Ricky Bowen quote from BDJ:

[dawgatUSM]

"Last year, I felt like I had no control of the game. I had no plan and you can't pitch like that. I mean, it wasn't a terrible year but I was inconsistent, up and down. What helps your confidence is to have a plan and now I do"

My question... Isn't it the pitching coaches job to prepare a plan for a pitcher to attack the other team with? I love McNickle as a person, and I wish him the best as well as Raffo and... ugh... Polk. However, was our whole staff just that lazy?

 

[cowbell9]

nm</p>

 

[patdog]

Unless he's already signed and I just haven't heard about it, he'll be at MSU next spring.

 

[8dog]

with his team for a while signing at 11:59 pm before the deadline.

 

[Todd4State]

"Last year, I felt like I had no control of the game. I had no plan and you can't pitch like that. I mean, it wasn't a terrible year but I was
inconsistent, up and down. What helps your confidence is to have a plan and now I do"

My question... Isn't it the pitching coaches job to prepare a plan for a pitcher to attack the other team with? I love McNickle as a person, and I wish
him the best as well as Raffo and... ugh... Polk. However, was our whole staff just that lazy?

</p>

Yes. It is the coaches job to prepare the pitcher. While I'm sure that they may not be as in depth as pro baseball scouting reports, I do know that college teams do have scouting reports on the other teams. I think beyond the laziness, I think that the current state of the college game had passed Polk by. He couldn't operate with the scholarship limitations and while they were nice people, his assistants weren't the best either. Our training methods were archaic as far as conditioning and that sort of thing, and I have no idea what the hell McNickle was or maybe I should say wasn't doing. McNickle clearly was incompetent as a pitching coach. When your ENTIRE rotation and closer go down with injuries, you have to look in the mirror and do something different. Raffo was doing a poor job with recruiting and whether he was simply taking orders or not, our offensive production was consistently only average to below average. Raffo just was not aggressive at recruiting and I also think he was a poor judge of talent. They took way too many chances on hoping that guys like Jarrod Parks would want to walk-on, and more often than not, that's not going to happen.

At least Cohen retained the best coach on the staff- Tyler Bratton.

 

[hatfieldms]

The pitching stafff will be better this year. I have a relative on the team and his mother has told me that the really did know pitching drills during the seaosn and with the conditioning they were doing none of them were 100% when they pitched. And yes, he had to ask for ice after every game because his doctor told him to. He is working with a pitching coach this summer who was shocked at the way the staff treated these guys last year. It is pretty amazing that this is all going on at a SEC school

 

[Todd4State]

The pitching stafff will be better this year. I have a relative on the team and his mother has told me that the really did know pitching drills during the
seaosn and with the conditioning they were doing none of them were 100% when they pitched. And yes, he had to ask for ice after every game because his doctor
told him to. He is working with a pitching coach this summer who was shocked at the way the staff treated these guys last year. It is pretty amazing that
this went going on at a SEC school

</p>

That felt good to correct, as long as you didn't mind.

 

[ArrowDawg]

.....to me from a player basically saying the last staff was messed up.

 

[hatfieldms]

.....to me from a player basically saying the last staff was messed up.

Messed up isn't even the word for it. when his pitching coach asked him what drills they did during practice, of course the answer was not much. the coaches exact quote then was"You guys will have a much better year next year" as he shook his head
</p>

 

[KurtRambis4]

bless their hearts

 

[SnakePlissken]

He flat out told me that our staff had no clue what they were doing and never gave them a chance to be better pitchers. Coaching is preparing your players to be the best they can possibly be. The former staff FAILED in every measure when it came to preparing the players to be the best they could be.

 

[patdog]

Messed up isn't even the word for it.

Yeah, but we can't use the right word on this board any more. </p>

 

[hatfieldms]

She told me that one of our pitchers had gained about 3-4 mph on his fastball since he had started summer league with a pitching coach. i cant remember which one she said it was, but things like that are mind boggling

 

[Todd4State]

and this is the worst thing of all- we were getting a reputation for abusing pitchers. Parents obviously DO NOT want to see their child hurt, first of all, but baseball is a sport where millions are potentially at stake. No one is going to want to send their child to a school where they could potentially cost their child that much money and their dream of playing pro ball. Heck, the players aren't going to want to go to a place where they are going to get hurt either. Other coaches will use that against us all day long if we happen to actually recruit someone decent.

Also, look at Aaron Weatherford. He is a phenomenal talent, and if he stays healthy, I think he will be the Rockies closer in a few years. The fact that he wasn't drafted in the first round is amazing.

The good news is, I think Butch Thompson will do a really good job with the pitching staff. He certainly has his work cut out for him, there's no doubt about that. He has been in the SEC and has had success at Georgia and Auburn. I was shocked that we landed him just because he had taken a HC job, but I was very happy that we ended up with him.

 

[DirtyLopez]

abusing pitchers now though. The good thing is that Cohen had made a name for himself with what he did at kentucky and apparently many of these kids (pitchers especially) know about Thompson as being a good pitching coach. I had a MS juco player telling me all about Thompson and how highly thought of he is among baseball people. From what I am gathering (and this is from people who aren't State fans), we have hit it big with our coaches. And that will make recruiting even easier.

 

[Todd4State]

have talked about our assistants, of course everyone wants to talk about Cohen and rightfully so, but also Lane Burroughs is going to be great as well. One of my friends who has a Dad that is a big time USM supporter had a similar reaction when I told him that we hired Burroughs. His reaction was- Wow. Of course said that he was great recruiter and was a great hitting coach and that State hit the jackpot with him. Also, hiring the bunting guru, whose name I can't spell (Mangioni?) was a great hire as well. Of course, just having Cohen around will help our offense.

It's great to hear that potential players think so highly of Thompson, as well, and that all this is happening in THREE MONTHS!

I can not wait to see what MSU baseball is like three years from now after Cohen has firmly established his program and will have a team that is almost all his recruits. I think it's going to be good!

 

[Xenomorph]

*

 

[hatfieldms]

Yeah you are aright, we had a top notch pitching coach. And this was just a parent relaying on what her son and other players were saying