Quote Originally Posted by dawgs View Post
We couldn't hit or pitch. But better and we win 10 more games. Pitch better and we win 10 more games. IMO both need to be corrected ASAP. They problem I have is everyone (except me and smitty apparently) keeps saying fix the pitching and we'll be fine. No. Fix both.

It is my opinion that its a bit easier to coach a guy up with pitching, whereas hitters either have the talent and show promise or they don't. Pitching is definitely a more mental game than hitting. Obviously it's not black and white, you can't coach up pollo to pitch like kershaw, but pollo was an effectively decent pitcher for us despite having mediocre or worse stuff by teaching him how to pitch. Same with Ross Mitchell. Likewise, you can sometimes see a guy come out of nowhere and start hitting like a hall of famer (Ortiz, Jose Bautista), but usually you can see the talent from the beginning (Harper, trout, Stanton, Bryant). Doesn't mean they can't improve, but the tools are obvious right there in front of you, and usually they are at least above avg hitters from the get go. So what I'm saying is that I think/hope that with another year of coaching and experience we see a jump with our pitching staff. However, I don't see a whole lot of promise with our bats and I'm concerned we won't see them make a jump since not many of them seem to be showing much promise.

Also, why can't we get better production out of freshmen? With your best players leaving campus after 3 years, you have to have productive freshmen and sophomores. If not, you have an extremely shallow roster. We need to figure out what everyone else that's worth a damn is doing to get some of their freshmen to be productive.
Again, no one is saying both shouldn't be "fixed". Simply that if we only fix pitching, we will be fine and winning at a high level. That doesn't mean that people don't want to see more home runs and extra base hits. Pitching wins championships. Offense is for the fans. Not sure what your disconnect here is.

Point out a team that has a 3-4 freshmen making major contributions right now? LSU's top freshman prospect this year was essentially a pinch runner for this year. There isn't a team in the SEC that can expect to rely on freshmen and have a good season. If you have one freshman making a major impact right away, you should consider yourself fortunate. Anything more than that is an anomaly. Even Will Clark started out on the bench for us as a freshman and had to play his way into the lineup.