Last night I pondered Sully's plan to begin the season with Cade Fisher as the Friday Guy. I preference this by saying, I'm not advocating for anyone else, only considering the inherit risk Sully is undergoing with his young pitching staff. Maybe I'm overly concerned after years of beginning the season with experienced arms like Sproat, Waldrep, Barco, Mace, Singer, Faedo all battling for the prestigious position. So I had to ask myself, what could go wrong, it's Sully for crying out loud, you imbecile. So I find myself reviewing Fisher's appearances last year and everyone points to his best start against Texas Tech in the regionals when he went 7 innings on 5 hits and only gave up 1 run on 93 pitches, that propelled us into the regional winner take all final. Without that performance, the Gators may never had made it out of the regionals and onto the CWS. Other than that game and an early year start against USF, we don't have any other appearances that he went more than 3 and a third. Now that may be to Sully's credit, not throwing the youngster in too often as he honed his main 7-8 key arms throughout the season. Besides, if he sticks to his plan, Cags needs to stay on Sunday as a two way player, and he is going all in on the young freshman Peterson with absolutely no college experience as the Saturday starter. Last year, Sully went to work dwindling down the arms he had and finding the right 7 or 8 guys he could count on to get us back to the CWS Finals. Unfortunately in this portal crazed era, we had another round of guys leaving in mass and leaving the bullpen the least experienced as we have seen in awhile. So we have to wonder what will be the 7-8 guys Sully finds this year. But I propose because of the lack of starting experience, Sully will need 8-9 arms to depend on. We can't expect Fisher and Peterson to roll out there week after week going 6-7 innings and getting by with only 3-4 returning guys in the bullpen. Now the astute fellows out there will be quick to say "Well last year our starters were so inconsistent, hello Mr. Caglianone, that Sully never knew how many innings they could handle." Yes but we had experienced talent returning in the bullpen that showed great development as the season went along. That said we had very few pitchers that had an ERA under 4, Fisher was one, so we usually had to score 6 or more runs to win. But this year our returning bullpen is Neely, Slater, and Purnell that look ready and very capable of doing their job. Unfortunately the rest are freshman, other than Jameson or guys coming back from injury. It seems a given that Sully needs Neely in the closer roll again and Slater the dependable mid relief guy. But they can't handle the whole weekend, so Sully will likely use Purnell on Saturday or Sunday. That said Sully doesn't really have anyone else ready to step in on Fridays. I'm not saying Fisher isn't ready. I've heard from many of you how Fisher is the guy, ready to step into prominence. And I do believe it but I'm not sure how many innings we should expect Cade to handle once SEC season kicks in. That holds the same for the unproven Peterson. Thus my take to write this and wonder who does Sully have ready to step in and fill the 8-9 arm gap. As you know, spring practice starts tomorrow and its not so much about who is first up, but who can get us from starter to closer over the three day weekend span. We hope Fisher, Peterson, and Cags do their part and handle 4-5 innings or more. Then we turn to Slater as much as possible. Jameson and Clemente were still looking like a work in progress coming out of the fall. Other than Neely and Purnell as closers, the other three arms needed will have to be freshmen. Mid week games will be another entirely different situation with plenty of freshmen getting their opportunity to make improvements. Look for McNeillie, Menendez, Clemente, Gomberg, Jones, and Satin to get sprinkled in wherever for some seasoning. One can only hope that String Bean Coppola can make it back by April. Nothing better than watching Sully throw together another casserole this year.
Man, you have put a lot of thought in all this!! Lots of unknowns + tons of potential = Plenty of Excitement.
Let’s remember that Cade Fisher now has one full year of experience and seasoning in the SEC as well as post season baseball under his belt. I think he is in a good spot to inherit his predicted Friday night slot. Every single one of the seasoned pitchers mentioned by 87 also went through their own freshman seasons and flourished. Go Gators!
Hey 87, Thanks for opening up the conversation on the 7-8 pitchers that will shoulder the load and hopefully take us back to Omaha. I only caught a few scrimmages in the fall but I'm in full agreement with Sully on the weekend guys -- I believe I predicted the three on this forum or talking to others at the scrimmages: Fisher, Peterson, Cags- with Neely as closer, Slater and Purnell in middle relief. We will see in "pre-SEC season" how this works out but I am optimistic. On the other 3-4 guys that will have to contribute- my take: McNeillie and Clemente will get mid-week starts early and see how they perform and go from there. McNellie looked v. good and consistent in the fall scrimmages I attended- excellent breaking pitches and throws strikes. Clemente is back from TJ and can bring heat but needs to find consistency. I thought Grayson Smith pitched well and could help in middle relief and Menendez (LHP) is a top prospect (though did not see him in the fall). I would not count on Coppola contributing but hope I'm wrong. Jameson is a mystery-- you'd think Sully would have encouraged him to seek playing time elsewhere but to be fair he looked great in the Stetson exhibition. Satin and the others will have to be very sharp in spring scrimmages to earn PT-- Satin is a strike thrower which is a plus. Next three weeks and the "pre-season" will reveal much more. Can't wait!
Very unfortunate we didn't end up with a veteran arm thru the portal. I'm sure Sully really wishes he had a vet or two to mix in.....but it is what it is and the kids have to grow up fast. Crazy how both baseball and softball will be massively reliant on freshman arms
I like all four of the posts, so far. I see the truth in every concern expressed, but I'm happy with the most important context issue: This is a Sully pitching staff. I certainly know that he isn't perfect in his recruiting and development and, while I saw the frosh pitchers as especially promising, the 1- and 2-inning appearances in the fall were a small sample. Add to that my limited skill as an analyst and my blind optimism, my opinion my be worthless. Those limits, however don't keep me quiet. One way to look at this pitching staff is to compare it to the '23 staff. First, Cags seemed much steadier in the fall than he was last season and it's reasonable to guess he'll be improved somewhat or more. While it will be hard to improve on Waldrep's and Sproat's performances, Fisher and the top few frosh- plus Jac- have potential to produce starting pitching that equals or surpasses the '23 starters. It's the bullpen that gives me lots of hope. Can we take as given that Neely will close as well as he did in '23? Probably yes. Chances are good that Slater will pitch as well or better, too, but he was solid, not super. Purnell had a significant fall off from '22, but finished the season much better than he started. What will we see this year? Nesbitt and Abner both contributed in their combined 55.2 innings- Abner often was very strong in the first inning of an appearance, but not so much in subsequent innings- but is there an argument that they had decisive impact? Ficarotta probably was better than his 4.99 ERA suggests, but he also was inconsistent. That seems to be a negative analysis, for a national runnerup, but it does show the value of clutch hitting. During fall '23, the frosh pitchers fell short of perfect, but were better than '23 pitchers were during fall '22. The nature of college baseball in the current era is that we see big turnover every year. Essentially a new team. The worst case scenarios live in Mississippi- '21 and '22 national champions- finishing 13 and 14 in the SEC. I don't see Gators having that sort of collapse. It do see a better overall team, but in order to advance as far as they did in '23, they need the same sort of leadership, clutch performances and luck. Talent and potential look good.
IIRC Cade throws strikes to good locations. Kind of a big deal for a starting pitcher. Cags has a stronger arm and throws from the left side which is a huge plus but until he gets command he will be a Saturday or Sunday guy. Kind of like Puk. Cags ceiling is through the roof, though. Added in edit: Even though the loss of Langford in the lineup is huge we still have a team that will put up a lot of runs. It is not essential that we have a starter that can totally shut down an opponent. We need starters that can only give up a couple of runs. The other guys will take care of things.
Boss, your last sentence should be circled... for a team to play deep into the post season, a team needs talent, performing in crunch time, luck... but the great intangible is "leadership." Last year we had the on-field leadership of BT and Josh... and the steady leadership by example of Wyatt. Who will step up this year? It's a key element of a winning team.
All good comments here. Hope to see as many of you tomorrow (Friday) that would like to say hello. I'll be the dude with the white goatee and leather fedora. Don't let the fedora scare you.
I think Phil Abner and Nick Ficc will both be missed several times this year. I just hope by the time we get down to the South Carolina series in mid April we have 9 guys rocking and rolling along. I forgot to mention the few great outings we saw last year from Sproat and Waldrep, including Sproat's amazing complete game 1 hit shutout against Alabama to start the SEC season or his 2 other 7 inning shutouts later in the year, as well as Waldrep's masterful 8 inning shutout of South Carolina to send us forward to Omaha. Those were special days for us all but they might be hard to come by this year with these youngsters. Just one other example how Sully will need a few extra arms to go deep this year.
Add Tyler Nesbitt to that list imo. No idea why we left him on the shelf like we did last season. I will be watching him at UCF this year.
Too bad the UCLA transfer decided to turn pro as he would have provided needed experience on the mound.
And it is really worse than just reliant on freshman arms: it is relying on Cags as the apparent third pitcher in the rotation. After this much time, I doubt we will see massive improvement from Cags.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Cags shows the same problems as last year, but I also wouldn’t count out him continually improving his control and consistency either. He was coming off a surgery after all. Looking forward to seeing him out there and finding out.
Fair enough, but my point was more one of reliance. You could give the kid mid-week starts and see if he is improving—this is needing him as a third starter.
There is no question there are concerns over reliability, but by the same token he was the third starter all of last year and had a better ERA than our Fri starter....also had the best batting ave against on the staff. We all want him to be as dominant as his stuff indicates, but there's not a program anywhere that wouldn't klll to roll him out on Sunday
I don’t want to run him down, so will retire (though it just isn’t true that he would be the third starter for any “program anywhere”). He is a tremendous player and prospect and he would certainly contribute as a pitcher and hitter in any event.
I have a lot of confidence in Cade Fisher. He may not throw the hardest, but he has great command and will get Sully six solid innings every time out. He will keep us from having to go deep into the bullpen on Friday. You wouldn't want two lefthanders starting back to back if you can avoid it and with Cags slotted for Sunday and with him having command issues on occasion, the decision to start Fisher first is a no brainer.
