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torre

torre 1285

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, NorthLoop said:

Do we know anything about Ivan's defensive skills?

Stats say no errors in 57 chances this year.    He played mostly 3B in high school and at Odessa College.   May have seen limited time at 1B.    The concern is Pierce did not give him much PT on defense in midweek games so it may be lacking or Pierce playing safe.  He may leave with a mid round or even later draft position.

Unless he is a high draft pick,  highly rated '21 signee Gavin Kash is the future at 1B (another reason Ivan may opt to leave).   Peter Geib (whose talent has not been given an opportunity injury one reason) is another option at 1B.    Our infrequent poster @Snake Diggity is more well versed,  perhaps he will opine.

Draft begins Sunday, 11 Jul, 6PM, ESPN.  

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Valmy77
Valmy77

Well you must have heard nothing after the end of the series because we got our best case scenario, we barely lost anybody in the draft either returning players or draftees. We are loaded. I star

chase25
chase25

Every time this thread is started especially after a good season I always think of the somberness of the ending scene of Friday Night Lights where they are outside the stadium and coach removes their

Herpa Derpa
Herpa Derpa

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texasstrong12

texasstrong12 4668

Posted
Posted (edited)

Kash is a stud. He would probably be the best pure hitter that's made it to campus in several years if it happens. I would be very surprised if Kash is not at least an all conference type player in a couple years. Texas needs to put 10 to 15 pounds on Kash and he's going to rake. 

Texas might also try Stehly at 1B. They've used him as a utility infielder and seems like he can play just about anywhere. 

 

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Cajun

Cajun 11705

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, texasstrong12 said:

Kash is a stud. He would probably be the best pure hitter that's made it to campus in several years if it happens. I would be very surprised if Kash is not at least an all conference type player in a couple years. Texas needs to put 10 to 15 pounds on Kash and he's going to rake. 

Texas might also try Stehly at 1B. They've used him as a utility infielder and seems like he can play just about anywhere. 

 

Judging by that audio Kash does well with gash.

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Valmy77

Valmy77 13225

Posted
Posted

https://d1baseball.com/columns/foy-justin-gonzalez-leads-d1baseball-freshman-all-americans/

D1 Baseball thought our 2021 Freshman were pretty good.

Tanner Witt as First Team Freshman All-American

Aaron NIxon and Mitchell Daly as Second Team Freshman All-Americans.

Not bad for a weird year where there were so many more Freshman than usual with COVID-shirts from last year.

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Snake Diggity

Snake Diggity 4619

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 6/27/2021 at 10:24 PM, Snake Diggity said:

Adding Melendez and Todd to the roster I posted above makes it a lineup with no holes.  
 

CF Kennedy

2B Daly

RF Todd

3B Melendez

LF Hodo

1B Kash

DH Powell

C Ardoin

SS Faltine

Bench: Campbell, Stehly, Whitehead, Porter

SP: Witt, Hansen, Gordon, Kubichek, Stewart, Eckhardt 

RP: Shifflet, Southard, Duplantier, Nixon 

Thats a STACKED roster.

With day 2 of the draft in the books this still looks pretty realistic.  Take out Porter from the bench and Shifflet from the bullpen, but neither of those guys was a core player.

I also think they’ll add one corner bat from the transfer portal.  If that 3B from KU is it that would be great.  And I’m sure there will be more shuffling of the pitching staff but nothing all that impactful.  Either way this is easily a Top 10 roster.  And while it would surprise me it wouldn’t shock me if Stevens or Williams doesn’t get picked tomorrow and comes back which would be gravy.

Edited by Snake Diggity
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MuellerHorn

MuellerHorn 4228

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

With day 2 of the draft in the books this still looks pretty realistic.  Take out Porter from the bench and Shifflet from the bullpen, but neither of those guys was a core player.

I also think they’ll add one corner bat from the transfer portal.  If that 3B from KU is it that would be great.  And I’m sure there will be more shuffling of the pitching staff but nothing all that impactful.  Either way this is easily a Top 10 roster.  And while it would surprise me it wouldn’t shock me if Stevens or Williams doesn’t get picked tomorrow and comes back which would be gravy.

I agree. That's a great roster. Like is mentioned above, I believe Campbell gets a serious look somewhere. Powell, Melendez, Kash, Campbell, and somewhat Todd, should provide this team with more power than this past season.

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Fletch

Fletch 5800

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, MuellerHorn said:

I agree. That's a great roster. Like is mentioned above, I believe Campbell gets a serious look somewhere. Powell, Melendez, Kash, Campbell, and somewhat Todd, should provide this team with more power than this past season.

I wonder what Melendez has got at 3rd. But yeah holy shit Melendez and Cash with the speed we already have in the lineup would be insane. Is it too much to ask for Kennedy to put together a complete season while Faltine and Silas take the next step at the plate? Who ultimately takes over 3rd will be interesting. Stehly doesn’t exactly have Cams power, but he’s got that 02-05 Augie player feel where he’s a .300ish hitter, stud defensively and comes through in the clutch. Gonna be a fucking awesome season 

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Goodman

Goodman 3273

Posted
Posted

I would love Silas & Faltine to take that next step but I think we should expect what we've seen from the last two years. Stehly can play and every time I wished him to 3rd, Cam would get a clutch hit to break a miserable stretch. I hope all outfield positions are truly put up for grabs this fall. Same for pitching outside of Hensen, if he returns.

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ClubWhatever

ClubWhatever 12120

Posted
Posted

We need significant improvement from both Daly and Faltine.  Faltine needs to work on letting the ball get deeper into the plate.  Almost everything is pull with him right now.  And we need a half step more range from Daly.  His bat started to slow down at the end of the year but I think it was just the freshman wall so I am not concerned there. 

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Goodman

Goodman 3273

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, ClubWhatever said:

We need significant improvement from both Daly and Faltine.  Faltine needs to work on letting the ball get deeper into the plate.  Almost everything is pull with him right now.  And we need a half step more range from Daly.  His bat started to slow down at the end of the year but I think it was just the freshman wall so I am not concerned there. 

Daly as a TR FR was our best player this year. Of course he can improve but he's the last of our problems.

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saul silver

saul silver 25

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Fletch said:

Idk how I forgot about him but yeah. He and Faltine are deadly up the middle. Sorting out the corner infield spots and the outfield is gonna be fun to watch 

I feel like Eric Kennedy has a pretty much guaranteed spot in either left or center. I don't see any way Pierce takes him out of the every day lineup with his bunting ability and speed. 

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Fletch

Fletch 5800

Posted
Posted
8 minutes ago, saul silver said:

I feel like Eric Kennedy has a pretty much guaranteed spot in either left or center. I don't see any way Pierce takes him out of the every day lineup with his bunting ability and speed. 

Yeah same but you never know. He basically got benched at the end of last year. Hopefully we get more Omaha Kennedy and less most of the regular season Kennedy 

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Spaceman_Spiff

Spaceman_Spiff 121

Posted
Posted

Overall pretty pleased with the draft results. Hoping we can hang onto Melendez and Kubichek, but very pleased to hang onto Hansen and Stewart. 

Looking forward, there's something that's been on my mind - anyone concerned about Pierce's recruiting? We've currently got the 60th ranked recruiting class. Our results for '18-'21 are 8/22/26/60. We might see some upward movement staying intact from the draft, but likely very little (and previous rankings I think are already post-draft).

To put it in CFB terms, we know that mid-to-high four stars are what build a consistent winner. Analog to baseball is likely that the Top ~150-200 are potential college stars (high 4 star/5 star). Top 250-500 are potential solid contributors but at kind of a 50/50, with rare star upside (think high 3-star). 500+ is probably JAG, but volume yields some diamonds (low three-stars). An ideal class, guessing based on the competition, should probably be 15-20 commits: ~5-10 T150, 5-10 T250/300, 5-10 T300+. Ours seem to usually be ~3/ 2-5 /10. We seem to be a good 5 guys short for the solid+ range in most of our classes - even our big classes have a lot of 500+ filler that yields maybe 1 guy who ends up a starter. So instead of having a regular rotation of high-talent/3 year types with occasional draft pain and flame outs we have occasional stars, and rely heavily on 4-5 year guys or transfers. For perspective, this year, the Top 10 classes often have 10+ guys (with many making it to campus) ranked T150 or better (while Stewart is our only T150 guy at ~130). My guess is that this can be chalked up to issues in evaluation or recruiting effectiveness. 

I know many will say that this stuff is murky because of the draft, but honestly, I think if anything we should be pushing draft luck harder. Looking at Arkansas, LSU, and MSU - they had 11/7/5 guys in that T150 range and looking at the draft results, 6-8 / 3 / 2 look set to make it to campus. If anything, our own results suggest that. Over '18-'21 we've had 13 T150 guys (~3 per class). Six made it to campus (Madden, Reagan, Faltine, Witt, Stehle, and Stewart), and of those 3 became stars or plausible stars, with Stewart already getting talked about as in the rotation and Stehle still with 2+ years to contribute post-surgery. Any way you slice it, I take those odds. 

I'll also note that I know we do a lot of JUCO/transfer work and the results on it are good. Maybe that moves the needle a bit, but given it adds 1-2 impact guys a year, I don't think it's an either/or. 

This season was outstanding, and I'm very excited for our prospects next year. If anything, the above might suggest that Pierce and Co. are outperforming on development/management given the talent they actually have. But I'm wondering if that isn't somewhat self-inflicted. I know there are qualifiers (committing 3+ years away, money, draft/transfer strategy). But I don't really see a reason we can't put up recruiting alongside Vandy/Arksansas/UF/LSU/MSU/Tennessee. 

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Snake Diggity

Snake Diggity 4619

Posted
Posted

Locks:

C Ardoin

2B Daly

SS Faltine

OF Kennedy

OF Hodo

weekend SP Hansen

Witt as weekend SP or high leverage RP

Gordon as weekend SP or high leverage RP

Dixon as high leverage RP

Stewart as weekday SP or RP

 

Very likely:

Kash at 1B/DH

Transfer (Merringer?) at 3B

Campbell in OF or super utility role

Powell at backup C and DH

Stehly at backup infielder or starter at 3B

Whitehead as reserve OF

Duplantier as late inning RP

Eckhardt as weekday SP

 

50/50:

Melendez at 3B/1B/DH

Todd in RF

weekend SP Kubichek

Southard as RP

 

Longshot:

Stevens as weekend SP

 

Theres still a lot to be determined in the middle of the pitching staff.  But most of the lineup and key pitching is set.

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

Posted
Posted

Fair points.  The class that just went through this draft and report to campus in a few weeks..it's deep and fills in many needs for us.  It's not top-heavy talented.  It's 3 guys at the top and then a bunch of role players, of whom 1-2 may rise up and be stars for us down the road.  But this is not a class that's gonna have multiple starting position players, 2-3 starting pitchers, a closer for us in Omaha in a couple years.  We need to figure out 1-2 starting pitchers, and 2 position players from this class, and the current roster of guys (assuming Melendez comes back).  That's not a lot of rebuilding.  This is an excellent position to be in for our club. 

Our conference opponents were decimated by this draft (OSU, TCU, and especially Tech).  We will also have an unusually deep team in 2022.  Not in batting order, but in terms of our top 3-4 bats and starting pitcher and top-heavy bullpen...our 2022 team will not be that talented.  But it will be a better overall 1-9 batting order with better subs with less dropoff.  The defense will be comparable, likely rising to better as the season goes on...especially up the middle.  The starting pitching will be the biggest dropoff IMO.  We will not have as set of a 4 guys as we did this year, even if Kubichek comes back.  We won't know our 4-man rotation in stone until after Spring Break.  Our bullpen will have more options than this year which we saw in Omaha is a necessity.  

Let's see what shakes out transfer-wise as well.

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Levi

Levi 2585

Posted
Posted

Cam, Melendez and Antico were pretty good gets from the transfer market. According to PG, Daly was a 250ish prospect (Freshman all-American), Aaron Nixon a 221 prospect (freshman all-American), Hodo a 500 prospect, and Silas was a 470 prospect. These were guys off the top of my head (I’m sure there’s some I’m missing) that I felt contributed in a positive way and will end up outperforming their initial prospect rating. Pierce has his style of recruiting consisting of finding good transfers and athletic prospects with high potential, I.e. Nixon. I agree that Pierce needs to be more aggressive in the elite prospect recruitments since he’s shown the ability to get to Omaha twice now. Prospects are going to have the opportunity to play for arguably the best program in history, have a well respected and proven pitching coach, MLB HOF defensive coach, and the ability to make good money with NIL. Pierce really needs to push the latter with the top prospects. 

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Fletch

Fletch 5800

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Spaceman_Spiff said:

Overall pretty pleased with the draft results. Hoping we can hang onto Melendez and Kubichek, but very pleased to hang onto Hansen and Stewart. 

Looking forward, there's something that's been on my mind - anyone concerned about Pierce's recruiting? We've currently got the 60th ranked recruiting class. Our results for '18-'21 are 8/22/26/60. We might see some upward movement staying intact from the draft, but likely very little (and previous rankings I think are already post-draft).

To put it in CFB terms, we know that mid-to-high four stars are what build a consistent winner. Analog to baseball is likely that the Top ~150-200 are potential college stars (high 4 star/5 star). Top 250-500 are potential solid contributors but at kind of a 50/50, with rare star upside (think high 3-star). 500+ is probably JAG, but volume yields some diamonds (low three-stars). An ideal class, guessing based on the competition, should probably be 15-20 commits: ~5-10 T150, 5-10 T250/300, 5-10 T300+. Ours seem to usually be ~3/ 2-5 /10. We seem to be a good 5 guys short for the solid+ range in most of our classes - even our big classes have a lot of 500+ filler that yields maybe 1 guy who ends up a starter. So instead of having a regular rotation of high-talent/3 year types with occasional draft pain and flame outs we have occasional stars, and rely heavily on 4-5 year guys or transfers. For perspective, this year, the Top 10 classes often have 10+ guys (with many making it to campus) ranked T150 or better (while Stewart is our only T150 guy at ~130). My guess is that this can be chalked up to issues in evaluation or recruiting effectiveness. 

I know many will say that this stuff is murky because of the draft, but honestly, I think if anything we should be pushing draft luck harder. Looking at Arkansas, LSU, and MSU - they had 11/7/5 guys in that T150 range and looking at the draft results, 6-8 / 3 / 2 look set to make it to campus. If anything, our own results suggest that. Over '18-'21 we've had 13 T150 guys (~3 per class). Six made it to campus (Madden, Reagan, Faltine, Witt, Stehle, and Stewart), and of those 3 became stars or plausible stars, with Stewart already getting talked about as in the rotation and Stehle still with 2+ years to contribute post-surgery. Any way you slice it, I take those odds. 

I'll also note that I know we do a lot of JUCO/transfer work and the results on it are good. Maybe that moves the needle a bit, but given it adds 1-2 impact guys a year, I don't think it's an either/or. 

This season was outstanding, and I'm very excited for our prospects next year. If anything, the above might suggest that Pierce and Co. are outperforming on development/management given the talent they actually have. But I'm wondering if that isn't somewhat self-inflicted. I know there are qualifiers (committing 3+ years away, money, draft/transfer strategy). But I don't really see a reason we can't put up recruiting alongside Vandy/Arksansas/UF/LSU/MSU/Tennessee. 

No. I’m not worried about recruiting at all. That and developing pitchers are clearly Pierces strengths. He recruited the entire team this year and we have another really good class coming in with some solid jucos and I’m sure we’ll pick up a grad transfer or 2 

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Valmy77

Valmy77 13225

Posted
Posted

I mean recruiting rankings are nice for propaganda and prestige but three Freshman All-Americans are better for that. If we are really bringing in guys like Kash and Stewart who are supposed to be guys we were unlikely to even get on campus. With that being the case I am unclear how that translates to #60.

Unless you are talking about the 2022 class. 

I don't know. Baseball recruiting is weird.

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Spaceman_Spiff

Spaceman_Spiff 121

Posted
Posted (edited)

Of course will take development over recruiting any day, and we've clearly played it smart with JUCO/transfer recruiting.  But the blue chip ratio exists in football for a reason - talent matters. 

Stewart is ~130 and Kash is ~240 according to PG. Both great recruits who you'd expect to have a good shot of being solid contributors next year based on their ranking. Huge to get them on campus. But our ranking is low because compared to other schools we have way fewer top-ranked recruits. In-line with my earlier post, most of the top 10 have as many top-250 recruits as we have all recruits and not all will make it to campus, but more than you'd expect will. Rankings are here. 

Either way, if Pierce keeps getting it done, I'm not complaining. Just knocking out nervous energy waiting till next season.. 

Edited by Spaceman_Spiff
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Valmy77

Valmy77 13225

Posted
Posted (edited)
22 minutes ago, Spaceman_Spiff said:

Of course will take development over recruiting any day, and we've clearly played it smart with JUCO/transfer recruiting.  But the blue chip ratio exists in football for a reason - talent matters. 

Talent does matter. But football recruiting and baseball recruiting are not the same. We know getting the stars matters in football because we have tons of data backing that up. How accurate are those rankings at predicting success in College Baseball? 

PG ranks Kash as 9.5 out of 10 https://www.perfectgame.org/Players/PlayerProfile.aspx?ID=402237

Supposedly a sure top 10 round draft pick equivalent or high level College Player. If 10 means even higher than a top 10 round does it even make sense to load up on guys ranked higher than what PG considers 9.5?

I don't know. If Silas Ardoin, who seems like an elite College Catcher to me, was prospect #470 and Catcher #40 it doesn't seem like they are as accurate as football rankings. Now I don't know maybe those other 39 guys all have cannon arms and hitting .350 but I don't see them out there.

Edited by Valmy77
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saul silver

saul silver 25

Posted
Posted
17 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

Locks:

C Ardoin

2B Daly

SS Faltine

OF Kennedy

OF Hodo

weekend SP Hansen

Witt as weekend SP or high leverage RP

Gordon as weekend SP or high leverage RP

Dixon as high leverage RP

Stewart as weekday SP or RP

 

Very likely:

Kash at 1B/DH

Transfer (Merringer?) at 3B

Campbell in OF or super utility role

Powell at backup C and DH

Stehly at backup infielder or starter at 3B

Whitehead as reserve OF

Duplantier as late inning RP

Eckhardt as weekday SP

 

50/50:

Melendez at 3B/1B/DH

Todd in RF

weekend SP Kubichek

Southard as RP

 

Longshot:

Stevens as weekend SP

 

Theres still a lot to be determined in the middle of the pitching staff.  But most of the lineup and key pitching is set.

I would move Melendez from 50/50 to very likely.  I don't think he is leaving. In Pierce's exit interview he mentioned that Ivan will likely be 1B or 3B for next season. Kendall Rogers of D1 Baseball also said he's expected to return. 

 

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Spaceman_Spiff

Spaceman_Spiff 121

Posted
Posted

Good news about Messinger. For those interested in a comp, his numbers put him as a cross of Daly or Hodo's performance this year: Strikeouts and walks both a hair below average, hits for a solid average, but not a ton of pop. Probably a decent get defensively (played SS and 3B), maybe on-par with Cam - though stats don't tell you much obviously there. I'd guess he's a presumptive starter at 3B, though at his height I figure 1B is an option too if Stehly plays well. 

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Snake Diggity

Snake Diggity 4619

Posted
Posted (edited)

I would imagine we will have some finality on all the potential MLB departures within 2 weeks.  I would assume that any undrafted players who don’t sign this week are very likely to return.  MLB orgs have limits on the number of guys they can keep in their org so signing udfa isn’t without cost since it means releasing one of their other minor leaguers.

Edited by Snake Diggity
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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

Posted
Posted

I would think many of them won't occur until after the draft signing deadline of 1 August.  But thanks for that link, had no idea that existed and I'm a junkie for shit like this.  

Side note---that poor bastard at Catcher for UVA, Logan Michaels, signed with the Red Sox.  So his summer just took a turn for the better.  Good on him.  

Also, Angeles signed 3-4 more UDFA pitchers.  I guess the 20 they drafted earlier this week weren't enough to emphasize the problems with their franchise.  

Finally, I don't know if it's the Volvo effect but I had never heard of the school until two years ago when we played them in hoops, but Cal Baptist is everywhere now.  Including having multiple players drafted and/or UDFA.  

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texasstrong12

texasstrong12 4668

Posted
Posted
20 hours ago, Rickylovesweed said:

@texasstrong12

Messaged me on Twitter on a few weeks ago about Messinger before these rumors started. He also said there's a bigger name that's likely transferring here. I don't know if he wants me share though. 

That's up to him. 

It was Bibee from Cal State Fullerton. He ended up transferring to A&M but my guess is Texas backed off him once they realized he was a draft risk. 

Bibee ended up going in the 5th round so sounds like he's done with college ball. 

He was coming to Texas if they wanted him though based on what I was told. 

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