FB Recruiting Spoke with Perfectgame.com's Brian Sakowski on UK's top 10 class..
- Thread starter Derek Terry
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I don't know enough about the other teams to give an accurate ranking. UK's JUCO guys are really talented though.
RE Haake: "We’re going to have to wait to the fall to really see it, but I’m going to imagine he slides into the weekend relatively early."
He better be pretty damn good to take a weekend spot. Do not see it happening. Hjelle and Thompson are proven and have been around, and Thompson may be the best prospect on the staff.
He better be pretty damn good to take a weekend spot. Do not see it happening. Hjelle and Thompson are proven and have been around, and Thompson may be the best prospect on the staff.
I don't necessarily see it either, but I was told the way Haake threw this spring at JUCO would've been good enough to compete for a weekend spot this season. I don't know if UK will throw him in the midweek or use him in the bullpen, but he's a very good arm to have.
Have we ever finished this high before? Since 2011 we've only been in the top 25 twice since 2011, with the others being 50, 30, 48, and 39. That's a huge step up.
Seems like it would be a bit of a waste to use him in the midweek. He'd be my first choice out of the pen. Would also give him a chance to win the role over Thompson and Lewis. Lewis, imo, is the weakest link because he wasn't as consistent last year. Still... what a good problem to have that we've largely never had before.
It's far from a waste for anyone to start midweek games. Louisville (x2), Indiana, Xavier, Cincinnati, WKU and others are strong teams. As we saw in 2016, we need to win most of these games to beef up our tournament resume. But, I agree that it's a good problem to have.
Well, to me the midweek games are best used to develop future weekend pitchers. Get a freshman or sophomore in and get him into mostly lesser games, sprinkled with some big time competition like Louisville. I don't really like the idea of a JUCO pitcher throwing during the midweek, especially when the JUCO guy could have very well gone in the 4th round of the MLB draft this past year. He's likely to only be at UK for one Spring, so if you don't get the most out of him then it is a waste, and even more so it becomes a waste because someone like Jordan, Marshall, or Dobzanski could greatly benefit from getting collegiate level experience, and when you lose 2 weekend starters and possibly lose Haake (a third starter or major bullpen guy) then you have a whole lot of holes to fill come 2019, so you also have to prepare for arms to step in and be the guy to take their places, and having freshmen and sophomores cutting their teeth in the midweek is a great place for that.
On top of that, week in and week out the competition in the SEC is typically 10 times harder than the competition in the midweek. We faced 6 teams in the RPI that were ranked higher than any other midweek opponent not named Louisville. That means 6 of them in the top 33, with Indiana finally clocking in at number 34. So, that is 18 games against top 35 opponents and just 3 against OOC teams in the midweek in the top 35. In fact, those three games were the only 3 OOC games we played in the midweek that were in the RPI top 50. Meanwhile, we played 27 games against weekend opponents that were in the top 50, with 4 more games being inside the top 60. We only played 7 RPI 100 teams in the midweek all year. We played an additional 7 outside of the top 100, most of which actually came outside of the top 200. So, there is a massive step down in competition from the weekend to the midweek, and our resume is really almost entirely built on the weekends. We will desperately need a guy like Haake to come in and pitch the weekends, especially if someone has a year similar to what Logue had this year. Further, he'd still be able to pitch some in the midweek against teams like Louisville if we need him out of the bullpen. We just wouldn't be using him to start those games. If he starts midweek games then it isn't extremely likely that he'll be available on the weekends. So, IMO, it is better to try to get 3-4 innings out of him against SEC opponents on the weekend than get 5-7 out of him during the midweek. Especially if you can get an extra inning or two in some midweek games, then you're getting a similar amount of innings while facing tougher opponents.
One of our strong suits this year was our midweek performance.
I wouldn't overlook Mason Hazelwood. That kid was 91-94 this spring with a swing and miss slider and throwing his changeups for strikes. He may compete for midweek starts.
An interesting part of this is that Hazelwood isn't actually even on our Perfect Game commitment list. So, we're still ranked 7th overall while missing a tall lefty that throws in the mid to low 90s as a senior in high school.
Hazelwood will be interesting for next season because he will be one of only a handful of lefty options. Schaenzer will be a senior who will likely get plenty of time out of the pen. Josh Smith is another lefty that has shown some shades of talent from time to time, but it just hasn't clicked for him entirely. Hope it happens next year. After that, we return no lefties out of the bullpen (yea, Thompson is a starting lefty). Hazelwood and Garland are our only freshmen coming in that throw from the left side. So, will the staff start a lefty in the midweek, or will they try to save a few lefties for relief in order to give hitters different looks and get matchups? It seems as though Coach Belanger isn't quite as interested in matchups as Henderson was, but they can still play a big factor. So, how they use those lefties could be interesting.
Not sure. I was going by our list here. Don't see anything on it elsewhere though.
