LSU Pitching: 2003 vs. 2004

I'd like to start a discussion about our pitching. Did we improve from 2003 to 2004? Why or Why not?

I can't really say for sure, but, I didn't notice any improvement. I could be wrong. Help me get smarter on this issue.

Comments from all are welcome, even if you just want to make fun of my purple and gold Jean Lafitte costume.

Thanks.

 

No thoughts? No comments?

Is it my breath?

 

I'm proud of our LSU Tiger baseball team.

I'm not happy about the way it ended, but I'm still proud of 'em.

 

I'll post a reply. I think our pitching starts out pretty good at the beginning of the season and then drops off tremendously towards the end. My opinion is Wiederhold is not developing these pitchers at all. If he was a good pitching coach, in my opinion these kids would be getting better as the season goes on. You cant go to the College World Series and you top fastball be 83 mph. We have no dominant pitcher and every other team has 2 or 3. I think we need to make a change somewhere and I think it might be Wiederhold.

 

Can you teach a kid to throw a faster ball?

Is it recruiting a fastball thrower or developing one? Can you teach a kid to throw a ball faster?

I don't know. But I agree that if our pitching was better it would have helped. That's being the master of the obvious, though, because that same formula would also improve the NY Yankees!

Baseball is a difficult game to figure out.

 

I wouldn't say our pitching got better this year. Meier and Bumstead didn't pitch as well as they did last year. Thankfully, Mestepey came on strong at the end to help us get to Omaha. Determann pitched well, but I think he wasn't used enough. Faircloth was a pleasant surprise out of the bullpen. I think Smith needs more opportunities and could be a very effective closer. Dirks looked like superman early on, then fell on hard times and stayed on the bench.

You can't control injuries ... Bumstead pitched with arm problems all season, it took Mestepey almost an entire season to return to his old form, and Nall never made it back this year.

Let's look at the talent ... only 1 pitcher drafted and he was a senior. Our championship teams always had several pitchers drafted. We don't have any hard throwing right handers ... need to find at least one for next year. We are lacking in quality and depth.

Let's look at coaching ... I don't think I've ever seen more 0-2 count hits off LSU pitchers than this year. Meier seemed to struggle with this more than others. In the old days, you could always count on Skip calling for the dirt ball on 0-2, but we do that much less these days. There were many times when our pitchers were ahead in the count and we were grooving fastballs ... some of it was pitchers missing their spot and some of it was Weiderhold (sp?) pitch calling ability. You are less likely to make a mistake on a dirt ball than any other pitch. One positive is that we pitch more inside than we used to, which I think is important ... even if you hit more batters.

I really don't see our pitchers developing and improving. Meier didn't improve from last year. Dirks went from all world to the bench during the season. Faircloth seem to be the only guy who really improved. I'm sure some of this is talent, or lack thereof, but I have to think our pitching coach may not be doing as well as we need him to do.

That's my opinion...

 

Valid opinion.

You make a very well-thought out and persuasive case.

 

No, you cant teach a kid to throw the ball harder. You CAN recruit a kid that throws hard and you can also develop these kids into better pitchers as the season goes on. Wiederhold is not doing this.