It’s May 24, 2023. The USC Trojans’ baseball team is eliminated from the Pac-12 Tournament following both a loss to the Washington Huskies, and an Oregon victory over Stanford. Five days from now, the Trojans will be snubbed by the NCAA for at-large selection to regionals. Still, 2023 was a marked improvement for the team, finishing 34-23-1 after two straight losing seasons (five if one discounts the canceled 2020 season).
It’s May 25, 2024. USC loses the Pac-12 Championship game to Arizona in heartbreaking fashion. Senior right-hander Caden Aoki dominates on the mound, allowing just one hit over six innings while the lineup gives him a 3-1 lead. But an aggressive Arizona lineup chips away with singles, walks and sacrifice flies to tie the game before walking it off in the ninth. Once again, the Trojans are not selected to participate in the NCAA regionals.
It’s June 2, 2025. Oregon State eliminates the Trojans in a NCAA Regionals tiebreaker. It’s not pretty. The Trojans are bludgeoned, losing 9-0. Compounding the pain, this is the second drubbing Oregon State has given the Trojans in two days; OSU forced the tiebreaker by thrashing the Trojans, 14-1 the day before.
It’s January 21, 2026. Sunlight soaks the lush outfield grass, and the immaculately curated infield of the new, but still under-construction Dedeaux Field. The familiar *ping* of a metal bat on a ball once again echoes across campus. The Trojans have effectively been a road team for the last two years. For head coach Andy Stankiewicz, coming home is a relief.
“Oh man, yeah. That’s probably an understatement,” Stankiewicz said in an exclusive interview with Annenberg Media.
Stankiewicz is entering his fourth season as head coach of the Trojan baseball team, his first under a five-year extension through the 2030 season. At the halfway point of his tenure thus far, Stankiewicz takes a moment to reflect.
“We feel good. When I say ‘we,’ I mean like [assistant coach] Travis Jewett, [director of player development] Sergio Brown, [director of baseball operations] Rock Hudgens. I feel like those guys have played a very big role. They’ve been here since the beginning…I think there’s a good framework. There’s no question, there’s still a lot of good baseball that needs to be played. But now it’s like ‘hey man, now it’s go time.’”
Energized, Stankiewicz and his staff know exactly what the team needs to do: prevent runs from scoring, and win close ballgames. Building a roster that can do those things is easier said than done. As with any offseason, there were obstacles. Two-way player Ethan Hedges, who led the team in nearly every offensive category, was drafted by the Colorado Rockies. Lefty pitcher Caden Hunter was picked by the Baltimore Orioles. Outfielder Brayden Dowd, pitcher Brodie Purcell and ace Aoki went through the transfer portal heading into 2026.
“We knew we wanted to increase our pitching depth,” Stankiewicz said. “We lost some pretty good pieces right there, and we lost our one-, two- and three-hole hitters.”
This may seem like an elementary observation, but last season, the Trojans went 30-6 in games where they scored five or more runs. When they scored five runs or fewer? 7-17. How does this problem get addressed without such key players?
“That’s why I talk about [junior left-handed pitcher] Mason Edwards. He has to get better. [Sophomore righty] Grant Govel, he has to get better. [Junior infielder] Abbrie Covarrubius has to get better. [Junior infielder/outfielder] Kevin Takeuchi has to get better. We’re relying on the development of our guys that came here as freshmen, on their ability to get better,” Stankiewicz said.
Development comes in many forms, and analytics is certainly one of them. But Stankiewicz talks about analytics as a way to “gauge” players’ abilities, and hold them accountable to improve.
“Numbers don’t always tell the whole story,” he said. “Sometimes, you’ve got to rely on your gut…on your experience to make decisions.”
That said, Stankiewicz and his staff did turn to the transfer portal to fill some of the holes left behind. Redshirt junior pitcher Adam Troy joined the team from Pepperdine, potentially filling the closer role vacated by Hedges. Graduate student Henry Chabot, also a right-handed pitcher, transferred from Chapman University, where he held a 2.53 ERA across 78.2 innings. He also struck out over 100 batters, something no pitcher on last year’s Trojan squad managed to do.
Other key acquisitions include junior catcher Isaac Cadena, graduate outfielder Brock Slaton, and graduate lefty Ace Whitehead, who is recovering from injury, but is expected to join the team in mid-March. The expectation from Stankiewicz is that these players will bring a veteran presence to the clubhouse.
As a result of the roster churn, this year’s team is younger, with a wave of freshmen talent taking the field. Logan Honma and Hayden Woodson strengthen an already deep infield roster. Lefties Alaka’i Kiakona and Paul Grossman join the pitching staff with fastballs that grade out in the high-eighties and low-nineties. Leading the rookie pack is fleet-footed shortstop Diego Velazquez, who has a very high ceiling. Perfect Game, a top-tier scouting service for amateur ballplayers, rated Velazquez as an “elite-level college prospect.” His love of the game is infectious, and his determination is impressive for a young man entering the uninhibited realm of a college campus.
How will these fresh faces develop now that they are under Stankiewicz’s watchful eye?
“I tell the guys all the time, when we came back in January, there’s no longer a freshman on our team,” he said. “You’re a freshman for three months. After that, I don’t care. If I put you in the lineup, here’s what I expect you to contribute. I expect them to perform at a high level, and if they outperform a senior, then they’ll play.”
Connecting with players is different than it was in 2012, when Stankiewicz took the head coaching job at Grand Canyon University, or in 2004-05, when he managed the Single-A Staten Island Yankees. Back then, players were impressed with Stankiewicz’s Major League career. Players today? Not so much. Stankiewicz posits that this may be because he was in and out of the league before many of his current players were born.
That said, there are still other challenges to connecting. Social media and YouTube give young players the opportunity to seek out other opinions and different advice about how to play baseball, which Stankiewicz has to contend with.
“They’re respectful, but they’ll question [the philosophy of baseball] more,” he said. “Years ago, there was no questioning.”
As far as connecting with each other, though, the players seem to have little problem bonding. Edwards and fellow lefty Sax Matson, for example, bantered endlessly on the mound between, and sometimes during, drills. Matson seemed to have a knack for cracking up his teammates with words, or animated gestures, if words failed.
Naturally, Stankiewicz does not seem concerned about leadership in the clubhouse. He cites the players who have made it to the other side of the team’s nomadic era: Covarrubias, Edwards, Takeuchi, junior infielder Dean Carpentier, and junior utility player Andrew Lamb to step up when called upon.
When asked which players fans should keep their eyes on, Stankiewicz again mentioned Edwards, Govel, who is coming off of Tommy John surgery, Lamb, and junior infielder Adrian Lopez. Should these players take that step forward, this Trojans team will be formidable. Whether they will be formidable enough is another question.
Looking beyond the new walls of Dedeaux Field, the Big Ten Conference has become something of a juggernaut in the first two years since realignment. The UCLA Bruins and Oregon Ducks headline the conference, with deep offenses that can generate consistent run production. The Maryland Terrapins and Indiana Hoosiers certainly have the potential to bounce back from underwhelming seasons and act as spoilers at the top of the Big Ten standings.
Credit where it’s due: the Trojans finished each of the last three seasons one step closer to their 13th College World Series title, which they haven’t won in 28 years. In May or June 2026, maybe the USC Trojans will see the payoff of three gritty, tenacious and hard-fought baseball seasons. Or, maybe this season will be yet another step forward. It all depends on whether this team can do as their coach suggests, and step up.