UK next season.......Small Ball,

[CloverforkCat]

This season the Cats wound up hitting 60 homers. Next year they would do well to hit half as many. However, this season they had 67 stolen bases, I believe next year they could top that by a pretty good margin.
With such players as K Barrett, M Carson, K Tom, S Wilson, J Shelby, C Heady, and some others, the Cats best option by far, is to play a lot of hit and run, and be very aggressive on the base paths.
They will hit some HR's of course, but their best offensive strategy is base hit, or walk, steal or sacrifice or both. They will be a pretty good gap power team IMO, but without A J , M Thomas, Cousey, Reida, and likely Kuhn, thats 47 of the 60 homers gone.
Just hope our pitching can improve a good bit, and give us a chance to put up some W's in 2015.

 

[sluggercatfan]

Until some" changes" are made don't get you hopes up...I know I won't ...Will follow the team , but this is the football scenario all over again...

 

[CatsFanGG24]

Originally posted by sluggercatfan:

Until some" changes" are made don't get you hopes up...I know I won't ...Will follow the team , but this is the football scenario all over again...

Not really...the staff recruits at a high level and they have advanced as far as any UK team in history.

They need to get over the hump, but this isn't the football scenario.

Back to topic...I always believe you need a mix of wall ball and small ball...that is why I feel UL will struggle the rest of the way, and really a reason for our struggles this past year as well. In our final game, UL struggle to hit any Sac flies - due to their dependence on small ball (don't have many guys that will drive the ball)...we couldn't get base runners with drag/push bunts, or move guys over with Sac bunts...

Next year we need to be much better bunting the ball - but I hope we still shoot for the gaps.
This post was edited on 6/4 3:39 PM by CatsFanGG24

 

[CloverforkCat]

If Max Kuhn leaves, (possibility), we will return 13 homers from the returning players. 4 each by S Wilson and J Shelby, 3 by K Tom, and 1 each by T Bernal and K Barrett. While each of these players can certainly increase their totals next season, and players such as Z Arnold, D Hairston, and G Fettes can supply some homers here and there, our bread and butter will be hitting for average, drawing walks, hbp, and stealing bases, and sacrificing.
Our fundamentals of bunting, both for hits, and moving runners along, must improve. We have several returning players who can steal 12-20 bases next year. This threat can cause opposing pitchers to rush and then make mistakes to batters, and lead to wild pitches. It is also a very entertaining style to watch for the fans.

 

[DubyaT]

If they haven't recruited a stud pitcher or two to step in, it's gonna take a bunch of well-executed small ball to put up a bunch of runs to compete in SEC play. Really like the approach of Wilson, Tom, and even Bernal, and they will have speed, but they simply have to find SEC caliber pitching. I'm not familiar with their recruiting class, so hopefully they have some kids who can pitch well.

 

[law1127]

Need SEC starting and especially SEC relief pitching,to ever get beyond fairly good,13-15 in SEC !!