Fire Todd Butler? Yes? No?

[shockfan89_]

I see we now have 3 who say no. Please enlighten the rest of us with your reasoning. I'm not looking to criticize, just looking for the input.

Now up to 13 who say no, yet still no reason(s) why? ADDB has already stated that it has nothing to do with finances, so I am very curious what people see that makes them think HCTB will turn this around.

He appears to be a good recruiter (on paper) except none of that has translated to wins. Is he recruiting the wrong kind of player? Is he not able to bring them together as a team? Is he not able to recognize a good pitcher? I can't remember WSU ever going this long without a true ace. The kind of guy that can shut anyone down when they are on their game. Zach Lewis got close to that the last half of his senior year, but I am talking about guys as Fr, RS-Fr, or So.

Edit: One other sobering fact. Four of our pitchers are graduating. These four pitchers accounted for 155 IP, or 30% of total IP. That includes 3 of the top 4 ERAs on the staff which accounted for 127 innings of ERA < 4.00. That means we only return one pitcher with a season ERA under 4.00 (32.2 IP). We return 3 pitchers with an ERA > 6.00 and another 2 greater > 9.00.

[ShockTalk]

Now up to 13 who say no, yet still no reason(s) why? ADDB has already stated that it has nothing to do with finances, so I am very curious what people see that makes them think HCTB will turn this around.

He appears to be a good recruiter (on paper) except none of that has translated to wins. Is he recruiting the wrong kind of player? Is he not able to bring them together as a team? Is he not able to recognize a good pitcher? I can't remember WSU ever going this long without a true ace. The kind of guy that can shut anyone down when they are on their game. Zach Lewis got close to that the last half of his senior year, but I am talking about guys as Fr, RS-Fr, or So.

Edit: One other sobering fact. Four of our pitchers are graduating. These four pitchers accounted for 155 IP, or 30% of total IP. That includes 3 of the top 4 ERAs on the staff which accounted for 127 innings of ERA < 4.00. That means we only return one pitcher with a season ERA under 4.00 (32.2 IP). We return 3 pitchers with an ERA > 6.00 and another 2 greater > 9.00.

I believe most, if not all, of these who say "no" have ties to Butler, or those in his program, in one fashion or another. Family, friends, players, family and coaches of players. I know one brave soul has come out in his support in one of these threads and even though I don't agree with his position, I applaud him for doing so. Unfortunately, he too, I believe has ties to Butler that may make him somewhat biased, but he is standing by Butler.

Just as likely, there are probably "yes" votes coming from a former coach's camp as well. Their viewpoint is also slanted with personal bias.

Hopefully, most of us are posting from reasonable positions as they are presented today. What are the positives, what are the negatives, and weighing those factors. What kind of growth and level of play should be reasonably expected for a program like WSU, in a conference like the Valley, by a coach and staff getting paid what they are, in their fourth year.

[Cdizzle]

I really wish Boatright had just not said anything. Or at worst, blamed the tight financial situation. I don't like being straight-up lied to.

[shockfan89_]

I really wish Boatright had just not said anything. Or at worst, blamed the tight financial situation. I don't like being straight-up lied to.

Or maybe something even worse. Is it possible our AD is so delusional or inept when it comes to baseball that he actual believes what he said?

[jdmee]

“There’s no one more frustrated by the win-loss record than Todd,” Boatright said. “When you have someone that is leading your program that does things the right way, brings quality people onto our campus … represents us well … when you have an individual like that leading your program, they deserve every opportunity to be successful.”

“He tried to fix it too quickly and went the junior college route,” Boatright said. “That set us a year behind where we expected to be. His high school classes have panned out nicely. We have a really talented group of sophomores and a really talented group of freshmen.”

It seems to be that Boatright has decided to give Butler X number of years to get the program back on track based upon having his own pitching coach and acknowledging the Junior College misses and the promise of the young players in the program. None of us here are privy to the discussions that took place when the change in pitching coaches happened. Was there an agreement for X years?

Agree or disagree with the decision but this does not seem to be based upon a coach buyout of less than $1 million. Is this department above the MVC level or are we actually at the level where the decision is based upon the ability to afford the buyout? If a $1 million buyout is unaffordable then we shouldn't have left the MVC and the money we are forfeiting over the next few years. It seems we are losing more then $1 million on this move.

[shockfan89_]

I guess I don't understand the quote from ADDB. Wasn't his very first recruiting class, the one with the "junior college route", the one that was the 2nd ranked recruiting class in the country? If you miss with the 2nd ranked recruiting class, you are in for a lot of future misses...

Also, he has had three high school classes that have supposedly "panned out nicely" yet we finish 5th in the 17th ranked conference? Hate to break it to ADDB, but you typically only get three classes on campus at anytime in a successful college baseball program so he had had one complete cycle.

I also thought we had a talented sophomore class, and expected us to finish at the top of the MVC in a very down year. If we would have finished 3rd, a few games back of MSU and DBU then I would agree with this statement. Finishing 5th with 4 200+ RPI teams in your conference at 10-11 is not panning out IMHO! Scoring fewer runs than last year against a considerably weaker schedule is not panning out!

[Cdizzle]

Going the JuCo route was a choice. You chose a direction, and failed. You've chosen a new direction, and are failing. Given time to choose another direction, my money is on more failure.

Winners win. We should go find a winner.

[SB Shock]

Scoring fewer runs than last year against a considerably weaker schedule is not panning out!

WSU non-con SOS was really good - 38.

I guess Butler could pull a "Gene" and schedule like he did his last year (SOS 125). Sorry no breakout for SOS non-conf, but according to Boyd his intended Non-conf was 141. Yeah he had a winning record but he went 0-7 vs Top 50 and 5-13 vs 51-100. Just slightly worse than Butler (1-14, 4-5).

[shockfan89_]

I was comparing 2016 to 2017. In 2017 WSU's SOS was 115 and we scored 5.4 runs/game. In 2016 WSU's SOS was 50 and we scored 5.9 runs/game. I would have assumed if we were showing improvement, we would have scored more runs against a SOS that was twice as bad as the previous year.

And you know as well as I that this team scored A LOT of meaningless runs when the games were already decided.

[ShockCrazy]

I really wish Boatright had just not said anything. Or at worst, blamed the tight financial situation. I don't like being straight-up lied to.

I don't think there is anything Boatright could have said or not said that would have left people satisfied that didn't involve HCTB being fired. It almost certainly is financial, and of course he's going to say it's not. If he says it's financial, not only does it reflect badly on the administration, it cripples the program even more. It effectively neuters HCTB as a coach, can't recruit, and has no reason to bother trying. If Boatright says nothing, we all complain that the administration is ignoring baseball and doesn't care.

[vbird53]

I don't think there is anything Boatright could have said or not said that would have left people satisfied that didn't involve HCTB being fired. It almost certainly is financial, and of course he's going to say it's not. If he says it's financial, not only does it reflect badly on the administration, it cripples the program even more. It effectively neuters HCTB as a coach, can't recruit, and has no reason to bother trying. If Boatright says nothing, we all complain that the administration is ignoring baseball and doesn't care.

If only we had a pig for all that lipstick...

[SB Shock]

I was comparing 2016 to 2017. In 2017 WSU's SOS was 115 and we scored 5.4 runs/game. In 2016 WSU's SOS was 50 and we scored 5.9 runs/game. I would have assumed if we were showing improvement, we would have scored more runs against a SOS that was twice as bad as the previous year.

And you know as well as I that this team scored A LOT of meaningless runs when the games were already decided.

I hate to break it to you - but WSU offense was one of the best in the MVC.

Actually I think complaining about the offense is probably a dead end. WSU problem has been and continues to be lack of pitching. 6.21 ERA in the MVC. You could bring back the 1998 offense and they would struggle to be a 0.500 team.

[shockfan89_]

I agree they were one of the best in the MVC, or in other words, against teams that were bordering on terrible. The problem is we couldn't hit at all against the good teams on our schedule. I fully agree with you that pitching is a bigger issue, but at least the pitching made a noticeable improvement over last year (and should have with the reduction in the level of competition).

And I think the 1998 offense would have averaged about 21 runs/game against this year's MVC pitching. That team was so fun to watch. They hit .369 as a team with 124 HRs!!! We had two guys with over 100 RBIs and one that finished with 94 RBIs.

[Cdizzle]

You could bring back the 1998 offense and they would struggle to be a 0.500 team.

I think you need to revisit the numbers from the '98 team.

[SB Shock]

I think you need to revisit the numbers from the '98 team.

Well it was a slight exaggeration - but in the age of BBCOR bats you can't have a team with an ERA OF 6.21 in the league play and expect to consistently win.