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I believe Burroughs referenced this team as his most talented team (correct me if I’m wrong).
If this is the case, what happened this season?
I haven’t been able to watch much but obviously not having McConnell hurt and our pitching was poor.
I’m curious what y’all think went wrong. Did we have key injuries? Regression of players? How’d we end up here?
My thoughts……
1. Not having McConnel cost us between 6 and 8 games.
2. Martinez delivery change cost us 3-4 games
3. Coach leaning on some pet players who didn’t produce cost us 5-6 games
4. Coach or players ran us out of innings or failed to produce runs with men on base and 0 or 1 out at least 6-8 times. Maybe more I’m forgetting.
5. Coaches had no idea when to pull a pitcher and cost us games.
Even with some of those circumstances overlapping, I think we had 10 games won that Burroughs coached us to a loss.
1. Pitching was absolutely trash this year. Outside of Fincher, there was NO other weekend starter. NOT one. Most of the weekends was TBA. Not going to win much relying on TBA on the weekends.
2. Recruits (and transfers) were awful. Outside 4-5 players, you need a whole new team. These players looked like bargain basement little league guys.
3. Coaching. Our pitching and recruiting coordinator (FOUTS) is bad. Some of us think he should shoulder the blame for this year and head out. I’m not sure the HC has the guts to pull the plug.
So what should we do for next year? Burroughs has already “promised” changes. I’m not sure what changes those are.
Since you asked… techman05’s points are all good ones and accurate although I can’t speculate on how any of his factor might’ve lead to more wins. My assessment is this…. Burroughs is most definitely not a particularly good coach as evidenced by his career head coaching record at Northwestern State and Tech. And before all the fanfare starts about the last two NCAA Tournament years those were way more about the few exceptional players on those teams than anything Burroughs did. I’d even go so far as to say that those teams would’ve been better without Burroughs. He actually coached those teams down. In addition to Burroughs not being a good coach he hired and has been allowing poor performances from his assistant coaches. From the team’s seasonal starts neither the hitting or pitching gets any better as the season goes on. Whatever certain weakness a player has when the season starts it’s just as bad when the season ends. Tech’s batting under Gaspard has not been good and the pitching under Fouts has been even worse. For Burroughs to have outwardly said that the 2023 team was to be his most talented says he can’t assess talent. This is true because this year’s team was definitely not talented. The other thing about this season is that the coaching staff together didn’t accomplish coaching the team up in any meaningful way. Burroughs kept promising hopefully that the team would get hot except they never did nor were they capable of it. It was all just wishful thinking. Now he’s already making big claims about how much better the team is going to be next year. Well, I don’t see it. Not unless he changes his coaching approach, replaces both his assistants and replaces all but about 10 players from this year's entire team. To name names here are the only players on the current Tech team that I see being capable of participating in tryouts for starting positions next season: McLeod, Davis, Corona, Hasler (only because he finished the season), Bates, Myers, Smith, Martinez (maybe a real pitching coach can salvage his senior year after Fouts messed up his delivery), Copeland (maybe barely), and McConnell (hopefully he hasn’t forgotten how to play). Not counting the players on this year’s roster that didn’t play any that leaves 17 players whose previous contributions have amounted to nothing particularly impressive in however many years they’ve been here. Bottom line is that if Burroughs is going to make good on his claim that the Dawgs will be much improved next season, return to being a conference leader and also be NCAA Tournament competitive caliber (which he’s said Tech will be) then he was some serious team decision making to do, some much improved recruiting to do, and some vastly improved head coaching to do. Unfortunately, frankly, I don’t think Burroughs is capable of all that. The very first indicator will be if Gaspard and or Fouts remain as coaches at Tech. If they do then it’ll be more of the same in 2024. CUSA is slowly but surely becoming a weaker conference and Tech is becoming a weaker team. If Tech had been in the Sunbelt this year they probably wouldn’t have even made the Tournament. Remember, Tech got swept by 17-37 ULM.
I agree that our roster underperformed for Burroughs. most every ACC or SEC coach probably would have been in Omaha during those 2 good seasons. A great coach would have elevated all those players.
So what is the story with McConnel? I can't remember hearing a firm reason why he was benched/suspended. Legal? Attitude? Other?
Took PED’s and got caught. From what I heard, he has already provided clean test. Will have to test clean and sit out a few games next season. Hopefully, he got his grades up so they won’t be an issue.
In summary...there is no joy in Mudville.
Thanks for the info. This was a painful regression.
Burroughs on 97.7 this morning mentioned Safford and Drost being included in the team returning next season. That alone says he doesn’t recognize talent and isn’t truly serious about Tech being an upper echelon baseball program. He said those players improved later in the year. That’s absolutely not true! With Burroughs in charge Tech will be lucky to make their own tournament in 2024. The only good thing is that CUSA 2024 will have 3 teams with winning records from 2023. The Tech spiral downwards is pretty much on a free fall trajectory.
It did seem as though Safford improved late in the year. Another 8-10 games and he would have been over .200 at the plate. If he starts off well, he could bat .230 or so. If his glove is good, I’m okay with that. But that BA needs to be one of if not THE lowest on the roster. If UTSA can get players or teach players who hit .280 on the low end, then we should be able to.
Following up on Burroughs’ claim that Drost has improved towards the end of the season. Here are his batting stats going back to May 5 (13 games) to the most recent game when he didn’t strikeout. Since then he’s batted 11-57 .192 with 28 strikeouts = .491. For the year D1 Baseball has his season average at .205, so based on that he actually has gotten worse in the last month which strongly contradicts what Burroughs says. There’s no way anyone with any credibility can call that a worthy performance improvement to be in a Tech uniform next year. Burroughs is trying to pull our legs regarding the team he’s trying to put in place for 2024.
Will the graduates plus the 7 who entered the portal make enough room for us to turn things around? Provided the recruits are as good in real life as Burroughs thinks they are on paper?
Who are the seven in the portal?Originally Posted by techman05
I have not checked this week, but I think these four were early...
Hegwood
Ince
Williams
Hogart
We have pitchers on the roster that never contributed. That blows my mind. Why were they taking up a roster spot when our coaches HAD to know they were not ready? Gotta believe some of the seven are those guys.
We will need hitters. LB is determined to keep Drost in the top of the order and he can't hit ANYTHING with spin. He struck out over 40% of his at bats.
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