Fire Todd Butler

[Ricardo del Rio]

Unfortunately, I do not believe it will happen as long as Interim is in his position. Even if Interim reached out, I do not believe it would be well received by Gene because of Interim's prior involvement.

Interim is interim. Keeping a seat warm.

Plus the gent that goes to make up and make nice with Coach Stephenson had better have some status with Coach. IAD ain't gonna get it.

[Aargh]

It appears that the next big "Innovation" on campus should be getting an AD in place. Don't I remember a couple of years ago there were a bunch of posters out here who had no use for DB and had some pretty convincing reasons for why they felt that way?

[Ta Town Shocker]

It appears that the next big "Innovation" on campus should be getting an AD in place. Don't I remember a couple of years ago there were a bunch of posters out here who had no use for DB and had some pretty convincing reasons for why they felt that way?

Perhaps this one http://shockernet.net/forum/showthre...ight=boatright

[Onegreatracer]

I do read the board occasionally, but haven't really been following the team that closely, so I don't really know. But when Butler was at Arkansas we were in the bottom 1/3 of the SEC in hitting every year but one (2010 when we were led by new Royals callup Brett Eibner). During many of those years the bulk of the scholarships went toward pitching. Maybe Butler spent his scholarships on hitting and neglected pitching? Maybe he wanted to prove he was a good hitting coach? I don't know, just an idea.

The players all seemed to absolutely love him but as you guys know many Arkansas fans were happy to see him move on. He recruited some good players but I don't think we really competed, recruiting wise, with the rest of the conference (7-10th in the SEC, on average, I would guess without looking it up). Of course Arkansas comes with some built in disadvantages (weather, a lower level in-state talent) that it might be hard to offset, even with excellent facilities, fans, great college town, etc.


I've thought all year that your baseball program reminds me of our basketball program when we fired Nolan Richardson. It's been 14 years since then and we have climbed out of the abyss toward solid mediocrity.

That Eibner dude is one hell of a player. Made it out to the KC game Saturday, he's got big potential, and he's already clutch.

[mr_baseball]

Pitching by the numbers

Last two years have really killed the team era. Going from mid 3's to high 5's...I say fire them all.

-2010-
Team ERA - 4.45
Opponent - 7.02
Record - 41-19

-2011-
Team ERA -3.26
Opponent - 5.62
Record - 39-26

-2012-
Team ERA - 3.45
Opponent - 4.79
Record - 35-25

-2013-
Team ERA - 3.55
Opponent - 5.03
Record - 39-28

-2014-
Team ERA - 3.43
Opponent - 4.44
Record - 31-28

-2015-
Team ERA - 5.10
Opponent - 5.24
Record - 26-33

-2016-
Team ERA - 5.97
Opponent - 5.37
Record - 21-37

[Ricardo del Rio]

Perhaps this one http://shockernet.net/forum/showthre...ight=boatright

This is the above referenced post by WeeShock:

Iʼm not generally one to speak out about something, unless I see that there is a problem that isnʼt being solved by the chain of command, so for lack of better words, Iʼm declaring a Tea Party of sorts on the powers in the Athletic Department regarding the leadership of our Athletic Director.

We are in an ever-changing world when it comes to college athletics. The ESPN era of the 1980s-2000s brought bright lights to the larger conferences, especially those with football, to lucrative television contracts that have single handedly kept those institutions afloat. In pursuit of the elite recruit, these schools will pull out all the stops to keep their programs at the top. Unfortunately, as weʼve seen in the past, some institutions canʼt follow the NCAA guidelines for ethical recruitment.

Today, we are entering a new era of college athletics.. the Super-Conference. I believe that this will take the ESPN era to a new level of four to six conferences with 14-16 member institutions each, mostly driven around football. Those institutions who are afforded the opportunity to be apart of such an alliance, will most likely break away from the NCAA and form their own governing institution. The break-away of these schools will bomb the Gonzaga, Wichita State, and Creightons of the world back to the stone age with the likes of Howard, Charleston Southern, and Northern Arizona.

There is time between today and that date in the future, but likely not as much as we might think. Today, we have a leadership issue:

We have an Athletic Director who has grown substantially since taking over for Jim Schaus. He is not your prototypical Athletic Director but ultimately has done a fine job. I believe he along with our Assistant Athletic Director for Development have done a fine job making sure we keep Gregg Marshall happy and by finding those with deep pockets to match the high bidding powers of the BCS.

We all know our Athletic Director avoids confutation. He chose in his early hours not to intervene in the stalking case of our beloved baseball coach. If he would have chosen a different approach would we be where we are at today waiting for two more years to pass before our new era begins? Do we feel he will make the right hire? Better yet if Gregg did leave who would make that hire? We know he chose to back down to the Valley offices when our coach stuck his neck on the line years ago for the clock management blunder.

But going back to the basketball hire... I for one do not believe our Athletic Director would be making that hire. I believe unfortunately that our Senior Associate Athletic Director – External Operations has the AD’s ear. On a positive note he has the basketball background and I am sure has plenty of connections. I say unfortunately because this scares me. It scares me because I don’t think the masses know this man and what he stands for. Unfortunately, I have met him and unfortunately have seen his work, or should I say lack of...

Ever since Brian Pracht left the rains of Sr. Associate Athletic Director – External Operations to take a job at Arkansas and our Director of Marketing when her husband was fired as our softball coach we have constantly been complaining about mis- management of our in-game operations. Ever since these two changes have happened sponsorships dollars are at an all-time low for the department. Many major sponsors have either pulled out completely or made drastic cuts. In return we now see stupid gimmicky promotions that raise our blood pressure to new heights because we do not have the leadership. Anybody else see we are now sponsored by Papa Johns? Obviously this means Pizza Hut has started pulling away and chose against their exclusive sponsorship... Guess who oversees this area?

We constantly complain about the lack of communication from our athletic department. Our media relations department has never left the stone ages. Guess who oversees this area?

Now those are several reasons I have my fears. It is the disturbing things I have witnessed by our leadership in his personal life that really has me frightened. I have witnessed firsthand a severe lack of professionalism when it comes to our supporters. I have probably met him 20 or 30 times and he introduces himself every time. I don’t give thousands of dollars and expect him to know my life story but I do expect him to recognize that he has met me already before. I have heard this complaint from several of our supporters and many of them are supporters you want to know. I have had several conversations with him when I cannot understand the man. No it is not because of his southern draw and bad humor it’s because he is slurring words because of the alcohol he consumes on a regular basis. It is my understanding from several friends I have close to the program is that nobody in the athletic department cares for the man and that many of our supporters will not have anything to do with him. He has had several run-ins with female co-workers in which he has been reprimanded for. I know one of our supporters who met with our beloved President Beggs and informed him of these issues only to be sent to our Athletic Director to voice his concern. Go figure it fell on deaf ears when presented to our leader.

Why is our Athletic Director turning a blind eye to some of the personnel issues within the athletic department ? Is he scared of confutation? If something happens and our University is embarrassed because of something our Athletic Director has known about what will that do to us in this ever changing world of college athletics?

In my opinions we have several individuals that have a passion to make Wichita State elite and take us to the next level. It is my opinion that we have several mid-level management personnel who are future athletic directors at major BCS schools and have the ability today to keep WSU out of the stone ages and take us to new heights. I just hope we can keep them around for awhile. I am afraid that the disgruntlement within is pushing solid staff members out the door, some we cannot afford to replace at these times.

Iʼm not sure what else to do. I hope that this will be a catalyst to bring an investigation and change.

[Ricardo del Rio]

"Better Call Saul."

Never mind. Better call 1-800-JimSchaus for advice, if for no other reason.

Mr. Schaus may direct to Danny Ainge.

I noticed that the above post was the first by WeeShock. If he knows what he is talking about, then he sure has my attention.

I know a little something about drinking and John Barleycorn. If Mr. Boatright has a drinking problem, then a lot of folks know about it. There are not many successful closet drinkers. If true, I would call it a red flag alert.

[1972Shocker]

Not exactly how you would like an article about your program to start:

Eck Stadium is more museum than ballpark these days, a quiet place filled with empty seats and memories of the days when Wichita State baseball mattered.

Ouch.

http://www.kansas.com/sports/college/wichita-state/article80799027.html

[Aargh]

We can only hope this thread doesn't end up longer than the Orukpe thread.

[shockfan89_]

Several thoughts/questions:

1. How is it we still have 39 listed on the goshockers.com roster when the limit is 35?
2. We have 9 Seniors and 15 incoming players which puts us at 45 (10 over the limit). One or two non-seniors could get drafted but that still means we are 8 over the limit. I don't think it will surprise anyone that there will be several that won't return, but that seems like an awfully high number of recruiting "misses". Keep in mind these will all be HCTB recruits that don't return.
3. 10 of the 15 incoming players will be pitchers which we hope will help out quite a bit on the mound, but remember we had 11 new pitchers join the team this season...

[1972Shocker]

1. How is it we still have 39 listed on the goshockers.com roster when the limit is 35?

My guess is that the roster on goshockers.com was not cut down to reflect the official active roster at the beginning of the season. The following 7 players did not play any this year:

Sr. Landon Holified RHP - While he did not play Landon did do some of the play-by-play on some of the ESPN3 home games. MY guess is he was not on the official active roster.
Sr. Jon Ferrendelli RHP - While Jon did not play I think he was honored on Senior Day. Not sure if he had to be on the official active roster for that to happen or not.
RJr. Josh Whisler C - Not sure if Josh stayed around after the active roster was set.
RJr. Brian Greisman RHP - Not sure if Brian stayed around after the active roster was set.
Fr. Gabe Constantive LHP - Redshirt?
Fr. Noah Croft C - Redshirt?
Fr. Keylan Killgore LHP - Redshirt?

32 guys played this year so only three of these players could have been on the active roster. You would assume if the redshirt decisions were made prior to the beginning of the season you would leave those off the active roster unless you otherwise had room. The bottom line is that the roster on goShockers.com is obviously not the official active roster for the season. It would be nice to have the official active roster delineated when that is declared and list any inactive roster members separately.

2. We have 9 Seniors and 15 incoming players which puts us at 45 (10 over the limit). One or two non-seniors could get drafted but that still means we are 8 over the limit. I don't think it will surprise anyone that there will be several that won't return, but that seems like an awfully high number of recruiting "misses". Keep in mind these will all be HCTB recruits that don't return.

You can only have 27 players on scholarship. So 12 of the 39 players listed on the roster were walk-ons. Hard to say for sure how many of the Shocker seniors were scholarship counters and it is hard to say which if any of the incoming players are invited walk-ons and hard to know how many incoming freshmen will redshirt next season. That makes it pretty difficult to project the official active 35-man roster. I would anticipate there will be some turnover of players voluntary or otherwise. If you are not playing much, if any, for a 27-31 team and you were healthy you might give some thought as to whether this is the best situation for you.

We do have a pretty good idea who 7 of the 8 starting positions will be with only leftfield and DH perhaps to be up for grabs. The huge question marks are the pitching staff.

3. 10 of the 15 incoming players will be pitchers which we hope will help out quite a bit on the mound, but remember we had 11 new pitchers join the team this season...

I think I made that point in an earlier post. High numbers don't guarantee anything as last year's class proved. However, if the Shocks are going to be successful we will need contributions from 4 or 5 of these pitchers in addition to getting better performances out of 4 or 5 of the returning pitchers. My expectations of that happening are not exactly at a high level at this point.

[Aargh]

So, Butler is over recruiting and cutting players, which is what we hated about OU and other P5 baseball schools. Even doing that WSU barely won 20 games this year?

[SB Shock]

So, Butler is over recruiting and cutting players, which is what we hated about OU and other P5 baseball schools. Even doing that WSU barely won 20 games this year?

Might want to watch where you throw that rock - you might hit Gregg Marshall

[1972Shocker]

So, Butler is over recruiting and cutting players, which is what we hated about OU and other P5 baseball schools. Even doing that WSU barely won 20 games this year?

Everything is an issue when the team sucks. If Butler was winning big very few would give a rat's ass about this.

[Cdizzle]

Everything is an issue when the team sucks. If Butler was winning big very few would give a rat's ass about this.

I think there's some truth to this. It does kindof point to another issue though. Gene was loyal, maybe to a fault. But he figured out how to win a heck of a lot more than Butler did, and without holding open tryouts every fall. Even in his last years. Would certainly seem to point to a greater ability to identify and develop talent.