Bear Down Wildcats

ChooChooCat wrote:This is a massive hire.

Per Lev, Dave Lawn stays on the coaching staff as a "defensive coordinator/program manager" type role.

WOW I thought we missed our chance on him by keeping Lawn but apparently not. Couldn't have done any better.

Well Heeke is a baseball guy after all.
Honestly he's probably at Arizona two years max. He's going to be in line for some big head man jobs.

Choo are we looking at him replacing Jay in a year if we don't see a massive improvement?

I'm reading that a lot of Beaver fans are pissed he wasn't named OSU's head coach.

prh wrote:Choo are we looking at him replacing Jay in a year if we don't see a massive improvement?

Jay ain't going nowhere. Jay's specialty is hitting and that hasn't been a problem. This hire remedies the problem significantly.

azgreg wrote:I'm reading that a lot of Beaver fans are pissed he wasn't named OSU's head coach.

He turned down the head man job at Mississippi State last year because he thought he was getting the head job at OSU. OSU tried to have its cake and eat it too and they failed.

First, wow just wow. Love it, love it, love it. Second, where did the Oregon St coach go? Three, what is elite pay for a guy like this? Thoughts

azcat49 wrote:First, wow just wow. Love it, love it, love it. Second, where did the Oregon St coach go? Three, what is elite pay for a guy like this? Thoughts

Oregon State coached resigned. For a coach like this we'd need to pony up with 300K or so. Jay makes 500K.

So Casey left a few years ago (Did he retire?) and they passed on a Yeskie basically twice. You have to wonder why he didn’t get the gig. Glad to have him though for however long

Don't get me wrong, I like having big time coaches and we really need to improve our pitching but since when is our athletic department in a position to spend top dollar on an assistant coach for baseball? Am I missing something here? Maybe we are not as strapped for cash as I assumed.

Pat Casey retired following their 2018 championship, but his contract had a clause that would allow him to return as head coach basically up to a year following his retirement. Pat Bailey was the interim coach this season, with Yeskie the pitching coach. Following their early regional exit, Casey announced he would stay retired. Most OSU fans wanted Yeskie named HC, with everyone else wanting Bailey.

When OSU hired Mitch Canham as HC, they tried to do what ASU did when they hired Herm Edwards-- keep both Bailey and Yeskie, despite the fact they both deserved more. Not much of a surprise that Yeskie bailed on that.

ChooChooCat wrote:

prh wrote:Choo are we looking at him replacing Jay in a year if we don't see a massive improvement?

Jay ain't going nowhere. Jay's specialty is hitting and that hasn't been a problem. This hire remedies the problem significantly.

That's what I thought but I was curious if there was any discord in the department around Jay. I guess that's all directed at Sean lol

prh wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:

prh wrote:Choo are we looking at him replacing Jay in a year if we don't see a massive improvement?

Jay ain't going nowhere. Jay's specialty is hitting and that hasn't been a problem. This hire remedies the problem significantly.

That's what I thought but I was curious if there was any discord in the department around Jay. I guess that's all directed at Sean lol

Jay's contract goes through 2022 and it's not as if the last two seasons have been bombs. Last season was certainly disappointing, but there was one factor that made it so disappointing, and Jay is fixing it. The year before we were just fucking robbed out of the tournament quite frankly. Jay will get every opportunity to fix it, but yeah another contract extension ain't coming until it is absolutely fixed of course.

As far as the department goes it's separated. Heeke has literally zero input on basketball/football now, while obviously he's in charge when it comes to baseball/softball and the rest of the department.

Official official now.

Fantastic. I think this hire will mean 8 more wins next year

ChooChooCat wrote: As far as the department goes it's separated. Heeke has literally zero input on basketball/football now, while obviously he's in charge when it comes to baseball/softball and the rest of the department.

Choo - Interesting on basketball/football operations currently. Is there an "interim" AD for basketball/football (like Robbins, though I doubt he would appreciate the additional responsibility) or are the coaches manning the ship solo right now?

mofo wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote: As far as the department goes it's separated. Heeke has literally zero input on basketball/football now, while obviously he's in charge when it comes to baseball/softball and the rest of the department.

Choo - Interesting on basketball/football operations currently. Is there an "interim" AD for basketball/football (like Robbins, though I doubt he would appreciate the additional responsibility) or are the coaches manning the ship solo right now?

Any major decision involving basketball/football that has to go above the head coach is handled by Robbins/boosters.

azgreg wrote:

He fits into the 2021 season thread...if he makes it to campus. His little brother is in the 2021 class and he's a top notch pitcher. I'd expect him to switch to us too.

Irish27 wrote:

Landed a pitcher recruit and a real good one at that if he ever makes it to campus.

They must think they have a real chance to get him to campus to put out a tweet one might think. In any event the Yeskie hire is paying huge dividends isn’t it.

Surprised we are that low actually. Wonder what the rankings look like when the kids actually hit campus

azcat49 wrote:Surprised we are that low actually. Wonder what the rankings look like when the kids actually hit campus

Those are the rankings of post-MLB draft classes and Arizona lost 3 guys to the draft (ranked 32nd, 184th, and 252nd per Perfectgame.org). So yeah it makes sense. We brought in two top 100 pitchers, a pitcher ranked 135th and another at 222nd. We got a two highly rated JUCO pitchers and then 4 more guys ranked between 300-400 for their classes. Obviously there's more rankings than Perfectgame.org, but they're the easiest to find as they don't charge for their rankings once the class is over. Either way being 24th for this class makes sense considering what we're bringing in and what we lost via the draft.

The 2020 class is at the point where it'll either be top 5 in the nation or merely top 25 again depending on the draft.

Your last point is what I was thinking Choo. As always, thx for the insight

Jay Johnson tweeted today that's it a great day.

Love that. Hoping we become the team to beat every year in the conference

Irish27 wrote:Jay Johnson tweeted today that's it a great day.

2022 pitching recruit.

CCC, are they formally working out yet? If i recall (wayyy back in the day) they used to have open tryouts and workouts around this time.

baycat93 wrote:CCC, are they formally working out yet? If i recall (wayyy back in the day) they used to have open tryouts and workouts around this time.

Yep workouts are starting up real soon. Got a couple of set scrimmages coming up next month I believe.

In case you had any doubts of how good our new pitching coach is.

azgreg wrote:

There's quite a bit of commits that didn't sign, interesting.

ChooChooCat wrote:

azgreg wrote:

There's quite a bit of commits that didn't sign, interesting.

I wonder if that is a change in philosophy to grant fuller scholarships rather than carve the 11 up you get a year?

azcat49 wrote:

ChooChooCat wrote:

azgreg wrote:

There's quite a bit of commits that didn't sign, interesting.

I wonder if that is a change in philosophy to grant fuller scholarships rather than carve the 11 up you get a year?

Nah.

My guess is Arizona had a set presser date/time and these other guys signed after. That or the other guys are walk ons.

Ugh ASSU #5. Hopefully we see vast improvement from our staff and host a regional

Per Jay Johnson it sounds like Kyson Donahue will be our starting short stop this year and he's got 13 guys for the 9 position spots, so we're much deeper than we have been in a good while in that regard. My guess is the opening day lineup looks like this:

C - Matthew Dyer or Austin Wells
1B - Dyer or Wells
2B - Jacob Blas
3B - Tony Bullard
SS - Kyson Donahue
LF - Branden Boissiere
CF - Donta Williams (pending on injury)/Mac Bingham
RF - Ryan Holgate/Mac Bingham
DH - Dayton Dooney

The other guys in that group of 13 likely consists of Blake Paugh, Tate Soderstrom, and probably Tyler Casagrande or Kobe Kato. There's lots of flexibility to play with here as Matthew Dyer can literally play any position outside of short stop, Wells can play in the OF as well, Boissiere could play 1B pretty easily, and guys like Blas, Bullard, and Dooney could literally play any infield position outside of catcher.

As far as the pitchers go it sounds like the starters will come out from the group of Quinn Flannagan, Ian Churchill, Garrett Irvin, Dawson Netz, Vince Vanelle, Chandler Murphy, and Gil Luna. Davis Vainer is pretty entrenched in the closer role at the moment.

Hard for me to imagine Ryan Holgate won’t be in the lineup everyday. His bat is pretty electric I think. Don’t know much about Bingham

azcat49 wrote:Hard for me to imagine Ryan Holgate won’t be in the lineup everyday. His bat is pretty electric I think. Don’t know much about Bingham

Holgate's got ton of power and he also totally went through a body transformation this offseason, looks like a totally different guy (in a good way of course), I'm with you that he's an every day player, but if he's in a slump there are plenty of options. Bingham is ridiculously fast and his bat is very good as well. He's been so good it'll be hard to keep him off the field quite frankly. Donta Williams has a shoulder injury so that may lead to Bingham starting in center to at least start the year.

Baseball this weekend at HiCorbett!!! Best time of the year and can’t wait to see how Yesky impacts our team

ChooChooCat wrote:

Garrett Irvin, who? Also LOL at VETERAN pitcher Quinn Flanagan. Dude is s sophomore