College Podcast: Tulane’s Travis Jewett Talks Momentum For 2021

On this edition of the Baseball America College Podcast, presented by Rapsodo, Teddy Cahill and Joe Healy are joined by Tulane coach Travis Jewett to discuss his team’s hot start to 2020, the outstanding numbers of ace righthander Braden Olthoff, rebuilding the Green Wave lineup and building back up a proud Tulane program.

 

 

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You can add Tulane to the extensive list of teams that wish they had been able to play out the 2020 season. At the time the season was halted, the Green Wave were 15-2 and had a ton of momentum going into what would have been a fun series at home against fellow 2020 darling Long Beach State. 

There were two massive developments that buoyed Tulane last season. The first were the strides taken by the pitching staff, which ended the season with a 3.06 team ERA. The clear leader there was righthander Braden Olthoff, who went 4-0 with a 0.32 ERA and 47 strikeouts in 28 innings, putting him among the most effective pitchers in college baseball. Next year, Olthoff will be back in the mix to lead the rotation as a fourth-year junior, possibly alongside fellow fourth-year juniors in righthander Donovan Benoit and lefthander Jack Aldrich, both of whom also started four games in 2020. 

Offensively, the Green Wave featured an extremely experienced lineup in 2020, and with a number of those top hitters moving on, there will be some re-tooling ahead of the 2021 season. But the return of fourth-year junior third baseman Trevor Minder provides the team with a cornerstone around which to build out the order. Jewett and his staff think that Minder can be next in line after guys like Kody Hoese and Hudson Haskin turned themselves into prospects while in New Orleans. 

Among the topics discussed on this episode are: 

• What allowed for the hot start in 2020
• Braden Olthoff‘s performance last season and what lies ahead for him
• Trevor Minder’s breakout season last year and building the lineup around him in 2021
• What Jewett saw from the lineup in the fall
• Expectations for grad transfer righthander Jake McDonald, who has taken quite the circuitous route to get to Tulane
• The process Jewett took in building the Tulane program back up
• How Jewett earned a reputation as a coach who can be successful in any region in the country