The UAB baseball season is well underway. The Blazers sit 3-5 in Casey Dunn’s third year on the Southside, boasting a series win over Kennesaw State; although their record isn’t spectacular, the Green and Gold have held a lead in every game they’ve played. All eight of UAB’s contests have been competitive until the final innings, including a 7-2 loss to Auburn and a heartbreaking 9-7 defeat at the hands of Alabama.
The Green and Gold are coming off a disappointing 2023 campaign in which they won just 17 games; one of UAB’s main problems last year was a lack of offensive options. Barring outfielder Logan Braunschweig, no Blazer finished with a batting average north of .270. Only two UAB hitters were above average by wRC+: Braunschweig and the since-departed Christian Hall.
Hitting was a clear offseason priority for Dunn and company, and offensive improvement is apparent just eight games into the campaign. The Blazers scored 7.33 runs per game against a Kennesaw State team that beat Clemson by 17; they’ve scored seven runs in each of their last two contests, including the one against the 16th-ranked Crimson Tide. UAB reached the seven-run mark just four times in 2023 — they’ve already done so four times this season alone.
The offense is still prone to bouts of inactivity. The Blazers have posted three or fewer runs in half of their games and have often failed to score in the later innings — blown leads have been an Achilles heel for this team throughout February.
However, the top half of UAB’s lineup has been much more formidable than last year. Logan Braunschweig, still a productive engine atop the batting order, is no longer tasked with carrying the entirety of the Blazers’ offensive load. The first few weeks of the season have seen two players in particular emerge as premier hitters.
Montevallo transfer Jake Smallwood has been a revelation for the Blazers, who struggled to get offensive production from their catchers in 2023.
Smallwood hasn’t just been serviceable in the box — he’s arguably been UAB’s most productive hitter. Through eight games and 33 plate appearances, the grad student is batting .333 with an on-base percentage of .455 and an OPS of .825. He’s drawn five walks, tied for the team lead, and has struck out just twice in 27 at-bats.
Smallwood has tormented opposing pitchers with his tenacity at the plate. He boasts a 0.40 K:BB ratio, fifth in the AAC among players with 20+ plate appearances. The catcher strikes out in just 6.1% of his PAs and walks in 15.2% of them. The Decatur native has been indomitable all season, even against top-level competition: in two games against Alabama and Auburn, Smallwood batted a combined .333, drew a walk, scored a run, and struck out just once.
Outside of good swing decisions, much of the catcher’s success can be attributed to an impressive batted ball profile. Just 29.2% of Smallwood’s balls put in play are grounders, while 33.3% are line drives and 37.5% are fly balls.
Line drives turn into hits more often than any other contact type, and Smallwood manufactures them at an astounding rate — of UAB’s everyday starters, no one comes close to matching his line drive percentage. Tyler Harrington’s 19.2 LD%, 14.1 points below Smallwood’s, ranks second on the team.
LD% tends to be unstable throughout a season, so slight regression might be in order for the Blazer catcher. Still, Smallwood’s excellent walk rate and aversion to strikeouts will keep him a productive contributor for the rest of the year.
Brayton Brown, an Auburn left fielder from 2020 to 2022, never saw more than 40 plate appearances in a season as a Tiger. During his final year on the Plains, Brown stood at the plate just 17 times.
He signed with Casey Dunn’s Blazers in 2023 and was quickly thrust into a cornerstone role: the Selma native recorded 213 PAs last season alone. The transition was jarring. In his first year in Birmingham, Brown hit just .210, posted a K:BB ratio of 4.54, and recorded a wRC+ of 65, his worst career mark.
A year later, Brown is leading the Blazers in home runs after what was clearly an offseason of improvement. Last November, D1Baseball’s Aaron Fitt praised Brown’s “compact 5-foot-9, 192-pound frame” and “quiet, upright approach in the box,” impressed by a massive homer the senior hit in a fall ball game against Georgia Tech.
Brown has utilized that frame to significant effect in 2024; he’s become the true power threat UAB was hoping he’d be last season. Just last night, the DH nearly homered off MLB draft prospect Zane Adams, sending a low fastball bouncing off the left field wall.
It’s early, but the designated hitter boasts an impressive triple slash of .313/.378/.531, a huge step up from his ’23 line.
His counting stats are also encouraging. Brown has stepped to the plate 37 times this season and has already racked up 25% of his 2023 hits, 40% of his 2023 home runs, 23% of his 2023 walks, and 100% of his 2023 stolen bases.
And that K:BB ratio of 4.54 I mentioned earlier, the worst individual mark in Conference USA last season? Brown has cut it down by over 55% to just 2.00. Heavily hampered by strikeout problems in 2023, the powerful righty isn’t currently top-three in Ks on the UAB roster. He’s also upped his walk rate: as noted above, Brown, who drew 13 walks all of last season, has already recorded three free passes.
Fun fact: Brown is the cousin of AL ROY Gunnar Henderson. The two were teammates at Selma’s Morgan Academy.