Notre Dame Baseball 2026 Recap and State of the Program
TL; DR – Seth Voltz sucks, tale of Sisyphus, and Bevacqua is pulling a Major League
Notre Dame baseball just concluded the 4th season of the Shawn Stiffler show, and the storylines are more or less getting repetitive season by season. First three years of Stiffler’s tenure always had the following – decent non-conference record to start the season, have a terrible March with bad hitting, improve in April with better hitting, have week in late April/early May where we drop two games we should have won, and then fall short in the ACC tournament where the offense disappears again.
This season ended up playing out differently. Non-conference play was meh, with losses to UCF, LSU, and FAU not giving ND much of a chance to stand out. However, March ended up playing out differently with Notre Dame starting 6-3 in ACC play – Stiffler’s best start at Notre Dame in four years. Team actually got ranked in the top 25 for the first time under Stiffler. But ND could not handle success well at all, as they proceeded to go 3-14 in their next 17 games. ND rallied with winning 11 of 12 to conclude the regular season and even won an ACC tournament game for the first time under Stiffler. But it wasn’t enough and the damage had been done once ND got bounced after Virginia Tech beat them 17-10 to end the season (guess the sport) and once again miss the NCAA tournament.
Offense: Nothing short of a phenomenal turnaround from Ryan Munger. Young guys like Jayce, Coy, and Bino really stepped up their game going into year 2. Berkland and Quatrani were very good portal hits. Dylan Passo really made the most of his opportunities and solidified himself at both 1B and the plate. Shane Miranda did amazingly well with the limited chances he got as a freshman. A lot of guys in the lineup were a threat to hit the ball.
I loved the offense that Link Jarrett ran at ND. Spencer Myers could get on base with ease, steal second, and then either Putz, Kavadas, or Branigan would bring him across home. His 2021 squad batted .281, 2022 batted .291. In Stiffler’s first 3 years, we never exceeded .275. So if you told me that ND would match the 2022 offensive BA, I would have been ecstatic. If you had told me that ND would exceed .300 this season, I’d have booked my tickets to Omaha.
But that did not happen. For as good as the offense was overall this season, it wasn’t good enough at critical times as well. There were stretches where the bats would go cold and be unable to build up a lead or cushion for the pitching. And strikeouts have been a problem under Stiffler. This year, we averaged 8.5 strikeouts a game. Nothing saps momentum for an offense and invigorates an opposing pitcher like a swing and miss.
Defense: Yeah, this is not a very complicated or extensive thing to talk about. To use a video game analogy, we allocated all our skill points towards Jack Radel being insanely good and left none for the rest of our pitchers. Jack Radel had an ERA of 3.29. The rest of our pitching staff had a combined ERA of 6.89. Noah Rooney was our designated closer…. but he had way more late inning meltdowns than saves – teams batted off him pretty well. Dylan Singleton showed some promise as a lefty freshman. Caden Crowell should not have been a Saturday starter as a freshman, but he faired better once he had more of a bullpen role. Uber started off strong, but as ACC play went on teams figured him out. Oisin Lee was supposed to take a step forward, but ended up having a sophomore slump.
Seth Voltz gets credit for developing Radel and Rory Fox as starters, but he has not been able to develop an effective and consistent bullpen. Two out of four years now, Notre Dame pitching has been flat out terrible under Voltz.
By my count, Notre Dame blew 11 games this year where they were up by 2 runs in the 7th inning or later. 10 of those were ACC games. If you assumed a 50-50 split in those games, Notre Dame would have finished with a 36-17 record this season that would comfortably have them in a regional next week.
That’s not to say the pitchers were the only defensive issue. In at least 3 of those games blown in late innings, we had errors by the infield/outfield that allowed the other team to win. Against UCF, Parker Bruestewicz committed an error that let the tying run get on base and score. Against Duke, Jayce Lee lost a 2-out fly ball that would have ended the game and allowed ND to sweep Duke instead of just winning 2 of 3 in the series. Against FSU, Barth had an error that let FSU continue a 2 out rally. If those errors don’t happen and pitching holds on for one game, then ND is likely in the postseason or on the bubble at worst.
Where do we go from here?
Radel will get taken in the first 3 rounds of the MLB draft. Quatrani likely did enough this year to get take in the first 10 rounds….. both him and Radel will come back to Notre Dame and finish his degree like Jack Findlay and Jack Brannigan did down the road.
The big question is how many of our 7 underclassmen are in Blue and Gold next year? Right now I’m setting the O/U of portal departures at 3.5. Bino and Jayce will get good offers. Coy and Barth will get scouted/asked about their price. The only underclassman back for sure next year is Brandon Loan. Crowell and Singleton were the only non-terrible underclassmen pitchers and both have value just by being lefties.
As it stands right now on May 22nd, you don’t need any hitters in the portal with the underclassmen you have. You need to find at the very least one, likely two, weekend starters who can stabilize your pitching staff and hit on your closer next year.
You have to move on from Voltz. He cost you a berth this season when making the regionals would have done wonders for the program. Can him, find pretty much anyone else, and get some guys who can throw strikes and not get knocked around in the 9th inning.
My wish list for the offseason:
Fire Seth Voltz
Retain at minimum 5 of the 7 underclassmen from the lineup
Show every damn home game on TV. High schools down the street were able to do this.
Administratively......
But the elephant in the room is that Notre Dame baseball’s biggest enemy is Notre Dame itself. Ever since Maineri left, ND has refused to support the program at a level needed to be consistently competitive (which I’m defining here as making the NCAA Postseason). It doesn’t take that much money to have a team that is making regionals 2 out of 4 years. But instead, Notre Dame baseball gets the Major League treatment.
I dare someone to name a Power 4 baseball team other than ND that:
Doesn’t have all its home games on TV in 2026.
Has cut scholarships from 11.7 to 10.2 when its in in conference peers are increasing scholarships.
Doesn’t have a bathroom for the opposing team’s dugout, forcing them to use Porta Pottys.
For as much as the Big 10 neglects baseball, most of their teams have better facilities
“People don’t go to games” – Yes, that is what happens when your administration is going on 20 years of not acknowledging the program exists and the stadium is one of the worst in the Power 4 north.
“It doesn’t make money” – so what? 25 sports at Notre Dame lose money. Women’s basketball runs the biggest deficit at Notre Dame every year, yet people would hate it if the program had a bad season.
No reasonable person is asking for a College World Series every year. But in the portal and NIL era, this program is getting a self-imposed death penalty because the grown-ups in charge see it as burden they don’t want to be annoyed with. If Jayce, Bino, Crowell, and others choose to leave, I don’t blame them. A Notre Dame education would tell me that getting $500k from the SEC and then getting drafted in the MLB sets me up well with some basic budgeting skills.
I want the football team to win a national championship - and I don't think it's unreasonable to want baseball, men's hoops, and hockey to not be trash like they are. Michigan seemed to figure out how to do this - their baseball team might actually make regionals this year! They are everything a Notre Dame sports fan wants in life right now.
It's not an either/or situation here. Notre Dame doesn't have a revenue or expense issue - it's a budgeting issue. You're putting these sports in the ACC. Commit to helping them be competitive instead of telling them they have to fundraise. Notre Dame is better when its teams aren't doormats.