Oberservations and Comments about this year thus far

[GooseJones15]

Defense: Outfield appears to be solid. Imo infield jury is still out. I have my doubts about the middle infielders. A Mart had a couple of hiccups this Saturday and E.P. Is shaky at ss. When Jules comes back it was help greatly. A clear upgrade over Scott.i not sure Clark can handle it behind the plate as well.
Offense: off to a great start. Strikeouts are down (except Demarco). Concerned about the number of lefties in the lineup, need Jules to return to Sophomore form to protect some of the lefties, also Demarco needs to snap out and produce. Afraid we may be vulunable to quality lefties,such as A&M who starts 3 lefties! We are leaving the bases loaded way too much. Also have missed many opportunities with runners on 3rd with less than 2 outs.
Pitching; loaded from top to bottom. Very talented and deep. Lack strong right handed set up men. I don't trust Brown. Rocker, Hickman and Smith must produce. Left side is awesome. King, Fisher, and Eder have been electric , and we still have Gillis. Imo Drake and Raby are good but not top line . Looks like an exciting and fun year.

[Versus75]

I wonder if DeMarco, despite his slow start, has been left in the middle of the lineup because otherwise we might have 4 consecutive lefthanded batters. If Infante is productive, the lineup could be:

LF .. Davis (LH)
2B .. Martin (RH)
RF .. Bleday (LH)
DH .. Scott (LH)
1B .. Infante (RH)
C ... Clarke (LH)
SS .. Paul (LH)
3B .. Martinez or Ray (RH)
CF .. DeMarco (RH)

That would also put DeMarco, with his speed, as sort of a second leadoff batter ... but with fewer plate appearances.


Did anyone hear why Kumar did not get the Sunday start? Not disappointed with the results, but I thought he was going to be the man.

[VUDU]

Should any thought be given to moving Raby to Friday and Fellows to Saturday? I know Corbs hates to adjust the rotation like that, but Raby has consistently had the lower ERA. Even last year, which was considered a bad year for him. Fellows has proven he's an SEC starter, but not an "ace" Friday night guy.

[Commodoredave]

Should any thought be given to moving Raby to Friday and Fellows to Saturday? I know Corbs hates to adjust the rotation like that, but Raby has consistently had the lower ERA. Even last year, which was considered a bad year for him. Fellows has proven he's an SEC starter, but not an "ace" Friday night guy.

Neither of these guys are "Aces", though both very solid SEC starters. The ace potential is Rocker, but Corbin isn't going to put a freshman on Friday. I think Fellows gets a slight nod as the Friday guy because he seems to get deeper in games. Raby walks too many guys, and you want to save the conventional wisdom has always said you want to save your bullpen for the weekend.

[VUDU]

I guess it makes some sense, but I just tend to think you go with the lower ERA guy in the Friday slot. Of course, I realize I'm disagreeing with the best coach in college baseball, so I'll admit that I'm probably wrong.

Why is it that our starters seem to last around 4-6 innings at the most before they start losing it? Used to be guys could pitch complete games (or at least 7+ innings) fairly regularly before getting tired.

[commadore]

Should any thought be given to moving Raby to Friday and Fellows to Saturday? I know Corbs hates to adjust the rotation like that, but Raby has consistently had the lower ERA. Even last year, which was considered a bad year for him. Fellows has proven he's an SEC starter, but not an "ace" Friday night guy.

Neither of these guys are "Aces", though both very solid SEC starters. The ace potential is Rocker, but Corbin isn't going to put a freshman on Friday. I think Fellows gets a slight nod as the Friday guy because he seems to get deeper in games. Raby walks too many guys, and you want to save the conventional wisdom has always said you want to save your bullpen for the weekend.

Heck, right now he won't even put Rocker in for a mid week. He pitched one third of an inning vs APSU, striking out a guy on three pitches, and before that you have to go back to Feb. 23rd against Pepperdine when he pitched 3 three innings striking out 5 and allowing no runs. Why have a stud if you aren't going to play him?

[VUDU]

I was assuming he (Rocker) was going to start on Wednesday. No?

[Good2BGold]

I was assuming he (Rocker) was going to start on Wednesday. No?

At around the 3:20 mark, Corbs is asked about Rocker and indicates he'll get the ball midweek, so at this point, that would have to be tomorrow. Can't wait to see him pitch again. He looked really strong against Pepperdine.

Baseball vs. Dayton (postgame)

[geeznotagain]

I was assuming he (Rocker) was going to start on Wednesday. No?

At around the 3:20 mark, Corbs is asked about Rocker and indicates he'll get the ball midweek, so at this point, that would have to be tomorrow. Can't wait to see him pitch again. He looked really strong against Pepperdine.

Baseball vs. Dayton (postgame)

Based on what little I've seen, Rocker should be our Sunday starter. And I will be shocked if he's not in the weekend rotation by mid-season. On a different subject, atlhough he's only made 3 starts and pitched just under 16 innings, Raby has yet to allow an extra base hit; that's pretty impressive. Raby/Fellows or Fellows/Raby, either Friday/Saturday combo sounds good to me. Corbs can't make a bad choice there.

[Commodoredave]

I also believe there is a good chance that Rocker is the Sunday starter before we get too deep in the season, but he'll have to go out and earn it. He was hit hard vs TCU in his first start if everyone recalls.

King makes a lot of sense for the time being. That gives us a LHP starter instead of 3 RHP on the weekend. It appears as though the bullpen has enough lefties with Fisher, Eder, Gillis to move King into the rotation.

[HopsLikeHolwerda]

Defense: Outfield appears to be solid. Imo infield jury is still out. I have my doubts about the middle infielders. A Mart had a couple of hiccups this Saturday and E.P. Is shaky at ss. When Jules comes back it was help greatly. A clear upgrade over Scott.i not sure Clark can handle it behind the plate as well.
Offense: off to a great start. Strikeouts are down (except Demarco). Concerned about the number of lefties in the lineup, need Jules to return to Sophomore form to protect some of the lefties, also Demarco needs to snap out and produce. Afraid we may be vulunable to quality lefties,such as A&M who starts 3 lefties! We are leaving the bases loaded way too much. Also have missed many opportunities with runners on 3rd with less than 2 outs.
Pitching; loaded from top to bottom. Very talented and deep. Lack strong right handed set up men. I don't trust Brown. Rocker, Hickman and Smith must produce. Left side is awesome. King, Fisher, and Eder have been electric , and we still have Gillis. Imo Drake and Raby are good but not top line . Looks like an exciting and fun year.

How on Earth do you not trust Tyler Brown??!! He is one of only 3 relievers on this staff that I would trust in any situation. 7.1 innings, 0 BBs and 11Ks with a 2.45 ERA. And you don't trust him? That's crazy. No other pitcher on our staff has fewer than 2 walks on the season. The 2 pitchers who have only walked 2 batters on the season are Becker, who pitched 3 innings yesterday and Jackson Gillis who walked 2 batters in his only appearance where he lasted 1/3 of an inning. Brown is the most consistent arm in our bullpen right now by a LARGE margin. Now that Becker is playing, that may be challenged, but as of today Brown is the cream of the crop.

[HopsLikeHolwerda]

At this point in the season:

Weaknesses:
1) defense up the middle: Paul and Martin are average to below-average defenders at their current positions
2) bullpen control: too many walks
3) Fellows: not pitching like a Friday night starter for the #1 team in the country
4) situational baseball: too many LOB, inability to sacrifice, Ks at terrible times

Strengths:
1) Table setters: Davis and Martin have been fantastic...better than could be imagined
2) power...we have a lot of it
3) Raby: numbers are great (but won't be for long if the walk rate stays high)
4) Depth: our lineup is as flexible as ever and the bench is DEEP

We are highly ranked for good reason. Pitching, especially from the bullpen, will be what makes or breaks this team. Other than Brown and now Becker, we have some very erratic arms in the bullpen. The 2014 NC team had Ravanelle, Jared Miller, Brian Miller, Hayden Stone, Ben Bowden and Kilichowski (down the stretch). We don't have anything close to that right now. Additionally, that team had elite starters and great defense up the middle with Conde and Swanson. Bottom line, we have the best lineup: top to bottom that we have ever had. But pitching and defense still wins games in the tourney and that's where we are lacking. Currently, this looks like a team that will get to a Super Regional and might end up in Omaha, but I don't see a legit NC contender when I watch this team play. That could definitely change, and I hope that it does. We have the talent.

[VUDU]

You're right about the pitching, but our hitting is quite a bit better than in 2014. We're hitting .336 so far. Of course, that's almost surely going to go down in SEC play, so we'll have to wait and see, but for reference, we hit .278 in '14

[vujoe]

By my count 35 Commodores have played thus far. I believe that is everyone who is on the official roster.

Becker
Bleday
Brown
Clarke
Davis
DeMarco
Duval
Eder
Fellows
Fentress
Fisher
Franklin
Gillis
Gonzalez
Grisante
Hayes
Hayes
Hickman
Hogan
Huff
Infante
Kaiser
Keegan
King
Kolwyck
Malcom
Malloy
Martin
Paul
Raby
Ray
Rocker
Scott
Smith
Thomas

[vujoe]

Sorry, I had Hayes twice. Makes 34

[fldore]

We are highly ranked for good reason. Pitching, especially from the bullpen, will be what makes or breaks this team. Other than Brown and now Becker, we have some very erratic arms in the bullpen. The 2014 NC team had Ravanelle, Jared Miller, Brian Miller, Hayden Stone, Ben Bowden and Kilichowski (down the stretch). We don't have anything close to that right now.

Still early in the season but unless I'm looking at the numbers wrong I think our walks/9 inning is on pace to obliterate the worst ever under Corbin. And I would think our numbers would always be better at this point in the season as we havent made it into conference play yet. Once we start playing teams with more patient hitters, you'd think it'd only get worse.

I know Infante hasn't played much because of that injury but he is still without a hit so far this year. Was hoping his good play over the summer would prove last year as a fluke. But not off to a great start to say the least.

[charlestonalum]

baseball is a funny game - we should not have beaten Virginia for the title in 14 and should have in 15. Hard to really know how this is going to turn out, but I sure enjoy watching a Vanderbilt team that is #1 in the nation right now.