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**Play Angry** · December 21, 2017, 02:02 PM

Looks like Tulane has decided to join the swan diving team as well.

**pogo** · January 2, 2018, 12:58 PM

So is that a club sport?

**Cdizzle** · January 2, 2018, 03:18 PM

For some reason, I hadn't put together that there were only 9 baseball teams in this league.

Based on the voting, it looks like those familiar with AAC baseball thought there were 5 good teams, 3 not good teams, and with no idea what to do with WSU, put them in between those 2 groups.

It's sad that we are picked 6th (in a conference, not the country), and I feel we will be hard-pressed to meet those expectations.

**UCONN_Husky** · January 2, 2018, 04:36 PM

UCONN should challenge for the top spot. Would be great to win the league after getting snubbed as the 2nd team out by last year's selection committee.

Baseball may be the AAC's best sport in terms of conference depth and respect. Even though you're down at the moment, I don't see that lasting very long here. WSU was a great add.

**ShockerFever** · January 2, 2018, 05:59 PM

Originally posted by UCONN_Husky View Post

UCONN should challenge for the top spot. Would be great to win the league after getting snubbed as the 2nd team out by last year's selection committee.

Baseball may be the AAC's best sport in terms of conference depth and respect. Even though you're down at the moment, I don't see that lasting very long here. WSU was a great add.

Appreciate the vote of confidence, but until our AD grows a pair of balls or until our worthless coach's fat contract expires, this won't be happening in the relative short term.

**1972Shocker** · January 2, 2018, 06:01 PM

Originally posted by UCONN_Husky View Post

Even though you're down at the moment, I don't see that lasting very long here. WSU was a great add.

I hope you are right in your assessment but you probalby have more confidence in that than most Shocker fans.

In the last 9 years the Shockers have only reached post-season play twice. Once in 2009 and again in 2013. Both times required the Shocks to win the MVC Touranment to get in which they did as the #3 seed in 2009 and as the #2 seed in 2013. In both of those regionals the Shocks went 2 and Bar-B-Que including an 11-20 loss to K-State in 2013. At the end of the 2013 season legendary Coach Gene Stephenson was fired and replaced by Todd Butler who was regarded as a good recruiter in the SEC but had only limited head coaching experience with mediocre results.

In Coach Butler's 4 seasons the Shockers are 106-128 and have not sniffed the post-season finishing 4th, 4th, T-5th and 5th in MVC play and going 5-8 in Valley Tournament games.

Unfortunately, Coach Butler was given a sweetheart deal for some reason which makes getting rid of him very expensive especially now that the Shockers are incurring big costs transitioning into the AAC. He will still have 2 years left on his contract at the end of this year which would cost around $640,000 to buyout. I'm just not sure WSU has much appetite for that at this stage of the game. I have no idea how long WSU is prepared to ride this horse but once a Coach gets down to only 2-years remaining on his contract recruiting starts to get more difficult and obviously our recruiting, especially in the pitching staff, hasn't been very good since Coach Butler took the helm anyway.

We are probably to the point that our past successes are of diminishing value on where the Shocker baseball program goes from here.

**Downtown Shocker Brown** · January 2, 2018, 06:38 PM

Originally posted by UCONN_Husky View Post

UCONN should challenge for the top spot. Would be great to win the league after getting snubbed as the 2nd team out by last year's selection committee.

Baseball may be the AAC's best sport in terms of conference depth and respect. Even though you're down at the moment, I don't see that lasting very long here. WSU was a great add.

Don’t listen to the Shocker Baseball trolls. We are growing again, have a couple Top 50 prospects, and have yet to have any piece of our starting rotation finish the season.

It takes healthy pitching to win in College Baseball. I have confidence in Coach Steele to better handle the pitchers that have been brought in. I think Coach Esposito will be key to continuing the growth and closing the gap. The continued greater exposure from the AAC will also help recruiting for 2020 and 2021.

**ShockerFever** · January 2, 2018, 07:24 PM

Originally posted by Downtown Shocker Brown View Post

Don’t listen to the Shocker Baseball trolls. We are growing again, have a couple Top 50 prospects, and have yet to have any piece of our starting rotation finish the season.

It takes healthy pitching to win in College Baseball. I have confidence in Coach Steele to better handle the pitchers that have been brought in. I think Coach Esposito will be key to continuing the growth and closing the gap. The continued greater exposure from the AAC will also help recruiting for 2020 and 2021.

And then you have members of the Butler family from Louisiana who ignore 4 years of hard copy results and have an excuse for everything.

**WheatShock** · January 2, 2018, 07:35 PM

Originally posted by ShockerFever View Post

And then you have members of the Butler family from Louisiana who ignore 4 years of hard copy results and have an excuse for everything.

Butler's family must have some incredibly impressive foresight since the accused family member decided to come make a Shockernet account 6 years before Gene was fired. What an incredibly deep cover story with several thousand posts over a decade to disguise the family member as a true shocker fan before finally showing up here to offer a defense of Butler. smh

**1972Shocker** · January 2, 2018, 07:37 PM

Originally posted by Downtown Shocker Brown View Post

Don’t listen to the Shocker Baseball trolls. We are growing again, have a couple Top 50 prospects, and have yet to have any piece of our starting rotation finish the season.

It takes healthy pitching to win in College Baseball. I have confidence in Coach Steele to better handle the pitchers that have been brought in. I think Coach Esposito will be key to continuing the growth and closing the gap. The continued greater exposure from the AAC will also help recruiting for 2020 and 2021.

I hope you are proven to be prophetic. But prophecy is all it is at this point. BTW, this is the 3rd year we have had those two Top 50 prospects but the pitching has been the Shocks big weakness under HCTB and that will have to get better if the Shocks are going to be better.

Not sure what you mean by growing though. Certainly attendance is not growing. It is in decline. If the Shocks start playing well and start winning that should self correct but that is still yet to come.

I will be disappointed if the Shockers don't improve quite a bit on their 18-19 non-conference performance of last year. Part of that will be due to a less challenging schedule. Hopefully, a dollop of better overall play will help as well. Of course, the conference season should be plenty challenging.

**ShockerFever** · January 2, 2018, 07:47 PM

Originally posted by WheatShock View Post

Butler's family must have some incredibly impressive foresight since the accused family member decided to come make a Shockernet account 6 years before Gene was fired. What an incredibly deep cover story with several thousand posts over a decade to disguise the family member as a true shocker fan before finally showing up here to offer a defense of Butler. smh

You haven't been here long enough to know my reference, which was partially facetious and partially accurate.

**ShockTalk** · January 2, 2018, 08:10 PM

Originally posted by Downtown Shocker Brown View Post

Don’t listen to the Shocker Baseball trolls. We are growing again, have a couple Top 50 prospects, and have yet to have any piece of our starting rotation finish the season.

It takes healthy pitching to win in College Baseball. I have confidence in Coach Steele to better handle the pitchers that have been brought in. I think Coach Esposito will be key to continuing the growth and closing the gap. The continued greater exposure from the AAC will also help recruiting for 2020 and 2021.

I like your optimism, but the last person on this board to insinuate is a troll is 1972Shocker. Maybe your post just followed his, but it was a poor look, IMO.

Personally, I did not set high goals for Butler to reach early on to be considered successful. After 4 years, not finishing higher than 4th and a losing record in MVC tournament games is not even getting to first base. Much less than say "at large" worthy or getting us back to NCAA postseason. By the 3rd year, especially the 4th, to not be more than middle of the pack in the Valley is, well, failure and not coming close to earning what he's being paid. Now, starting his 5th year, he's in a top flight baseball conference to boot. I have no ill will to the man, but even minimal success will even be harder now. Without it, he's going to start fighting an up hill battle in recruiting with no extension is sight and why should it.

**jdmee** · January 2, 2018, 10:13 PM

wrong place

**Shox The Revenant** · January 3, 2018, 12:25 PM

Once I saw Butler start recruiting and signing kids shorter than 6 feet, I knew he finally woken up. If this team doesn't make the NCAAs and finish in the top 2 of the AAC, you can ban me again.

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