Sorta OT but go to MLB site and look at Top 150 draft prospects(free) for upcoming MLB draft. UK has one player, Rhodes at #119, but no others listed including current committed HS seniors. Vandy, U6, TN, etc has multiple players listed, both current players and committed seniors. NM needs a serious recruiting boost.
Cats vs Vols (Thursday)
- Thread starter Big_Blue_1018
- Start date
Barnhart sometimes seems to wait too long and give too long a leash on some of his hires. Henderson, IMO, was this way. It was clear to me that Henderson had basically peaked and I am not sure that Barnhart really wanted to fire him. I think this is especially the case if Barnhart likes the coach as a person, which I think he likely does with Mingione.
The kind of company line after the 2018 season was that UK just had bad luck with injuries. I think that is a silly excuse. Everyone deals with injuries, but that is the line that you'd hear from Headrick and Barnhart and Mingione and Gabriel. So, they kind of gave NM a pass that year and I think that kind of carried over into 2019. You know, we lost so many to the draft after 2018 that the cupboard was kind of bare type of excuse. So, the question is... how far will this line of excuses carry NM? Enough to get him another season? I think the writing is on the wall, but I could very well see Barnhart use those excuses, along with the line that this year was better than we thought it would be, to give him another chance. Again, I think a part of this is also that he might just like Mingione, so he is going to give him a longer leash.
If I remember correctly, Heefner and Barnhartt had an “interview” but I’m not sure whatever came of it. Wether he just frankly said thanks but no thanks. I agree that O’Conner was a long shot at best. Im not ever sure if there was much more than a missed phone call on Barnhartts side.
Checketts was an interesting choice. What he would have done here, who knows. Interesting thing about Dave Serrano. I thought at the time that hire was a home run for UT. But his style never worked in the SEC
I remember Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball saying that Barnhartt had a tough time selling the job to potential candidates.
This is with a team that is fairly old as well. I mean, almost every player on defense is draft eligible.
Still, the major issue for UK is pitching. Think about this...
2011 UK had ace Alex Meyer
2012 UK had ace Taylor Rodgers
2013 UK had ace Corey Littrell
2014 UK had ace AJ Reed
2015 UK had ace Zack Brown
2016 UK had ace Zack Brown
2017 UK had ace Sean Hjelle
2018 UK had ace Sean Hjelle
2019 UK had ace Zack Thompson
2020 UK had no true ace.
2021 UK really doesn't have an established ace, although Stupp is at least a solid pitcher.
Point being that Mingione has been here since 2017 and UK has still not found anyone they can really call an ace. Mignione benefitted from 2 years of Hjelle and Lewis and Thompson, but he never found anyone to replace them. This is just in regards to aces and not even in regards to guys like Kyle Cody, Justin Lewis, Dustin Beggs, Chandler Shepherd, Chris Machamer, Trevor Gott, etc that were all excellent bullpen pieces or Sat/Sun starters. In years past Stupp would be a Sat/Sun guy and we'd have a stud on Friday. UK has not gotten the studs, or developed one.
If I remember correctly the final 3 candidates were Mingione, Travis Jewel, and Greg Goff.
Your last sentence contained a very key word..."developed." NM and UK just aren't developing players at this time and when it's a program such as UK that's a huge failure.
I agree 100% about moving the start date back 3-4 weeks. Reason one is weather improvement. Reason two, the most important, is an opportunity for more TV coverage. If you notice, baseball is not covered until basketball season has wrapped. Even the SEC network doesn’t start regular coverage until April. Six weeks of the season goes unnoticed by most. Moving the season back would help improve attendance and grow the college game. That’s just my two cents.I will at least defend that excuse when it was being made. It doesn't apply as much anymore because of rules changes and better facilities and such, but 15-20+ years ago being a northern school was a major hindrance. Part of the reason for that was that there was no universal start date. So, southern schools would start playing very early in the spring while northern schools would wait for the thaw. The southern schools would be several weeks into their seasons before the northern schools even got started. So, when they played one another, the northern schools would always be lagging behind because the southern schools would be in midseason form before the northern ones got it kicked off. Sometime in the mid-2000s (I think) they went to a universal start date and basically gave everyone the same time frame to get in games. This helped even the playing field for northern teams. They still have some disadvantage because they can't practice outside as much as southern teams, but the universal start date has certainly helped a lot. Even so, some very prominent northern coaches (Michigan's Bakich for instance) still argue heavily that the season should be pushed back several weeks.
Why Michigan baseball coach Erik Bakich's new model for college season is gaining traction
Michigan baseball coach Erik Bakich is the leader of the proposed "New Baseball Model" that projects to cut costs and increasing revenuewww.freep.com
It sends the message that if your teams aren’t good after four years (excluding 2020) it’s time to move in another direction. Plus, the team has been in a steady decline since 2017. Not a promising sign of future improvement.
Travis Jewett was the one I kept forgetting. But you correct. Those were the final three that I remember hearing. Greg Goff is now the head coach at Purdue if I’m not mistaken.
This has been discussed a lot among the major players in college baseball. I’m sorta thinking that a later start date will happen in the next few years. I remember seeing a scenario where the season would start in mid March and be completed by the end of June. And I think the season would be shortened by two weeks.
I remember Barnhart tried to get Pat Casey to consider but I don’t think Casey ever really gave it serious thought.
