Texas baseball: 1 trend sticks out about Kimble Schuessler's play at first base

Yahoo

31-05-2025

A converted catcher, Texas baseball senior Kimble Schuessler made the Southeastern Conference's all-defensive team this season as a first baseman.
Schuessler boasts a .993 fielding percentage with just three errors. Texas coach Jim Schlossnagle likes to judge first basemen by their teammate's throwing errors, and no UT infielder or pitcher has more than four of those this season.
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Another metric to judge Schuessler's glove by? The amount of double plays that he's started.
"The 3-6-3 or the 3-6-1 double plays that we've gotten, those are rare to find a first baseman that is that athletic that can throw," Schlossnagle said. "You don't think it comes up in a game as much, but when it does, it sure is huge."
Kimble Schuessler has started 7 double plays this season
For those who don't carry around a scorebook, 3-6-3 and 3-6-1 are shorthand for double plays started by the first baseman. So far this season, Schuessler has been involved in four such plays. He has also started three additional double plays.
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The most-notable of those Schuessler-started double plays took place April 27 in a game against Texas A&M. With Texas clinging to a 6-5 lead in the ninth inning at UFCU Disch-Falk Field, Texas A&M had runners on first and second base with one out. Schuesser fielded a grounder off Kaeden Kent's bat and fired the baseball to shortstop Jalin Flores, who threw it to pitcher Max Grubbs at first base to secure the victory and a sweep of the rival Aggies.
"I think it just goes back to the work that we put in in the offseason," Schuessler said. "Working with (assistant coach Troy Tulowitzki), working with the coaches, taking a million ground balls that I could get during the game, I think it's definitely helped me. All we really have to fall back on is the work we put in and I think it's definitely shown."
In total, Schuessler has been involved in 43 double plays this season. Are the seven double plays he's started an abnormal number? Here is how UT's primary first basemen have fared in the team's last five full seasons:
2024: Jared Thomas (involved in 23 double plays, started zero)
2023: Jared Thomas (involved in 45 double plays, started four)
2022: Ivan Melendez (involved in 43 double plays, started four)
2021: Zach Zubia (involved in 49 double plays, started two)
2019: Tate Shaw (involved in 17 double plays, started zero)
During the 2018 season, Texas led the country with its 73 double plays. Jake McKenzie, who was the Longhorns' primary first baseman that season, started seven of the 49 double plays that he was involved with.
Longhorns playing well on defense after a sloppy start
Texas enters the NCAA Tournament with a .980 fielding percentage, which is the 13th-best mark in college baseball and the 10th-best percentage in the tournament's 64-team field. A sluggish start on defense led to 16 errors over UT's first 11 games, but the Longhorns committed just 15 errors in conference play. Schuessler was joined on the SEC's all-defensive team by catcher Rylan Galvan, second baseman Ethan Mendoza and outfielder Will Gasparino.
Texas baseball averaged over an error per game two weeks into the season, but ended up with four players on the conference all-defensive team.
The anchor of that defensive effort has been Schuessler, who arrived at Texas as a backup catcher and was mostly used as a designated hitter last year. At this point of the season, Schuessler has gotten used to playing first base. He even has said that being a catcher by trade has helped with his transition since he is used to dropping to the ground to keep balls in front of him.
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"I'm really comfortable over there," Schuessler said. "Whatever is going to happen near the game, I feel like I'm prepared for. I feel like I've prepared myself with the work."
Texas pitcher Max Grubbs said earlier this season that Schuessler will "play anywhere you stick him. He always says put him on the mound too. He'd love to pitch, but I just tell him you just play first base. He's a roughneck, that's what we call it, he'll do anything to help this team win."
"I knew definitely that he was going to be a really good first baseman," Galvan said in April. "Anybody who knows Schuess (knows) he's going to work his tail off until he figures it out. And when he made the transition over there, he just continued to work and work and work every day, because he knew that was going to probably end up being his role, and he's going to do whatever it takes to be the best first baseman this team needs."
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Kimble Schuessler's defense shines in this way for Texas baseball