The 2019 Florida Gators baseball team is poised to once again be among the elite teams in the NCAA.

Following yet another appearance in the 2018 College World Series, the Gators have restocked its roster with plenty of young talent to go with numerous returning starters. Head coach Kevin O’Sullivan has guided the Gators to four straight appearances in the CWS and won it all in 2017.

The 2019 Gators will be once again looking to reach Omaha and bring home a second College World Series title.

Let’s take a look at what to expect from the Gator baseball team when they play their regular season home opener on Feb. 15 against Long Beach State.

The 2018 team saw the departure of many key players.

Pitchers Brady Singer and Jackson Kowar were both drafted in the first-round of the MLB draft by the Kansas City Royals and signed big-league contracts. Singer and Kowar were two of the most dominant pitchers in college baseball and will be tough to replace.

The closer spot will need to be replaced as well as all-American Michael Byrne left a year early and signed with the Cincinnati Reds.

There are plenty of holes to fill in the field as well. The most gapping one is at third-base where Jonathan India held down the fort at the hot-corner for back-to-back seasons before being selected fifth overall by the Cincinnati Reds.

Shortstop is another position in need after the departure of Deacon Liput to the pros. He was selected in the 10th round by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2018 draft.

The outfield will be missing long-time center fielder Nick Horvath after he graduated and signed with the Baltimore Orioles.

Despite the absence of numerous star players from last year’s roster, O’Sullivan’s squad has plenty of young depth to remedy the problem.

Starting on the mound, the return of sophomores Jack Leftwich and Tommy Mace will fill the void left by Singer and Kowar. In their freshman campaigns, Leftwich and Mace combined for 23 starts and an ERA of slightly above four. Both pitchers can reach the mid-90’s on their fastball and both pitched well in postseason play.

Leftwich and Mace will have plenty of young arms to complement them as well. Second-year man Jordan Butler will be an integral piece of the bullpen and potentially a weekend starter as well. He’ll be joined by freshman David Luethje, Kris Armstrong, Nick Pogue Hunter Ruth and Ben Specht. Also, transfers Justin Alintoff and Deven Hemenway will add depth to the rotation.

Replacing the infield will be a much taller task.

Not only does the departure of India and Liput hurt in the field, it hurts at the plate. India lead the team in batting average a season ago while Liput provided consistent production in the lead off spot.

The likely candidate to replace India at third would have been sophomore Shane Shifflett, but he transferred to community college in the offseason. This opens the door for highly-touted freshman Cory Acton to potentially assume the spot.

Replacing Liput will be slightly easier. Second-year player Brady McConnell will more than likely be the one taking over duties in the six-hole come the 2019 season. He was the highest rated prospect to not go to the big leagues in the 2018 class. McConnell started the first quarter of the season at shortstop while Liput was serving a suspension. After breaking his arm midway through the year, the highly-touted freshman was forced to miss the majority of the 2018 season.

The right-side of the infield will remain steady as Blake Reese will return at second. Brady Smith or Jordan Butler will more than likely assume the first base roll after splitting time with Keenan Bell last year, as Bell transferred to the University of Tampa in the offseason.

Behind the plate will also be a hole needing filling. Four-year starting catcher J.J. Schwarz graduated after a stellar career as a Gator that saw him start more games than any other player in Florida baseball history.

Candidates to replace Schwarz will be sophomore Cal Greenfield or Brady Smith.

The outfield, other than Nick Horvath departing, will look very similar to 2018. Austin Langworthy will once again get the start in left field. Wil Dalton, who started in right field last season, will hold steady in right field.

Horvath will more than likely be replaced by freshman Jud Fabian. Fabian has been getting a lot of attention and praise from O’Sullivan throughout the fall and into spring.

I had the chance to watch Fabian play a few times, doing play-by-play, while he played at Trinity Catholic in Ocala. The freshman has excellent range in the field and tracks the ball very well off the bat. There was one instance in a game I covered where he was shifted to left-center field and made a catch in right-center on a shallow fly-ball that looked completely effortless.

At the plate, he has power to both fields and has some of the best speed out of the box of any high school player I watched in 2017. He’ll be a key addition to the starting lineup.

The 2019 schedule is once again going to be difficult. Playing in the SEC means every weekend poses a challenge. The conference has put a team in the CWS final 10 of the last 11 seasons, winning five titles in that period.

The Gators open the season with a three-game home stand against Long Beach State. After the opening series, the Gators only hit the road twice until late March. 18 of the teams next 20 games will be played at McKethan Stadium. In 2018, the Gators were 31-6 at home.

Highlights in that homestand include the annual series with the University of Miami, who Florida took two of three games from in Coral Gables last season. The Gators will also host Florida State in the month-long stretch. Florida has beaten FSU in nine straight games dating back to 2016.

SEC play will also begin in mid-March and Florida will open at home against the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Mississippi State was the lone team to win a series against the Gators in 2018 and reached the CWS as well.

The conference schedule will once again be challenging. Following Mississippi State, UF travels to Vanderbilt, another team that reached the 2018 CWS. In total, six of the Gators 10 conference opponents made the CWS a season ago.

Highlights on the schedule include trips to Oxford, Mississippi to battle Ole Miss, a team that was consistently ranked in the top-five a season ago.

Also, on the schedule again is LSU. The Gators will travel to Baton Rouge in late April for what has the potential to be one of the premiere college baseball series of the year. Florida beat LSU in the 2017 finals to win the CWS title.

Some important home series include Mississippi State, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Hopes are high once again for the Florida Gators baseball team, and a trip to Omaha is once again the goal for this year’s team. Coach O’Sullivan has plenty of talent to get through the gauntlet that is the SEC schedule and will look to reach his ninth CWS as the head coach of the Gators.

Stay tuned to GatorsTerritory.