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2024 Gator baseball

Yeah. Bottom line is our roster just is not deep enough with SEC players. We got killed in the transfer window. And guys we were counting on just did not develop.

I thought Heyman and Kurland would be all-sec types, but they’ve been replacement level sec players. Same thing with Slater. The young pitchers from last year haven’t really moved forward and the freshman pitchers this year just never figured out how to keep runs off the board, notwithstanding the fact they all throw mid 90s with pretty wicked breaking stuff.

Really tough season for the coaching staff. I saw late in game 1 Friday everyone gathered around our “offensive coordinator” and I think he needs a tough look from sully. We’re at the top of the SEC in HRs but we didn’t have near enough traffic on the bases.

Same deal with the pitching. These guys are all projected mlb draft picks and they all throw contending stuff. I think we need to give our approach a good look. Largely everyone throws a fastball and that slider low and away. We never throw breaking balls for strikes and we end up behind in the count way too often.

Some questionable roster decisions also, keeping Neely in the pen was probably wishful thinking and then when we put him in the rotation it took three weeks before he good go more than three innings. Took us forever to find Donay and Yost and the bottom of our lineup was a black hole for 2/3 of the season.

Can’t blame sully for Shelton, Heyman, Kurland, Slater playing replacement level. But I have to say this program is not buttoned up like it used to be. We let a lot of stuff we control get away from us, which is just not Gator baseball.

All that said we could sneak into a regional and if we do still end up in Omaha. We won’t play anyone in a regional or super as tough as the back half of our schedule. But I think sully needs to take a second and assess how his team is playing.
 
I live in NJ. And everybody up here is pretty fired up about Christian Scott’s debut for the Mets. Interesting that in scott and Dane Dunning, there are two pretty solid mlb starters that used to pitch middle relief. And now we bring guys in up 3-1 in the 5th and 20 minutes later it’s 13-3.
 
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I live in NJ. And everybody up here is pretty fired up about Christian Scott’s debut for the Mets. Interesting that in scott and Dane Dunning, there are two pretty solid mlb starters that used to pitch middle relief. And now we bring guys in up 3-1 in the 5th and 20 minutes later it’s 13-3.
I know…. It’s a hard pill to swallow.
 
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As tough a season as y’all have had, you are still tough at home…. My UK team has its shot at winning the SEC for the first time ever; but I see this weekends matchup being a tough one.
 
Anyone know why we pulled L Peterson after 23 pitches? Saw he walked the leadoff guy in the second. Wondering if sully just yanked him for the walk. Hopefully no injury.
 
As tough a season as y’all have had, you are still tough at home…. My UK team has its shot at winning the SEC for the first time ever; but I see this weekends matchup being a tough one.
Yeah we play everyone tough, except for when the roof falls in. We should’ve won the series at Arky. I’ve been really impressed with the cats this year. Seems like you guys are playing smart, tough ball. We used to do that.
 
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As tough a season as y’all have had, you are still tough at home…. My UK team has its shot at winning the SEC for the first time ever; but I see this weekends matchup being a tough one.
East and west so hard to determine a regular season champ. Has KY ever made it to Omaha? You guys look legit this season.
 
Never made it to Omaha either - I think we have only been to 2 super regionals
Sully said Peterson was on a pitch limit because he’s pitching this weekend. Is Coppola hurt? He hasn’t pitched in 5 games.

Interesting comments USF post-game from sully about changing the team’s approach at bat. Basically sounded like they were trying to hit everything out for most of the year and now are trying to put balls in play because they struck out so much. In other words, Three true outcomes crap.
 
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UK doing everything possible to hand this game to us. Gators doing everything possible not to take it. Smdh.
 
This team fights, but they are very panicky. Offense and defense they crap themselves in every high leverage situation.
 
Horrible pitching once again from the Gators. I don't think we'll make the NCAA tournament and really don;t deserve it.
Well even if we did it would be as a 3 seed, and candidly we don't have the pitching to make it out of a regional. Sully will need to get busy in the portal and find us some experienced arms.
 
Great win today. I don’t know how they keep coming back after blowing games. But they do have some fight to them. And I disagree that they can’t win a regional or a super if they get in. They won’t play anyone tougher than they’ve played in their sec schedule.
 
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Fluky infield hit, and then our left fielder misplays a ball and boom, game over. What do we need to do to make the SECT?
Only the 2 teams with the worst conference records don't qualify for the SEC tournament. We're 11-16 with 3 games at Georgia left. Missouri is 8-19, Auburn is 6-21, LSU is 10-17, Ole Miss is 11-16. We'll make the SEC tournament for sure. The problem is qualifying for the NCAA tournament. You have to have an overall record above .500 to qualify and unless we get to 13 conference wins, even with the #1 overall SOS in D1 baseball, the chances of making the tournament are slim to none. So if we take 2 of 3 from Georgia, that SHOULD get us in. We're 26-25 now and that would make us 28-26, 13-17 going to the SEC tournament. Even if we lose our first game at Hoover we would be 28-27 and will probably get in. Win 1 game in the SEC tournament and get us to 14 conference wins, I think we'll be in for sure. But if we lose 2 of 3 at Georgia or get swept, the chances of making the NCAA tournament are almost gone, unless we go on an unlikely run in the SEC tournament.
 
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Only the 2 teams with the worst conference records don't qualify for the SEC tournament. We're 11-16 with 3 games at Georgia left. Missouri is 8-19, Auburn is 6-21, LSU is 10-17, Ole Miss is 11-16. We'll make the SEC tournament for sure. The problem is qualifying for the NCAA tournament. You have to have an overall record above .500 to qualify and unless we get to 13 conference wins, even with the #1 overall SOS in D1 baseball, the chances of making the tournament are slim to none. So if we take 2 of 3 from Georgia, that SHOULD get us in. We're 26-25 now and that would make us 28-26, 13-17 going to the SEC tournament. Even if we lose our first game at Hoover we would be 28-27 and will probably get in. Win 1 game in the SEC tournament and get us to 14We conference wins, I think we'll be in for sure. But if we lose 2 of 3 at Georgia or get swept, the chances of making the NCAA tournament are almost gone, unless we go on an unlikely run in the SEC tournament.
I'm thinking Sully should just pack it in and have them spend the weekend watching the softballers. They can learn how to close out a game.
 
This team just never came through in enough big situations, pitching or hitting. They must have been ahead or tied late in half the SEC games they lost. Pitching the main culprit. The offense scored enough runs where we should be a tournament team. But the offense had numerous opportunities to win us games and series over the last month and did not do it. Last series we had bases loaded late with one out after they loaded the bases for us by dropping pop outs and could only score a run. And then had bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th with the middle of the order up and couldn’t get it done.

Everyone, except cags and Ty Evans and the freshmen (what do you expect) had a role in placing us in our current unfortunate situation. Really those were the only two Gators that played up to expectations.
 
This team just never came through in enough big situations, pitching or hitting. They must have been ahead or tied late in half the SEC games they lost. Pitching the main culprit. The offense scored enough runs where we should be a tournament team. But the offense had numerous opportunities to win us games and series over the last month and did not do it. Last series we had bases loaded late with one out after they loaded the bases for us by dropping pop outs and could only score a run. And then had bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th with the middle of the order up and couldn’t get it done.

Everyone, except cags and Ty Evans and the freshmen (what do you expect) had a role in placing us in our current unfortunate situation. Really those were the only two Gators that played up to expectations.
After being really bad in a few opportunities last season, Fisher Jameson was pretty good this year.
 
After being really bad in a few opportunities last season, Fisher Jameson was pretty good this year.
He was still pretty spotty. But he and Cade Fisher I thought were decent.

The freshmen, what do you want? By the end, Mcnealie, Philpot and especially Peterson, were decently solid. In a typical gators year, we’d be expecting them to get an inning or two on the weekends or start midweek.

Melendez and Clemente turned into solid bullpen arms.

The big falloff with the pitching was Slater and Neely. Thought both would be all-sec level this year. They both pitched well in spots, Neely in particular seemed like he was starting to dominate before he got thrown in the rotation. But both coughed up a ton of leads.

Surprised somewhat we didn’t see more innings from Satin and Purnell. But to be fair to Sully, he tried everything with the pitching and everyone just got hammered. I do think it’s worth looking at our approach pitching, because it’s hard for me to understand how a bunch of guys throwing 95+ got hammered all year.

It was the same deal last year with our pitching. Our lineup was just better and we had two very good weekend starters and cags.
 
He was still pretty spotty. But he and Cade Fisher I thought were decent.

The freshmen, what do you want? By the end, Mcnealie, Philpot and especially Peterson, were decently solid. In a typical gators year, we’d be expecting them to get an inning or two on the weekends or start midweek.

Melendez and Clemente turned into solid bullpen arms.

The big falloff with the pitching was Slater and Neely. Thought both would be all-sec level this year. They both pitched well in spots, Neely in particular seemed like he was starting to dominate before he got thrown in the rotation. But both coughed up a ton of leads.

Surprised somewhat we didn’t see more innings from Satin and Purnell. But to be fair to Sully, he tried everything with the pitching and everyone just got hammered. I do think it’s worth looking at our approach pitching, because it’s hard for me to understand how a bunch of guys throwing 95+ got hammered all year.

It was the same deal last year with our pitching. Our lineup was just better and we had two very good weekend starters and cags.
Cade Fisher has been awful. 7.71 ERA, 49 innings pitched, 56 hits, 25 walks, 67 K's, .284 batting average against. McNeillie had a decent stretch for a couple of weeks, but his year has been an overall disappoinement as well. 7.36 ERA, 2-6 record, 33 innings piutched, 32 hits, 19 BB, 42 K's, .264 batting average against. Alex Philpot hasn't pitched since he hurt his hand slamming it into a wall after giving up 5 runs in 2.2 innings on 4/9 vs. FSU. He's been bad as well. 7.39 ERA, 28 innings pitched, 31 hits, 16 BB 25 K's, .282 batting average against. Peterson has been better of late, but his ERA for the year is still 5.92, 48.2 innings, 48 hits, 27 BB, 59 K's, .261 batting average against. Menendez has only pitched 12.1 innings and his ERA is 5.84, 15 hits, 8 BB, 12 K's, .294 batting average against.
You're absolutely right about the regression of Neely and Slater, though. Last year they were very solid and dependable. This year they have been really bad most outings. Other than Jac Caglionone, Jake Clemente since he's been given an opportunity late in the season and Fisher Jameson, not a single pitcher who threw more than 10 innings has an ERA of less than 5.84. Cags' ERA is 4.07, Clemente is 3.14 and Jameson 4.40. The TEAM ERA is 6.20. Last in the SEC by quite a bit. Tons of talent on the roster, but the reliable ones from last year except for Cags got considerably worse and the the new guys didn't live up to expectations.
 
Yeah I give the freshmen a break for early season struggles. Don’t argue with anything you said, but I think we counted on Peterson pitching like he did last weekend all season long.
 
I’ve been watching a fair amount of other games as the Gators have fallen off and pretty much everyone is pitching guys with 5-7 eras in middle relief. Difference with the gators the last two years is it seems like sometimes the floodgates just open and they cannot throw a strike and the strikes they do throw get hammered. And it can go on for innings. Like they cannot get an out. I do think the ball was juiced and these are great hitters swinging aluminum bats, but it’s weird to me.
 
Yeah I give the freshmen a break for early season struggles. Don’t argue with anything you said, but I think we counted on Peterson pitching like he did last weekend all season long.
Sully failed to get a seasoned starter or two from the portal. He tried, but couldn't land them. He thought Cade Fisher was ready for the big time as a weekend starter and he bombed. Liam Peterson turned down a couple of million dollars to forego the MLB draft and come to Florida. Sully thought he was ready to be a weekend starter and he wasn't until recently. McNeillie, also, was projected as a fairly early MLB draft choice and decided to come to UF instead and just hasn't panned out yet. He's had his moments, but overall not very reliable. Purnell was OK, a little better than last year, but never got back to his freshman year standards when he was a freshman All-American. Neely & Slater are truly baffling, as everybody thought they would shine and get drafted pretty high this summer.
And on the offensive side, Luke Heyman was a freshman phenom last year and he's hitting somewhere around .238 and looks lost at the plate a lot of games. Cade Kurland has had a hand issue all year, but his average is down 40 points or so from last year. Shelnut is hitting about the same as last season and has been pretty steady. The bottom third of the batting order was a disaster for most of the year, although Hayden Yost added some juice the last 3 weeks or so. Dale Thomas will have a good game or two and then does nothing for game after game.
The year overall has just been a mess. It will be interesting to see who stays, who leaves, and who we get coming into fall practice, not only from high school grads, but the portal. The team needs a near makeover it seems.
 
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I agree Ocala. Sully will need a complete remake in the off season. I'm certain we will have more than usual hit the portal (most likely at the gentle suggestion of Sully) and will have ample space to add several newbies. Usually one or two pitching surprises emerge late in the season for Sully coached teams, not this year. All been fairly bad.
 
Yeah our lineup coming back, presuming they come back, is pretty bare. Shelton, Donay, Yost, Kurland, Heyman. Shelton, Kurland and Heyman would all have to play up to their reps and abilities.
 
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