Roland Fanning
- Thread starter Comebakatz3
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Never understood this coaching change, did any gossip ever leak out about Fanning/UK split?
Now on the Rozell/Ballenger sawn, I’m bullish on Rozell. If Mingione recovers and saves his job believe Rozell will be the main and possibly only reason it happens.
Now on the Rozell/Ballenger sawn, I’m bullish on Rozell. If Mingione recovers and saves his job believe Rozell will be the main and possibly only reason it happens.
I think, and this is just pure speculation, Minge was told he had to do this to right the ship sorta speak.So of course the assistants are usually the first causalities. But, the rumor was Fanning was completely blind sided by the decision.
Blind sided... kinda sounds like UK baseball and fans in general right now.
Haven't really heard of anyone liking Ming... oddly enough. You'd think I'd hear about one. Lol
This discord between Ming and the players is beginning to have BCG vibes. Minus the rampant alcoholism and womanizing of course. I hope its just idle speculation and we get the ship righted. His first season was a lot of fun. Seems like a decade ago now.
Sadly, it is not speculation. There is a rift there. However, the old adage is that 'winning cures everything.' So, maybe there is a part of it that is exacerbated because of our lack of success over the past 2 years or so.
It is crazy how much the players progressed between Henderson's last year and Mingione's first year. Everyone played way better. It really does make you wonder how that happened and what led to it, because it now doesn't appear that it was a product of the coaching staff coaching them up.
Agreed. Henderson always seemed like he had us jusy good enough but never got over that hump consistently. Then Mingiones first year it was like..."Boom...theres that spark weve been waiting for." I dont know what the hell has happened, yall obviously keep up with the comings and goings more than I.
Hopefully this offseason has and will get everyone on same page and we can move forward and build something sustainable. If Ole Miss and Arkansas can do it, we sure as hell can.
One thing that obviously separates Henderson from Mingione is that Henderson was constantly able to find really solid ace/starting pitchers. Just go down the list:
James Paxton (4), Alex Meyer (1), Chris Rusin (4), Sean Hjelle (2), Zach Thompson (1), Kyle Cody (6), AJ Reed (2), Taylor Rogers (11), Zack Brown (5), Zach Logue (9),
So, over the course of about a decade he put 10 guys into the draft that went in the top 10 rounds as starting pitchers. Not to mention he had some like Lewis, Gott, Machamer that were not far outside the top 10 rounds, or were relief guys. Since Henderson left, the cupboard on ace pitching has gone dry. We have had two recruiting classes and in both we seem to have fallen flat (although we only got to see a very small sample size of the 2019 class). Until this changes, we will continue to struggle mightily.
Dave Van Horn has been at Arkansas for nearly 20 years and is just now getting to where we can pull in consistent big time recruiting classes in the last 5 years or so. It takes a lot of time and buy-in by fans as well. All starts with the right coach though, then winning, fans and facilities will follow. Also helps if you can find a great coach with UK ties that will stay with you no matter what. We got pretty lucky with DVH being a former player. We were pretty good when he got here but he's definitely taken it up a notch. Hell with football sucking and basketball being mediocre for so long baseball has become #1 to some of our fans.
Oh no doubt. For whatever reason it seems like the West schools put more into baseball while the East put more into basketball.
I guess Arkansas has the advantage of being able to pull guys from Texas as well. I alluded to yall due to similar population issues we have re:recruiting vase. Miss State/Ole Miss on the other hand shows a state with two P5 schools but small pop can absolutely support two Omaha caliber programs. Louisville baseball has run circles around Kentucky, and quite frankly, its damned embarassing especially when considering we are in the greatest baseball conference in the country.
Ill tell you the one that really puzzles me as far as lack of success v resources and recruiting is Georgia. Honestly, their perennial lack of success is mind boggling. I know they have had their years, but overall they have zero excuse for being as poor historically.
Was he not the hitting coach in Starkville when we hired him? Seems like weve kinda been feast or famine at the plate the past two seasons. I suppose that is kinda how it goes in baseball, but still.
Hell Im just ready for some damned baseball. Any baseball. Give us something people!
He was an assistant at Miss State before coming here as head coach. He was an assistant here at one time prior to that.
True, he isn't a pitching guy like Henderson, but IMO successful college baseball teams out together strong pitching staffs. So, it's imperative that the coach find the right pitching coach and the right players to make that happen. Henderson always found a decent amount of good pitchers but really couldn't put together a complete bullpen. I'm not sure of the numbers at the moment, but I bet Henderson's best team ERA, even counting the Cohen years, isn't much better than McDonnell.
Just looked... for instance in 2012 with UK having Littrell, Rogers, Gott, Reed, Shepherd, Grundy we had a team ERA of 3.41. In McDonnell's worst year at UL record wise (2011) his bullpen still had a 3.06 ERA. Granted, UL did have several years with higher ERAs, but for the most part they've always done very well at pitching.
Our hitting carried us in 2017, but that died out quickly. We replaced hits with strikeouts. From what I've heard the approach doesn't make sense and puts many players at a disadvantage.
Yeah Texas recruiting definitely helps us. We also get a ton of players from the Kansas City area.
Would Louisville have the same type of success if the roles were reversed though? I hate to act like an SEC elitist and act like no teams outside the conference are good, but this conference is definitely a meat grinder, maybe even moreso than football.
You could say the same thing about Georgia and basketball. Teams close to them like Auburn and Florida have had more success lately and even South Carolina has gone to a final four but for whatever reason they can't seem to get it going. If you go by average player ranking they just had the 11th ranked class in the SEC.
Thats the same argument Kentucky fans have made for decades about football. Any other P5 conference wed be at least middle of the pack, and attendance wise wed be no less than 4th highest in any other P5 conference. The SEC loves to collectively shit on us over football, but the reality is we are much more passionate and devoted than we are given credit for.
Ill never understand why folks dont bat an eye at LSU and Mississippi State putting 15K asses in seats for baseball, yet mever question their love of football. Yet for some reason, switch the sport to basketball and all of a sudden its "hurr durr...Kentucky only cares about basketball." What a crock of shit. If anything, considering our annual attendance numbers are almost always Top 30 in the country, Id think wed get more respect as being akin to Cleveland Browns or until recently Chicago Cubs fans.
As for Louisville, the ACC is a real solid football conference. Its not like what Clemson is doing with football right now, beating up on schleps. Louisville's baseball team could do some damage in the SEC for sure, though theyd take more losses, SEC just has more depth. As for us in the ACC, we're just bad right now.
I think McDonnell is just that good of a coach (as is their pitching coach, whom I think is their big key to success), and the ACC is really a very good baseball conference as well.
I mean, McDonnell came to UL in 2007 and his first year took them to the CWS. He's done that like 5 times now. Prior to his arrival Louisville had made the NCAA tournament 1 time.
LSU and Miss State are somewhat anomalies. They cared about baseball before anyone else, and in some regards I think they helped take others to higher levels. Still, most SEC schools cared about football only, and UK basketball only. That has changed over the past decade or two and now all of them are or have begun putting more emphasis on other sports.
A coach that will stick with your program is pretty huge. We harp on McDonnell, but he has been at UL since 2007. Historically, UL was a terrible program, so he's made them what they are. I am sure he's had suitors and yet he sticks in that craphole. Just as impressive, he's also had the same pitching coach for the entire duration. Eric Snider is their other assistant coach and he's been there for about half that time. So, their staff has had very little turnover. A little further south of UK you also have Vandy where Corbin has been there for 18 years. He had no prior connection to Vandy and prior to him Vandy was a pretty poor baseball program.
UK has a handful of former players currently coaching. Andy Green was the manager of the Padres recently, but couldn't make that terrible program go. Matt Bragga coached Tennessee Tech to one game shy of a CWS birth two years ago, and is now coaching at Rice.
Personally, I want to see UK throw a bank at Roger Williams, the UL pitching coach, but I wouldn't be upset to see us give Green or Bragga a try. Whatever we do, I think we have to leave this crazy Mingione experiment behind.
I'd say continuity with a proven track record of development, while obviously important for an athlete in any sport, is probably moreso in college baseball than any other collegiate coaching gig. And that's because of recruiting guys to come to college who are fringe players. The minor leagues can be attractive to a lot of guys, even if the payday isn't amazing. Other sports dont necessarily have that kind of pro infrastructure to compete against when trying to convince kids to sign up for college ball. And many guys end up avoiding Low A ball and such and can drop into Double A in a relatively short time frame v languishing away. Its all a case by case basis of course, but for those fringe guys, it definitely helps.
Bragga is known as a players coach who was off to a rough start this year at Rice. Rice has former Wildcat Braydon Combs at 1B. This is year 3 for Bragga.
Definitely. There are a ton of guys each year that basically come out of nowhere because they blew up in college or in JUCO. AJ Reed was a top 500 player and only 6th best in Indiana and blew up to be a second round draft pick. Heck, Reks was done with baseball until UK stumbled upon him on campus and now he's one of the top prospects in the Dodgers organization. Played in 16 spring training games this year and hit a cool .368 in 19 at bats with 4 extra base hits and 5 RBIs. Hit .300 in AAA last year.
Absolutely. There are countless guys who just havent had the "light bulb" go off yet and need time to develop at that age. When you sign that pro contract, even if youre minor leaguer making McDs wages, youre automatically a commodity (as we are seeing now as MLB teams dump minor leaguers daily due to the covid shutdown.) You sign that 3 yr scholly or whatever they do, you're given time to come along.
Eventually yes, youve gotta show up and get it done if you want to make it, but you arent shuffled around and expected to put up or shut up within a year or two. The longer you stick at a certain MiLB level the harder I imagine it is to move up woth each passing season. Scouts and coaches form an opinion and you have to really buck the trend to get back on the radar it feels like to me. Some guys are just "the chosen ones" regardless.
Yea, he will be in his third year in 2021. Personally, Bragga would be somewhat far down my list. He did great things with Tn Tech in his last couple of years, but he was there for 14 years and they had a lot of ups and downs. For instance, they made the NCAA tournament 3 times, and won 40+ games 4 times. However, they also had 6 years where they had losing seasons. I would just rather see a coach who has impressed early.
We've spoken of Dave Van Horn... look back at his records. He went to Nebraska and had them in the CWS in his 4th and 5th years, and the super regional in his third. Went to Arky and had them in the CWS in year 2. Nebraska wasn't a bad program before DVH got there, but he definitely boosted them quickly.
So, that is what I would rather see. Someone who shows good and early success.
By the way, stumbled upon Northwestern State and their head coaching. They had 3 future SEC coaches in a row. DVH, John Cohen (UK fame), and Mitch Gaspard (Alabama).
Extremely important is the amount of money that the major league club invests in you. If you were a big time player you'll get chance after chance to improve so that the club gets a return on their investment. If you're a guy who signed for minimum, you're expendable. Even if you're doing much better than the guy with the giant signing bonus, he might get moved up while you wallow in Single A. So, those draft positions and the money you get can be very important for your career.
Also applicable at the major league level, as evidenced by the Reds idiotic insistence on sticking with Homer Bailey and trotting him out there to get lit up like a Christmas tree night in and night out because hey, we're paying the hell out of this guy so we might as well work him even if it kills us.
Ming is a complete disaster. UK will go nowhere as long as he leads the program. His second year he had a loaded roster that couldn’t even make the NCAA tournament. 2019 was an embarrassment. It’s obvious he caught lightning in a bottle his first year and hasn’t had a clue since then.
Making a million a year living in a place like Louisville is not living in a craphole. The man has a nice stadium for the team to play in and l think under the conditions he recruits to(weather) that he is without a doubt one of the top 3 coaches in the country...makes every excuse that is used for UK not being competitive totally bogus!
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