In the past Mingione has made their practices early morning instead of afternoon which makes it hard on people to attend (probably on purpose!!)
Kentucky Baseball 2022
- Thread starter Comebakatz3
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This is a big break for us because UT was really hoping to get him and replace the catcher they lost.
Adam Fogel - Baseball - University of Hawai'i at Manoa Athletics
Adam Fogel (18) Outfielder - 2021 (RS-Junior): Named an All-Big West second-team selection. Led the team in multiple batting categories, including
hawaiiathletics.com
Probably had to do with the class schedule of the players, practice in the morning, classes in the afternoon.
They had classes in the morning with afternoon practice, but in 2019-2020 that was reversed and has continued.
My son had classes in the morn and practice in the afternoon. Maybe for whatever reason the instructors wanted to flip it.
Mingione recruits the portal better than the high schools or JUCO.
Adam Fogel - Baseball - University of Hawai'i at Manoa Athletics
Adam Fogel (18) Outfielder - 2021 (RS-Junior): Named an All-Big West second-team selection. Led the team in multiple batting categories, including
I have to give props to Derek Terry for his baseball coverage. He’s been head and shoulders above everyone else.
Adam Fogel - Baseball - University of Hawai'i at Manoa Athletics
Adam Fogel (18) Outfielder - 2021 (RS-Junior): Named an All-Big West second-team selection. Led the team in multiple batting categories, including
If I’m not mistaken, some practices and scrimmages were on the weekends. I think it was fall 2019 last time I went. I don’t recall seeing anything last fall but maybe I just missed it.
Intrasquad scrimmages are Wednesday, Friday,Saturday,Sunday. Wednesdays are generally freshman pitchers fighting for a spot…. Friday and Saturdays are the main pitchers and sundays are generally for others fighting for a spot….
This is big news... fills the hole in OF and adds an experienced leader to the program! 150 college starts already! Things seem to be shaping up pretty well!
Adam Fogel - Baseball - University of Hawai'i at Manoa Athletics
Adam Fogel (18) Outfielder - 2021 (RS-Junior): Named an All-Big West second-team selection. Led the team in multiple batting categories, including
So potential lineup right now looks like this?
1.) Thrasher - CF
2.) Fogel - RF
3.) Jump - LF
4.) Anu - DH
5.) Estep - 2B
6.) Ritter - SS
7.) Plastiak - 3B
8.) Cotto - 1B
9.) Rubalcaba - C
Friday - Stupp
Saturday - Bosma
Sunday - Williams
Mid Week - Hagenow
Closer - Harney
With Lee in pen with Hazelwood still.
Might be counting chickens before they hatch, but that seems like a solid lineup to me!
1.) Thrasher - CF
2.) Fogel - RF
3.) Jump - LF
4.) Anu - DH
5.) Estep - 2B
6.) Ritter - SS
7.) Plastiak - 3B
8.) Cotto - 1B
9.) Rubalcaba - C
Friday - Stupp
Saturday - Bosma
Sunday - Williams
Mid Week - Hagenow
Closer - Harney
With Lee in pen with Hazelwood still.
Might be counting chickens before they hatch, but that seems like a solid lineup to me!
As
We have seen in the past, you have players but it’s what you do with them that makes the difference. These are obvious choices but that doesn’t mean Mingione will be doing the obvious. Proven fact.
Thanks I appreciate it. I didn’t know the full schedule but I will tuck this information away.
On paper it looks solid but I’m concerned about some of kids making the huge jump to the SEC. That’s a big jump in talent, especially pitching.
Jim Cornett doesn’t approve of your optimism.
Is this line up better on paper than last year?
I appreciate your optimism, but I just cannot share in it... at least not at the moment. I feel like Mingione continues to put bandaids on gaping wounds.
These replacements aren't terrible by any means, but we have to rely on them learning quickly to adjust to better competition.
Take Fogel for instance... played for Hawaii and was an All Conference performer. That seems very good on paper. Dig a touch deeper and you can see that the Big West largely played in conference opponents only. In the Big West there are some solid teams. They are the 14th best conference by RPI and have 3 teams in the top 100 RPI. So, let's look at how Fogel did against those teams. I included Arizona State in this as well given that they were a strong and competitive team this year. Fogel, against those 4 teams... in 14 games went 12 for 54 (.222) with 6 walks and 16 strikeouts. He knocked in 4 runs and I believe had 1 extra base hit (a double). This is a decent sample size and more at bats than some of the guys on UK got a year ago (for instance... Harmon had just 33 in league play before he was shelved). So, while the All Conference player and the .323 overall batting average looked good... if you dig a bit deeper we find that there is still some cause for concern, especially when the competition increases. Obviously that second number (.222) isn't going to very far in helping UK replace the production they lost.
I can't speak as much for the pitchers, but I will at least admit that the competition is going to be favorable. I have no qualms with the new faces, but penciling them into starting roles seems a stretch to me at this point. Both are taking major steps up in competition. I just have a hard time believing that they match or better their numbers from a year ago while increasing the competition they play against. These guys didn't necessarily dominate the competition (i.e. the way say Sam Bachman did) they faced a year ago, so I just have a hard time penciling them in at this point. I am more comfortable believing that someone like Lee and/or Harney adjust and lower their numbers after a second year facing and seeing SEC hitting than I am believing that a newcomer will come in and put up similar or better numbers against better competition. Of course, I have been wrong before. I also want to point out, that I just have a hard time believing that this team hits better than the 2022 team. The 2022 team didn't hit particularly well, but replacing 5 of your top 8 hitters is not going to be easy. Point being that if the hitting is worse, the pitching has to be that much better to make up for it, and in the SEC that is no easy task. Also, I have to imagine they will keep Cotto on the mound in some way or another. I am sure they will give him a shot at first, but he throws mid-to-upper 90s as a lefty and was a top 200 LHP prospect. Don't think they should ignore that.
I mean, push comes to shove, I think I will get a bit more excited about this team as we get closer to February, but, again... it just feels like this program is being ran poorly. I don't like looking at the lineup for 2022 and seeing that 11 of the 14 players listed as major contributors/starters are players we took as transfer/JUCO players. We're just simply not recruiting and developing quality talent and it very much feels like the JUCO/transfer route Mingione has taken is akin throwing a couple bandaids at someone who is bleeding out.
I agree with some of your points, but I think a lot of people are too worried about the transfers and "not developing talent". Transfers are a way of the game right now. If recruits are too good out of HS you lose them to the draft, but if guys don't get noticed as much out of HS and have to go to a smaller school to prove themselves, why not go after proven talent than rely on unproven underclassmen? All SEC schools do it. SC had 12 transfers on their roster this year, UT had 7, Arkansas had 10, Bama 6, Ole Miss 9, etc etc. That is just part of being competitive in SEC baseball. If you're losing juniors to the draft every year you can't always replace them with freshman and sophomores, you have look outside to find help. Not sure these are the right ones, but I'm not sure who you'd find better out there.
Some of those had big numbers on fairly big rosters, you're correct. However, I doubt too many of them are relying on transfer/JUCO players like we will next year and as much as we seem to be doing regularly. Our roster turnover, as far as I can tell, is not normal and has not been for the past several years. Yes, it can be done that a roster full of transfers, such as with Arkansas, can work. However, most teams are using these transfers to supplement and not to be the majority of talent. Look at UT for instance... they had 6 or 7 transfers and just 1 of those was a starter in the field. The other 8 were HS talent.
I think that there are certainly times where you have a heavy class of juniors/seniors that leave or something to that effect and you have to gap it with transfers, or you have to take your lumps with freshmen. One could say that happened to UK after we had 13 selected in 2018 (which was honestly exacerbated even more by having 7 of those players also be transfers who were draft eligible), but since then UK has not really been able to fold HS players back in to get back into a normal progression. Instead, we're right back to a team that will be old and dominated by transfers. So, if you look at your list of 16 players... 14 of the 16 are draft eligible and we for sure lose Thrasher, Harney, Anu, Hazelwood to lack of eligibility, and possibly Plastiak, Rubalcaba, Bosma, Jump, and Fogel if they aren't granted additional years (it is kind of hard to keep up with how much eligibility is left). Point being that it feels like we are now in a constant cycle of losing a ton of players (whether it be to eligibility or transfers and a few to the draft) and then we have to fill those gaps and we do it with transfers/JUCO and a year later we lose a lot of them again for similar reasons. Rinse repeat.
Encouraging. BTW, Terry does a great job covering UK baseball.
It is interesting that it is 2 pitchers.
I was going to start a thread on this, but think I will just keep it here... what are your (everyone's) thoughts on the impact of Covid and the development of baseball players, particularly ours?
Maybe it is a basis for some optimism? For instance, while Stupp and Lee were technically sophomores, they were facing SEC hitters for the first time this year. So, it isn't unrealistic to think that they could make some very big strides from 2021 to 2022 as they learn and adjust from the mistakes they made in 21. Not sure how big of a jump they might make, some might take a step back in a sort of 'sophomore slump,' that happens. Still, I am not sure we fully know the Covid impact longer term as it pertains to this situation. So, just makes for an interesting conversation I think.
Re Covid, the immediate impact I guess is players getting a "free" year. But I agree, we may not know long term for several years plus we may not be done with it for awhile. One thing is...everybody's dealing with it or has dealt with it.
Quick comments on the afore mentioned Andruw Jones and Carl Crawford. Saw both play several games in the minor leagues. For Jones, everything seemed to come so easy for him. He could really hit and had maybe the best OF arm I've ever seen. As for Crawford, fastest player I ever saw on a baseball field hands down. Seemed to glide to cover ground in CF. If their sons are anything like them they'll be tremendous prospects.
He’s the only one out there. I’m very disappointed in the Rival’s guys coverage.
I want to be clear that I am not giving an excuse for the way we played or anything to that effect. I am really just talking about the effect it had on the development of our players and how things might change going forward. Again, for instance… Anu seems like he has been here forever. He was here in 2020 and in 2021 and he’ll be back in 2022. In some ways I feel like the player he was in 2021 is the player he will be going forward. However, even he was facing SEC pitching for the first time in 2021. He didn’t do terrible, but he clearly wasn’t impressive. So, with another year of seeing and adjusting to SEC pitching, can Anu put up big numbers or will we see the same type numbers (or worse) in 2022? So that is what I mean by the effects of Covid in this regard. I am just kind of thinking about these impacts. Hagenow for instance… he didn’t have a senior year at all (IIRC). Could he have pitched his way into a higher draft pick? What effect did a year off do to his arm strength and his ability to pitch a full season for UK? Did that play a factor in him seemingly not pitching as much later in the year?
No, Bosma was already committed. UK just now finally mentioned him. Maybe he finally signed, but he's been on the transfer list for us for a while.
Fogel is the only one on your 2nd list who has just 1 year of eligibility. Plastiak, Rubalcaba, Bosma, and Jump have 2 years technically, but I'm sure Bosma and Jump transferred to make a splash this year to increase their draft stock next year.
Yeah, Covid has done crazy things for sure. But if you look at guys like Bosma and Williams the transfer pitchers... they've had more experience against tough hitting both thru early season SEC games and college summer leagues. Bosma pitched in the Northwoods league after freshman year and pitched against a bunch of SEC guys up there all summer, then as a sophomore pitched against A&M before covid ended the season. Then draft league this summer. So, he's seen hitting and has experience with it. Williams is similar. I really think they went out and got these guys so they could add more experience to the weekend. The quote that was tweeted about Bosma today with Mingione talking about him going deep into games makes me think that even more. Definitely should be interesting to see how it shakes out. Seems like a full staff for sure. Good problem to have!
I think you're right. I was just going by UK labeling most those guys as seniors on the 2022 roster, but everything is so skewed. Some schools list a guy by the year he arrived and others list them by eligibility. It's kind of confusing with how many extra years they've been given. Hard to keep up.
This didn't just start, the class listing I mean. Been ongoing for several years. Some rosters list guys by academic class, some by eligibility class. Very confusing, at least for me.
I take it you mean when a player takes a redshirt and they aren't listed as a redshirt freshman (etc.)? I hadn't noticed it otherwise. With Covid, what I have seen is that some schools would still consider a player a junior in 2021 even if it were their 4th season. Others would list them as seniors even though they didn't lose any eligibility in 2020. Now you have guys who got even an extra year, so it becomes even harder to discern how they fit into those traditional titles.
This one is a pretty interesting pickup for UK. According to DT, Harris will be a favorite to start at 2nd. If this is indeed his final year, I doubt that he's coming to UK to sit the bench, so he will most certainly at least think he's got a really good chance of locking down 2nd in the fall, if he wasn't promised the position.
I have to imagine that this means that UK believes that Plastiak will move to 1st and Estep will play 3rd. That means that Church is going to PH and kind of be the odd man out defensively. Cotto could factor into that by playing first and he'd be the only lefty on the UK roster capable (I think) of doing that, but it kind of seems like the staff wants to keep him on the pitching side and not cross him over.
All in all, this is a pretty interesting development as many of us were leaning towards believing that Plastiak would be at third while Estep moved to second. So, this kind of changes that up.
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