.

Returning are sophomore R.J. Thompson and freshman Ryan Noda, who finished second behind Happ in batting average and home runs this season respectively. Noda and junior Devin Wenzel actually tied for second in RBIs. To the regular pitchers, the best ERA on the team was owned by sophomore Andrew Zellner, who also paced the Bearcats in innings pitched and saves. Right behind him in ERA was towering 6’8″ freshman Tristan Hammans (4.14) and fellow first year player Doug Lowe II finished the season with a 3.95 ERA.

That’s quite a bit of talent at Neal’s disposal in 2016.

While it might seem like insanity at times, UC’s skipper knows what he’s doing. He has a plan in place to create future success for Bearcats baseball. Just look what he accomplished with Ian Happ. Just Neal’s second year in the program and he’s churning out Cincinnati’s only first round draft pick to date. If that’s indicative of his abilities to coach up young players and develop winners, UC baseball is clearly in the right hands.