2022 Baseball Mega Thread

[WataugaMan]

'If it means giving Kermit 1 more season and overhauling his support staff…that’d be a place to start."

That would be more than fair.

[WVAPPeer]

I'm not sure how anyone can suggest a staff change and not have reasons that point to which staff members. It's not like football where your defense is giving up 45 pts a game or your offense is averaging 10 pts a game -

[Stonewall]

Without change of some measure , we have no reason to expect improvement. It's the coaches jobs to figure it out and get it done,I hope they do but realistically not expecting it .

[APPdiesel]

I'm not sure how anyone can suggest a staff change and not have reasons that point to which staff members. It's not like football where your defense is giving up 45 pts a game or your offense is averaging 10 pts a game -

If I pointed to a staff member someone would say “he knows more about baseball than you, who are you to suggest he gets replaced”.

If I generically say “the staff needs some work” someone says “be more specific”.

Can’t win with you people who have convinced yourself this is as good as it gets. But how about this:

For some reason, on stat categories, the Sun Belt only does Top 10 in their lists. Here's the offensive categories for App.

Batting %- 10th
Slugging % - 11th/12th
On Base % - 11th/12th
Runs Scored - 10th
Hits - 10th
RBIs - 10th
Doubles - 10th
Triples - 7th
Home Runs - 11th/12th
Total Bases - 10th
Total Plate Appearances - 10th
At Bats - 8th
Walks - 10th
HBPs - 6th
Strikeouts - 6th
Sac Bunts - 9th
Sac Flys - 5th
Stolen Bases - 10th
Caught Stealing - 10th
Steal Attempts - 10th
Grounded Into DP - 8th

Fielding numbers were decent and pitching wasn't so great.

https://sunbeltsports_ftp.sidearmsports.com/custompages/bball_stats/2022/lgteams.htm

Pick a statistical category, any category. Replace the coach responsible.

[AppSt94]

All valid points. We will see what Gillin and Smith do.

[WVAPPeer]

These suggestions make no sense to me - if some of you who watched and followed closely all season please point to areas where coaching was subpar - What I mean is that the talent was there but performance did not match the talent --- If not, then it all comes down to recruiting.

[AppFan11]

While I find myself agreeing with you a lot of the time WVA, we are lacking in the talent category by a fair amount, particularly versus the top four teams of our conference. Recruiting isn't everything but its significant... you can only do with what you have..... and the other teams have more than we do.

[BambooRdApp]

14 of the 20 categories, the team is double digits in ranking. That leads to a pretty bad results. If the team is consistently underperforming on the field, it is coaching that has to find a way to get better performance. If the team is underperforming due to lack of talent, that too goes back to the coaches in either poor recruiting and/or developing talent once they have stepped into campus. We talk about football finding the under-recruited or guys that fit our system. It is no different for G5 schools in baseball. The play this year has not been a one year anomaly of not playing well. It is what it is. Hopefully they can turn things around.

[WVAPPeer]

Example - Austin St. Laurent --- Freshman of the Year - recruiting got him to Boone and I would say coaching got him to perform at a high level thereby winning this award. They have to get more guys like that and that is a helluva lot easier said than done. I believe Hayden Cross was a sophomore - same goes for him

[BambooRdApp]

App. St baseball record since 2017
2017 19-36;
2018 16-36
2019 22-31
2020 11+6 covid
2021 21-31
2022 19-32

One player evidently does not make a team. Even with the freshman of the year, the team was double digit in 14 of 20 categories. I see no improvement in overall record. I am sure the coach is talented. Maybe this freshman is the start of something special. Hopefully, they turn it around.

[Boone Goon]

Before the season, I said .400 against this schedule would be an excellent finish. We finished .377. That’s not desirable, but is a good performance for the SOS and the talent we had this year.

I’m excited our SS is the Freshman of the Year for the conference! Drumheller has one more year of eligibility, RJ Johnson is a Fr, Cross is a Jr…that means the guys up the middle are all able to come back next year!

My concern is our ability to hold onto our talented players. We’ve had too many starters or high potential guys leave with multiple years of eligibility left. That can’t happen this off-season.

The retirement of WCU’s head coach may help App. They’ve been a strong program for years. Hopefully we can take advantage of the change.

The Sun Belt is about to get a LOT better! ODU, JMU, Marshall and SoMiss are all top half of the conference programs. SBC will likely have 4 teams make the NCAA tournament, with 2 hosts!

[APPdiesel]

Consider those 4 incoming programs being better than App, that will put us 13th and 14th in a dozen statistical categories. Last. The worst.

Any coach worth his salt will tell you it all starts and finishes with him or her. Can’t recruit? “It’s my fault”. Can’t hit? “It’s my fault for not hiring a better hitting coach”. Can’t pitch? “Blame me”.

Meanwhile our rival is hosting a regional.

[AppSt94]

We are the one of the lowest funded baseball programs in possibly the best non P5 baseball conference. Coaching is important. Player recruitment and development is important. The overall record over the past few years suggest that this could be our ceiling on a consistent basis. Consistent top shelf results on a bargain booze budget seems unreasonable. Donate more to Yosef Club.

[WVAPPeer]

Yes 94 with the bargain booze budget + a place where it's hard to attract above average talent

[hapapp]

Consider those 4 incoming programs being better than App, that will put us 13th and 14th in a dozen statistical categories. Last. The worst.

Any coach worth his salt will tell you it all starts and finishes with him or her. Can’t recruit? “It’s my fault”. Can’t hit? “It’s my fault for not hiring a better hitting coach”. Can’t pitch? “Blame me”.

Meanwhile our rival is hosting a regional.

No doubt ODU and USM are better than App but I don't think one can say that JMU (112 RPI/125 SOS) and Marshall (199 RPI/121 SOS) are necessarily better than App (113 RPI/ 35 SOS). JMU was 5th out of 9 in the 12th ranked conference and Marshall was 9th out of 12 in CUSA (equal to our finish in the Belt).

No doubt the competition will likely be stiffer next season than this, which doesn't trend well for us. Of course, last year the SoCon was ranked higher than the Belt, but this year is 5 places below the Belt (Belt 6, SoCon 11). No doubt something has to happen to change our fortunes, but unless we commit to providing more support for baseball, it will always be an uphill climb. I'd be surprised to see a change at the top but with another season like this, its hard to imagine that someone new isn't at the helm.

[Stonewall]

Someone once said , "you are what your record says you are"....

[JTApps1]

Nobody wants to talk about all 4 of our starting pitchers either missing games or playing hurt for at least the last half of the year. We had a nice start to the season until then. Nobody can overcome that.

[hapapp]

Given the resources we devote to baseball, it's suicide to play the kind of non-conference schedule we did (19th toughest in the country). Our conference schedule is tough enough. No one else in the Belt played as many games against the top 100 as we did and we played fewer games against Quad 4 teams than most of the top teams in the Belt. We have to give ourselves a better chance.

[pop5app]

As much as I’d like to use Coach as the scapegoat, I find it hard. I believe that of all the major sport the baseball coach has the least affect from a a coaching stand-point. There just seems to be very little a baseball coach can do to really affect the outcome of a season.( basketball for example can turn on one player almost immediately) problem seems to me is recruiting. Poor pitching and errors might improve from 18-21 years old but really that stuff should be developed by college. That’s where recruiting comes in. It really, as usual, comes down to money and quite frankly we do not do a good job of getting more of it! I believe that is the root issue.

[WVAPPeer]

As much as I’d like to use Coach as the scapegoat, I find it hard. I believe that of all the major sport the baseball coach has the least affect from a a coaching stand-point. There just seems to be very little a baseball coach can do to really affect the outcome of a season.( basketball for example can turn on one player almost immediately) problem seems to me is recruiting. Poor pitching and errors might improve from 18-21 years old but really that stuff should be developed by college. That’s where recruiting comes in. It really, as usual, comes down to money and quite frankly we do not do a good job of getting more of it! I believe that is the root issue.

Your quote - "very little a baseball coach can do to really affect the outcome of a season." - I will add that --- There's very little a baseball coach can do to really affect the outcome of a Game --- Can't hold the ball with a lead, Can't run out the clock, Can't change defenses, Can't change offenses, Can't substitute/interchange players, Can't ride your "hot" players (batter has to wait 8 ABs before hitting again), Can't use your best pitcher/s every game - The list goes on and I have been through most ---

And as a few of us have been saying for some time - it is all about recruiting and unfortunately APP has some huge hurdles in that regard, and it's not just one year. It's the same EVERY year.

I agree with scheduling - especially with a young or struggling team - they have to taste victory. When I knew I had a strong team I looked to schedule the toughest teams I could find, conversely, if I had a young team I looked for wins.

There is no simple answer to the baseball problems that I can see. They need to have some luck in recruiting (by that, I mean some good players choosing APP) and some quality additions from the portal.

I doubt Casey Stengel would have gotten any more out of this team than what our coaches got ---