Wake Baseball 2021 | Cusick (1st) + Fleming, Seymour, Menendez, Muntz Drafted

[Deacs86]

That's true, but the only reason we weren't tied for last was because Walter begged out of game 3 at Miami when we were "out of pitching". That was almost a sure loss. And if we had got to play BC we would probably have last place all to ourselves, seeing as they whipped Auburn 2 out of 3 the weekend we were supposed to play them.

Yeah that was a joke. Either play the series or don’t play the series. Looks like Walter will keep his job. Has to be on thin ice next year tho best case.

 

[RacerDeac]

We always seem to keep coaches past there spoil date, crossing our fingers that they'll somehow reach new heights or return to past glory despite many data points showing they have very likely peaked.

Despite years and years of failure, women's basketball finally cleared a hurdle this year and we are probably stuck there as well. Instead of sticking with the coach that has peaked and letting the program return up normal, we should be trying to hire up and preserve the momentum gained by that peak.

 

[Arsene Wenger]

Yeah that was a joke. Either play the series or don’t play the series. Looks like Walter will keep his job. Has to be on thin ice next year tho best case.

Are your basing this out of inside info or simply the fact that he hasn’t been fired yet?

I’m really hoping it happens now so next year isn’t a complete waste of time.

 

[SDDeac]

Wake Baseball 2021 | oh no we suck again!

We always seem to keep coaches past there spoil date, crossing our fingers that they'll somehow reach new heights or return to past glory despite many data points showing they have very likely peaked.

Despite years and years of failure, women's basketball finally cleared a hurdle this year and we are probably stuck there as well. Instead of sticking with the coach that has peaked and letting the program return up normal, we should be trying to hire up and preserve the momentum gained by that peak.

I have a feeling some money would need to be donated before Currie would feel comfortable making that decision. It doesn’t make much sense to spend money to fire a non revenue sport head coach when nobody seems to care enough to pay him off. All of this while trying to build new football and basketball locker rooms makes the decision easy. He’s probably just hoping Walter FINALLY starts recognizing the cultural issues within the program and makes necessary changes to how they run things.

The years of failure in women’s basketball is not the same as years of failure in baseball. The women FINALLY got some new facilities in 19, and look at the result! The program has no culture, no success, and had only been in the tourney ONE year prior to this year. It’s not the same situation as baseball where there is history and insanely good facilities. I like the direction that program is heading under Hoover.

 

[DiamondDeacs]

I have a feeling some money would need to be donated before Currie would feel comfortable making that decision. It doesn’t make much sense to spend money to fire a non revenue sport head coach when nobody seems to care enough to pay him off. All of this while trying to build new football and basketball locker rooms makes the decision easy. He’s probably just hoping Walter FINALLY starts recognizing the cultural issues within the program and makes necessary changes to how they run things.

The years of failure in women’s basketball is not the same as years of failure in baseball. The women FINALLY got some new facilities in 19, and look at the result! The program has no culture, no success, and had only been in the tourney ONE year prior to this year. It’s not the same situation as baseball where there is history and insanely good facilities. I like the direction that program is heading under Hoover.

SDDeac is spot on 100 percent correct. Unfortunately not enough people care about Wake baseball and it comes down to economics. It would be a costly buyout on Walter's contract. He's probably not going anywhere until his contact is up in 2024, then he will ride off into the sunset. The only variable would be Currie's ego. Not sure how much he cares about baseball in the big picture. If he was a big baseball guy he might pull the trigger now because if you are a baseball guy you want your baseball program to make you proud, make you look good.

At the very least though if I were Currie I would let Walter know crystal clear that this fucking bullshit in unacceptable and you need to do things differently now. That means you have to change your approach and even clean house and bring in a new assistant coaching staff to change the culture and Currie handpicks a young coach who could come on as the new hitting coach/associate head coach and could be groomed to take over the program when Walter "retires" after the 2024 season. You could bring in that strong smart younger coach now to be the "associate head coach" or whatever they call it and tell Walter that basically this new guy is running the show and you are now the figurehead administrative coach moving forward for the next couple years until your contract is up. That helps Currie avoid eating Walter's salary and getting the program set up for the next phase now and allows for a very smooth transition in a couple years.

 

[80deacon]

SDDeac is spot on 100 percent correct. Unfortunately not enough people care about Wake baseball and it comes down to economics. It would be a costly buyout on Walter's contract. He's probably not going anywhere until his contact is up in 2024, then he will ride off into the sunset. The only variable would be Currie's ego. Not sure how much he cares about baseball in the big picture. If he was a big baseball guy he might pull the trigger now because if you are a baseball guy you want your baseball program to make you proud, make you look good.

At the very least though if I were Currie I would let Walter know crystal clear that this fucking bullshit in unacceptable and you need to do things differently now. That means you have to change your approach and even clean house and bring in a new assistant coaching staff to change the culture and Currie handpicks a young coach who could come on as the new hitting coach/associate head coach and could be groomed to take over the program when Walter "retires" after the 2024 season. You could bring in that strong smart younger coach now to be the "associate head coach" or whatever they call it and tell Walter that basically this new guy is running the show and you are now the figurehead administrative coach moving forward for the next couple years until your contract is up. That helps Currie avoid eating Walter's salary and getting the program set up for the next phase now and allows for a very smooth transition in a couple years.

Good reasonable suggestion. Again, if he complied I'd tell him there is a chance at an administrative position in '24 if he decides to retire from managing. You want to retain good quality people in your organization if they haven't had ethical or legal issues. He would represent Wake well. No use to vilify him. Good Coaches both succeed and fail on the Win/Loss issue.

 

[Pilchard]

WF baseball has been really well-funded, primarily from alum and former baseball player David Couch, but there have been others. So, yes, firing Walter is not as easy as giving him a pink-slip and hiring the next Augie Garido. WF would need the bigtime baseball donors to be on board with funding a buyout for Walter, and paying for another coach to come in. Unlike basketball and football, where you can make the argument that a coaching change can lead to more energy/revenue for the program, it's not like WF baseball ticket sales are going to pay Walter's salary for the next 3 seasons and a new coach. My guess is that Walter is probably tight with these donors, which led to the donations in the first place.

Completely agree that if Walter does stay, it can't be "Let's just keep doing what we are doing" as that has not worked over the past 3 seasons. Staff changes and a new perspective is needed.

 

[RacerDeac]

Good reasonable suggestion. Again, if he complied I'd tell him there is a chance at an administrative position in '24 if he decides to retire from managing. You want to retain good quality people in your organization if they haven't had ethical or legal issues. He would represent Wake well. No use to vilify him. Good Coaches both succeed and fail on the Win/Loss issue.

Such a weird Wake Forest thing (often from 80's deacs) to want to move people who don't succeed in their chosen professions to other positions thinking that they'll be better at that because of some perverse idea of "The Wake Forest Way". That's just not reality. Or smart. Or likely to lead to success. Or the right way to run an organization. Or good for morale of people who actually do perform their positions well.

Think about all of the greatness we could have if our AD was made up of Grobe, Gaudio, [Redacted], and Manning!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Arsene Wenger]

Baseball is not a revenue sport. That also means Walter is not making a revenue sport salary. Was Wellman really that poor at structuring contracts for head coaches basically no one else ever wanted. Our athletics department has been a joke for so long now it’s hard to steer the ship straight overnight. Currie has done well in my opinion so far, but that did has his work cut out for him.

 

[RacerDeac]

Baseball is not a revenue sport. That also means Walter is not making a revenue sport salary. Was Wellman really that poor at structuring contracts for head coaches basically no one else ever wanted. Our athletics department has been a joke for so long now it’s hard to steer the ship straight overnight. Currie has done well in my opinion so far, but that did has his work cut out for him.

The people suggesting there's some sort of buyout have no idea whether there actually is. Then again, it was Wellman contract, so I expect it heavily favors Walter...

 

[morrison2951]

Such a weird Wake Forest thing (often from 80's deacs) to want to move people who don't succeed in their chosen professions to other positions thinking that they'll be better at that because of some perverse idea of "The Wake Forest Way". That's just not reality. Or smart. Or likely to lead to success. Or the right way to run an organization. Or good for morale of people who actually do perform their positions well.

Think about all of the greatness we could have if our AD was made up of Grobe, Gaudio, [name redacted], and Manning!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not this '80's Deac....

With our current facilities, not making the ACCT is grounds for immediate termination.

 

[cheeseheads12]

Not this '80's Deac....

With our current facilities, not making the ACCT is grounds for immediate termination.

Exactly. It's a no brainer. We had what was supposed to be one of the most lethal batting lineups in the nation according to pundits. The reigning ACCPOY. Supposedly better and competent pitching. Walter himself even said that not hosting a regional would be a disappointment.

Well... throughout the year we couldn't hit, couldn't pitch, suffered self inflicted hit batters, wild pitches, passed balls, and were fundamentally inept in the field. Overall, looked like an incredibly bad coached team with zero sense of direction.

 

[Pilchard]

WF was DFL in the ACC in:

- Fielding Pct
- Passed Balls
- Stolen bases allowed
- Stolen bases
- Sacrifice hits

Every ACC program knew if you stayed in the game against WF; the Deacs would find a way to beat itself. That's exactly what happened.

WF sucked at all the little things that it takes to win games. WF has a ton of guys that can throw mid-90s and hitters with high exit velo, and those are the things that wow scouts, but the program philosophy has to change for recruiting success to result in on the field wins.

 

[DownEastDeac]

The people suggesting there's some sort of buyout have no idea whether there actually is. Then again, it was Wellman contract, so I expect it heavily favors Walter...

Agreed. I would have thought only a handful of coaches in the country have a buyout clause that is much more than 6 months to a year.

 

[Bubble Boy]

WF was DFL in the ACC in:

- Fielding Pct
- Passed Balls
- Stolen bases allowed
- Stolen bases
- Sacrifice hits

Every ACC program knew if you stayed in the game against WF; the Deacs would find a way to beat itself. That's exactly what happened.

WF sucked at all the little things that it takes to win games. WF has a ton of guys that can throw mid-90s and hitters with high exit velo, and those are the things that wow scouts, but the program philosophy has to change for recruiting success to result in on the field wins.

That's not just a 2021 thing. That has been a thing for pretty much all of Walter's tenure. I've probably said this for 10 of the last 11 seasons - the motto for Walter managed Wake teams should be: "all the little things it takes to lose baseball games."

 

[cheeseheads12]

It just sucks to see what Pollard has done with Duke over the last 5 or so years. Hell, this year they lost some important guys from their squad last year (ranked like 10th in the country before covid shutdown) and they improved as the season got older and are on of the hottest teams in the country now. That's some damn coaching. I'd be shocked to see if someone doesn't scoop him up after this season.

 

[ChrisL68]

Our lack of fundamentals compared to our cumulative opponents had us starting every game down 1.5 to 2 runs a game.

 

[awaken]

What would our record be if adjusted by those 2 runs/game?

In the movie Moneyball, they make the point that defense does not matter. I guess that works as long as there is a certain minimum defensive ability present. Apparently, we took that too far wrt defense?

 

[thatguy2016]

What would our record be if adjusted by those 2 runs/game?

In the movie Moneyball, they make the point that defense does not matter. I guess that works as long as there is a certain minimum defensive ability present. Apparently, we took that too far wrt defense?

Billy Beane didn't care a whole lot about defense or baserunning in the early 00's, and according to this article, the A's lost several postseason series because of this

 

[Pilchard]

What would our record be if adjusted by those 2 runs/game?

In the movie Moneyball, they make the point that defense does not matter. I guess that works as long as there is a certain minimum defensive ability present. Apparently, we took that too far wrt defense?

Defense is often under-valued. Who leads MLB in defensive runs saved in 2021? Tampa Rays with the best record in the game. They seemingly exceed expectations every year because they emphasize defense.