Weekend Rotation Announced
- Thread starter CliffDweller25
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Don't think they have any choice really.
By the way, thought it was interesting that Jimmy Ramsey has this in his bio in the media guide:
"Could be rotation piece again or be the staff’s workhorse who is go-to guy in critical situations."
If you don't have faith in your Friday starter to be the same person from Game 1 through Game 50+ then it is not a good sign.
No, that sure as hell sounds more like what you want to hear about your middle relief or ace closer....not your weekend go-to Friday guy.
Guess we'll see tonight. TCU has a solid program. Should be a solid litmus test.
Guess we'll see tonight. TCU has a solid program. Should be a solid litmus test.
This team, at the moment, has no ace. We will likely be one of, if not the only, SEC team without an ace of some sort. Maybe that changes quickly, but it doesn't instill a ton of confidence.
Also, I am not sure if it is normal, but this staff has had an absolute ton of injuries to deal with. Their first recruiting class has three guys that were possible ace pitchers (Jordan, Marozas, and Dobzanski), and all three came to UK hurt. So far, only Jordan remains on the roster and we have yet to get a single start out of any of them. I'm not sure Dobzanski and Marozas ever threw a pitch for UK. The year after that they brought in the JUCO transfer Haake came in healthy, but fell on some ice and hurt himself and it set him back for most of 2018. I believe Thompson was banged up that year as well. Then this year you have Wibbels who will sit out due to injury, and he was one of the better prospects.
Just seems like we can't keep the best guys healthy.
Some seasons thats just how it goes. The big thing is whether they are preventable injuries (ie guys being stupid in the offseason) or just normal wear and tear. Having such a rash of injuries always makes me question what a team is doing in the offseason regimen, or, if its in season, what their daily regimen is.
All of that being said, I keep up with the Reds more than anything. I look to you guys on here who follow the Bat Cats more rigorously for insight into stuff like that. Hell, sometimes its just coincidence and bad timing and things just happen. But when you have several pitchers all with wear and tear injuries it certainly makes one wonder if theyre being overworked, or if they werent prepared for the college workload or who knows what. All pure speculation.
Of equal or perhaps greater concern that is based in fact and reality is the lack of an ace. The above was just me spitballing ideas with zero info, just speculating possibilities. We KNOW we lack an ace....you just cant get by in the SEC like that. I daresay its unacceptable for it to even be the case in this day and age. Starting pitching needs to be priority #1 2 and 3 for recruiting. JMO. Im always a pitchers first kinda guy.
The injuries are partly bad luck, but also partly that UK took a chance on kids with these issues. The first three that I mentioned all came to UK with arm issues and had to redshirt due to having surgery before coming to UK. Where UK failed, IMO, is that we did not get them to stick around and did not get them healthy and involved. Look at Ben Jordan... he has been at UK for 3 years and has fewer than 10 appearances and no starts. He spent two full years injured before being eased in last year. That is concerning to me. So, some of it is just bad luck, but other parts are on the staff.
D1 baseball lists the top 50 2020 prospects in the league as well as the top 50 2021 prospects. Of those 100 prospects, only Hunter Rigsby is on the list as a pitcher, and he is ranked 46th in the 2021 ranking. Lee and Stupp are listed as impact freshmen at 24th and 44th.
Ahhh. OK that makes a lot more sense. Thats why I tried to hedge what I was saying, I didnt really believe we were just running guys into the ground, and I feel like if we had a bunch of off field chicanery going on, we'd have all heard about it by now.
Well in light of that, I definitely agree with you.
I can certainly understand looking for a diamond in the rough, taking a flyer on a guy with an injury you believe wont inhibit long term. It can absolutely pay off. But you cant build a staff that way. That reminds me of the Bengals F.O. approach TBH. And thats never good.
As for the 'croot rankings, I know baseballnis much more subjective with the national scouting rankings v football and certainly basketball, but the bottom line is there's usually consensus top guys. You HAVE to be able to land them here. You just have to. When I see Vandy and Louisville consistently excelling, both with different approaches but same excellent results, there just isnt any viable rationale or excuse Im willing to accept as to why UK baseball cant be in the national conversation perennially. We should be able to get our share of guys. Always.
I think the major key is the second level recruits that you get. UK has been traditionally able to get some outstanding top tier guys in their pitching staffs (Meyer and Thompson, etc) to have some big time aces. However, we struggled moreso to fill out bullpens. With Mingione, we took some fliers on 3 big time guys who happened to also come to UK injured. That they didn't pan out has, in large part, just ruined their plans for our pitching staff. Still, you have to get those top guys to be your aces every single year. So, far, we haven't found a single one during Mingione's time here.
And even if there are valid outside factors or random injuries....things beyond the staffs control, that caused all of that to culminate, the bottom line is it affects Ws and Ls, which in turn perpetuates a cycle of uphill recruiting battles in the offseason to rectify those depth issues.
UK has recruiting classes ranked:
2016 - 25
2017 - 6
2018 - 11
2019 - 15
Despite that, we are not a top 25 team and we're projected to finish dead last in the SEC East. A big part of that is because UK has failed to bring in a healthy ace.
Here is something interesting... according to PBR, Jackson Rutledge was the number 1 JUCO prospect. He was coming to UK and decided to go pro.
However, if we look at others in the top 10... Andrew Peters and Thomas Farr were 2 and 3 and both went to USC. Jason Rackers was number 4 and is playing for UT this year. Johnny Ray was 19th and is expected to be the ace for TCU tonight. Lucas Knowles was another top JUCO guy that would have been our Friday night starter in 2019 that decided to go pro instead of come to UK.
So, those teams above got richer with JUCO pitching while UK struckout.
Wow. Yeah, thats kinda what I was saying...sometimes things that make and break a program and subsequently the staffs employment are things you cant control. And a teenage kid changing their mind is definitely one of those things.
I admittedly dont keep up with the baseball recruiting. I only actively keep up with football and even then only passively. Cal gets his guys in hoops so I dont even bother worrying there.
Anyway, what Im getting at is with those recruiting classes, is this a case similar to Stoops in football? 20-25th in the nation but 9th or 10th in the SEC? I would add that the fundamental difference is the results on field. Stoops beats his cupcakes. Seems like we dropped some midweek games last season we shouldn't have if we're trotting that caliber of horse out there.
I am similar to you in following recruiting. Mostly follow football. Baseball is super hard to follow because the only site that really does it is Perfect Game and they are a pay site for most of their information.
But, yes, that is a major issue with it. If you are 25th in recruiting, as we were in 2016, then we were all the way in 10th in the SEC. We were 6th overall in 2017 and we were still just the 5th best recruiting class in the SEC. 11th overall in 2018 and the 7th best SEC class. 15 and 9 in 2019.
So, it is definitely difficult to be successful in the SEC, but it still doesn't excuse where we are. Still, we will see how things go for us. I am excited to at least tune in and watch the guys play.
I actually had Jordan mixed up. He has only been here for two years. He redshirted in 18 and then didn't pitch much in 19 either. 20 will be his third year.
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