Fire Todd Butler

[ShockerFever]

Record vs. 1-50 = 22-65 (.253)
Record vs. 1-100 = 52-101 (.340)
Record vs. 1-200 = 95-140 (.404)
Record vs. 201+ = 46-9 (.836)

I'm going to try very hard over the next few days to remain entirely objective about this. Simply put, there is literally only one objective reason not to hire a new coach: too small a number in the athletic department checking account.

They’re gonna have to eat Sexton’s mistakes. It’ll cost them more money in the long run otherwise.

Besides, Boatright is on record saying this isn’t a checking account issue.

[Cdizzle]

Yeah, I think that's going to be a pretty valuable lesson in why not to say dumb things.

[RHshoxfan]

I’m getting on a flight to Vegas and expected to get on seeing he was fired before I left. Got about two hours till I land, hoping for better news when I land

[SB Shock]

I’m getting on a flight to Vegas and expected to get on seeing he was fired before I left. Got about two hours till I land, hoping for better news when I land

You probably have better odds of betting on the basketball team while in Vegas to win the NCAA tournament (45:1 when I was there last month) than seeing Butler fired in 2018.

[Cdizzle]

Regular Season - Conference = 51-56 (.477) Conference Finish: 4th, T3rd, T5th, 5th, T7th

One edit that this year was T7th. To put a little context on this, prior to Butler the last time WSU finished lower than 3rd in conference was......1984. That's right. It was 30 years between instances, and he somehow managed it in 4 out of 5 years.

[1972Shocker]

One edit that this year was T7th. To put a little context on this, prior to Butler the last time WSU finished lower than 3rd in conference was......1984. That's right. It was 30 years between instances, and he somehow managed it in 4 out of 5 years.

Not according to the AAC standings. They have WSU at a 0.396 winning % (9.5/24 = 0.396) and Tulane at 0.391 winning % (9/23 = 0.391).

According to the AAC Baseball Policies: Overall league winning percentage at the conclusion of the regular season is used to select and seed the top eight (8) teams.

If any teams are tied based on winning percentages the tiebreakers kick in.

At least that is my intepretation of the policies.

[1972Shocker]

I assume ties are ties wether that's in win-loss record or winning % which would pretty much require the same win-loss records in most cases. So my asumption is they are handled according to the tiebreaker rules in the polcies.

What I never really found was any policy regarding how ties or pre-determined rain outs are handled.

[shockfan89_]

A tie is just stupid. To me it should be considered a loss for both teams because... you didn't win! I actually thought it was counted against the team until you corrected me that it counts as .5 of a win and .5 for a loss. D1baseball.com seems to prefer my method. :)

It's funny that warrennolan.com shows both us and Tulane as 7th place and Memphis at 9th which would indicate we tied. D1baseball.com actually shows us in 8th at .375 (9 wins in 24 games) and Tulane as 7th at .391 (9 win in 23 games). It is after all a winning percentage, not a win/tie percentage.

[Cdizzle]

Furthering my investigation, I think it defaults to the NCAA rules: 'To determine won-lost percentage, divide the total number of games played
into the number of games won (each tie game is computed as half won and
half lost);'

The AAC policies state that Halted Game Rules are NOT in use, which leads me to assume that other rules, like "Tie Game Rules" ARE in use, which leads back to your interpretation being correct.

It should be noted I could only find the 2016 rulebook in a free, readable format, so it's possible (though, I wager unlikely) that this has changed. https://cpe-prod.usabaseball.com/doc...6_7nojpzr8.pdf

[1972Shocker]

This is what Coach Butler failed to do:

[Walker]

The little things Robert Wuhl does in movies make me lose it. Funny man. He was awesome in Hollywood Knights.

[ShockerFever]

The apologist camp has suddenly gone crickets.

[Shox The Revenant]

Many of you on this board have gone to the funny house. Our RPI would indicate we are one of the best 50 teams in the country. We have two first or second round MLB draftees on the team. We had some solid victories this year and our incoming recruiting class seems better than past ones. Give some of you an inch and you'll want to take a mile - geeeessh! J/K - HCTB was a nice experiment but he's had his chances - he gotz to go! His recruiting experiment to only bring in 6' or taller players failed miserably. This recruiting philosophy did not yield a huge boost in our power numbers or scoring average over the years. Our pitching during his tenure has been barely average at best as well as our defense. Baseball I.Q. seems to go down every year and fan support/attendance is dismal once again. Time to wipe the slate clean!

[C0|dB|00ded]

So when will we hear the good news? Anybody have a reference from past firings? Does something come out before the 6 o'clock news tonight or is this a following morning type of deal?

I feel like a kid before Christmas. Finally... the pain stops.


T


...:cool:

[Cdizzle]

I'm guessing half-past 2019.

[Cdizzle]

One winning conference record in 5 years. That winning record happened to be with the completely empty cupboard he inherited, which is ironic, and would be humorous if it wasn't so sad.

[Ricardo del Rio]

One winning conference record in 5 years. That winning record happened to be with the completely empty cupboard he inherited, which is ironic, and would be humorous if it wasn't so sad.

I believe Coach Butler deserves another five years. Give him a chance.

[Play Angry]

Let's say, based on total body of work, most here would grade Todd Butler's performance as a D or F (seems likely). What grade would you give the current assistants during their shorter tenures?

We have a head coach that has lost the support of a big chunk of a dwindling fan base. It's an unusual setup since we also have 2 assistants who have performed pretty well during shorter windows. Mid-stream staff turnover for a regime lacking success is not that uncommon, but it's unusual that those new assistants perform pretty well at what may be the end of that captain's era.

I'd probably give Mike Steele an A- or an A (5.97 ERA the year before his arrival; 4.75 ERA in Year 1; 3.91 ERA in Year 2, WHIP and K/9 numbers with similar trajectories). Sammy Esposito probably gets a B or B+ (.267 avg, .749 OPS, 5.4 runs per game the year before his arrival; .289 avg, .817 OPS, 6.6 runs per game in his only season) with his grade held down some by a shorter track record and poor defense in the second half of this season.

In the event ADDB decides to pursue a change, the new coach absolutely needs discretion on his choice of assistants. This is a weird scenario where it would actually be tough to upgrade one or both of those assistants in the (likely) event the new coach would want a fresh slate. Mike and Sammy would be really appealing options for teams with an opening and I'd wish them terrific success.

That said, I still think it's more likely than not that HCTB is retained for another year. We'll see soon enough.

[shockfan89_]

OMG. Well played Cdizzle. PCMS now gets a solid A from me!

[Cdizzle]

Play Angry Is it really bad luck with injuries? That's really tough to quantify without knowing the relative injury problems of all other teams. From what I can tell, if you aren't going in to a season expecting to lose a weekend starter and a couple of bullpen guys to injury, you're going to be 'unlucky'.

[Play Angry]

I think it depends on what slots are knocked out by injury - last year Willie was our projected ace and Segal was known to be the best arm on the staff, one KO'd for the year and the other tried to play through injury for 4 ineffective starts before shutting it down.

This year, you again have the issues with Alex who was supposed to be a Friday/Saturday guy, then Cody (Sunday/Tuesday guy), then Tommy (effective Sunday guy for almost a month before getting shut down), and Connor (Tuesday/Wednesday guy) all getting bounced out of the rotation by injuries for the bulk of the year.

This season was definitely a well above average (maybe 2 standard deviations?) casualty rate.

[Dave from Tulsa]

I think HCTB is a great guy and is on the current path for restoring the glory days of Shocker Baseball with these young men. We’ve had some ups & downs and the on-field performance haven’t materialized like we all wanted over the last five years; but it’s a process that I trust. The boys are buying into the process and understand the responsibility. It is a MONUMENTAL task to rebuild all that FHCGS tore down during those down & dark times of Shocker lore.

While I didn’t make it to a basketball game this year due to everything as I didn’t agree with everything HCGM did over the season, (he got what he deserved) I did make it out to a home weekend series this May and enjoyed what I saw. We lost the series, but the Friday game was electrifying.

I don’t see ADDB making the decision to cut HCTB go; and if that’s the case, than we need to rally behind the program and coach and support it. Next year may be the year we win the AAC and advance in the tournament.

[WstateU]

The apologist camp has suddenly gone crickets.

Attention please, we might have a broken ‘gif’...

[OregonShocker]

I think HCTB is a great guy and is on the current path for restoring the glory days of Shocker Baseball with these young men. We’ve had some ups & downs and the on-field performance haven’t materialized like we all wanted over the last five years; but it’s a process that I trust. The boys are buying into the process and understand the responsibility. It is a MONUMENTAL task to rebuild all that FHCGS tore down during those down & dark times of Shocker lore.

While I didn’t make it to a basketball game this year due to everything as I didn’t agree with everything HCGM did over the season, (he got what he deserved) I did make it out to a home weekend series this May and enjoyed what I saw. We lost the series, but the Friday game was electrifying.

I don’t see ADDB making the decision to cut HCTB go; and if that’s the case, than we need to rally behind the program and coach and support it. Next year may be the year we win the AAC and advance in the tournament.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. I suspect you are in the minority in regards to both current head coaches. The REAL question is how long you are willing to "trust the process" before recognizing the process isn't working. As for the boys buying into the process, it's been 5 years. This current group is entirely HIS bunch; a number of them will no longer be around to "buy into" anything.
My patience is done. We need to trust another coach's process.