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

As I said earlier on this thread and from what others have said it's all about pitching. We can discuss Walter's moves, etc. but I don't know what one does about guys who we relied on giving up walks and hits all over the place. Our hitting over the past few games may have been lacking, but 7 runs today should have been enough for a win. With the the unpredictablity of baseball you can not rely on scoring 8 or 9 runs a game to win.
 
Deac65 said:
As I said earlier on this thread and from what others have said it's all about pitching. We can discuss Walter's moves, etc. but I don't know what one does about guys who we relied on giving up walks and hits all over the place. Our hitting over the past few games may have been lacking, but 7 runs today should have been enough for a win. With the the unpredictablity of baseball you can not rely on scoring 8 or 9 runs a game to win.
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Agreed. Not Walter’s fault we have essentially one starting pitcher but the starters have been bad essentially since conference play started and you would think our team would be more aware of how important 90 feet is this season and wouldn’t be so gracious with giving up free bases.
 
Liquid Karma said:
He was an elite HS player who added 5mph to his fastball and improved control on breaking pitches to become an elite college player.
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He's not an elite college player. His ERA is over 5 and batters are averaging .309 against him. He definitely would've been drafted higher if he went straight from HS instead of this year. His play this year has cost him millions of dollars in future earnings. Have no idea how much the pitching lab is to blame but I can understand how somebody would potentially blame it. I do agree with your assertion on 80sdeacon.
 
deac_tracy said:
He's not an elite college player. His ERA is over 5 and batters are averaging .309 against him. He definitely would've been drafted higher if he went straight from HS instead of this year. His play this year has cost him millions of dollars in future earnings. Have no idea how much the pitching lab is to blame but I can understand how somebody would potentially blame it. I do agree with your assertion on 80sdeacon.
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I should have said "became an elite college player." The lab enhanced his skillset.

He certainly isn't elite at the moment.
 
deac_tracy said:
He's not an elite college player. His ERA is over 5 and batters are averaging .309 against him. He definitely would've been drafted higher if he went straight from HS instead of this year. His play this year has cost him millions of dollars in future earnings. Have no idea how much the pitching lab is to blame but I can understand how somebody would potentially blame it. I do agree with your assertion on 80sdeacon.
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People are missing his era 2 years ago was also above 5 before dropping to 2.8 last year. So was the big improvement lab related or not? Going back above 5 this year him regressing where he was 2 years ago or lab related? Beyond ridiculous to blame lab while ignoring massive improvement last year which presumably was helped by lab? He definitely was having better outings the last couple of starts before Fri night shelling so hopefully some time in lab will fix things up.
 
Dropped to #16 in RPI. It’s getting late in the season. If these guys are gonna figure it out, it’s time.
 
saltydeac said:
People are missing his era 2 years ago was also above 5 before dropping to 2.8 last year. So was the big improvement lab related or not? Going back above 5 this year him regressing where he was 2 years ago or lab related? Beyond ridiculous to blame lab while ignoring massive improvement last year which presumably was helped by lab? He definitely was having better outings the last couple of starts before Fri night shelling so hopefully some time in lab will fix things up.
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Hard to tell if last year was an outlier or not for Hartle. I’m sure it helped that he pitched on Sundays for an elite team that scored lots of runs in a non draft year. At the same time he beat LSU in a high pressure situation last year. I don’t know if it’s the lab, velocity, mechanics, in his head, or all of the above. I can’t imagine the pressure in a draft year for these guys.
 
TheAbster said:
From the games I've seen, even if they "figure it out", I don't think this team has the talent for Omaha. Nowhere close.
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To get to Omaha a team has to play well over the 2 weeks of Regionals and SuperRegionals. I looked back at our schedule to see where we may have accomplished that to-date, and our best period is from April 2-14:
UNCG- W
VT-3/0
Coastal- W
BC- 2/1

Beyond that stretch, I don't see any 2-week period where you could say that looks like an Omaha-bound team, or even a qualifier for the ACC tournament.
 
DownEastDeac said:
To get to Omaha a team has to play well over the 2 weeks of Regionals and SuperRegionals. I looked back at our schedule to see where we may have accomplished that to-date, and our best period is from April 2-14:
UNCG- W
VT-3/0
Coastal- W
BC- 2/1

Beyond that stretch, I don't see any 2-week period where you could say that looks like an Omaha-bound team, or even a qualifier for the ACC tournament.
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Those are the games that Kurtz was on an incredible heater. While I don’t disagree with your analysis the qualifying for the ACC tourney is a bit off.
 
Liquid Karma said:
Like I said...he's an idiot.
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Yes, four true labs, I think, in all of division 1 and no ACC. If you haven't noticed it's the ACC that killing us in the pitching war. If we can't see improvement in the arena which determines our getting in and hosting postseason play, then I'd say it's useless. And my prediction is it wont matter given three more years. But I hope it does, just not optimistic. Many schools have some sort of physical science and computers (radar for pitches and velocity on hits, etc) in their program, but few have true labs, unless some have come about this season Im unaware of.
 
rutmanchoo said:
Hard to tell if last year was an outlier or not for Hartle. I’m sure it helped that he pitched on Sundays for an elite team that scored lots of runs in a non draft year. At the same time he beat LSU in a high pressure situation last year. I don’t know if it’s the lab, velocity, mechanics, in his head, or all of the above. I can’t imagine the pressure in a draft year for these guys.
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Hartle pitched on Saturdays last year and I don't think the move to Fridays to start the year helped anything. Agree with previous posts that this year and year one are somewhat similar. Hard to say the lab was good his sophomore year but now bad junior year. Maybe he just had a magical season last year like everybody else on the pitching staff.
 
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I'm just hoping they (Hartle Massey) can figure something out these last few weeks, and the "lab reputation" doesn't take a hit. Burns was probably always going high, but the optic of saving him from bullpen relegation to ace starter surely will be a nice recruiting pitch for the portal. As it stands we're probably gonna need a good pitching transfer or 2 for next year.
 
Norbit said:
I'm just hoping they (Hartle Massey) can figure something out these last few weeks, and the "lab reputation" doesn't take a hit. Burns was probably always going high, but the optic of saving him from bullpen relegation to ace starter surely will be a nice recruiting pitch for the portal. As it stands we're probably gonna need a good pitching transfer or 2 for next year.
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Is it unrealistic to think Hartle and/or Massey return next season? Unless they figure things out quick would their draft slot pay more than NIL and the potential to get things figured out/get healthy/ get a degree? I know seniors have less leverage but is this idea completely crazy?
 
TheAbster said:
From the games I've seen, even if they "figure it out", I don't think this team has the talent for Omaha. Nowhere close.
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What is your definition of "talent for Omaha"?

The #1 preseason ranking definitely set the expectations much higher than the returning talent level could support. No argument there.

But imo this squad has played largely shitty baseball (outside of a few brief stretches) yet still has a Top 20 RPI with a Top 10 SOS.

Definitely nowhere near Top 5 talent but this squad also should not be grinding just to host a regional.
 
It's worth pointing out that a year ago Burns couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. And now he's a Friday starter and likely all American, in spite of toiling in the 80Deacon Memorial Pitching Lab.

Hartle will be fine.
 
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It could just be psychological, too. Everyone responds to that kind of fine-tuning/nitpicky instruction differently. Hartle could just be focusing too much on the details as opposed to just throwing strikes.
 
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