2026 Baseball Preview Part 1: Overview of a New Era

Head Coach Andrew Gipson and his staff had to move fast in building a roster for the upcoming 2026 season. That involved convincing some guys to stay and piecing together a roster that features 34 newcomers. All that being said, the vibes are as the Privateers prepare for Georgia State in the regular season opener and a challenging schedule ahead.
 
"I told the guys I was proud of the connections they made," said Gipson. "When you have 34 new guys you have to get them to connect. I started to see the shift during the Fall World Series in terms of what is the dynamic of this team."
 
There aren't many returners from an offense that was in the top half of the league in many statistical categories including home runs, RBI, total bases and slugging percentage. The Privateers had to replace six regular starters from last year's lineup. However, Coach Gipson's goal with his teams is to have versatility within an offensive identity.
 
"The worst thing for me as a manager is to feel you're one dimensional as an offense. This is a different ballpark and we can have distinctly different wind patterns every day. Regardless of where you play you have to score in multiple ways. For us it starts with controlling the strike zone and once we're able to do that we can get balls to hit. We call it the air, land and sea approach because we want to beat you in whatever way the game calls for."
 
Collin Husser hit nine home runs and Adrian Dominguez had a .393 batting average last season. Collin Loupe hit .295 and Karson Evans was a mainstay behind the plate throwing out 13 runners. Jake D'Altrui started 17 games and hit three home runs while batting .250. Those five guys are the only returning bats to what will otherwise be a new look lineup.
 
The pitching staff will have a new look as well. Only 11 games started out of the 54 return this season. Matthew Bienvenu had six starts and Skylar Jones had five for the pitching staff in 2025.
 
While there will be a lot of moving parts on the mound and a lot of guys projected to get some run on the mound, Coach Gipson also believes the strength of this pitching staff can be that they all have varying things they do well.
 
"The strength of the pitching staff is going to be its versatility and we're probably going to be using anywhere from 18 to 21 guys on the mound. We have a lot of different arms that do a lot of different things well. There's no clear cut number one but we're going to try to utilize everyone's strengths. It will be a committee type of pitching staff."
 
"Coach Manola, Coach Craighead and Coach Lauve have done a really good job identifying what these guys are best at. From there we try to match those things up with certain portions of the game where we know they will be good."
 
Stay tuned throughout the rest of the week for more leading up to the season.

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