There is a tone to Jason Dietrich’s voice that hasn’t been heard since he returned to Cal State Fullerton the summer of 2021 to take over a baseball program that was leaking oil. A measured tone that was even absent after the 2023 season, when Dietrich ended the Titans’ four-year postseason hiatus with a share of the Big West Conference title and a regional berth.
A tone that exudes cautious optimism, which is always a good thing to hear for CSUF alums. Cautious optimism plays well these days when Titan baseball is discussed. Even as Dietrich and his staff navigate the seismic shift of coaching college athletics in the NIL Era. More on that forthcoming.
“We knew coming in would be a challenge and be hard, and we said, ‘OK, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work,’ ” Dietrich said about his first four years remaking the CSUF baseball program. “Now, we see the fruits of our labor. After all the stuff we went through, I like the team we have. There’s a lot of potential there.
“Of course, that’s potential right now. I tell them, ‘You can beat any team in the nation, but you can lose to any team in the nation if you play a certain style of baseball. It depends how you go about playing the game.’ I’m excited to see what this team can do.”
As he starts his fifth season as the Titans’ head coach, Dietrich thinks he’s finally turned the corner with the Ferrari of the CSUF athletic department. The post-season purges of vast numbers of the roster and constant wheel-spinning trying to find the right combination of players who evoke what the program means to the university and alums are things of the past. Last year’s squad bounced back from a horrific 2024 with a respectable 29-27 campaign and 19-11 conference record that earned CSUF the No. 3 seed in the Big West Tournament.
This, from a team picked to finish ninth in the conference. And Dietrich’s voice took on a nice edginess to it when he chronicled what was a roller-coaster season.
“Last year was a crazy thing. We started out 5-13, and everyone wanted my head. ‘Get a new coach!’ But that’s fine; that comes with this job,” he said. “But I thought it was a good group of guys who competed hard. Once we hit that 5-13 mark, the players had a big talk and unloaded a lot of stuff heart-to-heart.
“I felt some confidence come from that. They won nine of their next 10 and 11 of their next 13. With two weeks left in the season, we had a chance to win the Big West. We were still in it mathematically.”
The run to the Big West Tournament, which CSUF hosted at Goodwin Field, was fueled by a 16-9 road record. The Titans closed the season taking two of three at UC Irvine — after sweeping UC Davis, Cal State Northridge and UC Riverside on the road. Running out of gas on the mound and losing both games in the Big West Tournament (to Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo and Hawaii) didn’t detract from the overall feeling that a corner had been turned.
To keep the hairpin turns and runaway carousel rides to a minimum, Dietrich, his chief lieutenant, Josh Belovsky, and assistants Ryan Day and Tony Schifano — the latter joining the staff this year — hit the recruiting trail and transfer portal hard. They’ve brought in 17 new players who should fill numerous needs.
Three of those more pressing needs will be replacing Maddox Latta, Carter Johnstone and Matthew Bardawell. Latta, the Big West Defensive Player of the Year, graduated after leading the Titans with a .362 average, 52 runs, .486 on-base percentage and .989 OPS.
Johnstone, the Big West Freshman of the Year and a Freshman All-American, led the Titans in hits (74), to go with seven home runs, 42 RBIs and a .966 OPS. But to see where Johnstone goes from there, you’ll have to subscribe to the SEC Network and watch Vanderbilt — his current home.
“Think about having him at third base this year,” Dietrich mused. “He got paid. This is the animal we’re trying to tackle as best we can.”
Bardawell finally put the season together Dietrich anticipated when he recruited the big first baseman/DH from Riverside City College. He hit .323 with a team co-high 16 doubles, eight homers, 53 RBI and a .940 OPS. Bardawell was denied an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA.
There is good news on the power front, and his name is Andrew Kirchner. The first baseman returns after leading the Titans with 12 homers, 70 RBIs, a .536 slugging percentage and 12 doubles. He anchors an infield bolstered by UCLA transfer Cameron Kim, Long Beach State ex-pat Armando Briseno, Texas transfer Cade O’Hara and Hawaii transfer Britton Beeson, who started his college career at Fullerton JC. Those four, along with returner Eli Lopez, freshman Esteban Olazaba and Mt. San Antonio College ex-pat Ty Thomas will battle for the other three infield positions.
D1 Baseball’s Mike Rooney described Kim — who played behind National Player of the Year Roch Cholowsky at UCLA — as “a 6-foot-3, 205-pound player with tools for days and there may not be a player in the Big West with more upside than him.”
Dietrich would take upside in an area the Titans could improve in: pitching. Last year, the Titans were sixth in the conference in team ERA (5.51), eighth in walks allowed (235), ninth in opponent batting average (.290) and 10th in hits allowed (570). Improving across the board on the mound is the immediate priority, and this is the puzzle of priority getting CSUF to the next level.
“We have guys who pitched 20-30 innings last year who need to take the next step,” he said. “We don’t have plus-power stuff. We have a lot of guys who throw 88-92 (MPH). Pitchability: moving the ball around, changing speeds, is what we’ll have to live and die by, and have a lockdown defense. Is it bad? No, but at times, I wish we had more power.”
Some of what power there is comes from freshman Bobby Mahoney and redshirt sophomore Chris Hernandez. Both throw in the mid-90s, but both have issues to overcome. For Mahoney, it’s control. For Hernandez, it’s staying healthy and further mastering the two-seam fastball he developed over the fall.
They’ll fortify a staff featuring left-handed seniors Mikiah Negrete (5-3, 5.58, 80 strikeouts in 2025) and Jayden Harper (3-1, 3.68) and sophomore Dylan Smith (1-3, 6.68). Those are the likely starters. Returners Jason Krakoski, Andrew Wright, Landon Martin and Dylan Goff and newcomers Joseph Jasson, Dylan Nieto and Brock Mayer anchor the bullpen.
The versatile Max Ortega returns at catcher, a position Dietrich said has depth. Returner Cam Burdick headlines the outfield.
All of which presents Dietrich with numerous options, something he shares with his predecessors in the Goodwin Field dugout — all of whom took the Titans to the College World Series at least once with deep, versatile teams that found ways to beat you. But none of them — the legendary Augie Garrido, CSUF Athletic Hall of Famer George Horton, Dave Serrano or Rick Vanderhook — had to deal with the ever-shifting landscape of college baseball in the 2020s.
The landscape that took away a player like Johnstone and the landscape where current players have little idea what “Titan Baseball” really means. That it’s not merely a slogan on a hoodie.
“We have to do it the old-fashioned way: recruiting our butts off and getting guys in here who want to be here,” Dietrich said. “It’s a credit to our staff to get the players we have this year.
“I don’t know what we’re going to be, but I’m excited to see what we can be, and it’s just a matter of going out and doing it.”