He's way down the line. Several lefties in front of him .
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Regarding Foxhall's pitching philosophy: Get up 0-2 as quick as you can to give the batter the opportunity to get himself out swinging at an out-of-the-zone pitch.
So if you're the opposing coach, surely you've reminded your batter to expect the next couple of pitches to be out of the zone. Hence, don't help the pitcher. Our counter should be to find strike 3 as fast as possible (ie, no nibbling), thereby greatly reducing all of the BB's after an 0-2 count (originating from our SPer starting to nibble). This also allows the SPer to get deeper into the 6th or 7th inning as opposed to 100+ pitches after on 4 innings.
Is Foxhall's pitching philosophy "dated"? Shouldn't or SPers be taught to catch the hitter by surprise more (cuz I remember a lot of 0-2 count, but very few K's on the next pitch sans Landon Sims)?
That is precisely what worries me. We are again going to have to HEAVILY rely on a bullpen that, while talented, is unproven in this league. I mean Dohm is electric on the radar gun, but what is he going to do when the lights are on and 12K are in the stands on a Friday night. Nixon was great as a freshman but after the debacle at TTU last year he was never the same so which Nixon do you get. Cjintje and Loftin are UBER talented, but they are freshman. Tyler Davis is another one that while he has done at this level he has not done it in this atmosphere.
Give me 3 College Weekend starters with 5 plus innings per start and I am ecstatic! That is exactly what you want for a weekend rotation.
That will certainly save some arms if they are not walking 6 and striking out 3 in their stints.
That's a different topic. You said you need your Friday and Saturday guys to go 7 innings. That's not going to be the case with this team. We don't have a Bednar or a Sims. It's going to be get 5 innings out of the starters, maybe 6 and then bullpen by committee. From what I've seen Gartman can eat innings. Cade can eat innings at times. And Tyler Davis has a little Houston Harding about him. Then you have guys like Dohm, Nixon, Holcomb, Yntema, Hunt, Kohn, Stinnett, etc. Get ready for a lot of pitching changes and possibly some long games this year. Foxhall is going to have to manage his ass off.
Are we wasting Cade on Friday? I’m thinking yes.
ETA:
We are basically going into the season with a Saturday starter and two Sunday starters; now we could have someone really step up and have an all-conference type year among all these names and I won’t be surprised if we do…
But it looks to me like going into the season we are going to need our bats to win us a Friday game or two and a helluva lot of Sat/Sun games.
And it sounds like we might have a lineup that can do that.
To my understanding...
Foxhall wants our guys to pitch up in the zone to generate swings and misses and rack up K's. Which is a big reason why we led the SEC in K's a couple of years ago.
Best way to get ahead 0-2 IMO- THROW STIKES- don't nibble trying to get guys to chase. HAVE TO locate. When you nibble hitters in the SEC more often will take- and then they'll eliminate pitches and sit on your fastball if they get ahead in the count.
Foxhall's style works great for some pitchers- like Landon Sims. But it takes a skill set to pitch like that. Which Landon had. Hard four seam fastball with lots of MPH's and RPM's on it.
The thing about pitchers is they are all different. But because of that your pitching coach can't have a one size fits all philosophy. You wouldn't ask Greg Maddux to pitch like Nolan Ryan. But both are HOF pitchers.
Some pitchers need to pitch down in the zone. Like if they have a lot of sink and don't throw as hard.
What happened last season is we had some guys that were scared to live up in the zone- so they nibbled or overthrew. Which led to getting behind in counts. Which led to baserunners. That was partially due to the recruiting gap between Henderson and Foxhall who had two different philosophies.
Foxhall did a really shitty job with our staff last year.
Great response, Todd. As last season pushed into May and attrition on the mound had really hit us hard, it became really apparent how few pitchers we had that were suited for Foxhall's philosophy. I'm cautiously optimistic regarding this year's pitchers as I think we have closed the gap on the talent disparity between Henderson and Foxhall. Man, a week from Friday can't arrive soon enough.