Quote Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg View Post
Hitting is almost impossible to really coach, so I'm not going to blame the hitting coach much. Hitting coaches are hired to be fired. Be a pitching coach if you want a long career.

What I will criticize, however, is that we seem to either recruit a 1st round caliber hitters that will never sniff campus and the replace them with left handed bad hitters. It's lazy in many ways because 1st rounders are easy to spot. It takes time and patience to find the right fit.

In our evaluation process, we've got to get better and finding the 3rd-5th round HS position player that will end up in school and we can develop into a 1st rounder.

We did that with Westburg, Foscue, and Rooker but we've signed too many Blaze Jordan's, Austin Hendricks, James Woods types and missed out on the 3rd-5th rounder due to that.

Our evaluation process needs to be refined
Hi Shotgun...

(1) Could it be that some kids just out-grew their 13 year-old body and became 1st rounders. Like Riley Austin, he went from collegiate Pete Young 2.0 to a Forgetaboutit 1st Rounder.
(2) Could it also bet that nobody get's the big body boys. The 5-11, 190-lbs hitter seems to be norm in college baseball. There are bigger boys, but the typical is 5-11 to 5-10 player. Even the top-10 hitters in the SEC by average have the composite size of 6-0 199.
(3) Another issue that the bigger boys share is that they are upper classmen and they were statistically no-great as Underclassmen, like Rooker. Elko is the biggest in my top-10, he was not even a starter until his 3rd year
(4) The top-10 guys for HR in the SEC, the average player is 5-10 193, biggest kid is 6-2 220 from Alabama

A question: How come pitchers are giants in contrast. The SEC has 6-6 and 6-7 pitchers and the Peyton Plumee size of 6-3 220 is the norm. But Plumlee is a giant as a hitter. Growing up, the best pitcher is usually the best everything. Seems that there are lots of legit power 1B/3B and RF all pitching. Seems like college baseball is wasting lots of Thigpens and McCays. Guys like KC Hunt (6-3) should keep on hitting and get monster big.