Hearing Butch to be announced as new AU Baseball Coach

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Originally Posted by smootness

I agree with some of what you said, but Woodruff, Routt, and Mitchell aren't exactly pitching phenomenally well. It took Routt 4 years to get out of rookie ball, and he was mediocre in A ball at 22 and in A+ at 23. Woodruff's numbers were decent last year, but he struck out only 71 in over 109 IP while giving up more than 1 hit/inning. He's still not pitching up to his real talent level. Evan Mitchell put up rough numbers (not a terrible ERA, but all his peripherals look really bad) in A+ at 23 after struggling in A ball at 22. None of those guys are success stories, and still none of them are pitching to their talent level.

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True and I agree. I was referring more to them not being able to throw a single strike in most outings. They definitely never panned out as Stars, but at least they are throwing pitches near the strike zone these days. I think I remember outings by especially Mitchell and Woodruff where they walked like the first 5 batters and then got pulled. And all on like 4-5 pitches. Just total head case stuff. I'm sure that happens to other programs too, but it seems like every single year we have 1-2 guys that throw gas, were pretty highly recruited, and could help us a ton...but are total head cases and can't throw a strike. I find that interesting, Bc most of them pitch great in the Cape, but get back here and can't throw a strike. Not blaming it on Butch, but I'd love to know what those guys would tell you the reason was. Probably just that there's more pressure in SEC ball than summer ball.

Butch changed the arm slot, etc of several guys in order to make them better. Some took more time than others to adjust. Woody is a good example. This years class have more "pure" pitchers than other classes.

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Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg

And I'll take the mid-upper 90s guy that throws strikes, with one off speed pitch, over your upper 80s lefty every day.

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How many mid upper 90s guys like that make it to college. If your getting a guy like that in college he either is a late bloomer or struggles with virtually every aspect of pitching outside of throwing hard. You don't have to have velocity to be successful is all I am saying. The average fastball in the MLB is usually between 90-92 mph every year. If that can get it done in the big leagues surely it can at the college level. And a flat 95 gets hammered.