When we played Arky I was struck by how mature the pitchers on their staff were. We are kids. We had a lot of people hurt this year, including Foster, Kirk, McPherson, you name it. Those who remained are tired from over use which was a result of those injuries. All the ‘fire Parkers’ need to sit down and leave the post button alone. We need to find some good starters from Power Four schools this summer and keep on with development of our program. We are better than 22 & 23 by far.
Pitching development
- Thread starter Trojanbulldog19
- Start date
Next year, you probably see Stone in the pen with Bauer & Miller, that's a great top three. Then you've got Gleason and Rhodes etc. We need a much deeper pen and a starter probably. We can't keep taking the Billingsleys and Fosters of the world. Projects shouldn't be our specialty. When you look at Texas, for example, their front line guys are insanely good and their pen is considerably better and deeper than ours. We've got to keep upgrading talent and we can't miss on evals in the portal like this year (position). Next year will be a rebuild of sorts with the lineup, so pitching better be great.
They tweaked my swing mechanics during my freshman an sophomore seasons. I platooned as a freshman and played as a sophomore. The last 25 games of my sophomore season the changes became ingrained. That led to two great years after that. If they left me on the bench while tweaking my swing, I probably don't have the career I did have. Practice isn't enough. You have to play.
Mike Schmidt batted .187 his rookie season. He personally told me "you can't hit major league pitching until you face major league pitching". With some talents you have to allow for the bumps to get the cream.
I get that. But it’s a little different for a pitcher in a short season. A pitcher can. Lose a game for you in about 5 minutes. Worst a batter can do is go 0-4, when good chance his replacement wouldn’t get more then 1 hit anyway. I think the way they handled Bauer is working out ok.
you left off Miller. He looks like he's primed for a big summer and fall. I'd be shocked if he and Bauer aren't battling for the Sunday starter role next season.
Chasing the theoretical "best we can get" all the time is a recipe for disaster. Is Parker the best pitching coach in the country? No, probably not. But he was at a SEC program that is not exactly chopped liver (granted they were not in good shape when he left), he came in and immediately moved our pitching staff from disaster to adequate. If you are going to toss coaches that are doing well but maybe not the elite job you want, you better be damned sure your job is as desirable as you think it is. Granted, we did not have to hire parker after the coaching change. BUt I'm unclear on what can't miss pitching coaches were out there for the taking at that point that were so obviously better than Parker.
If I was going to ***** and moan about our disaster of a season where we finished hosting a regional, I think I'd probably ***** about evaluations? Seems like we spent some money on players that haven't worked out. Were we too late in the game because of a the coaching change and therefore had to reach some? Or did we just miss? Or is there just not a crystal ball regardless and we did ok, but not good, at evaluations? I kind of feel like the latter, but that's just a guess. I don't watch the baseball portal or know what was realistically available that we passed on.