Gone
- Thread starter chill133
- Start date
He didn't get a lot of playing time, but I thought he had potential.
Who knows he may be back in 2021.
I imagine that there was going to be a pretty tall order ahead of him to get onto the field. Cam Hill returns and should have a lock on centerfield. Anu coming in means that he likely will be at one of the corners. Daniel really doesn't have a solid position to play, and very well could see OF. Adams is likely to be a backup catcher, but can also play some OF. If he hits well then he will be hard to take out of the lineup.
By some accounts Rook wasn't extremely versatile in the defensive outfield. Where someone like Hill can move to any of the 3 outfield positions, Rook could only play center. So, that kind of also hinders him in terms of finding a way onto the field.
Both of these are big blows. Dobzanski was one of the gems of the 2017 class and he didn't pitch a single game for UK in two years. In fact, there were two others that were gems in that class and Jordan is the only one that will technically ever take the mound for UK. We might look like a very different team had those three recovered more quickly and stayed around.
Ayers seemed like he could develop into a solid bullpen guy. He pitched in 26 games and had the fourth lowest ERA, behind Hazelwood, Thompson, and Daniels. I don't think that he would ever be a weekend starter, but he could have definitely developed into a good long middle reliever for us. We really can't afford to lose more pitching experience.
I hate to lose Ayers. With a little added strength, he'll be a good addition for someone. I wonder why he wasn't happy. As you said, he had plenty of appearances.
Well, you know as well as anyone that losing can make anyone unhappy and that winning cures everything. We may very lose a good chunk just because we had a poor season.
Also, it is now June 12th and we haven't heard anything about whether or not our coach is going to make any changes. Will he really still stick with Belanger? If so, then I might also be jumping ship if I'm a pitcher, as Belanger to this point hasn't shown a great propensity to develop pitchers.
That's a mistake IMO. Our team ERA was 208th in 2018. A year in which we all expected UK to have one of the top pitching staffs in the nation. Instead, we statistically had our worst pitching performance in a decade. We follow that up by finishing 159th this year in team ERA, and that is probably a lot worse but for ZT.
I am fine with keeping the others, but Belanger needs to be shown the door.
P.S. Can you imagine how poor our record would have been last year had it not been for hitting? Holy cow!
Don't tell anyone, but I might go there more often if the board was easier to organize and if it were actually easy to see the baseball threads. I think there is plenty of good information there, but it can be a pain to navigate... or I'm old and don't like change. One of those.
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I just don't know what's going on over there. Last I heard Knowles is going to sign. That was after I heard all spring he was coming to Lexington. Could they actually be worse next season?
I don't know how they could be better at pitching. No help coming in other than freshmen, none of which (to my knowledge) are top 150 players. No one returning seemed to shine other than maybe Daniels. We could be scary bad.
We better hope that the hitting carries us like it did in 2018, or it will be a major meltdown.
Cutting off your nose to spite your face...didn't realize NM was that bullheaded!
Just to play devil's advocate with this... maybe NM feels a bit stuck. That he knows no one great will sign up to come on board because our talent level isn't great. Maybe he has even sent out feelers and isn't getting a good response?
Also... I somewhat fear that Mingione doesn't have a big/wide enough coaching tree to know a ton of available pitching coaches. I looked at it at one point and most of the places he had been, the pitching coaches had been there for a long long time and there weren't many other coaches on the rosters who were assistants that have now become pitching coaches. Of course, coaches know a lot more people than just who they worked with because of camps and seminars and such, but I'm just throwing it out there.
This is my thought as well. I feel like Mingione knows next year is a make or break year. And if you’re a coach who could possibly be coaching for his job, I’m sure the pool for assistant coaches would be small for potentially one year. Pitching coaches in college seem to be hard to find unless they’re a head coach already.
Think there is a very good pitching coach out there who might like to be a HC in the SEC:cool2::baseball::lock::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:[thumb2]
As much as I want to like this, you and I both know that a coaching change will not happen this year.
Rivalry aside, I wish Belanger would work out (he's a good guy and was a contributor to our 2007 CWS run), but it looks like changes need to be made.
Do you guys think that if a HC change is eventually made, that UK should move away from the John Cohen tree? He obviously did a great job putting UK baseball on the map, but Henderson and now Mingione (so far) have been a bit underwhelming.
JP
Do you guys think that if a HC change is eventually made, that UK should move away from the John Cohen tree? He obviously did a great job putting UK baseball on the map, but Henderson and now Mingione (so far) have been a bit underwhelming.
JP
something going on over there ,not good,team will be worse next year,if they don't bring in a lot of good players
As usual, it will be interesting to see what happens. The major concern is pitching. Right now we don't have anyone that we can trust to be a weekend starter. Hazelwood, Ramsey, and Harper are likely candidates, but all are inconsistent. We, to my knowledge, bring in just one JUCO pitcher (Knowles). He might actually sign a contract after a huge year and winning the JUCO world series. Zachary Lee is a top 500 prospect coming in as a freshman and he has some good stuff with a FB that touches 95. Unfortunately, he has control issues. Marsh will return as a sophomore but needs to show marked improvement. Over all there are just major red flags with pitching. We will need multiple people to emerge as stars and that is concerning, and probably unlikely.
I think hitting can improve and should. We have a couple guys who will be full second year in the SEC guys (Schultz, Daniel, Hill, Curtis, and Kessler), so hopefully they hit a big learning curve and all improve. I think they can and see a lot of potential in all of those guys.
One big thing is that we just need better leadership. We need guys to step up and be leaders that are respected and who others will follow their lead. For whatever reason, we didn't seem to have that this year. Hopefully, we see this team come together and surprise people. Otherwise, we will be fighting to stay out of last place again in 2020.
We have a stud SS coming in out of Ontario Canada, Jaden Brown a 10 score on the Perfect game recruiting page. Kid can literally do it all, hit, field, run and throw. 40th round pick by Washington indicates he told them he was college bound, 6'1 190.