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Wake Forest 2023 baseball season thread (Deacs end historic season with extra inning loss to LSU: Final record 54-12 and top 4 finish nationally)

I think it’s not even enough to just host a regional this year. We have to be a national seed that would also host the supers.
 
It’s a head scratcher to me. We obviously attract and recruit high quality, top notch baseball players at the high school level. That part of it (to me) has gotten better in recent years - the infusion of young talent into the program. That’s a credit to Walter and/or whoever spearheads the recruiting efforts for Wake (likely an assistant coach or two). Either way, recruiting has been a bright spot.

Facilities obviously we have - great improvement there from the old days of Gene Hooks on campus (which was beautiful in its own right but had to go) and the result is nothing short of one of the top college baseball facilities in the country (field, stadium, locker room, players lounge, pitching lab, etc.). It’s first class, no question about it.

IMO we have failed at executing and winning on the field when it’s mattered most, resulting in underachieving seasons. The preseason hype always seems to be there, especially in recent years - now the boys have to go out and back it up. The last team that felt special IMO was the team (2018 I think?) that hosted the regional against West Virginia (and I forget who else). We won that (amazing atmosphere and fan turnout at the Couch) and wound up losing to Florida down in Gainesville in the SR. That was an exciting team/stretch to watch. Great, gritty, tough team that had good pitching and timely offense. We could taste Omaha but came up a little short…
 
TripleDeac21 said:
It’s a head scratcher to me. We obviously attract and recruit high quality, top notch baseball players at the high school level. That part of it (to me) has gotten better in recent years - the infusion of young talent into the program. That’s a credit to Walter and/or whoever spearheads the recruiting efforts for Wake (likely an assistant coach or two). Either way, recruiting has been a bright spot.

Facilities obviously we have - great improvement there from the old days of Gene Hooks on campus (which was beautiful in its own right but had to go) and the result is nothing short of one of the top college baseball facilities in the country (field, stadium, locker room, players lounge, pitching lab, etc.). It’s first class, no question about it.

IMO we have failed at executing and winning on the field when it’s mattered most, resulting in underachieving seasons. The preseason hype always seems to be there, especially in recent years - now the boys have to go out and back it up. The last team that felt special IMO was the team (2018 I think?) that hosted the regional against West Virginia (and I forget who else). We won that (amazing atmosphere and fan turnout at the Couch) and wound up losing to Florida down in Gainesville in the SR. That was an exciting team/stretch to watch. Great, gritty, tough team that had good pitching and timely offense. We could taste Omaha but came up a little short…
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In-game, situational execution has been very poor under Walter. Throw in mismanagement of the rotation and bullpen usage and even the most talented roster will disappoint.
 
Interesting info from Pilchard above. I wonder how typical that is? I quickly looked at the 2021 BA preseason rankings along with the Omaha bracket. 7 of the 8 teams were in the preseason top 25. Stanford was the only of the 8 missing. That probably is not typical.
 
Deaconblue said:
Pitching. Pitching. Pitching.
Wake hasn't had enough quality pitching.

Wake continues to handicap the baseball team with the asinine policy of not accepting Junior college transfers.
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i think this is a pretty lazy comment. like ddb alluded to, we’ve had tons of pitching talent, and could have two first round picks this draft with lowder and mcgraw.

(our home ballpark doesn’t help)

there is no easy explanation why we have under-performed so consistently, but i think it goes across the board.
 
IAppreciateIt said:
i think this is a pretty lazy comment. like ddb alluded to, we’ve had tons of pitching talent, and could have two first round picks this draft with lowder and mcgraw.

(our home ballpark doesn’t help)

there is no easy explanation why we have under-performed so consistently, but i think it goes across the board.
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Well there are certainly other factors but over the past several years pitching depth seems to be most impactful problem. Especially in midweek starters and with bullpen issues on weekends.

Not sure the comment about home ballpark.
 
Turd Ferguson said:
Well there are certainly other factors but over the past several years pitching depth seems to be most impactful problem. Especially in midweek starters and with bullpen issues on weekends.

Not sure the comment about home ballpark.
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The Couch is a known as hitter's ballpark - the ball carries very well.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
It's also very short to right field. I think left field is pretty far in as well?
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Size of ballpark has nothing to do with hitters making contact with pitches.

Wake has had some really good pitchers. Just not enough of them at any one time.
 
WF was #5 in the ACC in team ERA for league games last year.
 
thatguy2016 said:
WF was #5 in the ACC in team ERA for league games last year.
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So what were the comparable for midweek/non-conference games?

To my eyes, Wake was out of reliable pitching in the last game at the NCAA Regional at Maryland.
 
It was a long time ago when I read this, but in MLB data showed that playing in an extreme park made it harder to be successful.
 
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