Daryl Norris SEC Freshmens of the Week...

[K9 Avenger]

<font size="2">PLAYER: Daryl Norris POS: 1B/RHP HT: 6-1 WT: 220 HOMETOWN: Fairhope, Ala.

Daryl
Norris starred for the Bulldogs at the plate and on the mound in
helping lead Mississippi State to its first SEC series sweep in 34
series dating back to 2007 … Opened the first two games of the series
at first base, registering a pair of multi-hit games and a .556 batting
average while scoring four runs … Earned his first career win with a
season-longest 5.1 inning appearance in State’s sweep-clinching 5-0
shutout of No. 20 Auburn ... Retired 16 of the 18 batters he faced to
help secure State’s fourth shutout of the campaign and MSU’s first
against an SEC opponent in 88 league games … Now ranks second on the
club with a .359 batting average and in four relief appearances has
compiled an 0.75 ERA with a win, a save, 12 strikeouts and one run
allowed in 12.0 IP.
</font>

 

[K9 Avenger]

<font size="2">PLAYER: Daryl Norris POS: 1B/RHP HT: 6-1 WT: 220 HOMETOWN: Fairhope, Ala.

Daryl
Norris starred for the Bulldogs at the plate and on the mound in
helping lead Mississippi State to its first SEC series sweep in 34
series dating back to 2007 … Opened the first two games of the series
at first base, registering a pair of multi-hit games and a .556 batting
average while scoring four runs … Earned his first career win with a
season-longest 5.1 inning appearance in State’s sweep-clinching 5-0
shutout of No. 20 Auburn ... Retired 16 of the 18 batters he faced to
help secure State’s fourth shutout of the campaign and MSU’s first
against an SEC opponent in 88 league games … Now ranks second on the
club with a .359 batting average and in four relief appearances has
compiled an 0.75 ERA with a win, a save, 12 strikeouts and one run
allowed in 12.0 IP.
</font>

 

[57stratdawg]

Sarcasm.. Kid has been lights out so far. I think this is his 2nd time to be Freshman of the Week.

Todd,

What do you see his pitching role from here on being? Long relief? Closer? Starter (maybe?). He went over 5 innings against Auburn.

 

[Xartox]

I personally don't care to see Jones start another SEC game.

 

[KurtRambis4]

Thompson sure is a terrible pitching coach.

/

 

[Rabbitt]

is they move him to Sundays and start Nick Rout on Fridays. The rumbilings I heard while at the game Saturday and talking with one of the top athletic guys.

 

[Shmuley]

nm

 

[coach66]

him to Sunday seems appropriate. From what I have heard he has the physical tools to be succesful and obviously the coaches feel the same way. He may need to hire a shrink or maybe somebody on this board can coach him up but I won't name any names.

 

[RonnyAtmosphere]

...before league play began, downtowndog was solemnly informing us you could write off all Sunday SEC games, because we have absolutely no Sunday pitchers.


First, we had a Sunday pitcher who protected a 1 run lead in the bottom of the 9th vs. Vandy.


Now we have a greenhorn receiving accolades for his Sunday pitching performance.


2-0 on Sundays in league play & downtowndog is nowhere to be found.

 

[basedog]

Moving him to mid week and lets start Norris? Jones looks to be done, not sure he will or can recover, hopefully he want start against Georgia on Friday or Sunday!

 

[Tds &amp; Beer]

but couldn't listen to the audio at the time. How hard does he throw?

 

[alabamadog]

but in high school he threw around 88. He doesn't throw hard, but he has good control and movement.

 

[Todd4State]

It's going to depend a lot on Devin Jones and how quickly Routt recovers. If Devin gets his head on straight, then I think we will see him pitch some on Sundays in relief and maybe start during the midweek.

If he doesn't, I think he will pitch on Sunday and like someone said, they will move Routt to Friday. I think this is the most likely scenario.

I think Devin will get two, maybe three more starts just because of where Routt is in his rehab. If we were a little bit deeper, Jones would be pitching midweek- maybe. If he wants to keep his spot in the rotation, he needs to step up now.

What is unique about Daryl Norris is he is a dual position guy that profiles more as a starting pitcher. Most dual position guys are relief pitchers- see every other dual position guy that we have. That complicates things a little bit- not in bad way- because we have to consider that he is also one of our best hitters. Because of that, I think he is our future Sunday starter, which is an advantage for us because we have a guy with great stuff that we will be pitching on Sundays- the thought is to put him in that slot to affect his hitting the least from fatigue. The only bad thing about him pitching right now is that when we put him on the mound, we take his bat out of the lineup. I think it will get to where we let him do both on Sunday's in the future, but I think they don't want to ask him to do too much right now.

 

[Todd4State]

He is pretty consistently at 88-89 and may even touch 90. But he absolutely pounds the strike zone and he has a really good slider. He may throw in the low 90's as he develops.

 

[DowntownDawg]

Sure was an awesome performance against a good lineup though.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...and not giving the hitters a chance to do anything with his mistakes. Great performance. He is a helluva player.

 

[Goat Holder II]

but this part still stands true:

"there are definitely other posters here more worthy of ridicule for their baseball ignorance".

 

[DowntownDawg]

...granted some of that is stupid coaching decisions like starting CT Bradford. Some of that is garbage time like in the Saturday Auburn game.

The pitching as a whole is better, but some of that is the bats as well. What I fear with Thompson is that we're never going to have a Maholm/Pomeranz guy under him that you can send out there on a Friday night and count on a win. He just has not done that over the course of his career. Stratton should be trending that way, and he does not seem to be that much better. Jones is not that much better. We just seem to have more quality arms than we have had in the past. I am still holding my breath on Thompson and I wish we had somebody else, but I am pleased overall with everything. To go from what we were last year to the middle of the pack is amazing. I hope we can maintain that and continue to improve.

 

[Todd4State]

is that those are both very special players that you're talking about there. To get players like that, a lot of that is recruiting more than anything because they have things that are God given- things like poise, work ethic, control, and etc. Maholm didn't have a blazing fastball, but he would absolutely carve people up because he had all of those things that I just talked about that are God given. That's what sets them apart. You can only coach up someone so much.

You can contrast that with a guy like Devin Jones who has a great fastball and slider, but he doesn't have a lot of those things I talked about above, and you see the result.

I think Butch has done a good job of developing our pitchers so far- see Girodo adding a slider and looking the best I've ever seen him, Busby is progressing, Stratton has gotten better, Reed has gotten a LOT better, Routt looks better so far, and even Devin Jones has gotten better compared to where he started out at. I saw Taylor Stark pitch in high school- he is a lot better now as well. Hunter Renfroe has done well other than the other day, and he is someone that really had never pitched before. He was throwing 94 in high school, and after Butch has worked with him, he is up to 98. Evan Mitchell was throwing at 91 in high school, and now he is topping out at 94-95.

We're still a little short in the depth dept., but we're functional.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...and I really don't want to, but I think you are a little homerish on Butch.

Reed has gotten better.
Routt - How can you objectively give Butch credit for Routt when Butch 17ed up his arm and you admit that? The guy's not all the way back from an injury that kept him out of play for a year when our team sorely needed him. Big checkmark against Butch with him.
Stratton's numbers are better. But he has faced some weak competition in addition to the two league games, plus the bats. Just from how he looks out there, he doesn't appear to me to have improved all that greatly. I was hoping he would take a big jump.
Props to Butch on Girodo's slider. Again, it's early.
Jones has gotten much worse throughout the year, not sure what you mean by where he "started out at," and this one is very frustrating.

You say that Pomeranz and Maholm were special cases. What about Vandy's 2 arms that they have up there this year? SC always has a Friday night guy that they can rely on to get them a win. Look at Roth again this year. Look at Crouse this year for Ole Miss. He was not that great last year. He is not some ultra talented kid. Those guys get drafted.

You can't tell me that Bianco, for all his weaknesses, can't develop pitchers. He does that consistently. Pat Mac did it as well. I'm just saying we miss that. And it's not the prodigies. Development is a huge portion of it. That's what a pitching coach is supposed to do. Take a kid who didn't get drafted high enough out of high school and make him a dominant player. There are at least 4-5 stud Friday night guys every year in this league. The last one we had was Maholm. Stratton should be the next. He pitched all year as a Freshman and he has the experience. He has got to develop. He's got one of the best curveballs I've ever seen, but he's not a dominant guy yet, and it's time to get going on that.

I go back to Mitchell Boggs, who is an occasional starter for the Cardinals. Never got under a 4.00 ERA with Butch at Georgia.

All that said, I am happy with the progress right now. We need some guys to dominate on Friday night and Saturday and we don't have that. Hell, maybe Norris has got it.

 

[Goat Holder II]

Many of these guys don't become real Friday night type guys until they are upperclassmen. People like Pomeranz and Maholm are the exception.

On Routt, he isn't in the same league as them. So he got hurt. Was Bianco responsible for Scott Bittle? That cost them a College World Series berth.

 

[MaroonedNdaRock]

Daryl Norris throws the ball however fast Darly Norris wants to throw the ball. Only reason Norris doesn't throw the ball at the speed of light is because he wants the added challenge of covering the other eight positions.

 

[Todd4State]

Sonny Gray is a projected top five pick in the entire draft, and Grayson Garvin is a projected second round pick. Stratton is good, but he's not as good as Gray, Pomeranz, or Maholm. Crouse has had a good year, as has Micheal Roth (not Perry), but they're more like Stratton- very good pitchers, but they're not anywhere near what Gray, Pomeranz, or Maholm were. Plus, Crouse is a senior, and Roth is a junior- Stratton is only a sophomore.

About Routt- yes, I blame Butch for hurting him, but you also have to give Butch credit for bringing him back. And I don't remember Routt pitching as well as he is now as a freshman. I'll give Butch credit for that.

Stratton has faced two ranked teams this year- what do you mean he has faced weak competition? He held Vandy to the fewest runs of any starter that we had- and he pitched well against Auburn. He beat one of those and the one he lost was a game where we got shutout. And the bats? What do you think we're swinging? Stratton has improved his change up and added a cutter or a two seam fastball. Look at his innings pitched last year- he was only able to throw his fastball and curveball and he had a hard time getting through the order the third time through. Now he is getting through seven consistently because he has more pitches that he can use. Guess who taught and refined those pitches?

When I said where Jones started out at- that was tongue in cheek because when he was a freshman and sophomore, he couldn't even beat non-conference teams. At least he pitched well against the non-conference teams this year.

Bianco has had some good pitchers. His Sat and Sun starters have also been inconsistent this year. And they have had their share of injuries as well- Bittle, Jake Morgan, and etc.

And Mitchell Boggs? I love him as a Cardinals fan, but he's a AAAA pitcher that got to MLB because of hard work.

You may think I'm homerish on Butch, and that's fine- but believe me, if I thought he wasn't doing a good job and causing problems, I would definately be the first in line to want him gone. But, by the same token, I don't think you're being objective about the things that he has done well and the pretty obvious improvement that our pitching staff has made. And quite frankly, if you're not happy with the progress that a guy who is 4-1 with a 2.61 ERA with 40 K's in 41 innings has made because he's not putting up junior year Drew Pomeranz like stats, you're probably not going to be happy with anyone that we would hire to replace him, either.

 

[patdog]

Maybe deserving of POTW honors and not just freshmens POTY.

 

[patdog]

Maholm was an All-American the day he set foot on campus. He didn't need any coaching. He just needed the ball.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...you're not going to change your view and I will happily change mine when we are running at least one dominant pitcher out there every 2-3 years. I don't think that will happen under Butch, because I don't think has a track record for developing pitchers like Bianco, Corbin, McMahon, etc. I believe my position will be borne out over time, and you are right, it is too early to call it on Stratton. I think the biggest difference in our whole team is that they seem to be scrappy and gritty and not willing to accept losing, and that includes the pitching staff. So I give credit to our coaches for that, and I think the attitude has finally changed for the better, and that's been the biggest thing.

No complains from me sitting in second place in the West at this juncture.

 

[KurtRambis4]

you're gripe with Thompson is that we'll never have a MLB starter, first round pick? Also, everything bad that happens is Thompson's fault and everything that good happens is not because of him. Got it.

 

[RonnyAtmosphere]

..I post the fact that you declared our Sunday pitching doomed, then you change the subject by posting how much runs were are giving up in league play.


The fact remains you did declare our Sunday pitching doomed. The fact also remains, at least so far, you are wrong.

And your concern about our pitching staff not being inundated with future Sandy Koufaxes & Nolan Ryans is duly noted. Only the likes of you & coach34 would diss a coach (Thompson) who is getting the job done, but not in the method you prefer. In fact, coach34 invented that ****. Nice to see he has recruited some disciples.

All I know is this pitching staff is currently 4-2 in league play &, opposite your prediction, 2-0 in Sunday league games.

 

[gottogetup]

He was clocked throwing 98 as a junior in high school.
He has the heat!

 

[gottogetup]

I believe he was a low 90s pitcher in high school. I do know that he got clocked at 98 when he was a junior