Virginia Tech, Baseball

[CTJacket]

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I feel like this is a strawman. I haven't seen one single person defend our performance this season, it's disappointing to say the least.

 

[LargeFO]

I feel like this is a strawman. I haven't seen one single person defend our performance this season, it's disappointing to say the least.

Eh, definitely have seen a few on this board.

 

[Home Park Jacket]

Eh, definitely have seen a few on this board.

Yep, a few too many on this board. Of course, that was before this past weekend, and there is nothing to defend after this past weekend.

 

[CTJacket]

Coach Hall? Yes, many believe he deserves to go out on his own terms. I do too for the most part - but if we collapse further and the team stops playing for him then all bets are off on that. Like Nuke, I would want any 'push' to be behind closed doors though. It definitely shouldn't be a messy split.

With Borrell, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt & pandemic for a while. I know a coach (elsewhere) and he told me Borrell's a gem, and I think that was the consensus with his resume coming in. For whatever reason that experiment has failed IMHO.
Hall has shown time and again that he will make changes when he sees them. I don't know why we've had such a hard time developing pitchers over his time, but it's been a truth we can't avoid.
I haven't seen anyone defend the season though so you'd have to point those out to me. There are five people that post consistently year-round and every one of them has expressed disappointment at one time or another. Fred is probably the most positive poster here but I don't recall him ever defending the SEASON.

 

[CTJacket]

I take that back, a few weeks ago I do recall one poster mentioning how much we lost and that we should have expected some growing pains. IIRC that post went on to state that we SHOULD look better by season's end. That's true on both fronts, we had young talent that for the most part hasn't grown the way we expected. That's not defending the season to me, it's pointing out how the season should progress and so far - it hasn't.

 

[FredJacket]

Coach Hall? Yes, many believe he deserves to go out on his own terms. I do too for the most part - but if we collapse further and the team stops playing for him then all bets are off on that. Like Nuke, I would want any 'push' to be behind closed doors though. It definitely shouldn't be a messy split.

With Borrell, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt & pandemic for a while. I know a coach (elsewhere) and he told me Borrell's a gem, and I think that was the consensus with his resume coming in. For whatever reason that experiment has failed IMHO.
Hall has shown time and again that he will make changes when he sees them. I don't know why we've had such a hard time developing pitchers over his time, but it's been a truth we can't avoid.
I haven't seen anyone defend the season though so you'd have to point those out to me. There are five people that post consistently year-round and every one of them has expressed disappointment at one time or another. Fred is probably the most positive poster here but I don't recall him ever defending the SEASON.

My reaction was the same as yours @CTJacket when I saw those tweets. It is a pretty interesting... people here read all the same words written on this forum and draw different conclusions/summaries of the messages and the posters.

I agree with you. As far as I can recall, nobody predicted a great season and nothing has changed as the results have played out. The results this year are not good or even OK. I'm sure there are some spurious posts (even by me) that could be ambiguous in that regard, though.

This likely comes down to semantics. There is a very stark distinction between hoping for the best (seeing possibilities) and actually believing they are likely to come about.

I have a lot of respect for all who participate here. I learn a ton about baseball and have had my mind changed on quite a few things over the years. I won't spend time on here venting and complaining. I just choose not to... that's no fun for me.

 

[CINCYMETJACKET]

I feel like this is a strawman. I haven't seen one single person defend our performance this season, it's disappointing to say the least.

Eh, definitely have seen a few on this board.

Yep, a few too many on this board. Of course, that was before this past weekend, and there is nothing to defend after this past weekend.

For the record, I was defending our performance through at least the Louisville series. Maybe through BC as well. We won 2/3 against Notre Dame (lost the third by a blowout...) and should have won 2/3 at Louisville. Gave up a big lead to lose to Auburn in extra innings in the middle of those series as well. Took 2/3 against Clemson (again, blown out in game 3). Was still positive through the first 2 games and 6 1/3 innings of game 3 of the BC series where we won the first and lost the second game 3-1. At that point, we had a 6-4 conference record. Then innings 7 and 8 happened where we turned a 5-4 deficit into an unfathomable 24-12 loss. To me that was the beginning of the disaster that we have seen lately. I no longer expect us to win another series this year, and that includes Gardner Webb. Our pitchers just don't have the command needed to throw strikes consistently. Why, I don't know. Perhaps our coaches are trying to overload them with analytics like spin rate, etc., rather than just concentrating on the #1 priority for a pitcher with is to THROW STRIKES!

I hope things improve over the rest of the season, but I am not expecting it at this point. And our performance to this point, although we're only a game below where I expected our ACC record to be based on @GTNavyNuke's pre ACC season poll, is trending downward quickly. No excuse for where this team is right now. I don't want to hear excuses, such as injuries to our starting rotation, I just want to see wins at this point.

 

[Killerbees]

For the record, I was defending our performance through at least the Louisville series. Maybe through BC as well. We won 2/3 against Notre Dame (lost the third by a blowout...) and should have won 2/3 at Louisville. Gave up a big lead to lose to Auburn in extra innings in the middle of those series as well. Took 2/3 against Clemson (again, blown out in game 3). Was still positive through the first 2 games and 6 1/3 innings of game 3 of the BC series where we won the first and lost the second game 3-1. At that point, we had a 6-4 conference record. Then innings 7 and 8 happened where we turned a 5-4 deficit into an unfathomable 24-12 loss. To me that was the beginning of the disaster that we have seen lately. I no longer expect us to win another series this year, and that includes Gardner Webb. Our pitchers just don't have the command needed to throw strikes consistently. Why, I don't know. Perhaps our coaches are trying to overload them with analytics like spin rate, etc., rather than just concentrating on the #1 priority for a pitcher with is to THROW STRIKES!

I hope things improve over the rest of the season, but I am not expecting it at this point. And our performance to this point, although we're only a game below where I expected our ACC record to be based on @GTNavyNuke's pre ACC season poll, is trending downward quickly. No excuse for where this team is right now. I don't want to hear excuses, such as injuries to our starting rotation, I just want to see wins at this point.

We only had 1 walk last game.

 

[GT33]

Our fanbase is not unique in that many fans just as soon hope our players suck it up after they turn on a coach just to make sure there's no questioning what needs to be done. Batt has shown he'll make the move that needs to be made. He'll do it here as well.

Maybe some of our fans could start rooting for the Team and stop solely rooting against Hall & Borrell? It is possible to hope we make a staff change soon for what many agree is needed to improve AND hope the Jackets win at the same time.

These guys are not *******es like we've had in other sports, the last really bad coach we had was really easy to hate with his antics. These are good men that just happen to not be doing a very good job whether it be bad luck due to injuries (we've had a lot), bad coaching, bad decisionmaking, bad recruiting, the weather, etc. For their results they need to be held accountable. In the meantime let's just hope we rip off a 10+ game winning streak and we can all argue about why it took so long to win.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

NM

 

[LargeFO]

Our fanbase is not unique in that many fans just as soon hope our players suck it up after they turn on a coach just to make sure there's no questioning what needs to be done. Batt has shown he'll make the move that needs to be made. He'll do it here as well.

Maybe some of our fans could start rooting for the Team and stop solely rooting against Hall & Borrell? It is possible to hope we make a staff change soon for what many agree is needed to improve AND hope the Jackets win at the same time.

These guys are not *******es like we've had in other sports, the last really bad coach we had was really easy to hate with his antics. These are good men that just happen to not be doing a very good job whether it be bad luck due to injuries (we've had a lot), bad coaching, bad decisionmaking, bad recruiting, the weather, etc. For their results they need to be held accountable. In the meantime let's just hope we rip off a 10+ game winning streak and we can all argue about why it took so long to win.

I disagree on the bolded. At least via this forum, show me what people are hoping/pulling for our players to suck? I think they are basing the wanted staff changes off how bad it has gotten, but don't see anyone saying they want us to lose games.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I feel like I’ve seen this movie before.

 

[CTJacket]

For the record, I was defending our performance through at least the Louisville series. Maybe through BC as well. We won 2/3 against Notre Dame (lost the third by a blowout...) and should have won 2/3 at Louisville. Gave up a big lead to lose to Auburn in extra innings in the middle of those series as well. Took 2/3 against Clemson (again, blown out in game 3). Was still positive through the first 2 games and 6 1/3 innings of game 3 of the BC series where we won the first and lost the second game 3-1. At that point, we had a 6-4 conference record. Then innings 7 and 8 happened where we turned a 5-4 deficit into an unfathomable 24-12 loss. To me that was the beginning of the disaster that we have seen lately. I no longer expect us to win another series this year, and that includes Gardner Webb. Our pitchers just don't have the command needed to throw strikes consistently. Why, I don't know. Perhaps our coaches are trying to overload them with analytics like spin rate, etc., rather than just concentrating on the #1 priority for a pitcher with is to THROW STRIKES!

I hope things improve over the rest of the season, but I am not expecting it at this point. And our performance to this point, although we're only a game below where I expected our ACC record to be based on @GTNavyNuke's pre ACC season poll, is trending downward quickly. No excuse for where this team is right now. I don't want to hear excuses, such as injuries to our starting rotation, I just want to see wins at this point.

Right, and I think that through BC anyone could see what they wanted - good or bad, development or slipping. Your take then was certainly defendable to me, esp because I see what you write on a consistent basis and I value your opinion.

The thing about Hall is he has evolved through time. There was a long period in there where we were severely underfunded and he kept us competitive anyway. We're seeing funds flow in and we all know that Hall will make a change. What was the pitching coach that was one of his oldest friends? Fired because Hall thought we could do better. I think Hall will make the right choice but we will see. I can't say for certain that it's time for him to retire but I'm open to it and if he does I hope we make the right choices, whether it's Ramsey or someone else.

I was talking to my dad about it and his comment rang true to me, "The grass might be greener on the other side but it also might be tougher".
We'll see.

 

[senoiajacket]

I feel like I’ve seen this movie

Right, and I think that through BC anyone could see what they wanted - good or bad, development or slipping. Your take then was certainly defendable to me, esp because I see what you write on a consistent basis and I value your opinion.

The thing about Hall is he has evolved through time. There was a long period in there where we were severely underfunded and he kept us competitive anyway. We're seeing funds flow in and we all know that Hall will make a change. What was the pitching coach that was one of his oldest friends? Fired because Hall thought we could do better. I think Hall will make the right choice but we will see. I can't say for certain that it's time for him to retire but I'm open to it and if he does I hope we make the right choices, whether it's Ramsey or someone else.

I was talking to my dad about it and his comment rang true to me, "The grass might be greener on the other side but it also might be tougher".
We'll see.

Along those lines, the two ACC baseball programs that are "on the outside looking in" concerning the tournament at this time, Clemson and F$U, both have first year coaches. Not to say those programs won't pan out and be great in the future, but at a minimum you can certainly say they are experiencing some "growing pains".

 

[LargeFO]

Along those lines, the two ACC baseball programs that are "on the outside looking in" concerning the tournament at this time, Clemson and F$U, both have first year coaches. Not to say those programs won't pan out and be great in the future, but at a minimum you can certainly say they are experiencing some "growing pains".

Yea, but I'd also wager that they both wouldn't allow 17(?) years without getting out of a regional with the same guy.

 

[FredJacket]

Yea, but I'd also wager that they both wouldn't allow 17(?) years without getting out of a regional with the same guy.

Your case is most compelling when you distance yourself (more) from Clemson.

Along those lines, the two ACC baseball programs that are "on the outside looking in" concerning the tournament at this time, Clemson and F$U, both have first year coaches. Not to say those programs won't pan out and be great in the future, but at a minimum you can certainly say they are experiencing some "growing pains".

Ga Tech & FSU are the 2 teams not in if tournament started today.

 

[LargeFO]

Your case is most compelling when you distance yourself (more) from Clemson.


Ga Tech & FSU are the 2 teams not in if tournament started today.

I'm admittedly going off of memory when it comes to Leggett. Our last was 2006 right? I feel like he(leggett) at least made a few supers after that but still got axed. I could be wrong though.

 

[FredJacket]

I'm admittedly going off of memory when it comes to Leggett. Our last was 2006 right? I feel like he(leggett) at least made a few supers after that but still got axed. I could be wrong though.

Yes. Leggett has more recent regional wins than Ga Tech.

I was just poking at you because Clemson hasn't solved the post-leggett era. Not close.

 

[senoiajacket]

Your case is most compelling when you distance yourself (more) from Clemson.


Ga Tech & FSU are the 2 teams not in if tournament started today.

Huh, how did that get by me? Sub conscious denial I suppose.

I had heard (I think Wiley) say that GT was 1 1/2 Games ahead of Clemson, but that must have been early in VT series.

On another note, I know no one wants to hear excuses (so I am putting this here instead of the FCDH thread ..... even though everyone is probably reading both) but how have injuries contributed to where we are now? We have had a lot of them, but I am dis-inclined to say that they have made a huge difference because (1) we are not losing close games where one non-pitcher that was injured might make a difference and (2) It is not clear in my mind how much of a difference having our pitching staff whole would make .... Brown is at 9.20 ear with a WHIP of almost 2.0. ....... McGuire might make a difference, but I haven't seen enough to be convinced (yet) ...... I think not having Finley this past weekend against VT definitely hurt us, but he's pitched in every other ACC series besides that one.

 

[GT33]

I disagree on the bolded. At least via this forum, show me what people are hoping/pulling for our players to suck? I think they are basing the wanted staff changes off how bad it has gotten, but don't see anyone saying they want us to lose games.

Maybe the language was too strong? Let’s say the level of happiness derived from a possible coaching change outweighs or cancels the unhappiness caused by our team losing.