Hall retained. Borrell fired.

[JacketOff]

No one is commenting on the thought Stricklin is available today?
He was a catcher, called good games as a player for “Coach Please Retire Before I Croak.” Could Tech afford him as a Pitching Coach? Well, look at what Borrell is getting through 2025. Yep that’s my fear, we go the cheap way a la Gregory & Pastner. Good coaches who know something about pitching, defense & recruiting are premium hires.

Hiring somebody who is not qualified to be a pitching coach simply because you don’t want to look “cheap” is an insanely silly route to take.

 

[gtbeak]

No one is commenting on the thought Stricklin is available today?
He was a catcher, called good games as a player for “Coach Please Retire Before I Croak.” Could Tech afford him as a Pitching Coach? Well, look at what Borrell is getting through 2025. Yep that’s my fear, we go the cheap way a la Gregory & Pastner. Good coaches who know something about pitching, defense & recruiting are premium hires.

I'm guessing (maybe being too optimistic?) that the money will be there to make a solid hire. I would worry more about what others have mentioned, that being will a good pitching coach be willing to step into what may be a volatile situation with CFDH nearing the end?

If Stricklin has the chops to be a pitching coach I could certainly see him as a possible hire for us. Does he have the chops for that? I don't have any first hand knowledge on that, but I don't see in his resume where he has filled that role before.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

No one is commenting on the thought Stricklin is available today?
He was a catcher, called good games as a player for “Coach Please Retire Before I Croak.” Could Tech afford him as a Pitching Coach? Well, look at what Borrell is getting through 2025. Yep that’s my fear, we go the cheap way a la Gregory & Pastner. Good coaches who know something about pitching, defense & recruiting are premium hires.

Is Tex (sic) willing to pay for him?

I hope in keeping Hall, Batt got a budget for replacing DBo.

 

[GTRambler]

I’m sure Tex will help Batt on the baseball budget.

 

[MWBATL]

Yes. I'm a card carrying member of the risk-averse club. FWIW... I wanted the last FB coach fired very early in his tenure. But he sucked at his job. CDH doesn't.

I think the more accurate phrase is "CDH didn't. But now he does." It's just hard to ignore the last 10-15 years of disappointing results.

 

[Eli]

I’m sure Tex will help Batt on the baseball budget.

Tex pushed for DBo.. But in all seriousness it makes me wonder about the quality of pitchers we are recruiting. I played baseball with a guy who was in the minors and played under DBo. Claimed he was a genius and an excellent hire when we picked him up..

 

[NW GA JACKET]

DBo didn’t work out obviously, I’m a believer that a pitching coach , or hitting for that matter ,can only do so much. This is not knocking our players, but I’m sure the plan was not to go out and get behind hitters and walk folks. Yes there are instances where a particular coach and player gel together and careers are turned around. This could be as simple as instilling belief into said player. Was Mazzone a great pitching coach, or was it 3 HOF that made him. I’m glad DBo is gone, but not sure a pitching savior is out there

 

[CINCYMETJACKET]

Tex pushed for DBo.. But in all seriousness it makes me wonder about the quality of pitchers we are recruiting. I played baseball with a guy who was in the minors and played under DBo. Claimed he was a genius and an excellent hire when we picked him up..

Coaching in the minor leagues and coaching in college are completely different things. Minor league coaches/pitching coordinators are interested in developing players to succeed at the next level, and eventually make a mark on the MLB team. Yes, all of the players and coaches want to win, but the #1 priority is to develop players to succeed at higher levels, not winning today.

College coaches have that mandate as well (since we all go to college to learn and improve our trade and succeed at the next level, whether we're an engineer, in business, or in football/basketball/baseball). However, I believe that winning now is more important in college than it is in minor league A and AA ball. Not sure if that has played any part in our lack of success on the mound, but...

 

[randerto]

DBo didn’t work out obviously, I’m a believer that a pitching coach , or hitting for that matter ,can only do so much. This is not knocking our players, but I’m sure the plan was not to go out and get behind hitters and walk folks. Yes there are instances where a particular coach and player gel together and careers are turned around. This could be as simple as instilling belief into said player. Was Mazzone a great pitching coach, or was it 3 HOF that made him. I’m glad DBo is gone, but not sure a pitching savior is out there

Clearly DBo didn't work out overall but I know multiple kids who worked with him in the minors and/or at GT who loved his approach and felt he helped them. Many of our pitchers this year publicly stated as much. However, I don't believe DBo had much, if any, experience calling pitches in game situations. My assessment (shared by a few others w/significant relevant experience) is he was weak in assessing opposing hitter weaknesses and calling pitch sequences to maximize odds in favor of the pitcher. So I'm just hoping to get someone with more game situational experience - obviously with the additional abilities to recruit and develop.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Concerning calling pitches, there were obviously too many ball calls with the high number of walks and hbp. (Tic)

Also, Weiters reportedly helped some with the pitch calling.

So I think the biggest problems were lack of control and a poor defense. Maybe pitch calling did affect things too, but I don't know to tell given other conditions.

But what is probably on DBo is that none of our ~17 pitchers really flourished. One would expect some to have done better unless really bad luck.

 

[Eli]

Coaching in the minor leagues and coaching in college are completely different things. Minor league coaches/pitching coordinators are interested in developing players to succeed at the next level, and eventually make a mark on the MLB team. Yes, all of the players and coaches want to win, but the #1 priority is to develop players to succeed at higher levels, not winning today.

College coaches have that mandate as well (since we all go to college to learn and improve our trade and succeed at the next level, whether we're an engineer, in business, or in football/basketball/baseball). However, I believe that winning now is more important in college than it is in minor league A and AA ball. Not sure if that has played any part in our lack of success on the mound, but...

But we aren’t developing pitchers. I could see your point if guys were improving by year 3 and 4 but they are not.

 

[GT33]

But we aren’t developing pitchers. I could see your point if guys were improving by year 3 and 4 but they are not.

This is the main problem. We see hitter developing, but we seem to have the same struggles every year with pitchers. Nobody's quite healthy. I think it starts there. How do we get bitten so bad all the time? Are we:

a. Recruiting pitchers that already have arm troubles?
b. Recruiting pitchers that are about to have arm troubles because their mechanics on arrival have been bad & switching technique injures them?
c. Are our pitchers pitching too much at GT or elsewhere?
d. Is something wrong with our S&C?
e. Is what Borrell was trying to get them to do inducing injuries?
f. Are we running up pitch counts on guys that are not yet able to handle the load?

It has to be one of those things I would think. Now they break their training because they're always rehabbing instead of improving mechanics. They're always struggling to "get back to where they were" instead of improving on what they had. Seems to me like a never ending cycle.

 

[FredJacket]

There is sort of worst case scenario I keep noodling through in my head. A self-licking ice cream cone deal combined with a perfect storm.

It is possible?... we recruit players (pitchers particularly) who come out of a concentrated area (close to Altanta... everyone talks about East Cobb) where the "system" over inflates recruiting rankings? We just aren't getting players that are as good as we think? I'll add... overuse could be a function of this too.

I'll admit I am way not in the know on any recruiting for D1 baseball talent... but it just feels like the "data" could be flawed or bias.

I'll add... barely related... in Hall's 30 years at Ga Tech, the D1 baseball landscape has changed a lot. The parity is pretty big now compared to 15-25 years ago. Now, it is the coaches job to adapt & this might be my biggest [general] criticism of Hall. I think he's done some adapting... but not very quickly.

 

[leatherneckjacket]

This is the main problem. We see hitter developing, but we seem to have the same struggles every year with pitchers. Nobody's quite healthy. I think it starts there. How do we get bitten so bad all the time? Are we:

a. Recruiting pitchers that already have arm troubles?
b. Recruiting pitchers that are about to have arm troubles because their mechanics on arrival have been bad & switching technique injures them?
c. Are our pitchers pitching too much at GT or elsewhere?
d. Is something wrong with our S&C?
e. Is what Borrell was trying to get them to do inducing injuries?
f. Are we running up pitch counts on guys that are not yet able to handle the load?

It has to be one of those things I would think. Now they break their training because they're always rehabbing instead of improving mechanics. They're always struggling to "get back to where they were" instead of improving on what they had. Seems to me like a never ending cycle.

I am not sure about the injury rate of our pitchers compared to other programs.

I will say that DBo was never a real pitching coach. He was a developmental resource within the Yankee organization that helped pitchers fix mechanical issues and develop new pitches. He did not call pitches and he did not develop pitch strategies for opposing teams and batters. This is where he failed at Tech in my opinion.

Our pitchers did not attack the strike zone and also threw too many pitches that they were not ready to deploy in games. Pitch selection and sequence was also really poor. This, coupled with our really terrible fielding, led to excessive walks, hit batters, extended innings, high pitch counts and ballooning ERAs.

I do not think trying to find someone to fix mechanics is a bad thing, but we need a pitching coach who also understands pitching game management because DBo and CDH clearly do not.

I will add that the manner in which pitches were called from the bench took way too long. This not only prevented our pitchers from getting into any rhythm, but also forced our fielders to have to wait as our pitchers worked slowly on the mound. Anyone who has played baseball knows that the slower the pitcher works, the more likely you will have fielding issues. DBo had no feel for this as he was never an on field coach, but it is another failure of his.

 

[GT33]

@leatherneckjacket I don’t disagree with what your postulating. What were the weaknesses of the previous 12 years of pitching coaches? Do you think they were all the same as Borrell or we’ve just not gotten the guy that’s strong in every area -pitch selection, pitching mechanics, recruitment, etc and we just need to get one of those guys everybody else has? Should be pretty easy. Go hire somebody that’s already got their pitchers performing at say #80 and with our recruiting advantages we ahould get performance around 50th which shoukd be good enough to win a crap ton of games with our hitting prowess.

 

[Eli]

This is the main problem. We see hitter developing, but we seem to have the same struggles every year with pitchers. Nobody's quite healthy. I think it starts there. How do we get bitten so bad all the time? Are we:

a. Recruiting pitchers that already have arm troubles?
b. Recruiting pitchers that are about to have arm troubles because their mechanics on arrival have been bad & switching technique injures them?
c. Are our pitchers pitching too much at GT or elsewhere?
d. Is something wrong with our S&C?
e. Is what Borrell was trying to get them to do inducing injuries?
f. Are we running up pitch counts on guys that are not yet able to handle the load?

It has to be one of those things I would think. Now they break their training because they're always rehabbing instead of improving mechanics. They're always struggling to "get back to where they were" instead of improving on what they had. Seems to me like a never ending cycle.

In my opinion kids are playing way too much ball. I played over 100 games a year when I was in my teens and the kid I am mentioning was on my team. He had Tommy John surgery his first year in the minors at 21. Unpopular opinion but we should be recruiting pitchers from northern and Midwest states that don’t play year around baseball.

 

[MWBATL]

At the end if the day I suspect our recruiting of pitchers has been short-sighted, focused to much on speed and spin and not enough on location and control.

I don't know if that is on DBo or CDH.

 

[Buzzbomb]

GT ERA’s under Borrell:
Georgia Tech has finished 10th (2020), 13th (2021), 13th (2022), and 13th (2023) in team ERA(ACC).

 

[NW GA JACKET]

Pitchers are like the lottery, you hope you pick the right ones. You never know how they will develop or adapt to the next level, whether that’s high school, college, or the pros. Lots of can’t miss guys miss badly at the next level, and lots of mediocre guys make it. There ain’t a coach out there that gets it right all the time. JMO. GO JACKETS

 

[GTNavyNuke]

GT ERA’s under Borrell:
Georgia Tech has finished 10th (2020), 13th (2021), 13th (2022), and 13th (2023) in team ERA(ACC).

How about under Howell and other pitching coaches selected by Hall?

Why do we expect a change?