Fire Todd Butler

[ShockerFever]

This either indicates you have Butler's buyout covered and in 7 days he will be gone or it is a "thank goodness the season will be over in 7 day" prediction. Or maybe both.

7 days until we know how serious the WSU administration cares about baseball.

[1972Shocker]

7 days until we know how serious the WSU administration cares about baseball.

Damn! I was hoping it was that you had the buyout covered and ready to go. I can chip in a $100.

[1972Shocker]

nm

[1972Shocker]

nm

[SB Shock]

7 days until we know how serious the WSU administration cares about baseball.

With the university preoccupied on bringing Mvc level football - I doubt they are serious about spending money to fire a coach.

[Ricardo del Rio]

With the university preoccupied on bringing Mvc level football - I doubt they are serious about spending money to fire a coach.

Plus lately, the team seems to be playing better. This is an armchair observation. A study of the late season stats will surely require too much effort plus there is the risk of brain cell wipe out.

The Shocks stomped the Baptists by 4-3 and Hayes was a lock down closer today.

So, if the university is looking for a ray of sunshine, then Coach Butler is probably safe.

[shockfan89_]

Keep in mind last weekend we would have been swept by the last place team in the MVC if we hadn't scored 12 runs in our last three ABs to overcome a 12-3 deficit after 6 innings.

[1972Shocker]

Keep in mind last weekend we would have been swept by the last place team in the MVC if we hadn't scored 12 runs in our last three ABs to overcome a 12-3 deficit after 6 innings.

This Shocker team is 17-17 at Eck Stadium. They are 4-18 away from Eck Stadium. The Valley Tournament is in Terre Haute. Host Indiana State is in the Shocks bracket.

This does not bode well for the Shocks chances of getting to the championship game. I still think 2-2 is about the best one could expect from The Shocks in the Valley Tournament.

[shockfan89_]

Agree. The good thing is we won the regular season series against every team in our bracket and lost the series to every team in the other bracket...

[shockfan89_]

Honest question. Do you feel like these kids have made strides during the year and are better? Position players only, I know the pitching is a mess.

These kids have obviously made strides hitting the ball. I am impressed with how the team (especially the Fr) has been hitting since MVC play started. Hitting! That’s one-third of the game.

The problem is that hitting is probably the least important of the three elements in baseball. I am sure many would argue that, but you can look at our results the past few months when our hitting was very good and the results are not much different than when our hitting was suspect.

In a recent TV broadcast Mark Ewing commented that WSU has a good fielding percentage. Shane Dennis quickly corrected him and said fielding percentage is like a bikini, it shows you some, but not everything. Shane went on to say there are a lot of balls this team just doesn’t get to that past Shocker teams would have gotten to, and most times, made the play.

I’m not even going to start on pitching.

So here are the facts of our strides:
- Overall record of 78-96 (.448 winning pct) under HCTB and has gotten worse every year.
- Road record is pathetic under HCTB and has gotten worse every year (total of 19-40 for a .322 winning pct). Thank goodness we play 2/3 of our games at home or this could be a real dumpster fire.
- MVC record has gotten worse every year even though the conference has gotten weaker (2014 13-8, 2015 10-11, 2016 9-12)
- MVC finish has gotten worse every year (2014 - 4th, 2015 - 4th, 2016 - 6th) prior to 2014 WSU had only finished lower than 3rd one time (1984) and only finished 3rd three times.
- Finished 1 ½ games out of LAST place in the 10th ranked conference with an RPI of 173 (only ISU Red has a lower RPI and they beat us 2 out of 3).
- We only have a winning record against RPI teams of 201+ (4-3).
- Haven’t won more than 2 games in a row in a 56 game season.
- Haven’t had a week where we won more games than we lost.
- Losing streaks of six games and five games (twice).

Like I have said before if we have a great incoming group of pitchers next year, I could start to get excited. But three years into this staff we have shown little ability to recruit pitchers that are effective at this level. If it takes two years or longer (more likely) most of these hitters will be gone or getting ready to leave.

Another concern is we appear to be developing a trend of playing better the last third of the season. While that is great for trying to win the tournament, it’s not really a good trend unless you carry over the success from the previous season (which we haven’t shown we can do).

But our hitting has shown good strides…

Note: If we win the MVC tournament this week, the above is null and void and I will post that I knew we could do it!!!

[bleed yellow]

The situation on campus regarding the baseball program has to be awkward.. I remember going to a basketball game last year where they had the baseball team posted up in Koch's hallways, handing out programs. I even picked up a program and it was just strange not knowing the baseball players name because the team was simply too terrible to follow up on, in depth. And judging by his body language, the feeling was mutual. This was last year. By now the there's probably a lot of avoiding eye contact going on around campus.

[1972Shocker]

Agree. The good thing is we won the regular season series against every team in our bracket and lost the series to every team in the other bracket...

Actually the Shocks lost the series to Indiana State 1-2 and it was at Eck Stadium. The Shocks did score 27 runs in that series but they gave up 32.

We did win series against Bradley and Missouri State both 2-1 and both at Eck Stadium.

[SB Shock]

Best offensive team since 2011
Worst Pitching team Ever

[Shocker3435]

Best offensive team since 2011
Worst Pitching team Ever

Word.

I don't like to blame injuries, but a healthy Tewes and Schwanke (Tewes was never healthy) would have allowed to develop one or 2 pitchers for the end of the year, instead of having to basically rebuild the staff.

Hayes and Williams have big league stuff. They've been unable to bring that to the game more than occasionally.

Chase Williams has been borderline unhittable of late. His slider/cutter whatever you call it at 91 is the stuff of Cy Young winners. I'm not saying he's going to win one, I'm saying his ability and potential is very, very high.

I just don't know how we can piece together 5 games with this staff right now. We have one reliable starter. Williams has saved our goose and set things up for Hayes. Everything else is a crap shoot essentially.

[WuShock16]

I don't know what this means, but something interesting I noticed is that each of our conference series was a 2-1 margin. We didn't sweep anyone but didn't get swept either. I am not claimining that means anything...just found it interesting.