2024 Baseball

[API]

May 14, 2024 12:34:54 GMT -6 baldy1 said:

May 14, 2024 7:48:28 GMT -6 digger4aumb said:

So sad but we brought it on our selves. We seem to be a better team than this early on what happen "baldy1" can you help me?

Pure speculation on my part but I believe they pursued kids based primarily on the ability to throw fast rather than kids who know how to PITCH. Big arms that couldn’t throw strikes. Secondly, they also had a couple kids commit that were drafted. Third, they got too many kids from small markets, kids that weren’t playing against teams with a healthy number of D1 players on them regularly. Just seemed like several of thr AU kids couldn’t handle the pressure when they got rocked.

For comparison, So Miss has 3 pitchers in their ‘24 recruiting class that will either be starting for their teams in the championship game of their state tourney this weekend (Baldy jr jr goes against Pope) or have already won their state tourney championship games. These guys played against fellow big boy schools in 3 states (Mississippi, Louisiana and GA) that have rich baseball tradition. I’m curious about the kids AU has coming in ‘24 but haven’t looked em up yet. I have little reason to expect they’ve changed their current “big arm” strategy, but who knows.

Somebody on the staff gonna get fired, it’s just not known who at the moment. I gotta say I wouldn’t want Baldy jr jr going to play at AU in their current state. Lotta unknowns there now. A new PROVEN/VETERAN pitching coach could change things quickly. But that’s TBD.

I have no idea if it truly makes a difference as to whether you played big boy school ball against big fellers or not, it just seems logical to me. Kids that have been in big spots and gone against studs and done well seems the right way to go. Baldy jr jr could go in there and get rocked too, so I won’t know if my theory perhaps is worth a spit or not until he has had some time. I expect he’ll get rocked as a freshman, but hopefully his experience will help him get thru it and adjust. Same goes for AU - some of them had a rough year and will be better for it next year. Hopefully.

Badly One, I happen to agree with just about all of this. I hate to be reactionary, but it seems like somebody needs to go. Great commentary on the pitching. I do however allow for the possibility of a stud pitcher coming from a small Christian school in some rural county somewhere. Any observations on hitting, fielding or base running? How are we at those aspects as compared to the rest of the conference?

Butch needs to seriously evaluate the entire program and I hope he's located the panic button by now, because it looks like it's time to push it. If Butch thinks it was just bad luck, injuries, or a too tuff schedule, Cohen needs to evaluate the program.

[digger4aumb]

Baldy1 /thank you for your insight. I agree with most if not all of it. This means it is time to evaluate the coaching and player selection. Make a decision and go with it now!

[baldy1]

May 15, 2024 6:45:36 GMT -6 API said:

May 14, 2024 12:34:54 GMT -6 baldy1 said:

Pure speculation on my part but I believe they pursued kids based primarily on the ability to throw fast rather than kids who know how to PITCH. Big arms that couldn’t throw strikes. Secondly, they also had a couple kids commit that were drafted. Third, they got too many kids from small markets, kids that weren’t playing against teams with a healthy number of D1 players on them regularly. Just seemed like several of thr AU kids couldn’t handle the pressure when they got rocked.

For comparison, So Miss has 3 pitchers in their ‘24 recruiting class that will either be starting for their teams in the championship game of their state tourney this weekend (Baldy jr jr goes against Pope) or have already won their state tourney championship games. These guys played against fellow big boy schools in 3 states (Mississippi, Louisiana and GA) that have rich baseball tradition. I’m curious about the kids AU has coming in ‘24 but haven’t looked em up yet. I have little reason to expect they’ve changed their current “big arm” strategy, but who knows.

Somebody on the staff gonna get fired, it’s just not known who at the moment. I gotta say I wouldn’t want Baldy jr jr going to play at AU in their current state. Lotta unknowns there now. A new PROVEN/VETERAN pitching coach could change things quickly. But that’s TBD.

I have no idea if it truly makes a difference as to whether you played big boy school ball against big fellers or not, it just seems logical to me. Kids that have been in big spots and gone against studs and done well seems the right way to go. Baldy jr jr could go in there and get rocked too, so I won’t know if my theory perhaps is worth a spit or not until he has had some time. I expect he’ll get rocked as a freshman, but hopefully his experience will help him get thru it and adjust. Same goes for AU - some of them had a rough year and will be better for it next year. Hopefully.

Badly One, I happen to agree with just about all of this. I hate to be reactionary, but it seems like somebody needs to go. Great commentary on the pitching. I do however allow for the possibility of a stud pitcher coming from a small Christian school in some rural county somewhere. Any observations on hitting, fielding or base running? How are we at those aspects as compared to the rest of the conference?

Butch needs to seriously evaluate the entire program and I hope he's located the panic button by now, because it looks like it's time to push it. If Butch thinks it was just bad luck, injuries, or a too tuff schedule, Cohen needs to evaluate the program.

The funny thing about the pitcher coming from a small Christian school in some rural county - Nelson proved himself last year. He was one of several that I expected would be heavily leaned upon this year. I think he had 2 innings all year maybe last time I looked. I suspect he’s had an undisclosed injury as that makes ZERO sense to go from being used as a freshman and performing to not being used as a sophomore. Wish I knew what that was all about - haven’t heard any of the AU beat guys ask about his availability.

As far as the hitting, it just seems they weren’t able to string hits together when they needed to. They’d get somebody on and then 1-2-3 yer out! Thr fielding was hit or miss. I recall several games being lost by bad errors. I believe it was freakin Alabama state that won due to some awful
Infielding by SS, and then against KY, 3B had an awful error that took us out of one game we had a chance in. Bad pitching took the rest of that series from us. It was trying to plug one hole and then another hole starts leaking. Inconsistency all around and inconsistency kills your chances in any sport.

It all starts with coaching/recruiting, and I think they have simply done a lousy job at recruiting AND coaching the guys up once they got here. They were good enough to get an offer but I didn’t see much improvement in any aspect (fielding, hitting, pitching) this season. Some of the kids that didn’t deliver will, unfortunately, get pushed to the portal and hopefully theyll find some guys that can get it done. It stinks for them but that’s the world of college sports now.

[seanzie]

The obvious hole has been at the Pitching Coach since TH left. The rest of the cast of characters is the same. Losing the draftees hurts but that’s where you gotta be smart about recruiting. It doesn’t matter if they commit if they don’t show up. The other piece I can’t really explain is how the pitching and hitting never seemed to quite lineup for us. Some of that is who we are playing but others not so much.

[Jet]

Great pitching from Bauman and Cannon … Cade Belyeu’s crushes a bomb for insurance.

AU 4
uat 2

[API]

AU leads the evil turds 12-2, in the 7th.

[Jet]

One strike from a run-rule win. A train wreck later, now it’s 12-6 headed to bottom 7th.

[Jet]

May 17, 2024 20:24:16 GMT -6 API said:

AU leads the evil turds 12-2, in the 7th.

You’re fired.

Going to bottom 8 …

AU 12
uat 10

[cincytiger]

Our bullpen is s—t! Never in my life. Up 12-2 and they score 8 dang runs in the last two innings. Going to bottom of 8 up 12-10.

[cincytiger]

Finally! Won 12-11!

[Jet]

Holy $%&@! Where’s the Tylenol!?!

[Jet]

In the last three innings tonight, uat had …

9 runs
8 hits
5 batters hit by pitch
2 walks
1 reach on an error (costing the 10-run rule win)
8 left on base

Game ended with tying run on 3rd and go-ahead on second. Auburn extremely lucky that a wild pitch ricocheted back to the catcher, preventing the tying run from scoring. Game ended when uat catcher swung at a pitch that would have been in Babatunde Akingbola’s eyes — if he was on his tippy toes.

[Jet]

Not sure how I feel about this. (Actually, I am sure. I don’t like it.) Based on the time stamp, the game wasn’t over.

[API]

May 17, 2024 21:09:40 GMT -6 cincytiger said:

Our bullpen is s—t! Never in my life. Up 12-2 and they score 8 dang runs in the last two innings. Going to bottom of 8 up 12-10.

They just had to make it interesting, didn’t they ?

[seanzie]

I'm glad I didn't watch that