Bullpen

[BenWSU]

School is going to name it after Brent Kemnitz. 8)

[Zardoz]

What the best Pitching Coach ever in Div 1 baseball?

[SB Shock]

What the best Pitching Coach ever in Div 1 baseball?

How do you measure that?

[t7017s]

Wins and draft picks. Respect of those in the coaching fraternity etc...

[7hottamales]

Brent Kemnitz is an incredible pitching coach based upon every measurement...evaluation and ability to project talent, technique, mental approach, understanding the priorities in skill set to be successful, caring about his players, etc.

He has been the strength of this program for many years. As long as we keep Brent, we have very little chance of having our program go down from its current level.

[shockerball05]

and as long as we have Jim Thomas we can plan of having no power, terrible approaches at the plate and having to hope for 4 runs to support our pitching...

[SHOCKvalue]

and as long as we have Jim Thomas we can plan of having no power, terrible approaches at the plate and having to hope for 4 runs to support our pitching...

:good:

Personally, I'm perplexed this point isn't talked about more in Shocker baseball circles.

I'm by no means a baseball expert, but it sure seems to me that he's been the weak link in the coaching staff for years now.

With the exception of a handful of seasons where our pitching has been suspect (right now perhaps), it's our offense that has been the numero uno issue keeping us down. Of course, down being relative.

Is GS afraid, and unwilling to cut a long-time assistant and friend (see Bill Snyder's last few seasons), or is it simply a really long stretch of bad luck at the plate?

Is Travis Wyckoff a hitting/fielding coach? If so, then someone needs to grab a DFW phone book and get to work.

EDIT: Sorry, I'll contribute to the topic. BK has been the behind-the-scenes backbone of this program for many years now, and a much more integral part of our success than most pitching coaches are. However, should GS retire or something come from the rumor mill at current time, then is BK really going to be our go-to guy? When the 0U situation came about, I seem to remember some grumbling about how BK wasn't interested in the HC position, and was going with GS to 0U.

[WSUwatcher]

Thomas

It's certainly been talked about here, RB. There's no question that offense has been a relatively weak link for a long time.

Having said that, though, wasn't Thomas in the same position back in 1998-99, when the Shocks had offense out the WSU, so to speak?

[SHOCKvalue]

Re: Thomas

It's certainly been talked about here, RB. There's no question that offense has been a relatively weak link for a long time.

Having said that, though, wasn't Thomas in the same position back in 1998-99, when the Shocks had offense out the WSU, so to speak?

Yes.

JT has been the hitting/fielding coach since Loren Hibbs left, correct? What was that- roughly '92 or '93?

We need to get a coach in who can nurture our offense, or we can bank on seasons like 2007 being the once-per-decade exception, rather than the norm.

[SB Shock]

Wins and draft picks. Respect of those in the coaching fraternity etc...

Overall wins seems like a iffy proposition because you can always argue about SOS. Now maybe wins in the CWS?

Show me the numbers on the draft picks. That would be cool number to know especially relative to other schools.

[Shirley Schmidt]

When the 0U situation came about, I seem to remember some grumbling about how BK wasn't interested in the HC position, and was going with GS to 0U.

He was the main one urging Gene to take the "Dream Job" in Norman.

Face it we have a couple of Okies on the staff, remember you can take the boy out of Oklahoma but you can't take the Oklahoma out of the boy.

That being said I think Kemnitz would make a fine head coach and he certainly has earned it working for Gene all of these years.