Future of Tide baseball

CapstoneGrad06 · February 23rd, 2006, 01:12 AM

Is it me or has the better days of the program passed. We seem to be realatively talented but never capitalize on that. I would love for the days of the mid 1990s to return but have they passed for good? What are your thoughts on this and the reasoning behind it?

PlayerUA · February 23rd, 2006, 09:50 AM

1. Coaching.

2. Attitude.

3. Recruiting.

I try to have faith but our program seems to slip a notch with each passing year...it is very frustrating. Being in the outfield at the Joe as the team ran around with the state flag and a tiger hanging from it on our way to the CWS to getting shut out...by Memphis...just frustrating.

It is my belief that the future of our program rests further south in Alabama.

Tider in Illinois · February 23rd, 2006, 11:54 AM

I have my own beliefs about the state of the program, and maybe better days have passed us by, but aren't we over-reacting about the loss to Memphis. Yes it was a bad loss, but it's not the end of the world. IMO
RTR
TII

Love the Ping · February 23rd, 2006, 12:08 PM

Since the '99 season, it does seem that the program has slowly slipped further and further back, with the exception of 2002. The difference in that team was a core group of seniors who had experienced the CWS as freshmen (and contributed significantly to that '99 team). Boyd, Brown, Mac, Cormier. Throw in some very talented younger players (Hearod, Pavkovich, Stonard, Welch, White, Rice, Tankersly, Carter, Norris, Reed), and you have the makings of a great squad. I still have nightmares about losing that SEMO game with Norris and Cormier sitting on the bench. Yikes.

But back to the original point, recruiting has to pick up. We have signed some good players that unforunately never made it to campus. Sometimes recruiting straps you that way. You have to recruit the best possible players, but sometimes they end up not making it to campus and that really hurts because you find out so late that replacing them is very difficult. Also, we really need a true hitting coach. We just don't have one, and our teams just don't swing it like they used to. Since 2003, it seems we can't hit our way out of a wet sack.

pcfixup · February 23rd, 2006, 12:22 PM

Someone else knows more about it than me, but wasn't there a reduction in the number of scholarships that a baseball team could have, and wasn't it about the same time as the decline started?

I also think pro baseball had upped signing bonuses for draft picks out of high school, which discourages a lot of good players from playing college ball.

During the last few years, recruiting has been a "Pitchers first" affair. It seems that this, combined with a lot of good position players going pro out of high school, has hurt the quality of position players here (especially as far as hitting goes).

CapstoneGrad06 · February 23rd, 2006, 04:52 PM

Wells recruits well, but sometimes too well. They are drafted and rather sign huge contracts to play for in Minors. Since my first year in 2001 in Tuscaloosa the baseball team has continually went down hill. Even when we win 45-50 games we somehow loos a regional at home to FIU, as in 2002 or 2003 I believe. The current state of the game is caused in large part to coaching and attitude.

On top of that teams in Gerogia, Florida, Lousisana, and others have academic scholarships to hand out to in-state guys and use their baseball scholarships on national prospects. States with lotteries can do this, because of the rule, like in Georgia with the Hope Scholarships, students with a 3.00 GPA and good standing for four years of high school in that state can attend on full scholarship. Programs like Alabama, MSU, and Auburn are at a disadvantage. WE must use our limited athletic scholarships for all signees. This is another reason a lottery should be explored. I know some of you would disagree with me but it could help this problem as well as the overall academic make-up of the state of Alabama. I just want the best for my adopted state.

What are your thoughts? Is my information correct, because it is second hand from someone I know in both Louisiana and Georgia?

DC1982 · February 23rd, 2006, 07:28 PM

I know I'm in the minority and beating a dead horse, but I never questioned starting Shane Sanders against that SEMO team in game one. He was the 2nd best starter for much of the year and though he did struggle in that game, there's no way the bats should have struggled like that in that game.

Another thing that hurt us was losing Brian Reed to a pulled muscle

Love the Ping · February 23rd, 2006, 09:23 PM

Sanders was a solid arm, but from the time Norris entered the rotation (Florida series) he was our 2nd best starter for the rest of the season IMO. Water under the bridge now though. Yes, I had forgotten about Reed being out. That hurt us as well. We might could have snuck through the weekend in that last game against FAU had he been able to pitch. In fact, I'm almost positive we would have.

DC1982 · February 23rd, 2006, 11:37 PM

argh. regardless of how that series turned out, I long for the position again of hosting a regional and even being a No. 3 national seed

WPtider · February 24th, 2006, 12:16 AM

Not trying to start an argument just conversation but does anybody else think there's a chance that Wells inherited very good players from Schollenburger (Taft, Mohr, Caruso (?), Vaz (?), Henderson (?), Norris questions on guys I couldn't prove in an argument Wells didn't recruit) and had early success which boosted recruiting and helped him get people like Keller, the Phillips guys, Cormier and Brown? Now that those guys are gone he seems to have difficulty winning. Just a passive observer but he also seems to be overly critical of his players to the media and at times struggles to balance his pitching staff's need for work and his need to win. Even in the "good" years we had some issues with our pitching. As evidence of this I believe he started a guy named Daniels in the NC game against LSU who hadn't pitched much at all the entire season. Granted we came from the losers bracket that year, but I also believe in the course of the year you should prepare a guy to succeed if he's called on by letting him pitch a little to stay sharp.

TideHead · February 24th, 2006, 01:12 AM

The decision not to start Cormier on that Friday night is a decision that I have never been able to decide whether I agreed with it or not. Obviously, in the regionals, it is vital that you when the Friday night game. If you are in a 2-3 game, I don't think there is any doubt that you always start your ace. There, you are playing a team that is not that much worse than you. But, here's the deal with the 1-4 game: Sometimes, in those 1-4 games, you are playing a #4 seed that only made the regionals because they won their conference tournament. And, in those kinds of games, you may be playing a team that is about on the same level as the teams that you have been playing in your mid week games. This probably isn't the greatest time to use that analogy since we just lost our mid week game, but when you can consistently beat those kinds of teams (as we normally do) with pitchers like Jared Woodward, B.J. Green (who by the way is in my thoughts and prayers and I hope he's doing okay), Andrew Walker, etc., I would certainly think that one of your weekend starters would be able to win that game, thus allowing your ace to be available for a much better team on Saturday.

Think about if you have got one of the best #2 seeds in the country in your regional and a #4 seed that has no business being in the tournament. How wasteful would it be if you throw your ace out there on Friday, win that game by fifteen runs, and then Saturday rolls around, and you really need your ace when any of your weekend starters could have won the Friday game.

I admittedly knew very little about SEMO at the time. Being a #3 national seed, I would have thought that our #4 seed would have been one of those teams who was only there because they won their conference tournament. But, that kind of logic is what made me think we would never wind up in New Orleans last year.

Obviously, SEMO was better than that (although I don't think they were as good as we made them look that night). And, given the way that Auburn totally laid a goose egg that weekend and given the fact that our bullpen was able to pitch very well against FAU, it turned out that SEMO was our biggest challenge of that regional. Did anyone see that going into the regional? I'm sure though that Coach Wells knew that SEMO would be a tougher challenge than the majority of our mid week games. But, he obviously felt that it was going to be a much easier challenge than what was coming later that weekend. But, if you feel that way, why do you throw out your #3 weekend starter in a game that if you lose you are really in a bind? Sanders had done a lot of good for us that year, but he was struggling worse than any of our weekend starters at the time-having been the only pitcher for us to lose in Hoover the week before.

So, while I'm on the fence about not starting Cormier (because I don't know how anyone could figure that SEMO would be our biggest challenge of the weekend), I definitely would have at least pitched Norris, not my weekend starter who is struggling the most. Still, what beat us that night was lack of offense. That team who had been so powerful all year was totally uninspired that night. Just as they had done most of the year, they got behind early but never seemed to have that "rally mentailty" that had carried them to 20 SEC wins that year. Would a different pitcher have made a difference? Who knows?

The decision that I struggled with more than any that weekend was the decision to start Josh Baker in the final against FAU. It is nothing against Baker who I think was very tallented. But, he had missed most of the season with an injury, and I just don't think he was ready to play in what was about his second or third game in a month in the biggest game of the year. We had Woodward who had started every midweek game and had been a great asset out of the bullpen all year available, and he goes with a guy who has missed the better part of the season. True, Woody had gotten roughed up badly when he started against UF the week before (a game we rallied to win), but who didn't struggle against that Florida lineup? If I recall, Baker didn't last 3 innings as we dug ourselves in a hole right off the bat. And, Woody out of the pen later in that game was very effective. Woody may have gotten roughed up if he would have started, but the decision would have made a lot more sense to me.

But, so many freaky things went wrong in that game: Things like Peter Stonard getting thrown out at first after he made a move towards 2B when a throw got away from the FAU first baseman and then bounced right back to him (by the way, the correct call in my opinion). Then, you had Pavkovich who was so reliable all year after the miserable 2001 campaign booting a sure double play ball. A few little things like that going different, and we likely win. And, who knows how far that team would have gone?

DC1982 · February 24th, 2006, 08:52 AM

man, too many bad memories of that championship game against FAU.

Wells only inherited Taft and Caruso. I believe he recruited the rest. Maybe he didn't sign Norris or Moller, I can't remember, but he recruited the whole 97 team except for Caruso.

Nowadays, the field isn't level in recruiting anymore because of lottery-based scholarships and the bats aren't minus 5.

BAMASHAQ · February 24th, 2006, 02:41 PM

We have slipped the past few years from being a top 10 or 15 team every year. I don't have the answer but the facts our we haven't hit since the 02 season. The past two season's we've done well pitching until injuries got us. Attendance has slipped (actual attendace) Facilities could be an issue? Ole Miss Auburn and Arkansas have nice stadiums. I know we seat more but they are improving thier facilities. LSU is building a new stadium and Miss St. has an old but cool environment to play in. Tuscaloosa is just not as tough of a place to play anymore. The recruiting and scholarship issue are problems. DC and Tiderinillnois are right. We've had problems for a while now not just the memphis thing the other night.