Mizzou Baseball showing out in summer 2019

It’s no secret that the end of the 2019 college baseball season was a disappointing one for the Mizzou Tigers. We’ve covered it well on this space... no need to pile on.

However, it’s good to see the players haven’t taken it to heart. A quick look around summer league stats show that there are some Mizzou products who look determined to come back better than ever in 2020.

Swanger, a rising sophomore, only had 41 at-bats in his freshman season, slashing .195/.277/.366. Improving on his slugging percentage by nearly 33 percent is certainly a welcome sign for a team losing arguably its two best hitters.

Rising junior Ian Bedell was a more familiar face, pitching more than 40 innings over 18 appearances. He had an impressive 1.56 ERA in mostly relief appearances. It’s good to see him getting stretched out over the summer, but Bieser should be able to slot him in wherever with the loss of several starters and relievers to the draft.

We’ll be keeping an eye out for other players on next year’s roster who may be tearing up their respective leagues.

However, it’s not just the college guys getting the job done. #MizzouMade infielder Robbie Glendinning was just named the Pittsburgh Pirates Player of the Month ($$) for June, and made the Pitcher List Minor League Sleeper Team of the Week.

“There’s not much impressive about a 23-year-old doing well in High-A” which is completely fair—except he’s kept it up since being called up to Double-A. A very small 79 plate appearance sample shows the same very good results with a .962 OPS, .214 ISO, and three home runs since being called up. From what I can tell, the key to his improvements has been a huge jump in fly-ball rate from 24% a year ago to 37% this season, which could reasonably be the reason for the jump in power.

The whole blurb on Glendinning is very fun to read, especially if you paid attention to his college career. He was always a heavy-hitting, light-fielding guy. As a 21st round pick, the odds were certainly stacked against him. But AA is a serious level of competition, and he’ll be able to earn himself major brownie points if he can continue to produce there.

Of course, players like Max Scherzer, Tanner Houck and T.J. Sikkema continue to impress... but you didn’t need to be told that, did you?

More Links:

• It’s short, but I did find this short interview with Dru Smith very interesting, especially the stuff about how Smith says he’ll be able to help the team.

• Nicodemus out here ‘CROOTIN

• [sigh]

• For premium PowerMizzou subscribers, Gabe offered up his Monday morning thoughts and Sean Williams took a closer look at the in-state football class for 2020.
• Tickets! Get your tickets here!