Vols Strand 16 in 7-5 Loss to Longwood

[ShowmeVols]

Actually, Backwards K, that post wasn't directed at you. I pretty much agreed with your post from this morning.

And I don't have any problem with people who have different opinions from me. Differences of opinion make discussions possible.

However, some people seem to think it's sacrilegious even to suggest the possibility of anything less than a rapid dramatic turnaround as soon as this group of amazing freshmen get a little more time under the coach with the golden touch.

That attitude strikes me as fanaticism. Such blind optimism creates unrealistic expectations, and it encourages over-reactions to minor disappointments, such as we've seen yesterday and today.

Go ahead and mock my cautious attitude, but that attitude is well-suited for the long haul. I think I provide healthy balance to the people who expect immediate results. (Remember the thread where people were trying to decide if we'd be 5-1 or merely 4-2 after the Mizzou series? You actually fulfilled my usual wet blanket role pretty well in that one. We're not that far apart.)

 

[RichRollin]

The offense is improving. Last year we were at the bottom of the conference in hitting. As of today, we are respectably in the middle of the pack, though light on power. There is progress there, and it's reasonable to believe some of these hitters will grow into a little more power.

However, I'm still looking for reasons to believe the pitching staff is headed in the right direction. Godley is a senior. Williams is a draft-eligible junior who might get an opportunity. Nobody else on the current roster has performed in a way that says they're on the verge of being solid SEC weekend starters.

Of the incoming recruits, the one advertised as having the highest ceiling (Will Carter) does not appear to be pitching this spring for Walters. He's on the roster, but not in the box scores. Don't know if he's hurt or something else is going on, but a potential exclamation mark is now a question mark.

The other JUCO transfer signees all carry the same risk as the JUCO arms we lost to the pros this year. If they do well enough at their JUCO to step into a starting role here, they will have pro options. Raphael Ramirez at El Camino College in California and Josh Peterson at Walters are both having good seasons. We'll do well to land one.

That leaves us with our two power arm high school recruits, Kyle Serrano and Hunter Martin. Both are the kind of recruits we want to be bringing in every year, developing as freshman and giving them leadership roles as sophomores. As it looks now, if we land them both, they'll get thrown right into the fire. Hope they can handle it.

Oh, and there are no LHP's announced yet, so pending further developments, Cox, Owenby, and Saberhagen look to be all we have from that side.


Frankly, I'm a little bit tired of the folks who come on here and respond to every post that is anything less than total rah-rah, give-me-more-of-that-purple-kool-aid by reminding us how many freshman we have and reciting Coach Serrano's resume highlights. Duh! We all know all that.

We're still allowed to have opinions on how the rebuilding project is going. And right now, my opinion is there's not much cause for optimism on the pitching front. Maybe there will be when the new team forms in the fall, but not yet.

As good as Serrano's track record was, and as glad as I am we got him to come, the fact remains that he is trying to do something he hasn't done before: namely, taking a perennial last place team in the nation's toughest conference back to national prominence. It is a significant new professional challenge for him. All you people who think it's a done deal that we'll be hosting super-regionals in the near future are seriously underestimating the difficulty of his task.

I have said all along and continue to believe we won't be able to evaluate Serrano's performance until the end of the 2015 season. He was hired in June, 2011 after all the elite 2012's were already verbally committed elsewhere. He had a decent shot at the 2013 class, and when those guys are sophomores, we'll see what his work product really looks like.

What about Andrew Lee? I think he was recruited to pitch some but had Tommy John surgery prior to the season.

 

[RichRollin]

As for power pitching: Andrew Lee was a low 90s guy in HS before the Tommy John surgery and he is expected back to full strength and on the mound next year. Kyle Serrano is 90-92 and recognized as a top draft eligible prospect by many. UT is also in on several JUCO pitchers, so there is help coming.

Again, just to appease Showme, there is a chance Lee won't regain the MPH he had in the past and Serrano may go high enough in the draft that he will sign. Also, the JUCO guys will probably sign somewhere else or go pro also.

I asked about Lee prior to seeing your post. As for his arm strength...many pitchers actually throw harder after having Tommy John surgery. And that my friend would be a good problem to have.

 

[ShowmeVols]

As for power pitching: Andrew Lee was a low 90s guy in HS before the Tommy John surgery and he is expected back to full strength and on the mound next year. Kyle Serrano is 90-92 and recognized as a top draft eligible prospect by many. UT is also in on several JUCO pitchers, so there is help coming.

Again, just to appease Showme, there is a chance Lee won't regain the MPH he had in the past and Serrano may go high enough in the draft that he will sign. Also, the JUCO guys will probably sign somewhere else or go pro also.

Does the name Nolan Belcher ring a bell?

He's a senior weekend starter for South Carolina. He was an all-freshman SEC pitcher in 2009 because of big wins over Arkansas, Ole Miss, Georgia, and Vanderbilt. Missed 2011 with TJ surgery. Came back in 2012 and pitched about 30 innings, mostly in relief.

Only now, two years after surgery, is he returning to pre-surgery form and back in the rotation.

Two years. That's how long it took a guy who had already established himself as an elite SEC pitcher to come all the way back.

How confidently do you want to assert that Andrew Lee, who has never thrown a pitch in college, will emerge from rehab and be an important piece of the puzzle for us next year?

Yes, pitchers sometimes do come out of TJ with increased velocity. One theory says they gradually lose velocity in the weeks before the injury became apparent as the UCL frays, and the surgery gets them back to their pre-degradation original state. Another theory is that the rehab process makes them much more attentive to functional strength, flexibility, etc. and gives them better bodies than they had before. Regardless, it is a long, hard, twisting road back from TJ surgery, and you can't control or predict the outcome or timeline of any one pitcher's recovery.

Personally, I will take whatever Lee can give on the mound whenever he can give it as a bonus.

But if you want to pencil him in for the weekends in 2014, you go right ahead. Wow.

"Bartender, I'll have some of whatever Backward K is drinking."

 

[BruinVol]

I am very interested in seeing what KS does with the draft. If he were to sign then DS's ability to talk signees into coming to school vs taking the money will be very much crippled. I would hope that it would take 1st round money for him to sign and I don't see him being nearly that high.

 

[ShowmeVols]

I am very interested in seeing what KS does with the draft. If he were to sign then DS's ability to talk signees into coming to school vs taking the money will be very much crippled. I would hope that it would take 1st round money for him to sign and I don't see him being nearly that high.

As the younger Serrano's stock keeps rising, I imagine there will be some interesting breakfast conversations around the Serrano household.

Nobody's asking my advice, but if KS asked my opinion, I'd tell him to go to UT unless a pro team put enough money on the table to convince him they are as committed to his success as his dad is.

 

[BruinVol]

As the younger Serrano's stock keeps rising, I imagine there will be some interesting breakfast conversations around the Serrano household.

Nobody's asking my advice, but if KS asked my opinion, I'd tell him to go to UT unless a pro team put enough money on the table to convince him they are as committed to his success as his dad is.

First round money is only accepted number IMO. If he signs for anything less that hurts DS greatly when considering one of his most important jobs is convincing hs drafts that school is the right decision.

 

[Backwards K]

Andrew Lee is already one year into his rehab and will take the mound next spring two years after the surgery. I have not seen him pitch but he was more highly touted as a pitcher rather than a hitter coming out of high school.

Kyle Serrano will have a decision to make this spring. He is still growing and shows great improvement from last year. If he comes to UT, he should be a weekend guy next year.

CDS has a great selling point to JUCO pitchers in offering them weekend innings immediately. I don't have any names but hearing there is interest from several good one. Also, I think Ownby, Quillen, and Bettencourt will be greatly improved next year.

 

[RichRollin]

Andrew Lee is already one year into his rehab and will take the mound next spring two years after the surgery. I have not seen him pitch but he was more highly touted as a pitcher rather than a hitter coming out of high school.

Kyle Serrano will have a decision to make this spring. He is still growing and shows great improvement from last year. If he comes to UT, he should be a weekend guy next year.

CDS has a great selling point to JUCO pitchers in offering them weekend innings immediately. I don't have any names but hearing there is interest from several good one. Also, I think Ownby, Quillen, and Bettencourt will be greatly improved next year.

Lee was a stud in HS. He's from my old HS so I'd love nothing more than to see him throwing heat for the Vols. either way, he's shown promise hitting and as an all around player. But he can sling a baseball for sure.

 

[ukvols]

The loss itself isn't a huge deal. It's baseball. Last year, South Carolina lost to a D2 school. These things happen.

Today's game is troubling because of what it says about Serrano's confidence in his pitching staff. He had to bring in his Friday starter to pitch the 9th inning to keep a home non-conference midweek game from getting out of hand against a team with an RPI around 220.

That decision reminds me of the game last year when Serrano started Jared Allen (who hadn't pitched since high school and wasn't even listed on the roster as a two-way player) against Middle Tennessee State even though six or eight pitchers were rested and ready to go. Predictably, Allen got hammered and lasted only an inning. By making that move, Serrano decisively made the point that he didn't like any of the Raleigh arms he had inherited. He wanted a whole new pitching staff.

Throwing Godley in the 9th inning today pretty much announced that Serrano either can't or won't go deeper than the eight pitchers he now uses (Godley, Williams, Owenby, Cox, Bettencourt, Quillen, Saberhagen, Martin). Can you imagine any other SEC team not having several guys pawing the ground in the pen, ready to charge out and eat that inning? Can you imagine Wahl or Ziomek doing mop up duty in a mid-week loss?

That's what bothers me about today's loss.

Please help.
What is a "two-way player" in this context?

 

[RichRollin]

Please help.
What is a "two-way player" in this context?

I think he means a guy who plays other positions on a regular basis along with pitching. Like Steckenrider did.

 

[ShowmeVols]

Andrew Lee is already one year into his rehab and will take the mound next spring two years after the surgery. I have not seen him pitch but he was more highly touted as a pitcher rather than a hitter coming out of high school.

That's my point. Belcher missed 2011 after surgery, pitched in a limited role in 2012, and only now is back to his pre-surgery level of effectiveness. And he was already an established SEC weekend starter before his surgery.

If Lee progresses on the same timeline, 2013 is the season he sits out, 2014 would be the year he figures out how to pitch in college, and 2015 would be the year to put it all together and emerge as a leader. Your timeline asks him to get healthy and mature as a pitcher in less time than Belcher took just to regain what he already had. Obviously, results vary from one player to another, but you're expecting an unusually fortuitous combination of rapid rehab and maturation to occur.

Serrano will have a decision to make this spring. He is still growing and shows great improvement from last year. If he comes to UT, he should be a weekend guy next year.

Each year, the SEC brings in about 100 of the top freshman pitchers in the country. In a typical year, two or three of them emerge as effective weekend pitchers their first year. Even for the studs among this group, there is a less than 10% chance they'll pitch successfully on the weekends right away. I will grant you that Serrano seems like a good candidate. He has the tools and skills and knows what he's doing. Plus, although he's a pro prospect, he's not widely projected to go in a signing round, so there is a good chance he'll get on campus. Even so, you can't expect any freshman pitcher to come right in and get it done on the weekends in the SEC. It's just not fair to hang that expectation on anyone. It's cool when it happens, but you can't plan on it.

has a great selling point to JUCO pitchers in offering them weekend innings immediately. I don't have any names but hearing there is interest from several good one. Also, I think Ownby, Quillen, and Bettencourt will be greatly improved next year.

JUCO transfers carry two very big risks. The best ones were drafted but not signed out of high school. They go to a JUCO primarily to improve their draft position without having to wait three years for another chance at the draft. These players sign letters of intent to name schools to have negotiating leverage with the pros and to have a backup plan in case they don't get drafted where they want. The economics of the new collective bargaining agreement dictate that these players are most likely to get the best pro deal they're going to get after their sophomore year. For the rest of JUCO transfers, the risk is that they won't successfully make the jump from JUCO to major conference baseball.

Care to guess how many JUCO transfer pitchers entered the SEC this year and earned weekend starter jobs? Zero.

Your theory about UT being attractive to JUCO recruits because we can give them weekend innings doesn't make a lot of sense because if they're good enough, they should be able to earn innings anywhere. Opportunity to claim a spot in the rotation without a lot of competition shouldn't be an incentive to players who have the ability and are confident in themselves.

The normal way to develop a quality weekend starter in the SEC is to recruit a top 200 prospect, groom him for a year, and get two years of productivity out of him before he goes pro. We don't have anyone like that in the pipeline for next year's rotation.

Injury rehabs, over-achieving freshmen, and JUCO transfers only pay off once in a great while. Your plan for assembling a rotation is basically to hope we hit the trifecta. You seem okay with that. I will reserve judgment.

 

[Backwards K]

You put a lot of work into nitpicking don't you?....I admire that.

While no one expects Lee, Serrano, or a JUCO to be named later to be an all Conference pitcher next year, they all have the potential to be an upgrade over the Sunday starters and bullpen we currently have. And isn't that the goal, to upgrade the talent each year? Rome wasn't built in a day.

My point is: this team has been very competitive in every SEC series to date. They will only get better with added experience and another off season in the weight room plus the addition of some power arms and a power hitter or two.

I like what I see out of this team so far but then I tend to think of the glass as half full, while you obviously look at as half cracked. Make the SEC tournament this and build off that. At any rate, Serrano is the right man for the job.

 

[ShowmeVols]

You put a lot of work into nitpicking don't you?....I admire that.

While no one expects Lee, Serrano, or a JUCO to be named later to be an all Conference pitcher next year, they all have the potential to be an upgrade over the Sunday starters and bullpen we currently have. And isn't that the goal, to upgrade the talent each year? Rome wasn't built in a day.

My point is: this team has been very competitive in every SEC series to date. They will only get better with added experience and another off season in the weight room plus the addition of some power arms and a power hitter or two.

I like what I see out of this team so far but then I tend to think of the glass as half full, while you obviously look at as half cracked. Make the SEC tournament this and build off that. At any rate, Serrano is the right man for the job.

No, I try to distinguish between what I want to be true and what is true.

It has served me well in business and made for fewer heartbreaks as a sports fan, too.

And please don't make this a loyalty issue. I have not once questioned the hiring of Serrano. I think he is the best coach we could have enticed to take the job. I hope he succeeds. I happen to believe it will take longer than you do. And if enough fans and administrators adopt my "half cracked" attitude (that was a good one, btw), he'll get all the time he needs to build a consistently successful program.

 

[ukvols]

I think he means a guy who plays other positions on a regular basis along with pitching. Like Steckenrider did.

Oh, of course. That explains why the guy hadn't pitched since high school. I should have figured that out myself, but thanks.