2019 Summer Baseball

[1972Shocker]

Some other players currently listed on the Shocker roster:

Quinton Albrecht - R-Fr C - Struggling with the Derby Twins going only managing 4 singles in 46 at bats for an .087 average.

Alex Jackson - Sr. OF - Has only played in 4 games for the Wichita Sluggers starting July 9th going 4-14 for a .286 average plus 3 walks.

Preston Snavely - Sr. RHP - Has only appeared in 3 games for the El Dorado Broncos with a 4.5 ERA in 12 innings with 10 strikeouts and 8 walks. Still having issues with the walks although a small sample size.

Preston Minor - R-Jr RHP - Has an ERA of 3.60 with 19 strikeouts to 6 walks in 25 innings for the El Dorado Broncos.

Connery Peters - So. RHP - Struggling for the Newport Gulls in the New England CBL with an ERA of 8.46 in 22.1 innings. He does have 28 strikeouts but he is giving up a lot of hits with a WHIP of 1.97.

[Wuzee]

Alex Jackson had himself a night at the plate. He went 5 for 6 with a oppo double down the line, 4 RBI and 3 runs scored. Still doesn't look really comfortable at second, though.

[Wuzee]

Very interested to see Tyson Cheatham this fall.

The incoming freshman from Spring Hill, KS, joined the McPherson Pipeliners of the Kansas Collegiate Baseball League on June 30 and put on a bit of a power show. He had 4 HR and 19 RBI in just 10 games -- and homered three straight to finish the year vs Valley Center, Hays and Dodge City.

Despite only 29 ABs, the 4 HR put him in the Top 10 in the league (The leader had 9 HR in 143 ABs).

Tyson finished the season at .276 and struck out just 4 times.

[Wuzee]

Jake Hamilton has joined Pax Wallace at Chatham in the Cape Cod League. Threw a scoreless inning in relief in his only action so far.

[Cdizzle]

Any guesses if Hamilton will be used as a starter or out of the pen at WSU?

[1972Shocker]

Any guesses if Hamilton will be used as a starter or out of the pen at WSU?

My guess is he will be a weekend starter, maybe even our Friday starter. But the key word is guess.

[Wuzee]

My guess is he will be a weekend starter, maybe even our Friday starter. But the key word is guess.

I think Hamilton has to be considered a candidate for weekend starter -- especially given the uneven performances of the returners. We've got 44 of 59 starts coming back, and there's talent there, but nobody has separated themselves as a lock for a weekend spot.

Starts	Name	W-L	ERA	OBA
12	Snavely	3-4	6.21	.255
10	Barnhouse	2-2	4.72	.254
10	Eddy	5-8	5.04	.278
6	Steumpfig	1-1	6.97	.271
5	Peters	1-3	6.25	.259
1	Haase	3-2	4.68	.262

[Ricardo del Rio]

Man o man.

[Wuzee]

The NBC WS field has been finalized, with at least seven Shockers playing (teams often add players for the WS, so there could be a few more). Three of the four incoming juco pitchers will play in the tourney, which kicks off Saturday at the Eck.

Foster Gifford (Dodge City CC) -- Colorado Cyclones
Ross Cadena -- Santa Barbara Foresters
Jacob Katzfey -- Santa Barbara Foresters
Trevor Munsch (McLennan CC-- Hays Larks (first-week team)
Aaron Bechtel (Coffeyville CC) - Kansas Cannons
Quinton Albrecht - Derby Twins (first-week team)
Reece Koon - Cheney Diamond Dogs
Ryan Koval - Wichita Sluggers
Tyson Cheatham - Great Bend Bat Cats
Cooper Elliott - Hutchinson Monarchs

[Wuzee]

Ryan Koval joined up with the Wichita Sluggers for the NBCWS and went 2 for 5 with a two-run triple in his first action of the summer. Alex Jackson is not on the Sluggers' roster for the tournament so he either headed home after it looked like they were eliminated or got picked up by a team that hasn't posted its roster yet.

Tyson Cheatham got picked up by the Great Bend Bat Cats.

Cooper Elliott got picked up by the Hutchinson Monarchs.

[Wuzee]

Pretty good days for all the Shockers playing in the NBC WS first week.

• Tyson Cheatham was 2-3 with a double, an infield single to deep short and 2 walks. The double came off of ....
• Trevor Munsch. That was the only hit he surrendered, though, as he struck out 5 of the 7 batters he faced in 1 and 2/3 innings of scoreless work.
• Ryan Koval was 1-4 with a walk and a 3-run double. Koval leads the tournament with 5 RBI in his two games.
• Cooper Elliot was 1-4 with an RBI but hit the ball hard and was robbed by the pitcher on a reflex snare of a smoked grounder up the middle with the bases loaded.

On the negative side: Tyson Cheatham did not look very solid at second. He was not charged with an error, but should have been on grounder to his right. Then he booted a double-play ball on the next batter before scrambling to get the guy at first. Also had a high throw on an easy chance with a slow runner. First baseman snow-coned it on a max-effort leap and came back down on the bag. He turned a double play early in the game, but the exchange was slow. He was very shaky, but ended up with 5 assists and 4 putouts. (Stats do sometimes mislead.)

In his defense, he's a high school player playing in his new home stadium in the National with a brand new team against college dudes. Hopefully he settles down going forward.

Tyson and Cooper are back at it again today, with Tyson in the 1 p.m. game and Cooper in the 7 p.m. game.

[Wuzee]

Update after the first week of the NBC Tournament ...

ELIMINATED

• Trevor Munsch made two strong appearances for Hays, giving up 1 hit and striking out 6 in 3.0 innings of work
• Ryan Koval hit .231 (3/13) but had a double and a triple with 6 RBI in three games.
• Cooper Elliot hit .400 (6/15) with 4 stolen bases in 4 games.

STILL PLAYING

• Tyson Cheatham, an incoming freshman from Spring Hill, KS, is hitting .500 (7/14) with 2 doubles as the Great Bend Bat Cats move into the second week.
• Aaron Bechtel, an incoming juco pitcher, started for the Kansas Cannons and was dominant, giving up 1 hit and striking out 5 in 7 innings. The Cannons beat the San Antonio Angels 3-0.
• Seth Morrow was in the three-hole for the San Antonio Angels, and went 0-4 with a strike out.
• Quentin Albrecht has appeared in 2 games for the Derby Twins. He's 0-3.

YET TO PLAY

• Foster Gifford (Dodge City CC) -- Colorado Cyclones
• Ross Cadena -- Santa Barbara Foresters
• Jacob Katzfey -- Santa Barbara Foresters
• Reece Koon - Cheney Diamond Dogs

[WSUwatcher]

My guess is he will be a weekend starter, maybe even our Friday starter. But the key word is guess.

Something I'm wondering about, at least a little, is whether Wedge will stick with the college-style rotation of three weekend guys and then fill-ins during the week, or whether he'll go back to his own playing days (and his professional roots) and adopt a four or five-man starting rotation and then just stick with it, maneuvering around off days in the schedule as required. The Gene and Brent regime used that pro-style approach for many years before switching to the college-style "weekend" rotation, and WSU's pitching was consistently better and deeper back when they did it that way and before they joined the crowd in making the weekend / midweek distinction. (Plus, it used to drive Gary Ward crazy when he'd have to face Kennie Steenstra on a Tuesday night.)

Basically nobody in college operates their rotation the pro way any more, so I guess I'll be surprised if the Shockers do it either. But, assuming they can find four or five quality starters (a big assumption, I know), I sure wish they would. As I said before, they consistently had better depth when Gene and Brent did it that way -- and not surprisingly, inasmuch as using more guys in situations that matter automatically develops more depth. Plus, using quality pitchers in midweek games improves your chances of winning them, which in turn improves your resume for post-season play if you play a decent schedule, as I'm confident WSU will.

Personally, I'd much prefer to see WSU with a higher RPI and better record against Q1 opponents as a result of winning good midweek games, rather than for them to treat their worthwhile midweek games as throwaways in terms of who pitches because they're too busy focusing solely on winning the league, which really doesn't buy them all that much come tournament time anyway.

[ShockTalk]

I'm thinking that Gene had a lot of years of really deep quality pitching. As that depth withered away, so did the pro rotation. The last couple of years under Butler didn't even have a full weekend rotation.

[shockfan89_]

Two points here:

1. You are referring to a time when we played 4 weekend games and 1 or 2 mid-week games. The rotation was necessary because you had to have 4 weekend starters and probably couldn't get through the mid-week games without using one of them anyway. I think Gene/Brent started to transition to the more conventional route when the MVC converted to 3 weekend games.

2. During the time that Gene/Brent did the pro-style rotation, the MVC was pretty weak, or at least WSU was almost a lock to win the conference every year. This rotation allowed them to mix in a #4 starter on the weekend since your mid-week opponents were likely higher RPI games and more important to win from an at-large than your weekend games.

With the quality of opponents in the AAC, it probably makes sense for WSU to throw their top 3 starters on the weekends. If we have quality mid-week games it may still make sense to go with a 4 man rotation but I can also see the logic of having consistent weekend starters. If you can finish in the top 3 or 4 in the AAC you are likely going to be an at-large team regardless of the outcome of the mid-week games.

[pogo]

:chuncky:A lot of the lack of depth can be attributed to Mrs Bluma not having any more sons

[ShockTalk]

Funny! However, they were not starting pitchers.

[Shockm]

Something I'm wondering about, at least a little, is whether Wedge will stick with the college-style rotation of three weekend guys and then fill-ins during the week, or whether he'll go back to his own playing days (and his professional roots) and adopt a four or five-man starting rotation and then just stick with it, maneuvering around off days in the schedule as required. The Gene and Brent regime used that pro-style approach for many years before switching to the college-style "weekend" rotation, and WSU's pitching was consistently better and deeper back when they did it that way and before they joined the crowd in making the weekend / midweek distinction. (Plus, it used to drive Gary Ward crazy when he'd have to face Kennie Steenstra on a Tuesday night.)

Basically nobody in college operates their rotation the pro way any more, so I guess I'll be surprised if the Shockers do it either. But, assuming they can find four or five quality starters (a big assumption, I know), I sure wish they would. As I said before, they consistently had better depth when Gene and Brent did it that way -- and not surprisingly, inasmuch as using more guys in situations that matter automatically develops more depth. Plus, using quality pitchers in midweek games improves your chances of winning them, which in turn improves your resume for post-season play if you play a decent schedule, as I'm confident WSU will.

Personally, I'd much prefer to see WSU with a higher RPI and better record against Q1 opponents as a result of winning good midweek games, rather than for them to treat their worthwhile midweek games as throwaways in terms of who pitches because they're too busy focusing solely on winning the league, which really doesn't buy them all that much come tournament time anyway.

It's not that different from the pros who have an Ace, #2, #3, and #4 starter. The fifth starter is a fill in who starts if they have a fifth day game in a row, or is used as a long reliever, etc. if they don't. Each of the 4 starters need at least 4 days of rest. The difference is that the pros can pull up a 5th starter, etc. from the minor leagues if a starter falters or gets hurt.

In the college game, they have 3 weekend starters and then a 4th usually starts the mid week game, and if they have a 5th game, they fill in with others from the pen.

[ShockTalk]

Most all MLB teams have 5 man rotations or at least try to. Teams will skip that 5th starter when it works out that they can. Almost all 1, 2, 3 starters pitch no more than 21% of the games. 5th starters will normally start 3 out of every 4 rotations. MLB teams play almost 9 games over of every 10 days.

WSU's problem, of late, has been to find a reasonable 3rd starter, thus finishing in second division or near the bottom in the league. A single mid week game has generally been a "Johnny whole staff" effort.

[WuDrWu]

Shoot, we haven't really had a #1 ace since 2008 (Rob Musgrave). Jordan Cooper and AJ Ladwig were both really talented, but I don't think they were aces, at least not in this program's version of aces. I'm not saying we've been loaded with #3s, but I bet our record has been a ton better on Sunday than Friday for a very long time.

[ShockTalk]

Don't get me wrong, WuDrWu, many of our recent #1-3 would have been #3-5 not that many years ago. I'd take me some Cooper, Lowell, Kelley, and Flynn right now.

[Shockm]

Most of the pro teams don't have an Ace or 5 starters either. Most teams, like the Royals have a couple of #3 (maybe #4's) at best. But never the less, they choose who they think are the best and go through the rotation (trying other pitchers along the way). There are only a few teams in each league who truly have a major league rotation. Otherwise, the rotations are not what they were 50 years ago. Too many teams and too many players to have top notch major league talent. They make do with what they have.

College teams do the same thing at a lower level.

[ShockTalk]

1 through 4 or 5 is a relative term based on that team. I've said nothing about Aces. The Royals have 4 "established" starters who have done nothing but start and have started 75% of the Royals games. 6 guys have started 94% of the Royals games with 2 pitchers being both starters and long relief, but primarily share the 5th starting spot, fill in when a 1-4 needs more rest time or on the DL.

Even the horrible Tigers have 4 primary starters who have started 74% of Detroit's games and that's with Zimmerman being out for a month (probably cost him 5-6 starts) otherwise those 4 would be very close to 80% of the total games.

As WSU pitching goes, Gene had 1 team with an ERA 5.00 or worse, his very first team. Gene almost had another in 1985, but remember, that team played 88 games that year and had 5 pitchers start 90% of them. Including last year, Butler had 3 teams over 5.00 ERA with 2 of those teams while we were still in the Valley. Last year's team played 59 games (67% of the games played in 1985) and the top 4 starters started in only 71% of those. I don't expect to get back to the best of Gene's teams, but let's hope it's somewhere between that and Butler's teams. If so, you will see 3 guys starting 70% of the games or 4 guys 85%.

[Shockm]

My point is that I don't see any changes on philosophy of how pitching is done. WSU will have who they consider their Best Pithcher (ACE or whatever), #2 Pitcher, and #3 Pitcher who will start during the weekend, and then their #4 starter will start their mid-week game. Nothing will change unless there are injuries, or the will to try another starter not currently in the rotation.

[Shockm]

My point is that I don't see any changes on philosophy of how pitching is done. WSU will have who they consider their ACE, #2, and #3 starter who will start during the weekend, and then their #4 starter will start their mid-week game. Nothing will change.