Topic: Herd baseball

[herdly4]

I went to the game on Thursday night and we must have hit 10 infield dribblers to second base. I didn?t hear the ping off the bat from our players that I heard from the CC players. We out hit them that night but we certainly have problems hitting when people are on base. We need big improvements.

[Grazing Marco]

The lack of ping is just a result of different types of bats being manufactured these days. Some still have the loud ping, some don?t.

But yes, our offense has not been good this year aside from Harthan and Ayers. That?s mostly going to have to improve through recruiting. We have a couple of incoming freshman coming in from Florida that Perfect Game, a recruiting service, projects as top 10 round drafts picks in the future. One is an outfielder, Cooper Hinson, and one is a shortstop, Angel Velazquez. Hopefully they can provide an immediate impact.

We got Kaiser out of the portal this past season. He?s been decent. If we could get a couple more guys like him in the portal this year, it would lengthen the lineup for sure.

Pitching will need to be addressed as well. We return Blevins and Weyrich. Hopefully Griffin Miller takes a big step forward as he has potential.

[coalherd]

Article on HERD Zone on today's season ending game, and loss, to Coastal Carolina indicated that the Herd said goodbye to 17 seniors.  Hopefully, this fact frees up sufficient scholarship funds to allow the Coaching Staff to upgrade the team's overall TALENT which is obviously essential if we hope to be competitive in baseball in the SBC!!!

[MU93]

I am disappointed we didn?t make the postseason but they were close.  Add a few bats and a couple more arms and we?re there.   Which is the cool thing?. Once you?re into the post season,  if you have a solid set of starters you can make noise..

Hopefully we see improvement next year.   But this team scrapped all year, just not quite enough to pull out the tough ones.

[MUther]

Fans of the top teams in conference that saw us play said we were a good team.  Said we had excellent pitching.  Needed depth and a little more "luck."  Bad bounces etc.

[s1uggo]

So with these results, exactly why did they fire Jeff Wagner? Spears ego get in the way, again

[thunderingon]

I really enjoyed the games this season. This stadium is a huge addition to Marshall athletics and brings with it an opportunity to advance baseball. SBC is a fun baseball conference. Starting pitching was solid but not deep?bullpen struggled. Owen Ayers was worth the price of admission. Very good offensive and defensive catcher.  Replacing 17 seniors is tough but also gives Beals the opportunity to completely flip the roster. He needs to keep Blevins, Miller, Havrilla and Harthan and build around them.  Looking forward to next year.

[Thundering In MD]

Finally made it to the Jack.  Great atmosphere and enjoyed seeing friends.

[Herdiowa]

I would go to the summer collegiate teams games this summer if I were you guys.  Pretty cool experience.  My son played for the Bismarck Larks in the Northwoods.  It?s good baseball.

[MUther]

I would go to the summer collegiate teams games this summer if I were you guys.  Pretty cool experience.  My son played for the Bismarck Larks in the Northwoods.  It?s good baseball.

You don't have a diamond in your cornfield?

[parshall2marshall]

https://herdzone.com/news/2024/5/20/baseball-blevins-named-first-team-all-sun-belt-conference

Some might liken this to Steve Carlton winning 27 for a team that only won 54.

[Sir Herd]

Yes from an outsider's perspective a final season record of 19-37 and 9-21 in the Conference seems pretty putrid, but I think it is quite deceiving. A lot of those losses were by very few runs and we are still for the most part a young team and just need to regroup in the offseason and get back at it and start doing the basics a bit better.

Not saying all of a sudden we will win the SBC next season, nothing like that, but I did see some marked improvement over this season and feel good that next year will be better.

[CoachMaclid]

A lot of those losses were by very few runs and we are still for the most part a young team and just need to regroup in the offseason and get back at it and start doing the basics a bit better.

The 2024 Herd baseball team absolutely does not fit the "young team" description in any way.  We're losing nearly 75% of our starts from the everyday-8 (Ayers, Hondras, Ferraro, Firestone, Smith, and Kaiser) to graduation, we're losing 75% of our starting pitching rotation (losing Harlow, Heiner, and Lyles with only Blevins returning), and nearly half of the entire roster (17 players) walked on Senior Day.

We do return Blevins as an ace starting pitcher, and Harthan returns making 42 starts this past year leading the team in batting average and stolen bases.  We have a smattering of other production in Havrilla, Vogleson, and Peralta, but they all need to improve their averages at the plate.  The 2025 team should look and feel completely different to this year's team as a full rebuild is essentially in effect.  As mentioned above, there are two or three players in the incoming class that might be among the most heralded recruits Marshall baseball has ever landed.  I think next season should be the "young team" year.

[FilmJunky]

Yes from an outsider's perspective a final season record of 19-37 and 9-21 in the Conference seems pretty putrid, but I think it is quite deceiving. A lot of those losses were by very few runs and we are still for the most part a young team and just need to regroup in the offseason and get back at it and start doing the basics a bit better.

Not saying all of a sudden we will win the SBC next season, nothing like that, but I did see some marked improvement over this season and feel good that next year will be better.

Good teams win close games, and bad / below average teams lose them. It's like that in every sport. This team beat themselves half of the time with fundamental mistakes. Baseball is not a hard game to figure out how to win.
Throw strikes from the mound/ put the ball in play while at bat / don't make errors in the field. You clean up these 3 things, and you easily win 6-8 more games a year by not beating yourself.

[svherd]

Beals has work to do. Give him a couple of years; if he can't turn it around then we can burn Spears at the stake. LOL!

[chris88]

Good teams win close games, and bad / below average teams lose them. It's like that in every sport. This team beat themselves half of the time with fundamental mistakes. Baseball is not a hard game to figure out how to win.
Throw strikes from the mound/ put the ball in play while at bat / don't make errors in the field. You clean up these 3 things, and you easily win 6-8 more games a year by not beating yourself.

Very true but they also had more than a fair share of gams where they got the crap kicked out of them. We'll be better next year for sure. Beals needs another class as good or better than the incoming class for us to be a major factor in the SBC race in two years. My opinion.

[Herdiowa]

You don't have a diamond in your cornfield?

We have lots of diamonds in these cornfields.

[MUther]

We have lots of diamonds in these cornfields.

Couldn't resist with the iowa tag in a baseball thread.