This team is....

OrangeOsoFu

OrangeOsoFu

100+ Posts
the worst team I've seen in my life. Went to my first game in 74. Can somebody summarize what our problem is? Texas baseball is the one sport we could count on year in and year out. Frustrated.....

Hook'em.
 
I'd say wait 5 years and look back on these years from a different perspective

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Fifty years from now if I was still alive and had any brain cells left I would still know that three years ago the hitting started going bad and got progressively worse till it reached it's present state. Which is absolutely terrible.

So unless your expecting things to get worse I don't how time will put a different perspective on these years.

That 1998 team in Augie's second year was pretty awful with a 23-32-1 overall record and and 11-18 in conference.

I attended my first game at the Disch in 1977.
 
Yep, NB, no question this is the worst season since Augie's early years at UT.

All I can think is: "Come on Nicholson."

And, of course, Skip, who I think recruits more than just pitchers.

Texas will have to recruit its way out of this.

I love Augie, followed him for many years before he came to Austin, and want him back for as many years as he wants.

But this year, August 31 can't get here soon enough.
 
Indeed marley, I have followed and used to even talk to Augie after series we played them in Austin.

This is totally different from his early years at Texas as he was building his team from almost scratch then. People were upset then, but I told people he was putting his team in place and then judge.

This time it was just that recruiting for whatever reason and I have heard most of the stories went bad with exception for the pitchers.

I am glad and always will be for his years here and yes it's recruiting that got Texas to this point and only recruiting will get us out of it.

I started talking about this three years ago, but wasn't received well as we were still winning with all world pitching and excellent fielding and the hitting was light years better three years ago compared to now.

That ball so to speak is squarely in Nicholson's court, but ultimately the head coach has to accept the final accountability even if he doesn't involve himself in recruiting that much.

I hope Nicholson can get his guys in school and turn it around so Augie can go out on his terms, but it has to happen soon.
 
Some telling stats I heard during the BU series.

1. Texas has the lowest ERA in the Big 12 and is in last place.
2. Texas has the 9th best ERA in the nation and is barely over .500.

No one can say the pitching staff isn't doing their part.

I do have a question for those more knowledgable than I about hitting. Last years team couldn't hit, so they go out and hire a new hitting coach. Should we see an improvement yet or will it take a year or two? I know when a new head coach is hired, there can be a year or two of transition. Is it the same with hitting?
 
No expert here at all, but if hitting was not in the mix when they were recruited, I'm not sure that hitting is an acquired skill to the extent that more time in the batting cage would effect a cure.

Dealing with the pressure of clutch situations may be something that can be coached, but I'm not so sure on that one, either. Even keeping up with the games on Gametracker I get the sense that when the chips are down and the pressure is on, there's no rising to or above the occasion.
 
Hitting comes down to 1. talent, 2. mechanics and 3. approach. Obviously, talent is something you recruit so the coaching staff has to be able to recognize the talent and project it to facing D1 pitching. Mechanics and approach are coaching. However, generally if a player can really hit at a high HS level then his mechanics are usually pretty solid. Approach is a hitting strategy and that is on the coaching staff. TX hitters swing at way too many pitches out of the zone and have done so for several years. So for example if a pitcher is struggling with locating his off-speed pitches, then have an approach that hitters are not to swing at any off-speed until 2 strikes. So the hitter is sitting on a fastball to drive. TX hitters appear to have no plan are just taking hacks and hoping to get a hit.
 
I see two possiblities:

1) We are recruiting hitters, but then ******* with their heads and their swing to conform to what our staff believe is correct and this just screws with the kids in general and fucks up their swing.

2) We are not recruiting kids who know how to hit, and are hoping to be able to teach them. If this is the case T-Nick may just need some time.

It has to be one of the two.
 
If we are recruiting kids that can't hit in high school then it would be no wonder why we are in trouble in that aspect of the game.

By the high school level you should have a good idea about proper mechanics of hitting. This is especially true of today's baseball players for the most part. This is the age of mostly specialization in sports. Baseball players are playing baseball almost year round now in select leagues and others leagues. Not that many still play all the sports like they used to.

That is unless your a good hitter with an unorthodox style.

I wasn't sure about getting into the mechanics of hitting as that might bore people and sometimes doesn't matter if you can just hit.

As has been stated hitting is about reflexes and pitch selection with a good eye for pitches as in speed and break.

One thing that sometimes is overlooked is a keen sense of sight. It was reported that Ted Williams had 20/15 vision and could pick up the spin from watching the seams of the baseball on delivery.

So many different styles of hitting with closed stances and open stances. Hands held high or low. Also what is sometimes called a trigger mechanism as in a bat waggle or or a slight movement of the bat forward and backward (which was what I did) waiting on the pitch to be delivered.

The idea here is to become relaxed and not frozen in your stance. Then bring your bat back as the wind up starts and ready to swing or not swing according to the pitch location.

The idea of all this is to bring the bat through at the proper time and location for hitting the ball or also known as squaring up the baseball.

The other aspect of this is the transfer of weight from the back foot to the front foot to hit with greater force on impact. Usually this is done by stepping with your front foot slightly as the pitch is being delivered while keeping the hands back and then transferring the weight to the front foot on your swing.

With this said some people can hit without good mechanics. It's like a golf swing. Most good golfers have the classic swing, but then you have the Jim Furyk's of the game and others that can succeed with a swing far from a classic one with good mechanics.

If you get too caught up in mechanics and that is what your thinking about in the batter's box your most likely in trouble.

I see a couple of our players that look they are mimicking the hitting the ball off the tee drill when they swing. They have a pretty swing as they strike out or foul pitches off, ground or pop out.

You need to learn the mechanics long before playing D1 baseball or you should be able to hit without good mechanics before then.

Good hitters should be dominating high school pitching with some exceptions of course for the great pitchers.

I can't imagine any coaches implementing anything other than having people bunt in the small ball we play that would differ from what they they were doing in high school. There might be some slight adjustments offered, but if you can hit for the most part you can just hit by the time you get to this level.

I have watched these guys all year and the natural hitters I see on this team you can count on one hand and that might be a little generous.

We keep shuffling the line up with this guy or that guy who has a good game, but none of them have any true consistency as Payton, Weis who has slumped lately against lefty pitching but is still the second best hitter, to a lesser degree Hinojosa, and after that it's a crap shoot with right now Felts the hottest hitter of the rest.

Some of them are just totally lost, but there is no need to call them out by name.

We need an influx of new players that can hit and hopefully still be competent on defense too. We used to have these kind of players and there must be some out there still that you can get to come here.

These problems are faced by every other school. I would still like to think with our great history in baseball and facilities that we would have an advantage over most others to get our fair share or even more than most of these kind of players.

As I said earlier in this thread recruiting got us in this situation and only good recruiting can get us out of it.

Sorry for the long explanation, but some have wanted people to talk about hitting and mechanics.
 
We are too enamored with small ball. I love small ball, but not 24/7. Sometimes you have to hit your way to victory. We are incapable of that right now. That's a recruiting problem. I'm aware of a senior kid in Weatherford (I mentioned him last summer as an uncommitted 1B recruit) that has never even seen a Texas recruiter. Last year, he was 2nd team 5A all-state after hitting .402 with 8 HRs, 16 doubles, 37 RBI and 26 walks in 31 regular season games. This year, through 31 games, he's hitting .576 with 11 doubles, 4 HR, 36RBI, just 8 Ks and 24 walks. His power numbers are slightly down. The prevailing theory is that he lacks protection in the lineup and gets very few good pitches to hit. How did we never even sniff this kid? I'm told his grades are good and he has never been in trouble. His grandfather is even a UT grad! Now, we'll have to defense him. He's a 6-2, 215 lb OSU commit. BTW, I'm also told he's a tremendous bunter. However, he's rarely asked to do it, for obvious reasons.

One additional note, he was teammates with Kasey Clemens on Team Texas last summer at the Sunbelt Classic in Oklahoma. He was universally described as THE dominant hitter of the tournament...a tournament that included the nation's #1 HS recruit (Clint Frazier-a Georgia signee). Wanna hear the stat line for Williams that I was given? In 9 games, he was 17-29 (.607), 2 walks, 1 HBP, 3 HRs, 20 RBI, OBP-.625, SLG-.964. Again, I'm told he's NEVER SEEN a Texas recruiter.
 
Frog - great point and it shows that OSU is hitting the recruiting trail hard. My son is a JR on a 5A team here in OK and has a JR on his team (6'2" 205 lefty) who played in Sunbelt last year too that can flat out rake. I believe he has more power right now as HS JR than any player on TX roster. WSU state told him he could be productive as a hitter in their program right now. He also committed to OSU. OSU also has a commitment from another JR from Stillwater (his dad is Women's Bball coach). This kid is 6'3" 200 can run, can hit for avg and hits with power. In a couple years OSU will be mashing. While TX will be wallowing in its losses, unless they get busy recruiting. I have spoken with the OSU coaches and they are energetic and motivated to bring OSU back to a national power. Sickening to watch TX's pitiful recruiting effort and arrogance. It is not going to get better under Augie, as he doesn't want to recruit.
 
Rod Delmonico said it best when asked by Kevin Dunn what is wrong with this team. His response was that there is a lack of talent. He said very few of these players should be starting for Texas and most should not even be on this team.
 
NB Horn's lengthy post is correct and I'm glad I didn't have to type it. I've seen 11u players with better batting technique than a big chunk of what I saw against Baylor.

I'll add the plate and pitch count approach is ugly. Too many first pitch looking strikes and wayyyyy too many strike-outs while looking. It's D1 guys, not pony league. You're not going to get walked unless you've scared the pitcher.
 
It must be a vision related problem We could take up a collection for the procurement of a team lasik surgeon, or just issue one eye patch to each player, and change our name to the pirates.
 
One of my coworker's knows several players on the team because his son played with or against them during high school and summer ball. He said there are a lot of players on this team that are not Div 1 talent and that it is well known that the coaching staff is not the most energetic recruiters out there.
 
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