Question on pitching philosophy

Lemonis used to prefer his pitchers going multiple innings since they were already warmed up, which often "burned" them for the rest of the SEC weekend. Other coaches prefer a true hierarchy of a bullpen with defined roles - a 7th inning long reliever getting to the setup guy in the 8th inning that turns it over to the closer.

It used to drive me nuts when Sims would close out and save Friday night's game and be "burned" for the rest of the SEC weekend. Only as we approached late season and post season would he get the chance to take the mound multiple times on the weekend and sometimes not even then (remember the 1st loss to Texas in Omaha with Landon on the bench in extra innings?). For the record, Lem seemingly treated most of the RPers the same way of one and done for the weekend.

How do we think Oak will prefer to handle his pitchers?

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Originally Posted by WSOPdawg

Lemonis used to prefer his pitchers going multiple innings since they were already warmed up, which often "burned" them for the rest of the SEC weekend. Other coaches prefer a true hierarchy of a bullpen with defined roles - a 7th inning long reliever getting to the setup guy in the 8th inning that turns it over to the closer.

It used to drive me nuts when Sims would close out and save Friday night's game and be "burned" for the rest of the SEC weekend. Only as we approached late season and post season would he get the chance to take the mound multiple times on the weekend and sometimes not even then (remember the 1st loss to Texas in Omaha with Landon on the bench in extra innings?). For the record, Lem seemingly treated most of the RPers the same way of one and done for the weekend.

How do we think Oak will prefer to handle his pitchers?

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Early in the year we did that w sims. But might as well have bc if he threw and inning on Friday he was done for The Weekend. He was protecting himself. And I'm not knocking him just stating what happened.

I looked at some series that Virginia played last year and here's what stood out to me in the small sample size of games I researched.

It was pretty common for BOC to use a pitcher more than once a weekend, but I did not see anyone pitch more than that. He definitely used a pitcher as a relief ace. Sometimes coming in to close a game and sometimes to get Virginia through a high leverage situation and get through a couple of innings. I think we will see someone emerge for that role. This pitcher I am referring to- Matt Lanzendorfer- led the team in saves with 5. But he was not used as a traditional closer. This may very well be Ben Davis's role on the team. The most saves any pitcher has had for BOC since 2019 is 9. Most years it seemed like the low was 5.

One interesting thing I noticed is by the end of the year he had Tomas Valinicus starting on Sunday and Evan Blanco who was supposed to be a starter for them coming in relief for him on Sunday. This might be how we handle Stone and Foster.

It's also worth noting that we have way more pitching depth than Virginia had last year and that certainly could affect useage as well.

One of Lemon's recruiting pitches to recruits was that they would not be overpitched at State- aka 1 appearance per weekend most of the season before the SEC Tourney and postseason

I agree with everything said above. I don't think it's as much about what inning as it is about leveraging our better pitcher against the opposing team's lineup at the plate for a particular inning. Still, I'm in love with the depth and talent of this staff, and can't wait to see how it unfolds.

Seems this is how most schools operate today.

I think a major factor is that many dudes aren't reliable enough to pitch Friday and come back good again.

You might as well cash the victory with the dude that is dealing.

The contradiction was Kevin Kopps, the Arkansas 2021 Golden Spikes pitcher. 33 appearances and he even pitched 3 times in some weekends of 2021. Easy motion guy, un hittable, 0.90 ERA, 0.53 ERA in the SEC, 131 K, 18 BB.

Maddox Webb, MSU's transfer from Citadel had 24 appearances last year. Only 2 weekends with multiple outings, however.

BOC did have a kid named Josh Sborz that had 33 appearances in 2014, his championship team. Sborz had a few multiple appearances weekends but BOC road him like a wild horse in Omaha. That's the reason I can remember the name and context. Got 6 years in MLB. BOC also had Chase Hungate with 30 appearances in 2024 at UVA with 6 multi appearance weekends.

LSU Johnson destroyed a kid in 2016, no Championship but got 142 innings from Nathan Bannister in 22 appearances. Kid gave out in the CWS championship series I recall.

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Originally Posted by The Federalist Engineer

Seems this is how most schools operate today.

I think a major factor is that many dudes aren't reliable enough to pitch Friday and come back good again.

You might as well cash the victory with the dude that is dealing.

The contradiction was Kevin Kopps, the Arkansas 2021 Golden Spikes pitcher. 33 appearances and he even pitched 3 times in some weekends of 2021. Easy motion guy, un hittable, 0.90 ERA, 0.53 ERA in the SEC, 131 K, 18 BB.

Maddox Webb, MSU's transfer from Citadel had 24 appearances last year. Only 2 weekends with multiple outings, however.

BOC did have a kid named Josh Sborz that had 33 appearances in 2014, his championship team. Sborz had a few multiple appearances weekends but BOC road him like a wild horse in Omaha. That's the reason I can remember the name and context. Got 6 years in MLB. BOC also had Chase Hungate with 30 appearances in 2024 at UVA with 6 multi appearance weekends.

LSU Johnson destroyed a kid in 2016, no Championship but got 142 innings from Nathan Bannister in 22 appearances. Kid gave out in the CWS championship series I recall.

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I'm 100% sure that we will be using the pitch count standards that have been in place for a few years now that Dr. James Andrews developed. If we bring a pitcher back for a second game on the weekend it will be within those guidelines.

I looked at how UVA managed midweek games last year under BOC. I think we're basically going to see bullpen games for those. Several pitchers throwing 1 inning apiece. The most anyone threw in the random games I looked at was 3 innings.

Here's a summary based on my research of what I think we might see in a mayonnaise jar environment where everything goes right.

Fri- Valinicus (6 IP), Davis (2 IP), Pitzker (1 IP)
Sat- McPherson (6 IP), Burns (1 IP), Sweeney (1 IP), Webb (1 IP)
Sun- Foster (5 IP), Stone (3 IP), Davis (1 IP)

Midweek- Kirk (3 IP), Rhodes (1 IP), Burns (1 IP), Sweeney (1 IP), Webb (1 IP), and then in high leverage Pitzker (1 IP) and Davis (1 IP) and in low leverage Believeau (1 IP) and Bauer (1 IP)

I think how we use Stone and Foster will be based on the strength of the opponent that we face on Sunday. We may go TBA and try to force the other team to show their hand with the lineup before we make an announcement.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

I'm 100% sure that we will be using the pitch count standards that have been in place for a few years now that Dr. James Andrews developed. If we bring a pitcher back for a second game on the weekend it will be within those guidelines.

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If we have the depth of talent everyone says we do, why would we ever need to ask a pitcher for multiple outings in a weekend.

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Originally Posted by NWADAWG

If we have the depth of talent everyone says we do, why would we ever need to ask a pitcher for multiple outings in a weekend.

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May need the Closer a couple of times if you are letting 1 guy handle that role
May have a pitcher that only pitched 2/3 or 1 inning on Friday throwing 17 pitches- used 5 pitchers on Sat- and then needed to bring back for an inning or so on Sunday

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Originally Posted by NWADAWG

If we have the depth of talent everyone says we do, why would we ever need to ask a pitcher for multiple outings in a weekend.

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It's always situational. Coach gave a good example. If we're playing LSU and we have a 1 run lead in the 9th twice in a one weekend and our top closer has thrown 30 pitches or less that weekend we should definitely use him twice that weekend. And that is within the safe range under the protocols. Under Lemonis and Foxhall in particular it seemed like we would go a weekend where we didn't use our best guys because we would get down a run and they were trying to "save" our best guys or we would shut them down completely after one outing and it would cost us a game or two.

To me, you manage to win the game that day and then you worry about what the bullpen looks like after and go from there. And yeah, you sometimes do get into bad situations sometimes like I remember the last time we played Ole Miss in Oxford Loo got hurt when he slipped on their mound or something early in the game and then the game went to extra innings on top of that so we had to use even more guys but you certainly hope for the best.

One thing that does bother me is that a guy could hypothetically get loose and completely warmed up multiple times in the bullpen on Friday night, then do the same on Saturday, and 90% of fans would ask why he didn’t pitch on Sunday because he was well rested and hadn’t thrown a single pitch. That is a factor that has to be considered. And most fans do not understand it.

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Originally Posted by somebodyshotmypaw

One thing that does bother me is that a guy could hypothetically get loose and completely warmed up multiple times in the bullpen on Friday night, then do the same on Saturday, and 90% of fans would ask why he didn?t pitch on Sunday because he was well rested and hadn?t thrown a single pitch. That is a factor that has to be considered. And most fans do not understand it.

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Most fans don't get 99% of baseball anyway.

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Originally Posted by somebodyshotmypaw

One thing that does bother me is that a guy could hypothetically get loose and completely warmed up multiple times in the bullpen on Friday night, then do the same on Saturday, and 90% of fans would ask why he didn’t pitch on Sunday because he was well rested and hadn’t thrown a single pitch. That is a factor that has to be considered. And most fans do not understand it.

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Heck there's a lot of so called "coaches" in the college ranks that don't understand that or just don't care about the damage they're doing to the kids arm.

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Originally Posted by WSOPdawg

Lemonis used to prefer his pitchers going multiple innings since they were already warmed up, which often "burned" them for the rest of the SEC weekend. Other coaches prefer a true hierarchy of a bullpen with defined roles - a 7th inning long reliever getting to the setup guy in the 8th inning that turns it over to the closer.

It used to drive me nuts when Sims would close out and save Friday night's game and be "burned" for the rest of the SEC weekend. Only as we approached late season and post season would he get the chance to take the mound multiple times on the weekend and sometimes not even then (remember the 1st loss to Texas in Omaha with Landon on the bench in extra innings?). For the record, Lem seemingly treated most of the RPers the same way of one and done for the weekend.

How do we think Oak will prefer to handle his pitchers?

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You lost me at 'Lemonis' ***

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Originally Posted by Coursesuper

Most fans don't get 99% of baseball anyway.

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We're better than Ole Miss fans. I remember one Ole Miss fan sitting behind me at the Governor's Cup upset at Bianco because their left fielder lost a ball in the lights and questioned why Bianco didn't practice that. LOL.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

We're better than Ole Miss fans. I remember one Ole Miss fan sitting behind me at the Governor's Cup upset at Bianco because their left fielder lost a ball in the lights and questioned why Bianco didn't practice that. LOL.

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Not doubting you at all. That’s a keeper for sure. But you can hear just as stupid at DN anytime. Too many with the football mentality trying to apply it to baseball. So few realize the small details or the game within the game that’s being played. And so many that disbelieve “that’s baseball” prove it. When we lose a series or a game the masses think is a sure thing the vitriol will flow unabated.

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Originally Posted by NWADAWG

If we have the depth of talent everyone says we do, why would we ever need to ask a pitcher for multiple outings in a weekend.

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For the full staff, the true-performance is never as good as expected capability. True for even elite lineups. You need to stack the prospects to yield a rotation. Even Arkansas, Vitellos Tennessee, and Prime Vandy would only have 2 dudes that provide 180 to 200 innings and others develop and replace them in future seasons. Two Dudes typically provide 33% to 40% of total innings. 3 arms typically provide 50% of innings. The next 3 provide 30% of workload.

Consider LSU, great HS recruiting but without transfers, Johnson may not have NCs. They have needed one-year stints to more than supplement.

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Originally Posted by Coursesuper

Not doubting you at all. That’s a keeper for sure. But you can hear just as stupid at DN anytime. Too many with the football mentality trying to apply it to baseball. So few realize the small details or the game within the game that’s being played. And so many that disbelieve “that’s baseball” prove it. When we lose a series or a game the masses think is a sure thing the vitriol will flow unabated.

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Oh I'm 100% sure the stupidity will flow free. Especially if it's a midweek game. I'm sure we'll have fans questioning BOC and probably say some ridiculous things like we should have hired Elander.

And with so many players you know our fans will be like "why isn't so and so playing?"

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Oh I'm 100% sure the stupidity will flow free. Especially if it's a midweek game. I'm sure we'll have fans questioning BOC and probably say some ridiculous things like we should have hired Elander.

And with so many players you know our fans will be like "why isn't so and so playing?"

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Bingo!