Posted by David Wade on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 11:50 am

This is my debut covering University of Kentucky baseball.  I consider myself lucky to be working with the U.K. Athletic Department, and the baseball team in particular, as I know from my experience with their camps that they are a great group of guys.  I’m also fortunate because this could be a historic year as the Wildcats appear positioned to make a serious run at their first College World Series appearance.  I’ll get to the basis of my optimism for that in a moment, but would first like to review the past few years, during which the program has established itself as a contender in what is arguably the toughest conference in the country.

In the 1990s, Kentucky advanced to the SEC Baseball Tournament seven times and had three seasons of at least a .500 record in regular season Conference play.  They were solid, if not spectacular teams and produced some players that went on to professional ball. 

In 2002, the Athletic Department hired Mitch Barnhart and the former Oregon State A.D. brought a desire to improve U.K. Athletics across the board and baseball has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of that ambition.  In 2004, he hired Florida assistant coach John Cohen to succeed coach Keith Madison after the latter resigned following his 25th season at U.K. 

Cohen brought an offensive philosophy of crowding the inside part of the plate and focusing on on-base-percentage to Kentucky.  I remember one interview he did on the radio where he talked a lot about statistics in baseball.  One thing in particular he mentioned was innings where an offense scores 3 or more runs almost always has at least a walk, an error, or a hit by pitch.  He didn’t abandon sacrifice bunts completely, but his hatred of making outs led to some very productive offensive years for the Wildcats.

Under his direction, he took the program to a higher level than it had ever seen.  In just his third year, the Wildcats won their first South Eastern Conference regular season title in 2006, piling up a school-record 44 wins.  Cohen had two more successful years before moving on in the summer of 2008 to a job he could not turn down- Mississippi State, where he had played college ball.  

His successor, Gary Henderson, took over for Cohen after serving as his pitching coach.  Since Henderson took charge, Kentucky has featured outstanding team pitching every year and 2010 looks to be even better.  Another one of Henderson’s strengths is in getting good players, where he and recruiting coordinator Brad Bohannon have brought in major talent to Lexington.  He has kept the team’s momentum going by consistently bringing in some of the best recruiting classes in College Baseball. 

Baseball America had Kentucky just outside their ranking of top 25 recruiting classes in 2007, but then the ’08 class came in at a school-record 4th and was backed up by a strong follow-up ranking of 15th last year.  This sets up the Wildcats to be very competitive in the SEC next year (even though many of the teams that have done as well in recruiting as U.K. are also in their conference).  Henderson has kept up his recruiting push this off-season, as several of the best high school players in the state signed Letters of Intent to play in Lexington in mid-November.  Among those are three pitchers that showed impressive strikeout rates as high school juniors in 2009 and appear to be the type that could flourish under Henderson. 

It’s not just talent that the U.K. staff is after.  Assistant Coach Keith Vorhofftold me this past summer that a player’s character is of paramount importance when coaches go talk to young players.  The program looks for individuals they feel can be leaders on and off the field.  The staff believes that while competing in the SEC is difficult given the strength of their opponents, they are able to use their geographic advantage as the northern-most school in the conference to reach out to kids that want to compete against the best in college baseball, but can do so while staying a little closer to home. 

Although the strength of the younger players gives hope for big things in 2010 for the Wildcats, the biggest reason for optimism may be pitcher James Paxton.  The returning senior chose to finish his Kentucky career despite being selected 37th overall in this past summer’s MLB amateur draft.  UK Athleticsnotes that Baseball America has Paxton rated as one of the top ten college prospects for next year’s draft.  He will join righty Alex Meyer to form one of the best one-two weekend starters in the country and gives Kentucky a good chance to host their first NCAA Regional since 2006. 

I look forward to following this team as it is loaded with talent, but an added benefit will be watching the competition that will come through Lexington in the spring of 2010.  Some of the best players in college baseball will make stops in central Kentucky as Ole Miss, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Louisville, and defending College World Series champion LSU all visit Lexington next year.  The full schedule is available here.