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

wfunme said:
Please give or sell your tickets to wake fans on this board and on wake facebook sites. Do not sell your tickets on stub hub or seat geek to place anymore obnoxious heel fans in our stands.
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I'll use this as a chance to say I'm disappointed with some of our season ticket holders. My section has been so sparare all year. Last night was the first time some of the gaps were filled, and most were UNC fans.

Whether people tried to make a quick buck to flip tickets, or are just not showing up until it's warmer or we're better, idk. But it sucks to see "seats sold out", but half empty.
 
Brock Wilken, Tommy Hawke, Justin Johnson, Bennett Lee, Keener, Sullivan, Minacci, Pierce...Few more key guys.

The idea that this team would be anywhere near as talented as last year's squad was a total myth.

The additions of Burns, Tellier and Seaver are the only legit guys we added this off-season.
 
Oh yeah and we lost that one dude with the long hair....Had a day named after him... arguably best baseball player in Wake history....tio of tongue....ohhh yeah Rhett Lowder
 
Honestly, hot take...this team is just as good as last year if we had Keener, Bennett Lee and Tommy Hawke. And a shoe in for Omaha with just bringing Lee and Hawke back.

Catcher and another guy who can get on base are our 2 biggest weaknesses. Obviously adding a guy like Keener changes the entire bullpen too
 
CreamyGoodness said:
Honestly, hot take...this team is just as good as last year if we had Keener, Bennett Lee and Tommy Hawke. And a shoe in for Omaha with just bringing Lee and Hawke back.

Catcher and another guy who can get on base are our 2 biggest weaknesses. Obviously adding a guy like Keener changes the entire bullpen too
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I would take Lee and Johnson in a heartbeat.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
I would take Lee and Johnson in a heartbeat.
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Those 2 players would fill our biggest positional holes. What JJ did offensively was absolutely amazing. He seemed to hit the ball hard every time he was up. Keener was such a luxury to come in and finish for one of the starters with very little drop off. There just weren’t a bunch of nail biters that I can recall last season. The series at Clemson maybe. I’m old and my memory is not what it used to be. We will look back on that team as an absolute anomaly in terms of Wake Forest fandom.
 
the issue with our offense has been lack of production from kurtz and king.

the rest of the lineup has been pretty solid outside of catcher, where it’s not that uncommon to see a bit of a black hole.

houston and tellier 1-2, reinisch and winnay 5-6 and a guy like cam nelson hitting 9th are all well above average, even for a good team.

asking for even more offensive depth isnt wrong but also feels a little bit greedy to me. we need kurtz and king to hit they way they are supposed to and always have. i think they will.
 
Yes, historically great team last year. But we are arguably worse at every position this year except SS, in which Houston > Houston. I'm sure we can split hairs and argue against this....and some positions are clearly closer than others. But also, weekend starters, middle relief, closer, midweek starter....all better last year. We really need to improve in the coming weeks
 
IAppreciateIt said:
the issue with our offense has been lack of production from kurtz and king.

the rest of the lineup has been pretty solid outside of catcher, where it’s not that uncommon to see a bit of a black hole.

houston and tellier 1-2, reinisch and winnay 5-6 and a guy like cam nelson hitting 9th are all well above average, even for a good team.

asking for even more offensive depth isnt wrong but also feels a little bit greedy to me. we need kurtz and king to hit they way they are supposed to and always have. i think they will.
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some data to compare this year's team against last year's band of heroes (conference games only):

1&2 spots in the lineup:
2023 (Hawke, Bennett): ~.819 OPS
2024 (Houston, Tellier): .933

3&4 spots:
2023 (Kurtz, Wilken): 1.142
2024 (Kurtz, King): .595

5&6 spots:
2023 (Johnson, Lee): .899
2024 (Reinisch, Winnay): 1.148

7,8,9:
2023 (Cecere,Costello,Corona,Houston): .722
2024 (Javar,Ballestero,Gill,Nelson): .745


FWIW, in ACC play, Javar has a .916 OPS (39 PAs) and Nelson has a .804 OPS (31 PAs)
 
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Kurtz has looked like a poor man's Chris Katz in ACC games, hitting 0-14 with pop-ups in 37.5(!) of his balls in play*. He does have seven walks.

He's actually only put eight balls in play, three have been pop-ups. He had three pop-ups across all conference games last season though (59 total balls in play)
 
I agree that the biggest problem has been that Kurtz just hasn’t produced. I think he’ll get going at some point, but failing to get production from your #3 hitter is killer.
 
Dkin said:
Yes, historically great team last year. But we are arguably worse at every position this year except SS, in which Houston > Houston. I'm sure we can split hairs and argue against this....and some positions are clearly closer than others. But also, weekend starters, middle relief, closer, midweek starter....all better last year. We really need to improve in the coming weeks
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If we aren’t already, we will be better in the outfield by the end of the season. Revisionist history about Cecere and Costello. I like both players a lot.
 
IAppreciateIt said:
Kurtz has looked like a poor man's Chris Katz in ACC games, hitting 0-14 with pop-ups in 37.5(!) of his balls in play*. He does have seven walks.

He's actually only put eight balls in play, three have been pop-ups. He had three pop-ups across all conference games last season though (59 total balls in play)
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Gotta swing the bat to put the ball in play.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
As a baseball idiot, I’m going to ask, are L/R matchups overrated?
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I don't think it's a big deal right on right. But I think left on left is a really big deal. If you look at the splits for most guys, I think this proves true
 
If you got bonus points for hitting the ball at the other team’s gloves, we might be the greatest team of all time.
 
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