Baseball at TN, Sun 3/16, 1:00 pm

does not make me a troll- No, it's other things that make you a troll. What you're not is a credible analyst.
Gator baseball was not elite for the seasons of 2019 - 2022- I don't think you and I agree on the meaning of the words elite or program. In hindsight, Gators have been elite from Sully's third year onward, but didn't earn that description until they stayed at that level every year. Vitello is no closer to having an elite PROGRAM than Hugh Freeze or Terry Bowden. All three had some very good teams, but two of the three petered out. Vitello has Tn at the top with some first rate players. It's no insult to say that they haven't maintained high quality year in and year out for long enough to be an elite PROGRAM. Gator program has been good- with a few brief blips- since Jay Bergman arrived in '76. Joe Arnold and Andy Lopez raised the level of play and consistency until Sully took over. Other than a brief flurry around Todd Helton's years, Tn bsb seldom rose to the heights of the Gator blips. They hqd a poor PROGRAM. Today, Tn certainly is better than Gators in bsb, but Vitello hasn't had an opportunity to show he can maintain. Talk to me about it in 2030 or so.

 

Just to remind everyone of a few things:

1. sully is calling the pitches for another year and his style is pitch to a batter’s statistical weakness, this can and has worked, however my personal belief of pitching strategy is pitching sequences (pitches that set up other pitches because of movement or speed or lack there of) and pitching to the pitcher’s strengths not to the batter’s weakness. McNeillie is one that often gets up 0-2 and then is throwing his third best pitch over and over because of the batter’s stats and heat zones. Where imo throw the 3rd pitch that sets up the movement to attack the batter with your pitcher’s best pitch for the 4th pitch and sit the batter down. All this to be said I’d love to have Cobb calling pitches as we share philosophies.

2. maybe I’m misremembering but Neely often came into to close and gave up a free base or a single but held it down for those last 3 to 6 outs, which is kind of what I’m seeing from Alex (other than this past Sunday). I’m sure many of the naysayers would take Neely back, so i think give the kid some time. I spend a fair amount of time talking to our pitchers and coaches before the seasons start and the difference in Alex’s from this year compared to last is amazing, he grew up a lot. Strangely Aidan’s youthfulness when talking to him (just about life not baseball) reminds me of Alex last year and has me even more excited for his maturing next year.

 

Good post @triplegator84 — good and accurate information.

It’s been my experience that calling pitches and executing called pitches can be two different things. My intent here is to establish awareness and not blame. For me when I was calling pitches/locations I was feeding my pitchers high probabilities to succeed against individual hitters based on charted information on them matched up to my pitcher’s strengths.

Calling the pitches and locations is only half of the equation. Execution is the key half of the equation. I always had the understanding with my pitchers that they had a green light to “add” pitches with their glove and/or change locations by shaking their head. Most opponents would think the pitcher shaking his head meant he wanted a different pitch when for my pitchers they wanted the pitch, just a different location.

I did tell them if you change pitches, fine—but I want the reason when the inning’s over. I wanted them pitching and not just throwing.

Again, consistency and execution are key. It’s like another defensive scenario that makes me shake my head. We put a defensive shift on for a pull hitter. If I’m putting that shift on I’m hedging my bet that the hitter is going to hit into the shift, right? Then why the hell do so many times do you see the pitcher pitch him away and the hitter hits it oppo to beat the shift?

I’m hoping that it’s failed execution on location of the pitch because surely we didn’t pitch against the grain of a set defense.

The more we can execute our game plan the better we play the game.

 

In his mind he chewed my ass out.

 

Gotta be able to do more with offspeed pitching. I was always told best way to hit the curve ball was to hit the fastball.