Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello met with the media on Thursday morning for the first time ahead of the 2024 season.
The Vols open Vitello’s seventh season as a fringe top 10 team as they look to return to the College World Series for the third time in four seasons.
Here’s four takeaways on what Vitello said.
Zane Denton Situation Remains In Flux
One of the biggest storylines of the preseason is the status of third baseman Zane Denton who originally announced plans to return for his super senior season but then missed the entirety of the Vols’ fall practice.
With the season just over three weeks away, Denton’s status is still in flux.
“There’s nothing crazy going on,” Vitello said. “And I don’t think you all will be provided an aha moment. Like this is a straight conclusion. It’s not that easy. There’s a lot of factors to it. I just visited with him recently, we hang out. He’s in a good place. We’re in a good place. Just trying to figure out what he’s going do with his future.”
There’s a lot of moving pieces with this situation and Vitello made it sound like we shouldn’t expect an immediate resolution. We’ll continue to monitor this one moving forward and you can read more about it here.
Two Main Contenders Remain At Shortstop
I asked Vitello about the shortstop competition and Tennessee’s head coach provided some coach speak before revealing two important notes.
“The one thing we got out in the fall was CMo (Christian Moore) established that he can play that position,” Vitello said. “Then also Ariel (Antigua) was kind of the guy that was, based off what teammates said and other coaches, kind of the guy that was a leading candidate at that spot as well.”
Now a lot of Vitello’s coach speak was correct. Tennessee is going to have competition there throughout the season and they don’t have a resolution right away. But Moore and Antigua are the top two candidates.
Moore is a proven SEC star and is capable of making the transition from second base to shortstop. Antigua is an extremely talented true freshman with a high defensive ceiling and a strong bat. In 14 intrasquad scrimmages myself or other media members watched this fall, Antigua hit eight-of-27 with five extra-base hits and seven RBIs.
One thing working in Antigua’s favor is that there’s no obvious replacement for Moore at second base if he were to move over from shortstop.
A More Congruent Team At This Stage
At this time last year Vitello was telling anyone that would listen that his team wasn’t as good as its preseason No. 2 ranking. He later went on to talk about how his team with a number of new faces didn’t truly become a team until they faced struggles the first half of SEC play.
That isn’t a problem for this Tennessee team. First baseman Blake Burke discussed about how this team came together quickly in the summer and in the early fall with activities other than baseball. Vitello echoed much of the same sentiment.
“But the build up to this point so far has been, it’s been great and I shouldn’t say that, but I’m just being honest,” Vitello said. “I think the kind of Rubik’s cube for this team will not be, how do we kind of come together as a group and start kind of all pulling in the same direction or whatever it might be. It’d be more just, what’s the right recipe, who belongs where and are guys willing to put their personal wants and their ego aside a little bit to fulfill this role.”
Vitello isn’t making any bold proclamations about his team at this stage but he seems comfortable with where they’re at at this stage.
There’s A Lot Of Bats That Are Going To Get Early Opportunities
Tennessee’s infield is pretty set. Blake Burke is going to start at first base, Billy Amick is going to start at third base and Christian Moore is going to start at one middle infield spot. Cannon Peebles is almost certainly going to be the top catcher though multiple will play.
But there’s still a number of questions surrounding the outfield and DH spot. Hunter Ensley is back in center field and Dylan Dreiling is a rising star who will likely start in left field. But that still leaves Kavares Tears, Reese Chapman, Dalton Bargo and a handful of talented freshman.
On Thursday, Vitello mentioned Bargo, junior college transfer first baseman Robin Villeneuve, two-way junior college transfer Marcus Phillips and the deep catcher group as guys that will get opportunities early in the season.
The first month of the season will be fascinating for Tennessee to find out who will be consistent starters and who will be its top bench bats.
