College Baseball Pitching

I wonder if many pitchers press and try to throw too hard and try to throw perfect corner pitches every pitch when playing at Tennessee. Because they know they are playing inside a toll booth, and any hard contact may be a homerun. That would certainly lead to more walks.

There's some great pitching in college, but you have to tune in when they're pitching. If you just put some random game on you'll probably see some nonsense.

Too bad you missed watching Paul Skenes.

Yep. Ole Miss in 2022 and LSU 2025 basically each had two Aces, then a few inning eaters that could throw strikes out the pen and rode that with timely hits to titles.

In fact, in the two game championship series last season, LSU used 3 pitchers total.

Wake Forest 2023 was one of the only college teams I can remember that simply had arms for days out of the bullpen. The only reason they didn’t win is because Paul Skenes exists.

That is the biggest fallacy of MLB fans watching college Baseball... MLB is the end result of the massive filter that produces the most elite pitching there is, College baseball is simply a part of that funnel.... but at the wider, less filtered spot....

Hitting, fielding, and some facilities make College baseball look like an mlb'ish product but it isn't. Just not enough pitching for the few hundred college teams and massive non college developmental leagues.

it makes college baseball great with all the offense and lack of a safe lead at most any time.... Look at the last UGA Arkansas game for proof.

This is like comparing a brain surgeon to a medical student.

College baseball is in many ways similar to minor leagues, its a lot of development, so coaches will let pitchers pitch through control issues more so than you would ever see in MLB. These are teenagers to early 20 somethings, they are not developed yet and are always trying to add pitches to their arsenal.

MLB is a finished polished product after years of players spending in college/minors getting there ultimately. College baseball especially in a higher conference like SEC/ACC you will find a ton of talented arms (mid 90s and up) but a lot of them are still trying to figure out how to pitch, how to locate and how to throw secondary pitches for competitive strikes consistently.

Whenever you have a true ace pitcher though in college, it is very fun to watch. College World series almost always has some true pitching gems every year. 1 it's a big park, but 2 some of the best arms always get there

quote:

---

Elite teams have 4 legit starters, 2 or 3 really good change of pace inning-eaters, and a stud closer sometimes two reliable shut-the-door guys.

---

no they don't. Elite team generally have 2, sometimes 3. Very rarely does anyone have 4 legit starters. They have guys who are stretched out and step up in the postseason. LSU has won a lot of national titles obviously, so I think it would be fair to say they've been elite a lot. Like 1 of them they had three legit starters. 2009 they had Louis Coleman, Anthony Ranaudo, and Austin Ross. They've never had 4 legit starters in my lifetime

As the the OP, and as others have alluded, college baseball pitchers are still developing. The Alabama/Tennessee game was especially erratic and not what you typically see, but on the whole SEC pitching has some very elite arms but they're still figuring out how to command the stuff they have. You just can't compare what you're watching to what you see in the MLB. Those are finished products of the most elite arms in the world. But that's also what makes college baseball fun because the game are truly never over until the 27th out.

This is a valid perspective. All coaching breaks down into two distinct styles. Those so worried about an outcome they make quick decisions others more worried about development who use games as scrimmages to pressure test their teams and pitchers thru adversity. Kirby is the football version of this, he could murder many teams but chooses to play deep into the bench and force players to improve for harder games down the road.