Pitching woes

[Ranchdawg]

I've been trying to figure out what is going wrong with our pitching. I have been watching the games on TV and noticed that our pitchers throw about 1/2 of their pitches at the outside lower corner of the strike zone missing about 3/4 of the time. It doesn't matter who is pitching this is the pattern. Maybe they are trying to hit too small of an area and that is resulting in all the walks. Just a personal observation.

 

[The Cooterpoot]

The Foxhall Defect

 

[Thebulldogcountry1]

Butch Thompson would have turned Stinnett into Chad Girodo by now. Instead, he has regressed. Same goes for Hunt.

 

[patdog]

Read a pretty good article about the Rays success in the majors and how their philosophy is spreading out to other teams. They believe in getting pitchers with good stuff and throwing the 1st pitch down the middle of the plate to get ahead on the count. Statistics show that they'll only get hurt on that 1st pitch 6% of the time, which is a nothing compared to the advantage of being ahead on the count instead of behind.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Butch Thompson would have turned Stinnett into Chad Girodo by now. Instead, he has regressed. Same goes for Hunt.

Butch is a better head coach than pitching coach, in my opinion. For every good story, he had a couple of bad ones that didn't work. Our 2015 pitching staff was a disaster, and some of that may have been him getting caught up in the new balls that spun less. Lot of our stud recruits didn't develop until late (Chris Stratton, Jacob Lindgren, Dakota Hudson, Zac Houston).

I'm just not sold on Butch being what we need. Plus he's a 'nice' guy. Honestly I think he's kind of a Lemonis in disguise, more of a crooter than X/O coach. And at Auburn, he's got getting all these guys with accolades so he's probably getting players with better mental makeup who are used to working hard, thus they win, while our guys cry.

If you are going to go after the PGAAs, you better get the true studs like LSU, Vandy and Florida get. And maybe we do, in the freshman class.

 

[8dog]

Butch Thompson would have turned Stinnett into Chad Girodo by now. Instead, he has regressed. Same goes for Hunt.

Butch Thompsons staff has given up 24,10 and 17 on 3 of their last 4 conference games.

 

[o_HuntDawg]

Read a pretty good article about the Rays success in the majors and how their philosophy is spreading out to other teams. They believe in getting pitchers with good stuff and throwing the 1st pitch down the middle of the plate to get ahead on the count. Statistics show that they'll only get hurt on that 1st pitch 6% of the time, which is a nothing compared to the advantage of being ahead on the count instead of behind.

Define "hurt" on the pitch 6% of the time.

 

[patdog]

Define "hurt" on the pitch 6% of the time.

Gives up a hit. Batters take close to 60% of 1st pitch strikes.

 

[o_HuntDawg]

I get the point but thats just not true.

First-Pitch Swingers Receive Major Advantage | Baseball Prospectus

The five highest league OPSes on the first pitch, since pitch-by-pitch data began to be tracked in 1988, belong to the last five seasons.

www.baseballprospectus.com

about the 3rd paragraph shows hitters hit above 340 and slugged nearly 600 in the 2020 season. There are quiet a few stats elsewhere that show the same thing.

The importance of throiwng a 1st pitch strike i get. I dont think you saw the numbers correctly about 6% however.

 

[Perd Hapley]

Butch is a better head coach than pitching coach, in my opinion. For every good story, he had a couple of bad ones that didn't work. Our 2015 pitching staff was a disaster, and some of that may have been him getting caught up in the new balls that spun less. Lot of our stud recruits didn't develop until late (Chris Stratton, Jacob Lindgren, Dakota Hudson, Zac Houston).

I'm just not sold on Butch being what we need. Plus he's a 'nice' guy. Honestly I think he's kind of a Lemonis in disguise, more of a crooter than X/O coach. And at Auburn, he's got getting all these guys with accolades so he's probably getting players with better mental makeup who are used to working hard, thus they win, while our guys cry.

If you are going to go after the PGAAs, you better get the true studs like LSU, Vandy and Florida get. And maybe we do, in the freshman class.

I think its pretty hard to argue against Butch’s results. Two CWS’s and a Super in the past 5 years at a historical bottom half of SEC team like Auburn is pretty remarkable. Of course, the usual folks would melt hard if he had a 10-20 SEC record in a rebuilding year between those Omaha appearances like he did.

And his recruiting hasn’t been all that. He’s brought in fewer Top 100 players than we have for sure. I think the recruiting would certainly improve at MSU, and from a recruiting rankings standpoint he would be in the Lemonis / Cannizarro tier at a minimum. I think he’d get more out of them though.

All in all, I think Butch and Burroughs could both be good, but I don’t see how anyone wouldn’t have Butch ahead of Burroughs….by a lot…if we were making the hire tomorrow. Their resume’s aren’t even close.

 

[Perd Hapley]

I get the point but thats just not true.

First-Pitch Swingers Receive Major Advantage | Baseball Prospectus

The five highest league OPSes on the first pitch, since pitch-by-pitch data began to be tracked in 1988, belong to the last five seasons.

www.baseballprospectus.com

about the 3rd paragraph shows hitters hit above 340 and slugged nearly 600 in the 2020 season. There are quiet a few stats elsewhere that show the same thing.

The importance of throiwng a 1st pitch strike i get. I dont think you saw the numbers correctly about 6% however.

Well if looking at only the 2020 season and looking at the entire league, that’s still only getting “hurt” 13% of the time….assuming that hitters are taking the pitch 60% of the time.

And the Rays are looking at a lot more data than just one shortened season, and are looking specifically at their staff and the specific pitches they throw. Just because its down the middle of the plate doesn’t mean they are grooving a fastball every time. Just means they are trying to make sure the first pitch is always a strike, even with some margin for error.

 

[kired]

Butch Thompsons staff has given up 24,10 and 17 on 3 of their last 4 conference games.

He didn't say which version of Chad Girodo**