The Vols will take a step backward next year--there can be almost no doubt about that. We're losing two excellent hitters and a couple of good hitters and there's little chance that we'll hit as well next year or compile anywhere close to the same record. You've got to have a lot of things fall into place to earn the record we had this year. Such seasons are rare.
That's not to suggest that we won't have a good team--we certainly could. The pitching should be good, if not very good, but I can't see us scoring runs like we did this year. But then college baseball has become rather strange in the way that teams rack up runs these days. So many very high-scoring games, so many home runs, it's almost like T-ball for kids. One wonders where the pitching is across the country--but I think a lot of has to be the balls that, as in MLB, simply are made far tighter than in the past and simply fly out of the parks when met with aluminum bats. I'd like to see collegiate baseball go back to wooden bats. Not a fan of aluminum bats, which are the baseball equivalent of artificial grass in football/soccer, etc. They exist, like turf, only because they're a way to for the programs to save money. One could certainly argue--as some do--that all the run-scoring makes the games more entertaining--but when teams are hitting 4/5 home runs in games regularly, something is askew.
It will be interesting to see how much of the theatrics we see from the Vols next year--the coat for home run hitters, etc. We ended up with egg on our collective face when we lost of Notre Dame, and so I expect to see some of that dialed back next year.
That's not to suggest that we won't have a good team--we certainly could. The pitching should be good, if not very good, but I can't see us scoring runs like we did this year. But then college baseball has become rather strange in the way that teams rack up runs these days. So many very high-scoring games, so many home runs, it's almost like T-ball for kids. One wonders where the pitching is across the country--but I think a lot of has to be the balls that, as in MLB, simply are made far tighter than in the past and simply fly out of the parks when met with aluminum bats. I'd like to see collegiate baseball go back to wooden bats. Not a fan of aluminum bats, which are the baseball equivalent of artificial grass in football/soccer, etc. They exist, like turf, only because they're a way to for the programs to save money. One could certainly argue--as some do--that all the run-scoring makes the games more entertaining--but when teams are hitting 4/5 home runs in games regularly, something is askew.
It will be interesting to see how much of the theatrics we see from the Vols next year--the coat for home run hitters, etc. We ended up with egg on our collective face when we lost of Notre Dame, and so I expect to see some of that dialed back next year.
