Had Enough

You forget Flores with the all time year over year record for batting average increase. I made that up, but maybe it could be true.

Guess the ignore function isn’t working. Think it’s fixed now.

Sure. Sounds like change is coming. That’s fine if CDC warrants it. From whom did we adopt the whiny and defeatist attitude though? I’ve always been curious if this board is representative of our crowds. Lots of shit talkin here but mostly soft assed dudes roaming the stadium.

Winning 9 of 10 Big 12 weekend series is not consistent? It was probably like 11 or 12 wins versus 2 losses I think. As I said I’m not sure we beat the Aggies but Ace and Andre give you a chance.

Yeah Ace and Andre never get anybody out. We never win 2 of 3 in a series even though that’s what we’re best suited for doing. I am not sure we had anyone as good as the two 10+ ERA guys Oregon threw at the Aggies.

If we beat them in 9, Andre is available. ULaLa was aided greatly by two hits in the 8th and one in the 9th with exit velos in the 50/60 range. I am not sure we beat the Aggies again. If we would have, Oregon wasn’t going to beat us 2 of 3.

Those live amongst the peons, pissants and in BO&WS basement too.

Well sure, but we didn’t have Witt and Quintanilla so role became more volatile and coming in before the 8th a time or two. It wasn’t drastically different but more was expected of him. He started the season fairly well then fell off.

Then he led MSU in ERA at 2.66. Only 20 innings though. From my view, that wasn’t a development issue but rather the failure to define his role. The year before he was mostly a 9th inning guy with extended to 2 innings some. The next year he may come in earlier then when they tried correcting him it was more chaotic.

The ups and downs are pretty common. Chase Burns good freshman year relegated to the pen the following year then top notch this year. Your boy Gavin Kash dropped off this year - not poor but regression rather progression. Tommy White had his lowest average, OBP, slugging, XBHs, and RBIs with his most official ABs this year. Tre Morgan had his best year as frosh with respect to average, OBP, slugging and steals. Now the regression is not as dramatic as Daly, but you can’t say the development is apparent either.

I stalked UK quite a bit this year out of curiosity. They seem to play aggressively but aren’t afraid to bunt a guy over. offensively they look to take advantage of opportunities. 2nd and 3rd and less than two outs - just get the guy home kind of approach. Pitching-wise they seem to compete well and generally themselves a chance to win.

Can anyone explain how these teams have very pedestrian to poor hitters in their lineups and yet still made it this far?

Hookem, how come this Pooser fellow started out in the pen before they realized he should be their #1 going into the CWS? Just giving you a bit of hell. I don’t think it’s terribly uncommon. Lights come on at different times. Sometimes they go out.

If anyone was curious, I did look a little deeper on a few teams since 2021. A&M. in one year they finished 1 game out of last place in conference. In another year they were 10th in conference with a losing record and didn’t get out of the regional. As of now, they have fewer CWS wins over that time. They’ve only made 2 Supers and 3 Regionals. Stanford 3 CWS trips. One of those occurred because we lost a ball in the twilight. They were better than us but not by a ton. They were 11 games under .500 this year. So 1 more CWS appearance. 1 less regional appearance. Only 1 CWS Win. Over another PAC 12 team. Our best team is likely better than their best team. Our worst team is easily better than their worst. Arkansas. By my count, 1 CWS appearance since 2021. Lost in the last two regionals. 0-3 versus Big 12 teams in those two regionals. At home. Lost to TCU by a combined 23 runs in two games in 2023. Lost to a .500 KSU in 2024. Good 2022 run. Very good in the regular season. Lost the Super in 2021. Virginia. 3 CWS. 4 Regionals. 3 Supers. 1 CWS win to date. One of those CWS teams was .500 in conference and 9 games over for the season. The Big 12 was higher in the RPI. Florida. Couldn’t get out of their own regional in 2 years including losing to a Big 12 team. Lost one game 19-1. This year is tbd. Lucky to get in the tourney but still going. Good 2023 run to the championship series. .500 conference record one year, sub .500 another. 2 CWS appearances. 2 supers. 4 regionals. They were 3-1 versus the Big 12 in the 2023 post season. I believe we were 5-1 against those same teams in the regular season.

How many years is the cutoff? It’s arbitrary I get it. Only 3 teams have won it since 2021 to date. That leaves two spots. Tennessee has been pretty consistent but not too many others. The argument in our favor is 65% conference winning percentage. 4 regional appearances. 3 super regionals (lost by 1 run). 2 CWS appearances. Anyway we’re not getting anywhere so I’ll be done.

He deserves to be shit on for that? And actually the first one was not routine. The throw should have been easy but the ball was hard hit.

The only argument you’ve made is winning it all. You’ve stated nothing else other than effectively call me a dumbass. So when you are referring to Coastal, the argument simply changes the timeline from since 2021 to 8 years. Or Fresno at 15 (maybe it was 16 years ago). If winning it all is the only metric, then Coastal is a top 8 program of the past 8 years. Fresno top 15 over the past 15 years. Since I referenced 2021, we only have 3 winners since that time. For now anyway. From the ACC, that leaves NCState and Virgina as maybes. Tennessee a maybe even though we beat them at the CWS. UF maybe. I’m not sure how you’d argue anyone from any other conference. Certainly not definitively. Even if you disagree with my statement, my claim is definitely arguable.

I turn it on and the first thing I see is Tony V outta the dugout hollering at the home plate ump. I did not notice a thank you when a questionable strike and a non -strike were called on Tibbs.

I suppose each person can define their own metric. Fresno State is one of the top 15 programs over the past 15 years. One of the top 30 or so historically great programs. If you define it by winning and nothing else matters, then I can live with that. That’s just not how I’d define program success over a period of time.

Yes. A few. Interestingly enough, we were ranked better in runs allowed per game than ERA. What does that tell you? I never said we were great. Top third would fall under the adequate category. There’s typically a trade off. Get you a Faltine who strikes out 40% of the time but is well above average defensively. Or maybe a Flores who’s potentially great offensively but not quite the defender. That goes for every position. Even MLB All Star teams have mediocre defenders.

I’d say the chances the Aggies beat us twice is likely but very slightly. If get out of that regional, we are likely beating Oregon. As the Aggies are one of the best and most balanced teams, they were one of the top 2-3 most difficult outs in the tourney.

Those are good questions. Daly has batted 5th for Kentucky fyi. Huston Street. He started playing some 3rd base. Why did we bother with that when we have a MLB closer? How does Charley Carter go from nothing to player of the year upon transfer? As for catcher, it’s smart to develop depth there. Now and forever. In my view DP does a poor job of providing his depth players opportunities. I thought Mercer was in line to be closer was he not? Gages numbers were better than his prior two years at a lower level so it’s reasonable to be uncertain what you have there until you see it. And if his response to early season usage is that he wants to see how guys react, I’m ok with that. Remember we only dogpile in Omaha. He does odd stuff that I’m curious about and can’t explain. But you know I saw UNC in game 3 versus LSU, down 1 top of the 9th. Leadoff double. The next hitter bunts with two strikes. Foul ball. It was about two inches from brilliant. Instead it was the dumbest thing ever. It happens. You can take it in defense of DP, but it’s my annoyance with generalizations of an insular view of this team without regard to the current environment and really historical perspectives. Kinda like “our pitching sucks.” It doesn’t. That doesn’t mean it’s where we want it to be.

The Ole Miss that’s had a losing record the past two seasons? 3 losing conference seasons in a row. Miss State. In 2022 was 4 games under .500. Was 1 game over .500 in 2022. Then this year they were good but couldn’t get out of a regional. LSU hadn’t been to the CWS since 2017. They bought a championship. Didn’t even develop the dude that brought them one. Almost got out of the regional this year. They didn’t get out of a regional in 2022. In 2021, losing conference record, 13 games over .500. Got swept in a super. The Aggies in 2023 had a losing record in conference, didn’t get out of their regional and had a worse overall record than us in 2024. They were 9-21 in conference in 2021. North Carolina had .500 in conference records in 21, 22 and 23. The rest of the ACC is all over the board. Notre Dame was up there but cratered this year. Miami same. Virginia is probably the best because they went to the CWS when they were 18-18 and 36-27 overall. Killed that ODU/Dallas Baptist gauntlet. 3 CWS and were competitive in conference. If you are talking CWS appearances, regional/super regionals, regular season conference efforts then we are absolutely in discussion for top 5. If you’re talking strictly CWS then obviously not. Our poor season of 20-10 in conference, regional appearance is better than others worst season. Over that 4 year period, we won 65% of our conference games (not including tourneys). Participated in 2 CWS, 3 Super Regionals and 4 regionals. I haven’t done all the math, but there are not 5 teams that can say that. MSU, Ole Miss and LSU won the titles, but they’ve done little otherwise.

We’ve competed for Omaha in all but 1 year. Even this year, it took the Aggies with their best two pitchers for 11 innings to beat us. And they likely don’t beat us if a top 100 MLB draft pick doesn’t make two errors in one inning. An Aggie team that has pretty much been top 5 all year using their best pitchers. I’ll ask you what are the glaring holes? In the starting lineup, there is not a glaring hole. You’ve got adequate defense, speed, power, hitting ability at every spot. If you want to act as though that Brown, an all conference player a year ago, is a glaring hole then more power to you. Or go with Jack O a former top 100 player, former player at another top 10 program that hit .300 last post season is a glaring hole, go ahead. Poor production yes. But there were valid reasons to think they’d produce. Do you remember how shitty to mediocre some of Augies teams were at hitting with limited power? Clay van Hook, Robbie Hudson, David Maroul were on the 05 team. That’s one of his very best teams. The pitching staff was about 6 deep then guys you hope filled a role. Do you know the status of other rosters? Pitching staffs don’t go 10 deep. And most rosters don’t go 9 deep with .300 hitters. It’s college baseball with limited scholarships. So limited you can’t even fill out a weekend of starters on full scholarship. Incidentally the Aggies #2 and #3 in terms of starts had ERAs that were not good - 5.73 and 6.33. A top 5 team. Why did they start 25 combined games. Kentuckys 2 and 3 have ERAs of 4.93 and 6.24. 32 combined starts. Not a single starter has a K/IP ratio of 1 or better. Their 2nd best starter walked 51 in 88 innings. In terms of ABs, they have 3 of their top 9 at .250, .248 and .228. None of those 3 with more than 6 HRs. My point is that what you refer to as glaring deficiencies are really more so normal. And really always have been.

Ok. So that is your expectation?