Quote Originally Posted by StarkVegasSteve View Post
So how do you recruit that? I truly don't know because I don't follow baseball recruiting very close. I mean is that just going to find a fireballer and kind of penciling him in to be the closer? I know with Sims, he was brought in to be a starter and lost out on the weekend rotation the first weekend of the 21 season and kind of found the closer role because of what he did to Texas.

Also, to go into that stat a little, a closer may not win all those 13 games, but just say you turn 8 of them around you are 35-18 and SAFELY in the NCAA tournament and depending on the 8 you may be vying for a hosting spot. So close, yet so far away.
Recruiting a closer in college is tough because everyone wants to get drafted. To get drafted high in mlb looks to draft pitchers who have shown they can start and then mlb can convert them to relief if they can't start. They very rarely draft a pitcher just to be a closer. So to find a pitcher to close in college you have to have a sims like situation where he can close for a year or so and then start when he's going to be draft eligible. Or find a guy that maybe borderline and convince him the way to be drafted is to close. Sometimes you find a guy that just wants to close. It's not as easy as it sounds to recruit a guy just to close in college. I would look for a guy that's got a live fastball and a Bulldog mentality, that's mentally tough and can deal with blowing one every now and then and comeback the next day and shut it down. Sims really was a perfect fit for the role.

ETA I'm like you I wouldn't expect to win all 13 but as you said 8 or 9 would put you in post season. Yes so very close but so very far!

I believe in 21 we only blew 2 games when we had the lead after 7.