I want to ask these questions here as the group on here is knowledgeable, informed and can discuss things without the emotions that can poison our other forums. I have enough history with the program as a casual observer to understand that pitching is a historical Achilles heel for us. I also know that many (most?) of you have confidence that this will be different going forward due to the new pitching coach and his methods.
However, I am also informed enough to know that we (unlike our BB and FB teams) have recruited at a level equal to or better than our competition. Which sort of leads into my question(s)...are you concerned as I am when the discussion turns to "poor fundamentals' in ANY sport? (To me, fundamentals should be a given for any team in any sport. That is controllable. Talent however is a variable which is not as easily controllable...imo).
Would you say that this is like pitching...a fundamental characteristic of a Danny Hall program (it seems that I hear this too) or is this year a "one off" due to youth and inexperience? I know that our teams are ALWAYS recognized as being a potent offensive team and I am trying to sort out the myths from the realities from people with accurate and deep perspective. I admit to having almost none so this is why I am asking.
BTW, if y'all consider this a thread derailment I would be happy to split it out as a separate thread. Or, if you think it is out of bounds, you can report it and I will delete it. But I am hoping for informative discussion here.
Good questions and thoughts.
I'll start with some perspective on the program. We are spoiled with Ga Tech baseball. The expectations are extremely high because of the sustained success. I went back 15 seasons (not including 2020.. covid). TEN of those seasons the team won over 35 games. Only once (2017) did it win less than 30. That was a disappointing 27 win season. To CDH's credit a correction was made. Entering 2018, he went out and got the best assistant coach he's ever hired in James Ramsey. CJR made an immediate impact on the offense and his teaching and development of players on offense (and defense) is now "imbedded" in the program. We get on base and hit balls hard and score a lot of runs. & we're back above 30 wins each season.
With these high expectations, comes an unrealistic assumption winning in the post-season should be happening easily. Post-season college baseball is so unforgiving. I'll grant that it "feels like" Ga Tech has somehow failed in the post-season more often than not; but when it comes down to it... these post-season weekends require everything to go your way. Get some breaks. Have a pitcher step up. Make no mistakes. The margins are miniscule. I blame "baseball" and the format more than I do any particular Tech team, player, or coaching staff. Others see it differently. I get that.
Fundamentals covers a lot of different things. My first thought is we (me included) should calm down a little on this. Until we see a real trend (not just a handful of games), I am willing to give the team the benefit of the doubt as we sit here today. Going into this season, we all knew/acknowledged that the middle infield was going to be a big question mark. A shaky middle infield is a recipe for disaster as they get a TON of the defensive opportunities. Problems there tend to propagate to other defenders (see issues receiving at 1B). Fortunately, our early season team MVP (Simpson) made it appear our concerns would be alleviated. Then he got hurt. Add to that, he got hurt at a critical point in the season... when the [ACC] competition was ramping way up. This created a mess for the middle infield. It forced the staff to scramble to figure out the pieces needed. It has not gone well. They've tried many combos and there have been breakdowns. Bottom line (for me) is I expect a decrease in fundamental mistakes as the season continues.
Pitching has been our achilles heal and continues to be. I think I may be a little less patient than others regarding our pitching. The notion that we'll see improvement once "DBo's guys" [the lower classmen] get some more time sort of irritates me. I understand the sentiment; but I assume DBo would agree that he's expected to get the most out of ALL the pitchers; and frankly, we just have not seen very many pitchers get better over the last 2 years. Huff and Medich(?) are perhaps the notable exceptions and I'm thrilled to see that. Gives me hope DBo knows what he's doing. However, there is a much longer list of veteran guys who have (for some reason...probably different reasons) shown no improvement or gone backwards. I'm the eternal optimist and do still believe DBo is the right guy. So.. I'm still hopeful whether it is with these Freshman who are pitching great or something with the veterans that clicks.. I'm hopeful we'll see a turnaround. We have to have that for this team to compete at the highest level.
Final thought... the ACC is so loaded. College baseball in general has an elevated talent pool. This could be a year where you have to pay very close attention to SEE how good we are and not just wait until May and look at the record. Let's hope the "committee" understands that, makes the correct assessments, and rewards the conference with a significant number of post-season host sites.
Circling back... we have a great program with high quality talent. We win a lot of games. If we can pick out some of the nits above, then we'll see results improve. That's an improvement from really good to outstanding. Personally, I need to keep reminding myself I take for granted the really good.
At least not the surface. GT has a really nice filed, but it helps to not have the Pittsburgh winters. 