The “drink from the firehose,” as Jason Dietrich described his first year at the wheel of the Ferrari of Cal State Fullerton’s athletic department was still fresh in his mouth last fall when he spoke to the survivors and newcomers about what awaited them in Year Two of the Great Baseball Overhaul.
To understand Dietrich’s audience, it’s necessary to parse who some of the 17 survivors and 22 newcomers to the Cal State Fullerton baseball team were and what they represented in the big picture. Because that picture would eventually frame the season and what transpired.
Let’s start with the survivors, which included the likes of starting pitchers Tyler Stultz and Fynn Chester, outfielder Nate Nankil, utilityman Caden Connor, third baseman Zach Lew, catcher Cole Urman and reliever Evan Yates. They were among the ones who survived Dietrich’s postseason purge of the CSUF baseball program last summer.
That purge came in the wake of a 22-33 overall record and a 14-16, seventh-place Big West finish, when Dietrich and his staff whittled the roster from 43 in the fall of 2021 to 20 by the end of the 2022 season. The purge was so all-consuming that Dietrich said at the end of last season some of the 20 players who got to the end of that season wouldn’t be back.
The newcomers, which included transfer arrivals like closer Jojo Ingrassia, infielder Maddox Latta and outfielder/pitcher Moises Guzman, were coming into a program in flux. The Ferrari was on blocks and they were expected to help the survivors get it out of the garage. Sooner, rather than later.
“As a coaching staff, we have to do our best to paint a picture,” Dietrich said. “We worked hard all fall to create the picture of what it meant to be a Cal State Fullerton baseball player. We went over the beliefs and the culture and talked about the direction of the program and where we’re at. It took a lot of trust on both parties, but at the end, they bought into what we were striving for. At the end, they bought into all of it.
“We did a good job of getting the kids to believe in themselves and understand what it means to play baseball at Cal State Fullerton. That’s what we did in the fall: stress the importance of what this program means to the alumni and to build pride.”
To see what that picture looked like come June 2023, we drop in on another talk Dietrich had with the Titans. That came in late May, with the Titans on the cusp of their first Big West title in five years — despite an eight-game losing streak in May that threatened to derail what was a 11-4 March and 13-5 April. Prior to that stumble, the Titans won nine consecutive series, including taking two of three from Cal State Northridge, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara, their three closest pursuers.
CSUF went up to San Luis Obispo for the season’s final weekend needing one win in three games against a team that swept the Titans at Goodwin Field in 2022 and won all four in SLO in 2021.
Dietrich had the picture framed and ready to go.
“One thing I told them is ‘If I told you guys at our first team meeting that you were going to be tied going into the last week of the season and we had a chance to compete for the Big West title, how many of you would have taken it?’
“They all raised their hands.”
Their games followed their hands. The Titans — behind Stultz’s nine-strikeout outing and Urman’s 3-for-4, three-run, two-RBI effort — won that first game, 9-4 for their 30th win of the season. They’d take two of three, enough to finish 20-10 in the Big West and one game behind conference champion UC San Diego, which — due to its transitional status to Division 1 — was ineligible for postseason play. That gave CSUF the Big West’s automatic berth in the NCAA regionals — its first postseason trip since 2018.
That familiar occurrence brought a familiar trip to the Stanford Regional, where a 12-7 loss to Texas A&M — courtesy of 12 walks — and a 6-5 loss to Stanford bookended a 9-5 beating of San Jose State.
No matter. The picture in Dietrich’s second year rebuilding the Ferrari was overwhelmingly positive. The Titans improved by 10 games overall and by six games in the Big West. When you parse the numbers further, CSUF’s season was nothing short of remarkable.
Offensively, the Titans were seventh in the conference in team hitting (.277). They were sixth in on-base percentage (.374), fourth in runs (345), fourth in hits (540) seventh in home runs (37), and seventh in slugging (.406). They weren’t in the conference’s top three in any significant offensive category, although they did lead the conference in doubles and were second in walks.
The pitching numbers tell the same story. The Titans were seventh in team ERA (5.10), fifth in opponent’s batting average (.282), fourth in walks allowed (232) and fifth in runs allowed (313). They were third in strikeouts (490), with a team-high 90 of those coming from Stultz.
Truly a picture of the whole surpassing the sum of the parts.
“It was a good season for many reasons,” Dietrich said. “The uncertainty of going into the season with 17 returners and 22 newcomers. You’re trying to figure out what you have and to the players’ credit, they did a good job building chemistry. …
“We enjoyed being around them. This was a fun group of guys to be around,” Dietrich said. “The older guys and the new guys meshed, and they worked hard. During practice, it was good to see how they went about their business. They bought into what we were trying to do and they enjoyed each other. They bought into the accountability we set out for them.”
Nankil was the Titans’ lone All-Big West First-Team selection. The junior outfielder hit .307 with 37 runs and 38 RBI to go with a .827 OPS (on-base plus slugging). He led the conference with 21 doubles and his 75 hits were fourth in the Big West. Connor, who hit a team-best .333 with 40 RBI, 36 runs and 20 doubles, joined Ingrassia on the second team. Ingrassia (5-2, 2.63) tied for fourth in the conference with his seven saves.
Chester, Stultz, Lew, Urman and Yates were all honorable mention selections. Chester and Stultz won seven games apiece, tying for second in the conference. Lew led the Titans with seven home runs, 43 runs and 43 RBI.
Which brings us to the next entry on Dietrich’s to-do list: improving the Titans’ relative lack of depth, especially on the mound. Complicating matters is the fact he’ll lose Lew, Stultz, Chester and outfielder Carter White. He could lose Nankil, Connor and Urman to next month’s Major League Baseball draft. Dietrich said that key trio may return for their senior seasons if they don’t get drafted high enough.
That means Dietrich has another firehose to drink from. He must plan for them leaving — while accounting for them staying. That means juggling scholarship money and filling in pieces that may not need filling next year. This, with 17 new players coming in next season, including nine pitchers. They’ll join pitchers like Yates and Christian Rodriguez, who sat out 2023 after Tommy John surgery.
“I thought we were light on the mound. They competed, not to take anything away from them,” Dietrich said. “But if we had a couple of extra arms, it would have made a difference. … That’s where your depth is tested. We weren’t that deep. We were better than we were last year, but we were still light. But the one thing I liked about our guys is we competed our butts off. …
“I’m excited for next year, excited for the program and excited for the alumni.”
Nobody said drinking from a firehose — or driving a Ferrari — was easy. It just looked that way.