Four Husker newcomers could contribute
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BY CURT McKEEVER/Lincoln Journal Star
It’s February — time for the annual jokes about how it’s already starting to feel more like baseball weather as Nebraska gathers today for its first full-squad practice since last fall.
Go ahead and razz Mike Anderson about whether he’ll need to use that fancy sprinkler system to thaw out the field at Haymarket Park. Three weeks from today, the Huskers will open the season with a four-game series at Stanford, and NU’s sixth-year coach has more to do to get his team ready than turn a couple of knobs.
Since school began last September, the NU roster has undergone nine changes. Five players left, and though lineup regular and injured left fielder Andy Gerch was the only one who had played for NU, Anderson needs to help four midyear transfers acclimate to Nebraska’s way of doing things.
And, yes, all four — first baseman/catcher Cody Neer, left-hander Joe Hatasaki, outfielder Tyler Farst and right-handed reliever Erik Anderson — figure to have decent chances of making immediate contributions.
What will probably determine their roles more than anything is how they handle a crash course in Mike Anderson’s theory of evaluating, analyzing and instructing.
“When you have a full year with a group, you have a long time to evaluate, you have some time to analyze and then you make decisions on how you want to instruct them,” Mike Anderson said. “That process (with the four transfers) has kind of shrunk. You want to start to make some adjustments relatively early, so you feel like they can have some success within the Big 12. That’s the only difference.”
Neer, a junior who started 36 games as Florida’s catcher last season, is a strong candidate to play first and be a middle-of-the-lineup hitter, as well as provide the Huskers another option to returning starting catcher Mitch Abeita.
Hatasaki, who saw spot duty as a freshman last year at Arizona State, could be called upon first to be a midweek starter. But if he regains the kind of form that led to him being named one of the nation’s top 50 high school sophomores, before he had reconstructive elbow surgery, who knows?
Erik Anderson comes to Nebraska a year earlier than expected from Barton County (Kan.) Community College and will vie for the closer role. Farst, from Grayson County (Texas) College, will be in the mix for the spot left vacant by Gerch, who opted to take a medical hardship after undergoing his second major shoulder surgery.
“What’s nice is it’s two pitchers and two hitters,” Mike Anderson said. “We kind of know Erik, because we recruited him. Joe Hatasaki we’re getting to know. That’s a great thing for (first-year pitching coach) Eric Newman. And getting Tyler Farst and Cody Neer on our same page. …”
Yeah, that’ll be important, too. Equally so, though, could be how the quartet affects team chemistry, which Mike Anderson insists made dramatic development as far back as last summer.
“I guess the best way to describe it is I really like being around this team,” he said. “Putting those guys into it, I’m not concerned, because we have strong personalities that it’s not detracting from anything. They’re feeding into what we’re doing, because it’s good.”
Abeita, one of six lineup starters to return from last year’s NCAA Tournament team, agreed.
“I’m interested in our team coming together to work more fluidly,” he said. “We haven’t been able to be on a field (together) in so long, so it’ll be good to … create some situations of a real game.
“(But) we’ll be ready for anything.”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
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