Last year, in head coach Shawn Stiffler’s second year leading the program, Notre Dame baseball didn’t have the campaign it hoped for. Two years removed from a College World Series trip, the Irish went 27-25, winning zero road games in conference play and missing the ACC Tournament.
While it’s tough to measure the future of the program on 2024, Notre Dame’s first season without key bats from the Omaha run and last before the arrival of Stiffler’s recruiting classes, 2025 will provide a much sharper glimpse. The skipper’s first class has arrived in South Bend, enhancing Notre Dame’s offseason work.
“Having that, really it shapes the design of your practices, of your offseason, of everything because you're starting to see things a little bit further down the road, not just in the moment,” Stiffler described. “You’re starting to think more about what the program necessarily needs to do over the next three to four years, not necessarily what this team needs to do, and once you start to be able to put those plans together, you’re able to look at what the team needs to do.”
After producing the second-worst league record in the ACC last year, Notre Dame seemingly has a mountain to climb before returning to contention. However, that may not be the case. The Irish went 7-12 in games decided by two runs or less, the vast majority of the losses coming in ACC play.
“One of the things we’ve tried to emphasize is the fact that we were in so many of those games shows us that our process is correct,” Stiffler said. “The way we’re playing, the things that we’re concentrating on are what leads to you being in that baseball game.”
For Stiffler, an unwavering focus on controlling the controllables can help the Irish find more success in close games.
“The nice thing about our sport is, at the end of the day, it really is you versus the game, versus the baseball,” Stiffler said. “If you throw strikes at a certain percentage, if you hit with runners in scoring position, if you catch the baseball and throw it to first base accurately, if you play good defense, if you do those things at a certain number standpoint, you’re gonna give yourself the opportunity to win baseball games.”
The mound
Pitching lines up as Notre Dame’s strength heading into 2025. The Irish, despite managing injuries in the rotation early on, walked fewer hitters than anyone in the ACC and held opponents to a mediocre batting average of .266.
Two right-handers, junior Rory Fox and sophomore Jack Radel, will lead the starters. Fox emerged as Notre Dame’s Sunday guy last year after appearing just four times as a freshman. He attacked the zone well, evidenced by a strike percentage of 67.6, but found too many bats and ended up with a 6.48 earned run average. D1 Baseball ranked Fox No. 106 on its Preseason Top 150 Starting Pitcher list. Radel, Notre Dame’s Saturday pitcher for essentially all of ACC play, led regular Irish starters with a 4.58 ERA.
Though Radel in particular consistently completed four innings in his starts, Stiffler will ask for more length and mound leadership out of his top two starters in 2025.
“What we need them to do is one, trust their stuff and trust the work that they put in, but two, go out and compete for our team,” Stiffler listed. “That's the biggest thing. They need to take on an understanding that they are two of the bigger focal points of our team, and we need them to go out and compete for us.”
Notre Dame’s rotation depth benefits from the return of Jackson Dennies. The graduate right-hander threw the ball well in 2023 (13 starts, 3.11 ERA) but had arm problems out of the gate last year, giving up 20 runs in 11 innings before being shut down.
Fellow graduate righty Dylan Heine could also make his way to the starter’s mound at some point. The 6-foot-6 hurler is on his third team in as many seasons and enters his sixth year of college baseball overall. He pitched at Rider from 2020 to 2023 and Arkansas State in 2024, when he posted a 4.65 ERA in 14 starts. Stiffler expects that Heine will open the year as the “ace of the bullpen,” pitching early relief innings when the starters can’t go deep.
In the bullpen, senior right-hander Radek Birkholz returns after missing all of last April and May. He owns a 4.88 career ERA in 83 innings and pitched at the College World Series in 2022. Sophomore right-hander DJ Helwig will move into a higher-leverage role after starting midweek games and pitching to a 4.11 ERA last year. Stiffler noted that Chase Van Ameyde, a 6-foot-5 freshman right-hander from Michigan, brings back-of-the-bullpen material to the table as well.
Notre Dame’s additions of left-handers Jack Walker (Toledo graduate transfer) and Brady Koester (freshman) should help balance out the bullpen as well.
The infield
Junior shortstop Estevan Moreno (No. 24) and sophomore catcher Carson Tinney (No. 47) each ranked top-50 at their respective positions on the D1 Baseball list, and they’ll anchor the Irish up the middle in 2025. Moreno, a starter since his first freshman weekend, broke out last year with 17 doubles, 13 home runs and 40 runs batted in at a .275/.363/.625 slash line. Tinney also shined before his season-ending injury in April, slashing .268/.397/.500 with three long balls.
Graduate student Connor Hincks, another returning starter, will handle the right side of the infield. The former Virginia transfer paid his dues after arriving in South Bend in 2021, taking eight at-bats in his first two Irish seasons before receiving more than 200 a year ago. Hincks made good on the increased role, slashing .272/.336/.480 with seven home runs and 45 RBIs.
When Hincks plays his most frequented position of first base, freshman Noah Coy should get most of the looks at second. The left-handed hitter from Greenwood, Indiana, was an All-State infielder last spring and broke numerous school records as a wide receiver on the football field.
“He has played really, really well since the moment he’s walked on campus,” Stiffler said of Coy. “[He’s a] super athletic, aggressive left-handed hitter [who] can hit at the top of the lineup. I’m really excited about him and the way he's done things for us.”
Senior Nick DeMarco, who is in his fourth year with the program but hasn’t yet reached 100 career at-bats, will see most of the action at third base. Stiffler called him a “sleeper” and looks forward to the results his name on the lineup card could bring.
“He’s an exceptional defender. He can play all three: second, short and third,” Stiffler said of DeMarco. “[He’s a] tough guy, blue-collar-type player. He’ll do anything the team needs to win.”
Freshmen Bino Watters and Parker Brzustewicz, two natives of Rochester Hills, Michigan, will also factor into the infield rotation to start.
The outfield
South Bend-raised graduate student Brady Gumpf is Notre Dame’s primary returning outfielder. His offensive game took a significant step forward last year, when he belted nine home runs and totaled 31 RBIs with a slash line of .284/.352/.560. He almost never walks, but that won’t be a huge issue should he continue hitting the way he did in 2024. Gumpf will mostly play in the corners but has the reads to handle center field.
Graduate student Jared Zimbardo, a transfer from Quinnipiac, adds 160 games of experience to the outfield. A high-energy player on and off the diamond, Zimbardo did it all for the Bobcats last year, landing on the All-MAAC Second Team with 16 doubles, seven home runs and 26 stolen bases. He hit .353, walking (40) more times than he struck out (39).
Stiffler expressed excitement about senior DM Jefferson, especially against right-handed pitching. He’ll also give opportunities to freshman South Bend native Jayce Lee, making for an outfield subject to change not only throughout the season but even during games.
“We're gonna be playing a lot of guys in that outfield,” Stiffler said. “We’ll be playing matchups, there’s gonna be times where there’s gonna be guys coming in and out of games depending on what the other team does with the bullpen.”
Overall, this year’s Notre Dame baseball roster features 15 freshmen, and Stiffler isn’t shying away from that. Players like Moreno, who started right away in his first year and took his lumps, have demonstrated that riding it out with young talent can pay off, even in the era of the transfer portal. Recognizing that the enthusiasm of his youngsters can make up for lesser experience, the Irish coaches are excited to have three to five freshmen playing key roles on any given night.
“They have to know that we’re trying to get them to their goals and that we believe in them and we’re trying to help them become the absolute best player they can be to achieve their dreams and their goals,” Stiffler described. “If there’s a system and a style in which we want to play, and they’ve gotten accustomed to it over the last nine months, we just need them to be themselves within that system.”
Picked to finish 15th out of 16 teams in the ACC Preseason Poll, Notre Dame will open its season this weekend at North Florida. The Irish will play in Jacksonville at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, 3 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. on Sunday. They’ll hold their home opener on March 5 against Eastern Michigan before starting ACC play at No. 14 Wake Forest on March 7. Other ranked teams on the schedule include No. 15 Clemson (March 14-16 road series) and No. 9 Florida State (March 28-30 home series).
