All system fail
- Thread starter MAYHOO22
- Start date
Seems like alot of the team has quit.
The tide turned after that Saturday game with Florida. They’ve been a mess ever since. If Vandy sweeps us and we’re one and done in the SEC tournament I just don’t see how you can keep Mingione for another year. That said, I would be shocked if Mitch makes a change.
Pitching this weekend really has to be the biggest concern. A USC team that came in hitting just .217 in league play and UK allowed them to hit .295. They averaged something like 5 and a half runs per game and UK gave up over 10 and a half runs per game.
I just think our staff is not good enough. That is harsh, but that's where I am at. Stupp is a quality pitcher, but he's still young and is probably more of a Saturday or Sunday guy. Harney is quality and just had a bad day this weekend, but again, probably more of a day 2 or 3 guy. Lee has a lot of growing up to do still and there is some good stuff there, but he should probably still be learning in the midweek. So, a huge issue is that we have 3 guys and none of them are the quality of an SEC ace.
We then really have no reliable veteran pitchers. Cole Daniels was lights out as a freshman, but he's regressed for whatever reason. Ramsey is similar. We could see the potential, but he never really hit it. Rigsby has been under-used. The guys we brought in like Jones and Kammin have just not been great enough quality to make up for the lack of veterans. Credit to Harper for stepping up in his last year, but I think he can only do so much. Degen has been good at times, but again, he has been somewhat under utilized.
Then your freshmen all come in with great accolades and I think there is potential there, but I haven't really seen much growth in them from day 1 to now. Hagenow has disappeared. It's now been 20 days since he's seen the mound. Hudepohl hasn't had much work, just 8 innings in SEC play. I like the moxy of Strickland and I think he'll be a good one, but he's often put in tough spots. So, just the management of the pen is strange and poor as well.
Then you have the effect this has on our hitters. If the pitching is subpar... the hitting has to practice and face that all off season and during practice, so what can look like good hitting in the fall might struggle when it actually sees SEC quality. Add that to SEC teams getting scouting reports on guys and they begin to struggle more.
Plastiak not playing is so damn weird. I like Estep, don't get me wrong, but when he is hitting .193 in league play you just have to go a different direction. Especially if you're insistent on playing Rhodes, who is hitting just .230 and you keep trying to force that round peg to hit in the 3 hole square. So, when you look at timely hitting... you have 4 of your 9 guys hitting below .250 and have done little to nothing to shake it up and see if you can either get those guys hitting better or replace them. Anu hitting .250... he's a valuable bat... has played in all 27 games. Meanwhile Shelby has started 1 and has just 9 at bats. Estep hitting just .193 and has started 25 of 27 games while Plastiak has 10 starts and is hitting .270. Why isn't Plastiak at third? Rhodes struggling and hitting .230 in league play. Why is he still in the three hole? Especially when another relatively poor hitter in Anu was often hitting in the 4 hole.
One interesting thing is that UK hits well, but they are bad in every other category. For instance, they are 6th in the league in overall batting average at .280. 12th in runs, 12th in hits, 13th in RBIs, 11th in doubles, 12th in home runs, 13th in total bases, 13th in walks, 12th in strikeouts. So, we have a solid average, but seemingly cannot string together hits and especially can't make them meaningful. That has a lot to do with the batting order that Mingione seemingly doesn't like to play with much at all.
Not playing Plastiak is incredible. Had a pretty good series against the Vols & now the last 2 weekends he has 1 AB!! Believe me, he doesn't know why he isn't playing either. You take away a little defense with him, but good Lord, somebody has to hit!
Plastics is a great example of why Mingione is despised by the players. Look at Kessler , the teams best hitter this season , he only got to be that thanks to an injury. Kessler was a corpse until an injury allowed him to play and he becomes the best hitter on the team .. guess what he was this same hitter all along just that Mingione had him on the bench.
Have a good game, move you up a little in the lineup depending on the player...have a bad game(s), keep you in the same spot depending on the player. I think I just answered my own question, haha.
Also why does Hill keep being taken down on a lefty when others are also struggling? Boggles my mind. Harmon? Shelby?
Also why does Hill keep being taken down on a lefty when others are also struggling? Boggles my mind. Harmon? Shelby?
Plastiak has been treated criminally. Started in 1 game and did 'poorly,' and the staff moved to Church. Granted, Church played well, but even still, Plastiak went 18 days without playing at all. He went well over a month before he got another chance at a start. Even after he got another chance and played well they benched him again. Makes no sense.
And I still don't understand the stubbornness with Schultz and the outfield. It would make a whole lot of sense, or at least would have at one point, to move Schultz back to second and have Plastiak or Estep or Church at third. Then you could move Shelby into the OF and have better defense across the board. Hell, you could have even kept Lewis/Estep at second and moved Schultz to third and still done okay. Yet we just outright refused to ever look at Shebly this year and refused to ever really even consider moving Schultz out of the OF, and it took more than a little bit of convincing for Mingione to move him from CF to LF.
If the players have no idea why they aren't playing its a problem.
When these guys come in as big recruits and expect to play, when they don't and they aren't told why or what to work on, then there is going to be issues.
I have heard that some players have been told that they will have a game off for a rest and then end up losing their position. No explanation given after the, 'you're going to have tomorrow off for a rest.'
Rubalcaba is another one that is baffling actually. He was a starter. Got hurt and lost the job. That is fine and all, it happens. However, catcher is a grueling position and it is valuable to give your catcher breaks throughout the year. So, when Rubalcaba came back you would have thought that UK would give him some run so that Kessler stayed fresh. UK could have even used Kessler as a DH and given others rest by doing it. Nope. Kept running Kessler out behind the plate and having the best defensive catcher just ride the pine. I mean, it didn't have to happen in SEC games, but at least in some of the midweek games it would have made sense.
It is interesting that they never pinch hit with some but they do with others. Hill hits a triple and scores 2 runs for UK in a game in which they've only scored 5 runs. So, to that point Hill is responsible for 3 of the 5 runs scored. Yet, you take him down. Also... to continue on this trend... why the hell didn't they go to Plastiak? Same inning, Estep hits. He is hitless in the game to that point and is hitting sub .200. You have the bases loaded and you keep him in to hit. Granted, he does his job and gets a sac fly to score a run, so credit to him for that, but it still isn't the brightest move to leave in a .193 hitter with the bases loaded and 0 outs down 10-3 in a game you basically must win. Then two hitters later you take down the guy who just hit a triple to give you all 3 of the runs you had before the inning started. lol
Haha it's been a while.
Shelby has his struggles, no doubt. He has never really shown that he can hit quality pitching consistently, but the sample size isn't huge. He has been at UK for 3 years. His first year he hit just .215 against SEC pitching with 3 home runs and 4 doubles. Clearly, it's not great. Last year, he didn't get to hit against SEC pitching and this year he's basically not gotten to either.
So, it was a long time ago that he had the sample size worth looking at. He could have certainly improved a good chunk, For instance, that same year, Collett hit .214 in league play, and we see how he has improved.
My thing is... we have 4 guys who are hitting .250, .247, .230, and .193 and all 4 of those guys started in at least 25 of 27 SEC games , and 3 of them have started every single league game. Those aren't great numbers. So, it makes you wonder why there has not been a shake up to give a guy like Shelby a serious chance. He has started just 3 games this year, and I believe none of them were consecutive, so he's never really gotten the chance to consistently see live pitches. This becomes more of a head scratcher when you consider the fact that you can move an infielder back to the infield and move Shelby into the outfield to give yourself a better defense while doing it.
Regardless, the original point was less about Shelby and more about the fact that the staff has been very headstrong about leaving Schultz in the outfield and playing him out of position.
This is also interesting. We saw that this weekend. Estep goes 2-4 with a double while hitting in the 9 hole on Friday. Then goes 1-3 hitting in the 9 hole on Saturday. Heck yea, hitting .429 on the weekend. Awesome. So, rather than just not mess with a good thing... Mingione moves him to freaking 6th and he goes 0-4. Brilliant.
I mean, basically, he loves to shuffle the last 4 while barely touching the top 5. I mean, some logic might tell you that Collett hitting 3rd or 4th with 15 home runs would make a lot of sense and that Kessler, who is more apt to hit singles and doubles might be a better choice to hit directly behind the speedy Schultz. Then you could have two on for Collett to hit 3 run shots. Anu is power behind him at 4 and Rhodes is a big on base and doubles type guy in the 5 hole. Yet, I am not sure we ever actually tried that mix up and we basically just keep going back to the same guys in the same spots in the top 5.
Edit to add: Having Collett hitting directly behind Kessler would also make it more likely that Kessler sees even better pitches as the opposing team is likely to fear Collett's power. So, you could actually even make your best hitter more dangerous by moving him up 2 spots.
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I say again re pitching....staff's working behind on far too many hitters, 2-0 and 3-1. Leads to too many walks/hits. As the pitching struggles, the offense feels they must score runs in bunches and they're not capable of that...start pressing, chasing bad pitches and get themselves out. Team lacks confidence but too many are just not SEC quality baseball players.
What I was told is that Shelby had a blowout with one of the coaches and Mingione took his side creating a rift between the coaches .. Mingione being his usual vindictive self ( with a smile and a bible quote ) after taking shelbys side At the time , in the off season .. paid him back when It mattered most to Shelby , during his final season.
There will be a mass exodus for the door . If u were plastiak , who had draft helium into the shortened Covid season , and then got treated that way , would you return ? And with the terrible morale of the team ( he cut a Senior captain last year forgot who , and again this year with Ben treating him poorly ) .. would u return or head for the door ?
Also was rift amongst coaching staff. all of this occured before the Extension . Good luck to ya’ll thinking MB will do the right thing and fire Mingione it ain’t gonna happen. Some long terms ticket holders were treated as expendable in the transition to KPP.
UK will have to have open tryouts just to have enough bodies on the roster if Mingione is allowed to return.
The captain was Brett Marshall I believe. Didn't play a ton but was a legacy player as his brother and dad I believe both played for UK. Waited until last minute to cut him.
That is correct. But if I remember, he was voted captain by his teammates. And it caused a mess when he was cut.
Yep there were some comments on Twitter about this and I believe someone started a thread on this about a year and a half ago.
I caught most of Mingione’s show tonight and he seemed like there are no issues. Very happy tone throughout. I assume he knows he’s back next year.
I think he's ignorant. I think he also believes many will return next year.
He’s back. It’s wishful thinking that Barnhartt makes a change. And we’ll be having this same discussion next season.
I think you’re right unfortunately. Mitch has really improved the athletic department but I can’t imagine that was too big since previous administrations at UK were all basketball and basketball only. Putting any attention to other sports was a huge improvement. As much as I disliked Jurich when he was at UL, I have to give him credit. He went after top notch coaches in all the major sports. Granted some weren’t the best people but they were successful.
IMO MB gave Mingione the contract to try to come up with a recruiting class. If that’s a fail and we see a train wreck happening next year, my guess is that Mingione will be gone mid year next year.
But what does that do to fire a coach mid year? If there are as many internal issues with this team as it looks, do you really think the smart move is to bring Mingione back? And frankly, I have very little reason to think next year is going to be any better.
I don’t mean you persay. I think it’s best for the program to have a new direction. But it’s not our decision.
A lot of true things being said here. Let me just throw this out there though........wpuld we be having this discussion if mason would not have gotten hurt? I think we win 2-4 more conference games with him healthy. Doesn't solve the clueless management of personnel, but would have given us a solid arm to maybe, just maybe stop the bleeding.
Absolutely correct. From what was mentioned on this board, Mitch was having trouble filling the job last time. I think Cohen recommended Mingione. I can understand why, you have the worst facilities in the SEC and minimal support.
I think it depends on whether it is those 2 or 4. 2 wins, probably having this discussion still. 4 wins, probably not discussing it, but I still don't think we're happy. I think we might still want him gone here on this forum, but we'd know Mitch would most definitely be giving him more time.
An interesting aspect will be whether Mitch gives him a break because of the injury. He did in 2018.
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