The state of Ky produces a lot of good players. Louisville does it year in and out. No reason UK shouldn’t be a force in SEC baseball
Why can’t our baseball program succeed?
- Thread starter TNCatfanforever
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It can. No doubt in my mind that it can succeed. It hasn't because we've had poor commitment from the administration and we don't have the right staff in place.
It would be good right now if our "Athletics" department didn't solely focus on 1 sport for the majority of its existence.
The past 10 years has been great. We've got upgraded football & baseball facilities and hopefully soon the T&F team will get their own in-door track and the football team can upgrade Nutter.
The past 10 years has been great. We've got upgraded football & baseball facilities and hopefully soon the T&F team will get their own in-door track and the football team can upgrade Nutter.
I don't think there is an easy answer to this. I don’t think for one second that Kentucky can’t have a successful program. There has been flashes of it. 2006, 2012 and 2017 all come to mind. The problem is maintaining that.
There was more excitement after the 2017 season than I can remember since being a season ticket holder. The new stadium was coming, the Cats were going to their first super regional, fans were buying in and then there was a train wreck. All of that good will is gone.
Two things have to happen IMO to get Kentucky to the net level. 1) You have to recruit Kentucky. There is zero reason UofL should be pulling kids in over Kentucky. UK baseball needs a Vince Marrow type to come in and hit the recruiting trail. 2) You need to the right coaching staff. Ill fully admit I thought Mingione was that guy. I think a lot of us did if we were being honest. But too many times we've been proven wrong. I dont know who the right coach would be at Kentucky. I have a few coaches I would like here but would they come is the big question.
Kentucky messed up and they've only made things harder for themselves with recruiting.
Louisville has had a player drafted in the first or second round every single year since 2016, including last year having the number 1 overall pick in Henry Davis, who was undrafted in 2018. Imagine being able to sell that to recruits... you took an undrafted catcher out of NY and made him number 1 overall.
Then you also have TN picking up recruiting in their state and their coach is an outstanding recruiter who will recruit guys who want to play for him and will run through a wall for him. So, some kids that UK might have been able to snipe out of the state of TN are now probably not available. Even less so as UT continues to show that they are a force in college baseball.
UK ought to do what it has done in football. Recruit Kentucky really hard and then focus on Indiana, Ohio and Michigan for good prospects that want to come south to play in the SEC, but still be close to home. Plus concentrate on HS players and develop them over 3 or 4 years instead of hitting the JUCO and transfer route so hard.
Just like Stoops when he came here, Kentucky simply had to fix its defense to have any chance. So in baseball, specifically, we need much better pitching, and to a lesser extent defense. Our small ball is usually terrible, can't lay bunts down to save our lives in some years. Base running is also fundamentally poor, as often as not.
But . . . . all the solutions begin with having the right coach. Until we solve that problem, we will continue to be bottom feeders in our own state, much less the SEC, which is about as tough in baseball as it it in football, to continue the analogy.
Just like Stoops when he came here, Kentucky simply had to fix its defense to have any chance. So in baseball, specifically, we need much better pitching, and to a lesser extent defense. Our small ball is usually terrible, can't lay bunts down to save our lives in some years. Base running is also fundamentally poor, as often as not.
But . . . . all the solutions begin with having the right coach. Until we solve that problem, we will continue to be bottom feeders in our own state, much less the SEC, which is about as tough in baseball as it it in football, to continue the analogy.
Mark my words, this whole "rogue program, me against the world" the TN coach is engaging in will eventually blow up in his face. Already seeing tell-tale signs as is. From juiced players to tampered bats...it's coming, don't know where or when but it's coming.
They could be a really fun team to watch given how well they have played, but they are just so unlikeable that they ruin any possible good will that they might have. I don't know if they are doing anything outside of the rules, but even still... they are obnoxious as hell.
Karma is a bitch and I can’t wait until Tennessee gets theirs.
The college versions of basketball and football are held to a higher standard of sportsmanship than the pro versions. The opposite is true for baseball. Bat flips, verbal taunting, etc., are seemingly permitted in college baseball and can be viewed as players "just having fun". Programs permit players to engage in those things to one extent or another. But what Vitello at UT permits has really pushed the envelope and then some. I've got to think that there will be some push back against his program either by the SEC or NCAA.
There’s a rumor coming out of Oklahoma City at the WCWS about a media outlet working on a story involving Oklahoma softball and Tennessee baseball players using PEDs. This is probably just internet BS but I could see some validity to it.
As you're well aware, Vitello is not just allowing it, but he is also actively participating in it and cultivating it. Things like throwing the Auburn bat back at their dugout only encourages his players to have a that same attitude.
There was a bunch of speculation the other day when Evan Russell sat out that he might have tested positive for PEDs, and apparently an ESPN analyst speculated to that effect on air. Apparently it wasn't true and Russell played the next day and only sat out the one day due to some sort of undisclosed illness. The rumor and the gaff by the ESPN analyst seems to only have made the Tennessee fanbase more annyoing.
Winners talk, losers walk was the saying back in the day.
All the angst over UT and their coach….they are winning.
Wouldn’t care if our coach did the same if we were winning. Think about this, you only have to be middle of the pack in the SEC to make NCAA tourney. Cats can’t even do that.
Some of you big dollar donors need to tell Mitch to do the right thing and pull the plug on NM.
The amount of home runs both teams have hit is insane. Something fishy is going on.
I don't disagree with you, but I think there is a difference in being cocky and having fun with it and then doing what they are doing. One of their players the other night hit a ball and flipped off the Georgia Tech outfielders while rounding first. That isn't trash talk or being cocky... it's just being a d-bag. It goes beyond some simple trash talk, which I think is really what that saying is about.
Also, never much cared for that saying. Just because you can talk doesn't mean you should or have to.
I am one that has moreso defended some of their antics because it is an attitude that really has helped them to win, and I'd love to have a team and a coach that show some of that attitude, but I think for UT is has jumped the shark.
Yes, we need to fire Mingione.
A good established coach probably wouldn’t come here. I would assume the word is out about lack of administration support for the program. We will have to get lucky with a coach like we did with Stoops.
Money talks. Give an established coach a big payday and they will come. Other things wouldn't be obstacles (ie facilities) and throwing a big check at them shows we're serious about it. UK has shown they are willing to pay big money for coaches, we offered to make Cohen one of (if not the) highest paid coach at one point, but he turned down the money to go to his alma mater. If we want to go the proven coach route we need to be willing to pay for that experience. LSU and TAMU did it with their 1st year coaches, and that is certainly paying huge dividends for TAMU.
can someone more knowledgeable explain the "lack of administrative support" issue? we just got a new ballpark and outside of firing minge they have been putting resources in to try and make it at the very least comparable to the rest of the league (outside of mississippi state). is it just not paying premium dollars for a coach?
TN's gone from guys who couldn't get the ball out of the infield for 2 years to hitting 400 foot HRs. Something's up.
TN fans wear their insolence on their sleeves. They're pounding their chests about "beating" ESPN on the PED thing the other night not thinking that where there's smoke there's fire. Will ESPN follow up even tho they missed on the original story?
I think there are layers to this. Part of it is historical. UK was so bad at funding baseball that Coach Madison literally had to go door to door to basically beg for donations to put lights in at Cliff Hagan. It was an annual and normal thing for the baseball team themselves to do things to help fundraise. I think one of those was hand delivering season tickets to those that bought them. The idea of such being that they could possibly induce more donations by being more personable. I think we were even doing this in the Cohen years in 2006/2007, etc. Then it took a long time to get a stadium upgrade. I love the Cliff, but it was by far the worst facility in the SEC and the training stuff was even worse.
Then you have Barnhart having what seems like unlimited patience. He hired Henderson and gave him 8 years. To my knowledge, the reporting at the time was that Henderson was ‘stepping down,’ from the head coach position. So, it could be argued that Barnhart didn’t even actually fire him. So, clearly we didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to better the program there. Then we got Mingione and now we’re staring at year 7, and it’s been 5 years since we’ve finished higher than 10th in the league. Again there is this huge amount of patience instead of cutting bait and bringing in someone new.
All of this really draws concern on whether the administration actually cares to put a good baseball team on the diamond and whether they’re willing to take the steps necessary.
However, you have some counters. Allegedly, in 2008 when Cohen was getting pursued by Miss State, Barnhart offered to pay him like a king to stay and made big facilities promises. They weren’t enough to keep him from going home. Again, in 2016 when Henderson left, UK allegedly tried to throw the checkbook at some huge names, including then 2 time national champion coach Pay Casey. Casey didn’t take the bait and stuck it out and won another title in 2018 with Oregon State before retiring after that year. Both of these were before UK finished building the new KPP, which was a pretty significant and overdue investment. Still, those three do show that they are pretty willing to throw money at the problem at times.
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Younger fans probably don't understand that for years, nay decades...UK would have had no baseball program had it not been for Keith Madison.
I didn't tune into UK baseball during those years. 2006 was my first time really listening to every game. So even I have trouble grasping all that he did to make the program what it is today and the lengths he had to go to do it. You look at some of the numbers and think, 'well he didn't do all that great here,' but when you take into account what he actually had to work with you really have to wonder how he even had the success he did have.
Maybe not as many deep pocket alums driving the baseball program.
This right here. There’s very little pressure from the outside to make any changes.
It seems like there’s few, if any, big donors that care about baseball.
Sheesh. I wish my job would reward such mediocrity.
I have no idea why this would be needed. He is contracted through 2025, so giving him an extra year makes no sense to me.
We will see how it changes, but here is the current setup:
The term states:
"This agreement shall be for five (5) Contract Years beginning July 1, 2020 and ending June 30, 2025 unless terminated at an earlier date provided herein."
Here is what the termination part states:
If the University terminates this Agreement without cause prior to June 30, 2023, the University shall pay, and Coach agrees to accept as liquidated damages, the following amounts:
1. Prior to June 30, 2021, 50 percent of salary ($575,000) stated for three (3) contract years, through June 30, 2024. - This total amount would be $862,500.
2. Between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022, 75 percent of salary for the next two (2) Contract years, through June 30, 2024. - This amount also equals $862,500. **We are here**
3. Between July 1, 2022 and June 20, 2023, 100 percent of the salary stated for 1 additional year, through June 30, 2024. - This amount would be $575,000.
So, they could just basically just move the dates around and keep everything the same. That wouldn't really increase the buyout any, but would just prolong when we could pay a bit less. Either way, it isn't all that much above what he makes now for one year.
You and me both, plus none of us are getting paid that much. My personal thoughts are Mitch is taking care of his buddy.
Barnhart doesn't fire anybody it seems. Gillespie is really the only one and that's because he was crazy, not because of the product on the court. Joker's firing was fan anger and apathy pushing the issue. If fan attendance had not fallen below 20,000, Joker would have probably have gotten an extension. No way Mingione should still have a job still and his extension made absolutely no sense. I think extending Elzy was a mistake, too. Her reward for winning the SEC tournament should have keeping her job another year, not extending. They had a miraculous 10-game stretch but nearly every returning starter is transferring so there is some serious dysfunction there. Then there is the disastrous "Lifetime Contract". I think his patience paid off with Brooks and Stoops, but it is obviously not something he does on a case by case basis,. Everything is reactive and not proactive. It's his personality to do nothing until absolutely forced to.
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