re: Alabama Baseball 41-18 (16-14) 2024-25

Lsu running out BP guys 95+ and can’t find the zone. Eleven walks to Little Rock. Johnson would probably take a 92 with control tonight.

Eh, I’d argue that part of the problem is guys spend too much time with a heavy ball in their hand trying to throw it as hard as they can at a net - accuracy he damned. This goes for Tread, too. Guys don’t spend enough time with an actual baseball in their hand figuring out how to get a hitter out. But like I said earlier, that’s what the pros want and guys are going to follow suit.

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Eh, I’d argue that part of the problem is guys spend too much time with a heavy ball in their hand trying to throw it as hard as they can at a net - accuracy he damned. This goes for Tread, too. Guys don’t spend enough time with an actual baseball in their hand figuring out how to get a hitter out. But like I said earlier, that’s what the pros want and guys are going to follow suit.

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I can definitely appreciate your opinion. I do like the way they and others apply analytics to spin and movement, thereby helping guys improve secondary pitches.

I do wonder if we won’t see the MLB average for fastball velocity drop a bit due to folks looking to get more movement on pitches and get people out earlier. The Miami starter, in many ways seems to be ideal. He had enough velocity to speed up the bat, but could drop the slider about wherever he wanted it.

SEC just got tougher

Here’s my take on the year. These stats are conference only.

Offense D-
161 Runs 14th
.240 BA 14th
We padded our stats with the cupcakes. Stunk against a pitcher with a pulse. No imagination. Very few strategic moves. Constantly unable to advance/score guys at 1st and 2nd with no outs. Poor ABs in crucial situations game after game. Late inning production virtually non existent. We only scored 12 runs in innings 7-9 the final four conference series combined. You do the math on that.

Starting pitching D+
Quick 4.20 ERA
Adam’s 5.83 ERA
Fay 6.60 ERA

It was so bad we had to move Fay from the bullpen and throw him into our Friday night role. None of these guys could routinely complete 5 whole innings of baseball. We started most of our conference games from behind due to early inning bombs and ultimately not being ready to play.

169 ER 12th
6.03 ERA 13th
293 hits 14th
.291 OBA 14th

Bullpen C
I would have probably had C+/B- had you asked before the Vandy series. Myers, Oz and Heiberger absorbed most of the innings here.

Hagan Banks was good but got knocked around by Vandy and UGA pretty good.

I expected a lot more from Austin Morris this season.

Blackwood and Alcock had some good moments early in the year but were pretty much useless the back 75% of conference play.

The rest pretty much stunk or were hurt. There was some youth mixed in there.

Jason Jackson F
Alabama didn’t have two SEC quality starters on the roster this year, at least statistically. That’s his fault.

Quick might’ve been the only starter good enough to make a weekend rotation on over half the teams. As good as he is, JJ couldn’t get him into the 6th inning more times than not.

You have to ask yourself were our pitchers really that bad or did JJ just not know how to develop/use them? We had some explosive arms in the pen that this board loves that he could not get any production from.

Situational pitching was not even on his radar. 0-2 pitches getting ripped for doubles and homeruns every weekend. That’s on him.

Giving up two-out rippers to a guy batting .330 when there’s a guy on deck batting .093 against lefties. shite like that constantly.

Or not pitching around somebody when you have a base open and an easier out on deck.

We had to reinvent a weekend rotation to accommodate his incompetence.

There was ZERO situational substitutions during the game. No bringing in Matt or Lehman just to get ONE OUT against a left handed batter.

I personally think his pitch calling sucks but that’s just me.

Rendered Oz useless in the final stretch when we needed him most. There were very few reasons to use Oz midweek other than to replace midweek bullpen work. He threw too many midweek games. Some of them multi-inning games. He was asked too much and too often to throw multiple innings. There’s a reason why closers in the big leagues don’t do this.

JJs been here now 8 years (7 counting covid). We had one good year with him.

Vaughn A-
First 40 win season since 2002 is enough alone for an A, but when you dig deeper into our stats you will see he made chicken salad out of chicken shite in his year two.

We still were good enough to make it out of that regional and that brings his grade from an A to A-

He has to figure out a better offense in 2026.

He gave JJ 100% of the pitching decision responsibilities. I hope he dials that back next year with hopefully a different pitching coach.

I could have kept going but it was already a novel and I’m on my phone.

Hopefully it clears the air a little bit.

Probably wont.

I can’t argue with your points although it’s hard to see how a D or D+ baseball team won 40 games and was over .500 in league play. Could haggle with your grading I guess but your points are definitely fair.

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I can’t argue with your points although it’s hard to see how a D or D+ baseball team won 40 games and was over .500 in league play. Could haggle with your grading I guess but your points are definitely fair.

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That’s what’s so friggin hard to figure out. On paper, we were a hair better than USC and Missouri in conference play. Somehow scrapped together 16 wins.

6 of them being against TAMU (when they forgot how to baseball) and Missouri.

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Rendered Oz useless in the final stretch when we needed him most. There were very few reasons to use Oz midweek other than to replace midweek bullpen work. He threw too many midweek games. Some of them multi-inning games. He was asked too much and too often to throw multiple innings. There’s a reason why closers in the big leagues don’t do this.

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You just said a guy that struggles to throw 90+mph should be used the same way guys that throw 98-102mph in the big leagues are used? Wow…this is wrong on multiple fronts.

1) Oz isn’t a power pitcher, at all. Why would our staff use him like a power pitcher when he isn’t one??? They should be fired if they did that.
2) MLB closers pitch multiple times a week all the time. Even if they don’t go multi-innings, they often throw in back to back games or even 3-5 times a week (sometimes they’ll pitch 3 days in a row before getting a day off in a highly competitive series). This is all done over a 162 game season with 5-6 games per week (rather than ~60 game season with 3-4 per week).
3) MLB non-power relievers pitch multi-innings multiple times a week quite often and once again, that’s over a 162 game season. Oz will be fortunate if he’s good enough to find a role like this, as he is no where near an MLB closer arm (let alone a setup guy). If he can’t handle multi-innings multiple times a week, he might want to make sure he’s focusing on those classes he’s taking so he can be a good Tuscaloosa businessman one day.

Your analysis once again shows impeccable baseball knowledge.