Quote Originally Posted by CadaverDawg View Post
I do agree that our pitching magnified the bunting issues....HOWEVER...how realistic is it that we will have Lindgrens, Holders, and 2013 version Mitchell's every year moving forward? Truth is, our pitching will likely fall somewhere between the 2013 staff and the 2015 staff, except we won't have the luxury of the high seams. So...that leads me to believe that even with a good staff we're going to have to get away from so much wasting outs and awful base running errors. Both of which have been staples of the Cohen era.

We can't rely on Butch to pull off a miracle staff each year, or else we might as well make him the coach and try to find an offensive assistant. I believe in Cohen, but if all we're asking him to do is give us a sub par offense and then rely on Butch's staff to make our good seasons, what are we doing?

Why not have both, by maximizing offense AND trying to have a good staff. That's what a lot of us are saying. That doesn't mean going full Smitty and never bunting...but it definitely means not bunting guys like Rea, Pirtle, Collins, etc for the sake of one run in the 3rd inning of a scoreless game.

You get what I'm saying I'm sure. As do I with your stance.
I don't necessarily disagree and for me and my offensive philosphy, I wouldn't plan a game the way he does at times. Again depending of the level of ball and even your competition changes your game time calls from time to time. But for me I prefer to have my players hit there way out of problems. But I am not so hard headed to not understand the beauty of guys who do win games with small ball. When done right it is harder to defend and pitch to than some think. Especially in high school or showcase levels. I have seen teams really destroy a team with a hard throwing ace that they probably would have struggled getting runs on if they played it straight up. But they really rattled the pitcher and defense (who was not use to having to field many balls behind this pitcher) to the point that they won going away and only had 2 hits out of the infield and both of those were just singles. It not only can work at the college level but can be very succesful in conjunction with and overall philosphy and players that make it work.