Beaver Baseball loses prize recruit

Shane Sullivan a 2005 graduate of Capital High School and OSU Baseball recruit got signed by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays recently. Thus, we won't be playing for OSU. Sullivan went undrafted but ended up getting signed as a free agent.

It's too bad because he looked like another Jacoby Ellsbury after batting .471 with 6 HRs and 26 SBs.

Good luck Shane in the minors.

Capital slugger Sullivan signs deal with Tampa Bay

Quick Look at 2005 Beaver Baseball Players in the Pros - Jacoby Ellsbury

Three players from the OSU Beavers baseball team that made it to the CWS in Omaha got drafted and are playing in the Minors: Jacoby Ellsbury, Andy Jenkins, and Nate Fogle. Thought I'd check up and see how they are doing.

I'll start with...


Jacoby Ellsbury, Lowell Spinners (drafted by the Red Sox)

Name	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	TB	BB	SO	SB	CS	OBP	SLG	AVG
Jacoby Ellsbury	10	36	10	10	0	1	1	7	15	8	5	9	0	.422	.417	.278

Jacoby is leading the team in stolen bases even though he's only played in 10 games. The Spinners have played 37 total games. So that's cool. An impressive SB rate (no CS by the way). He's only batting .278 but his .422 OBP is pretty good considering he didn't walk at a real high rate in college. He's got a HR, but his OPS is only around .839. Not bad but hopefully that improves a bit. He's played in wood bat leagues so it shouldn't take too much to adjust. All in all a good start! Keep it up Jacoby!

Some recent articles:

Baseball America's Daily Dish (Ellsbury interview)

Boston Red Sox select Ellsbury (Ellsbury interview/article)

Early Oregon State Basketball Preview

Football hasn't started yet and people are already posting predictions of the OSU Men's Hoops team...

Collegehoops.net Top 144 - Oregon State Preview

Here is Joel Welser's prediction:

"...Projected Conference Rank: Losing David Lucas is huge and the loss of J.S. Nash doesn’t help either. Yet it is a solid team that will be built around Nick DeWitz, Chris Stephens, Sasa Cuic, Lamar Hurd and Jason Fontenet. There won’t be many easy games against Pac-10 opponents this year and the Beavers haven’t proven that they can do much of anything on the road. A few conference victories away from the Gill Coliseum would put OSU higher than 9th in the conference, but it will be tough for Jay John’s squad to pull that off. The bench has options and Kyle Jeffers would most likely get relegated to starting on the pine if OSU needed to play three guards with Jason Fontenet stepping into the starting role.

Projected Post-season Tournament: none..."


Yea, this is probably fairly accurate. Assuming no one makes any major improvements from last year and the newcomers don't make much of a splash I would predict they will be a little worse than last year. Probably just under .500. However, I think that people will improve and we should be able to at least sustain last year's level. Plus, everyone is in the tournament this year which means everyone has a better shot to win a first round game.

Looking at the new schedule, it does look a bit tough but about the same as last year. (Full Schedule)

BTW, we're not the only ones dealing with a big loss. Arizona (Frye, Stoudamire), ASU (Diogu), and Washington (Conroy, Robinson) all have pretty big holes to fill. Cal should be better with the return of their big man and Stanford is sure happy Hernandez stayed.

I predict the Beavs will parlay the confidence gained last season into a couple more road wins. If they get bigger crowds due to last season's success they may be able to repeat last seasons home record. That would be good, but they may not be able to win virtually every Pac-10 home game. So that would make it a wash.

It's a tough team to read and a lot depends on the success of players such as Jeffers, Hurd, and Angelo. Guys who haven't quite broken out to become major offensive threats. We need go to guys. Cuic and Stephens are go to guys as long as they can find some consistency. DeWitz is the go to guy. We need some breakout seasons from the new/young guys to really keep last season going and make a push for an even better season this year.

The first few games should be really revealing.


Go Beavs!

Patrick Fuller joins the Beavs

OSU Football just recieved a shot in the arm. 2004 recruit Patrick Fuller, who never quite made it into school last year has enrolled and will be available for the 2005 season. Nice. The Beavers needed some good news almost as bad as they need some running backs to replace Stephen Jackson. 2004 was a horrible rushing year for the Beavs. Without Derek Anderson the Beavs will need a good running attack to take some of the pressure off of their new quarterback (either Ryan Gunderson or Matt Moore). Plus, I just learned that another potential RB Burnley (at least he provides depth) has left school due to academic reasons.

Fuller was pretty good in high school and was recruited by many of the top schools in the nation. He had 2409 yards his senior year to go with 23 TDs.

Some articles about Fuller:

TB Fuller cleared to play this fall

For Fuller, getting in was the hard part (This is a great article)


Practice is almost here!

OSU Football Practive Dates are set

Finally! Football is nearly here. I don't want the summer to end quite yet, but I can't wait to see the Beavs in action again.

Here's an article from the official OSU web site detailing the dates:

Football Practice Dates Set


Scrimmage dates are not known yet.


Go Beavs!