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2024 Wake Baseball Thread: What Did We Do To Deserve This?

Didn't Hurley play one game this year and caught fairly decent. But looked bad hitting? Might be time to give him another game. And Tate needs to ditch left handed hitting. His swing looks a half second slower than swinging righty.
 
by all accounts gill was supposed to be a stud defensive catcher. i do feel like he’s been better lately. also agree burley looked the best at catching the ball in his one start although he looked as bad hitting as his stats would suggest.

wasn’t expecting much from ballestero but his inability to make contact is surprising.

highly doubt it, but my random conspiracy theory is that katz hasn’t been playing lately bc they are trying to get him comfortable again behind the plate.
 
Mt. Olive said:
I think Gill is the best option right now.
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TAG1615 said:
Seems like getting at least a stud defensive catcher with our pitching staff should have been a pretty easy portal pick-up, especially after the last one we picked up got drafted. I agree that it seems like we have to put Gill in there now.
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IAppreciateIt said:
by all accounts gill was supposed to be a stud defensive catcher. i do feel like he’s been better lately. also agree burley looked the best at catching the ball in his one start although he looked as bad hitting as his stats would suggest.

wasn’t expecting much from ballestero but his inability to make contact is surprising.

highly doubt it, but my random conspiracy theory is that katz hasn’t been playing lately bc they are trying to get him comfortable again behind the plate.
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Agree with the above about Gill. He’s also got the most explainable reason for struggling - his experience catching for much less pitching talent. I think he’s getting better.
 
Our guys just have to grow. Let's peak towards the end of the season. Need the young arms and young outfielders to get better every week.

Need Hartle to get back to at least close to form from last season.

Need Kurtz to Nuke.
 
Right now nobody seems afraid enough of what's behind Kurtz to give him anything worthwhile to hit. I know his batting avg is low, but it makes it considerably more difficult when pitchers can just throw junk out of the zone and not really care if they walk him on 4 or 5 pitches.
 
Hartle, Burns, Massey the expected starting rotation again v. the Heels? Seems to me Burns Friday and Massey Sunday with lefty/offspeed specialist Hartle in the middle makes more sense.
 
wakelaw13 said:
Gill's back to back throwouts last weekend were impressive as well.
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By complete coincidence, the dad of a kid who I went to school with and grew up playing baseball with has season tickets directly behind me (we also sat by each other for game one of last year's supers randomly) so we've had a healthy running dialogue throughout the season. Shut us both the hell up very quickly last week. He's looked a lot better on pop and especially on his balls to second. Gill needs to get the bat going but the last two weeks I think he's separated himself from Tate.

Gill has to be the guy going forward as Tate is a liability behind the plate and at bat. Dude has 1 hit since conference play started and he has allowed as many steals as he has hits this season. In all the pre-season stuff Tom kept referring to the different holes that he wanted to fill and how Tate was a "locker room guy". Was hoping that there would be more production there as he hit really well at St. John's, but seems like he's just going to be a vibe guy for us if he can't hit.
 
Buttermaker said:
Hartle, Burns, Massey the expected starting rotation again v. the Heels? Seems to me Burns Friday and Massey Sunday with lefty/offspeed specialist Hartle in the middle makes more sense.
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Burns is unbeaten and rolling as the middle game starter, and is on the short list as the best 2024 pitcher in college baseball. Not sure why you would mess with that. Also, factoring in bullpen usage, Burns is the pitcher most likely to give the bullpen a rest. In a three game series, it helps to have that rest in the middle game. Particularly knowing Massey is good for 3 innings at best. You want to avoid major bullpen usage in the game before Massey.
 
ballestero wasn't really a good hitter at st. john's when you dig into the numbers:

IAppreciateIt said:
I've seen Ballestero getting some hype, but I'm not expecting much. I'm sure he'll be useful since he's so versatile, but his ostensibly solid numbers at St. John's (.912 OPS) are pretty hollow. In conference games, his OPS was only .725 against really bad competition (average Big East team is worse than our typical midweek opponent). He played 35 ABs in the Cape this year and had a .629 OPS before getting cut (honestly, those numbers are probably a good sign relative to what he did at St. John's -- decent plate discipline as well).

Granted, you never know how guys translate as they increase their competition and Ballestero was a big recruit so you'd think he has some projectable tools, but that aside, I think the data we have suggest he'll be a sub-.700 OPS guy in the ACC.
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Demonwolverine said:
Right now nobody seems afraid enough of what's behind Kurtz to give him anything worthwhile to hit. I know his batting avg is low, but it makes it considerably more difficult when pitchers can just throw junk out of the zone and not really care if they walk him on 4 or 5 pitches.
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I mean Seaver is hitting .311 behind him. That's pretty decent coverage.

He needs to work on his plate discipline a bit (6 walks all year), but he's smacking it pretty well.
 
I don't think it would matter who was behind Nick Kurtz, pitchers are going to be scared to throw him strikes regardless. Pitchers wouldn't be throwing Nick significantly easier to hit pitches just because another really good hitter was behind him, particularly in ABs where nobody is on base or there's only someone on first.
 
Demonwolverine said:
Right now nobody seems afraid enough of what's behind Kurtz to give him anything worthwhile to hit. I know his batting avg is low, but it makes it considerably more difficult when pitchers can just throw junk out of the zone and not really care if they walk him on 4 or 5 pitches.
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Let's just move Kurtz up to leadoff. He has the highest on base % on the team, and Tellier, Winnay, King, and Reinisch all have significantly more HRs and RBIs than Kurtz.
 
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