This offseason could be the most important one of the Kevin O’Sullivan era.
O’Sullivan has fielded worse teams than the 2021 squad. The 2013 team finished 29-30 and went 0-2 in the Bloomington Regional. The 2019 team went 34-26 and won just one game in the Lubbock Regional.
However, both of those teams were expected to take a step back. They both relied on a ton of young but talented players following a mass exodus of elite talent to the MLB Draft from the previous years’ teams. By the end of those two seasons, a strong nucleus of young stars had emerged, and you felt confident that the down year was merely a necessary bump in the road on the way to bigger and better things.