A look at WVU

May 31, 2025, 12:41 PM

Here's my 2nd book in the series I’m trying to get published, just waiting to hear back from some agents. The second team Clemson plays in the home regional is the 2nd seeded WVU Mountaineers. They have been the best team in the Big 12 this year, flirting with a top 15 national ranking pretty much the whole year. They have sputtered as of late, going 4-9 in their last 13, including the B12 tournament. They had a very good win yesterday against Kentucky, with an incredible ptiching performance by Griffin Kirn and Reese Bassinger. The offense did okay, getting 7 hits in 32 ABs, but really only hit singles, they had a couple of doubles, but a pretty average performance. Hopefully Knaak can make sure they repeat that performance today, 4 runs is most definitely beatable.

One thing to note is the stats I listed are from BEFORE the two games played yesterday, so the UK-WVU and Clemson-USCU games are not accounted for.

Long story short, it looks like they love playing small ball. With about 20 less homers than Clemson (seems like the first time all season Clemson has the HR advantage against a quality team), most of their hits stay in the park, and that is the way they want it. They value contact, putting the ball in play about 72% of plate appearances, higher than the 63% Clemson does (this comes out to about 4 more balls in play per game).

However, with little power and a lot of contact, they still only have just under a 0.300 average. But when they do get on, they are not afraid to steal bases, with 105 SB’s on 137 tries, resulting in a 77% success rate. They have 5 guys with over 10 stolen bases, way more than Clemson’s two (Purify and Listi). They look to get guys on and steal runs as much as they can. On the flipside, opponents have stolen 43 bases on 55 attempts, which is a 78% success rate; look for our guys to try to take bags often and get runners in scoring position, which worked well last night against Upstate.

Otherwise, Clemson and WVU have nearly identical batting numbers which might be an advantage for Clemson, due to the ACC having superior competition to the B12. Maybe battling against better pitching will help the Tigers adapt to the WVU staff today.

WVU’s best hitter by far is Kyle West, who rotates between LF, 1B, and DH, but will mainly play in left. He is the only hitter on the roster who has an OPS above 1.000 and has the most homers on the team with 10. Ironically, he is tied for 4th on the team in RBIs, but it looks like they are going with a more modern lineup order and batting him 2nd, potentially lowering RBI chances. They have a couple of other hitters who have done really well, the two are Jace Rineheart (RF) and Sam White (DH) with respective OPS’s of 0.969 and 0.932 (before playing UK). One thing to note is that the manager subs out West and Rineheart about every game for pinch runners/defensive replacements, so if it’s a close game, 2 of their best hitters could be replaced by any of three guys whose OPS’s are 0.800, 0.583, and 0.462.

Pitching is a different story. The team ERA for WVU is 4.28, much lower than 5.05 for the Tigers. The real noticeable difference is WVU does not give up homers as much as Clemson does, giving up just under 1 homerun per 9 innings (compared to Clemson’s 1.4 per 9).

They have two concrete and reliable starters, Griffin Kirn and Jack Kartsonas. Kirn will normally start Fridays, and depending on that result, Kartsonas sometimes starts the Sunday game with a bullpen game on the other day. The main similarity between WVU and Clemson lies in the lack of a definite third starter. This seems to be somewhat recent development, as they do have Gavin Van Kempen, who started 13 games this season with a 6.13 ERA. They also have 10 total pitchers with at least one start, so the opener isn’t necessarily set, although they probably run out van Kempen, as he has been used the most as a strict opener since they started bullpen games. The guy to follow and will probably get the bulk of innings is Reese Bassinger, who is the best overall reliever on the WVU roster. He has the 3rd most innings pitched (behind the two starters) but has zero starts on the year. He is used in about every situation they have; he does long relief, setup situations, and even closes. He’s tied for the most saves with 5 on the year, along with primary(?) closer Carson Estridge. Bassinger is no slouch either with a 3.88 ERA and a 1.020 WHIP, so by no means is he an easy matchup. For comparison’s sake, he’s a very similar pitcher to Jacob McGovern, just a guy who will pitch in any situation for as long as needed and will do it effectively.

Outside of the starters, the bullpen is full of quality guys. Looking at pitchers with less than 5 starts and more than 10 innings, they have 8 guys who have an average ERA of 4.30. Obviously, you want to make the starter work, but it won’t get much easier when the bullpen comes out. Maybe the hitting strategy changes on Clemson’s end, but we will see if they play each other. One thing to note, however, is during the last 15 games or so for WVU, the bullpen has struggled a bit, so we will see how they go about the bullpen over the weekend.

The last point I’ll make about pitching is that they work every pitcher about as much as they can. Don’t be shocked to see any one pitcher pitch until they either 1) give up runs or 2) their arm falls off. They only have one complete game, but it’s not uncommon for the pitchers to go 7 or 8 innings with 3-5 runs given up.

WVU and Clemson did have two common opponents this year, Arizona and Pitt. Clemson went 1-0 against Arizona and 3-0 against Pitt, scoring 45 runs and only allowing 14. WVU had a tougher time, going 1-3 against Arizona and 0-1 against Pitt; they scored 29 runs and allowed 42. This is not an argument to suggest Clemson would win by any means, but it is worth pointing out.

They pitched their two best guys, Kirn and Bassinger, yesterday against Kentucky, holding the Wildcats to just 3 runs. The projected starter today will be Jack Kartsonas, who has struggled in his last 3 starts. Going up against Kansas State, Kansas, and Arizona, he has a 6.00 ERA with a 1.67 WHIP and a 0.333 BAAVG. However, he is pounding the strike zone, only giving up 4 walks and striking out 18, so hopefully the guys can be a little more aggressive than against USCU. The only downside to Kartsonas pitching in the zone so much is that hitters are torching him when they make contact, I mentioned the 0.333 BAAVG, but of balls in play, batters are getting a hit 43% of the time (0.429 BABIP), showing he might be in the zone too much. Clemson hitters can’t continue to be too passive, because this guy is going to absolutely make them pay by throwing it right past them. I still think moving Paino away from the 4-hole would be beneficial, as him and Priest currently are striking out too much to go back-to-back in the lineup. I think switching Jarrell and Paino is a simple move that won’t shock the lineup too much but could pay dividends and drive in some more runs.

To conclude, West Viriginia is not going to be an easy team to get past. They play an extremely aggressive style of small ball, and they will take runs when they can. They play very gritty, and will win games by sheer will, rather than just talent alone, as evidenced by the game yesterday with Kentucky. If Clemson can keep them off the basepaths and make them really earn bases, they can beat them in a potential two or three game set. They had a good victory yesterday against USCU, but this is going to be a step up in talent, and they are going to have to play to win, rather than play to not lose.

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A look at WVU

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