It's on the front page. Newest transfer is Kyle Jones, who hit .355/.459/.476 as a freshman at Stetson last year. 23 stolen bases. Just 27 strikeouts in 248 at-bats, for those interested in bringing some balance to a three true outcomes offense. Repeatedly described as an elite defensive center fielder with great speed. Would have to assume the plan here is for him to be the center fielder and leadoff hitter next year, though there's a lot of time for that to play out.
The game changer is that next season we will be less of a home run oriented team. If your offense is built around homers you don't take chances stealing bases. I am thinking that next season we will have a different offensive approach.
Please let Nick know his article does have one error. On the last paragraph he mentions we got 2 from Stetson, naming Nadeau as the other. Nadeau is from Jacksonville U. Maybe Nick knows someone else we might be getting from Stetson and confused the two. I don't know and not claiming anything but Nick might want to clean that one up. Thanks
Not sure I’d hold my breath on that one. Jones can really run and Nadeau had double digit steals himself so yeah, an increase in stolen bases next season will be a welcome addition. And while we all would like to see fewer strikeouts, to go as far as saying UF will have a “different offensive approach” next year might be a bit of a stretch.
Agreed apk— The real puzzle for me is if the coaches were able to throttle Cags strike outs and improve his patience and eye at the plate—What about all of our other strike out prone guys?
I've wondered the same thing....feels like it must have been a combo of Cags just simply having crazy talent AND actually listening/applying the message from the coaches. I guess mentally Cags knows the homers will come with his natural ability, while a guy like Kurland maybe in the back of his head thinks he has to swing out of his shoes.
Which is crazy because he has “slapped” several over the rf wall. His bat has plenty of pop without swinging out of his shoes. I would tell him you get one of those per at bat, lol. Two strikes, you just worry about getting the bat on the ball. He hit 50 points higher as a freshman. Lets hope he can at least get back up in that 300 range again next year when he doesn’t have a broken hand half the season.
Yeah...I could live with one strike like that, but then let's get the ball in play. The thing that has baffled me all year, it sure seems like a smoother more controlled swing would be a LOT less stressful on a broken hand than the cuts we see him taking. Heck, it hurts me just watching those cuts lol
The cuts he takes in the on deck circle always drive me nuts. You should never swing the bat like that, why do you warm up that way? Lol
The difference between Cags “swinging out of his shoes” and others doing the same is that Cags is still seeing ball well enough to square up the ball against average and good pitching. The others could do that against average pitching but not good pitching. Cag’s early pitch recognition is what sets him apart for me. If he’s able to make the next level adjustment and able to do the same thing against the pros then LOOK OUT!
The reality is we've always had a home run-driven offense during the O'Sullivan era (except, amusingly, the 2017 team, though that was mostly just a bad offensive team that rode an amazing pitching staff to a championship). This past year was extreme, and there are plenty of tweaks to be made. But I think any change in offensive approach is going to be just that -- a tweak, not a revolution. So, for example, Kyle Jones is an intriguing stylistic change, but Blake Cyr, our other big transfer get so far, is a power hitter with a lot of swing and miss. There's nothing inherently wrong with being a power-hitting team that strikes out a lot -- you just need to be disciplined and swing within the strike zone. People were understandably annoyed with all the strikeouts we recorded against A&M, but the issue was not so much strikeouts, it was taking wild swings at breaking balls and off-speed pitches in the other batter's box.
The 2017 team was clutch and could get runs across when they needed to. They also absolutely feasted on teams that made mistakes. Hitters at all levels whiff at balls in the other batting box and balls that bounced on the way in. If there was someone who didn’t do it fairly often, they would be the outlier, IMO. It’s part of the game. TAMU hitters did it too. It’s ok to ask for a little better plate discipline, but to act like our team is wildly different from most teams is a fallacy. Fact is every team wishes their players had more discipline at the plate. Ask a yankees or red sox fan if they think their teams plate discipline is extraordinary. Those are two of the most expensive baseball rosters in the world, and they still have guys with 5 k games looking completely lost at the plate. Squaring up a baseball is one of the hardest things to do in all of sports.
