Iowa Baseball (Pitching)

[Hershey01]

I want to start out this post by saying I am an absolutely huge Rick Heller fan. Coming from someone that has been following the program since 2003 and always attended a lot of games I will say the level that he has got the Iowa baseball program is nothing short of a miracle. If you would have told me when Rick was Hired in 2014 ten years from now Iowa will have won a big ten tournament, had two other seasons where we were a regional team through an at large bid, never missed the big ten tournament or have a losing season and have 2 or 3 other seasons where we were an NCAA tournament bubble team late in the year I would have laughed in your face. I would have said I don’t care who you hire? How good of a coach they are or how well they are able to run and build a program that is not realistic at Iowa even if we are now the only D1 program remaining in the state. I also think Rick may have saved the program from extinction with the success he has had because from what I heard around town the search process was an absolute joke in 2014 like Iowa didn’t even care about baseball and Barta was fortunate it was Heller’s dream job and Rick fell in his lap. It would not have surprised me one bit if Rick was unable to have any success after he was hired the university would have simply given up the program due to title nine and cut costs like Iowa State and UNI did.

With all that being said, I think Rick needs to seriously reflect on everything and all things when it comes to pitching inside his program. Coming from Someone that watches nearly every game on BTN plus I pretty much notice every year that Iowa’s lack of pitching depth is pretty much the sole reason we don’t win more games. Every season prior to this I have pretty much ignored it and just said look how many games Iowa is winning? Look how far heller has taken this program and just kind of ignore it. However seeing it for like the 5th or 6th year in a row this year makes me seriously think Iowa is doing something wrong in the pitching department. I realize we just lost Coach Lund who was big in analytics and under him we had two straight big ten pitchers of the year in Trent Wallace and Adam Mazur and that Lund helped Mazur a lot. Even those teams thought the depth of the pitching staff was atrocious and almost all of our pitchers every season have consistently struggled to throw strikes. I realize we are a northern school and there’s many college baseball teams with little pitching depth but it seems Iowas pitchers always struggle to throw strikes and consistently walk more guys than just about any team in the country.

I think Heller needs to evaluate the pitching and try to figure out what the problem is. Is it the way they train the pitchers? The pitches they call? The situations Heller uses and puts them in? Because it is rather obvious what the weakness of the Iowa team is every single season and it’s always our pitching depth and how many free bases we give up.

In my opinion two things that I have noticed watching all the games is that we throw a lot of off speed pitches in hitters counts and Rick isn’t exactly the best at managing the bullpen and making the correct move on which pitcher to bring in in a lot of situations.

I am not affiliated with the Iowa Baseball program and I am just a fan. I have no idea why we always seem to have such little pitching depth and such few guys that can consistently throw strikes. I think Rick needs to evaluate it though because while the players have to perform and throw strikes seeing the same thing year after year makes me think it’s not a coincidence and there’s something wrong from a coaching aspect.

Like I said I’m a huge Rick heller fan and I hope we can turn this season around. What are everyone else’s thoughts?

 

[GolfHacker1]

Way too much spin (sliders). When starters struggle, all three could get by throwing heat outside. So they call pitches, pitch 1-6 and position 1-6 on the electronic device. Most younger pitchers are always 1-6. Seattle throws a lot of sliders I've heard. That's where the pitching coach is from.

As an example Brody was throwing splitters against Minnesota (and I'm told the week before). Or so he apparently told someone. I haven't asked him. Splitters make some sense as there were lefties. Two seam makes more sense. Splitters sure looked like sliders to me. They went away from right handed batters instead of down. It's very possible Brody uses a splitter as a change up.

Rick was a shortstop I think? Position guys never understand pitchers. Pitchers are like golfers and field goal kickers. I'm not sure Rick calls pitches. I am pretty sure Rick makes pitching decisions outside of calling pitches.

I'm not sure what's going on. I've seen these guys pitch watching the technology. I saw them pitch this fall against different colored jerseys. I'm just baffled.

I am going to ask, but not during the season. I'm going to ask both the pitchers and coaches during fall baseball this next fall. I'm not sure how much I will share on here though.

There is a lot of inside baseball inside the Iowa athletic department and Iowa baseball. You've hinted at some of it. There is a huge uphill battle in NIL. We're not even close to Nebraska.

All this said, pitching has underperformed this season. Underperformed when they shouldn't be underperforming. Pitching isn't the only problem this season though.

One test I plan on doing is to see how Ganon Archer progresses. It wouldn't hurt my feelings if he got to start a couple of games.

Always happy to discuss Iowa baseball. I just need to be careful what and how much I say. Above is all my opinion, although there is a lot of fact sprinkled in.

 

[Hershey01]

Way too much spin (sliders). When starters struggle, all three could get by throwing heat outside. So they call pitches, pitch 1-6 and position 1-6 on the electronic device. Most younger pitchers are always 1-6. Seattle throws a lot of sliders I've heard. That's where the pitching coach is from.

As an example Brody was throwing splitters against Minnesota (and I'm told the week before). Or so he apparently told someone. I haven't asked him. Splitters make some sense as there were lefties. Two seam makes more sense. Splitters sure looked like sliders to me. They went away from right handed batters instead of down. It's very possible Brody uses a splitter as a change up.

Rick was a shortstop I think? Position guys never understand pitchers. Pitchers are like golfers and field goal kickers. I'm not sure Rick calls pitches. I am pretty sure Rick makes pitching decisions outside of calling pitches.

I'm not sure what's going on. I've seen these guys pitch watching the technology. I saw them pitch this fall against different colored jerseys. I'm just baffled.

I am going to ask, but not during the season. I'm going to ask both the pitchers and coaches during fall baseball this next fall. I'm not sure how much I will share on here though.

There is a lot of inside baseball inside the Iowa athletic department and Iowa baseball. You've hinted at some of it. There is a huge uphill battle in NIL. We're not even close to Nebraska.

All this said, pitching has underperformed this season. Underperformed when they shouldn't be underperforming. Pitching isn't the only problem this season though.

One test I plan on doing is to see how Ganon Archer progresses. It wouldn't hurt my feelings if he got to start a couple of games.

Always happy to discuss Iowa baseball. I just need to be careful what and how much I say. Above is all my opinion, although there is a lot of fact sprinkled in.

Way too much spin (sliders). When starters struggle, all three could get by throwing heat outside. So they call pitches, pitch 1-6 and position 1-6 on the electronic device. Most younger pitchers are always 1-6. Seattle throws a lot of sliders I've heard. That's where the pitching coach is from.

As an example Brody was throwing splitters against Minnesota (and I'm told the week before). Or so he apparently told someone. I haven't asked him. Splitters make some sense as there were lefties. Two seam makes more sense. Splitters sure looked like sliders to me. They went away from right handed batters instead of down. It's very possible Brody uses a splitter as a change up.

Rick was a shortstop I think? Position guys never understand pitchers. Pitchers are like golfers and field goal kickers. I'm not sure Rick calls pitches. I am pretty sure Rick makes pitching decisions outside of calling pitches.

I'm not sure what's going on. I've seen these guys pitch watching the technology. I saw them pitch this fall against different colored jerseys. I'm just baffled.

I am going to ask, but not during the season. I'm going to ask both the pitchers and coaches during fall baseball this next fall. I'm not sure how much I will share on here though.

There is a lot of inside baseball inside the Iowa athletic department and Iowa baseball. You've hinted at some of it. There is a huge uphill battle in NIL. We're not even close to Nebraska.

All this said, pitching has underperformed this season. Underperformed when they shouldn't be underperforming. Pitching isn't the only problem this season though.

One test I plan on doing is to see how Ganon Archer progresses. It wouldn't hurt my feelings if he got to start a couple of games.

Always happy to discuss Iowa baseball. I just need to be careful what and how much I say. Above is all my opinion, although there is a lot of fact sprinkled in.

I am not going to sit here and be cocky and act like I am smarter than Rick. I have never coached at any level and I don’t see how his players perform in practice.

With that being said my personal opinion is as good of a program rick runs he’s about just as bad at making the right move and managing the bullpen.

I’ll give a few examples of the last two weekends- Friday night against Minnesota the game was tied at 7 going into the 4th after the gophers chased Brody for 7 runs all with 2 outs. You could feel the momentum had swung and the vibe was the next team that scored and got a 2 or 3 run lead was likely going to win that game. Instead of bringing in Aaron Savery who has been great all year and was great as a true freshman last season he brings in Jack Whitlock.

I realize Jack was good at the end of last year but that was a small sample size. Essentially every time he has been brought in this year he’s been hit incredibly hard and struggled to get people out. I was at the game and I screamed get him out of the game Rick after the first Three gophers reached.

In my opinion had he gone to Savery we sweep Minnesota. We hit into a couple double play balls with multiple guys on base in the middle innings and the lead got way to big because once we fell down 10-7 Rick didn’t use any of his reliable relievers (Jack young, Savery or Detaye). I’m not going to second guess that even though I still think if you go to savery in the 5th you got a good chance against a weak Minnesota bullpen because you got two games the next two days. However why he didn’t bring in Aaron in the 4th baffled me.

The finale and second game of a doubleheader against Michigan- top of the 8th game tied at 6 runner on second and 2 outs. 2-0 count to Michigan’s best hitter Voit. If there’s ever a time to call spin in a hitters count it’s that situation and honestly I was hoping we’d just pit him on and start over with the next hitter. A fastball is called and bueter throws it right down the middle and we give up the lead and then Rick inexplicably brings in Jack Whitlock again and they pad the lead with 3 more runs.

As far as Brody Brecht- I understand for his development it makes sense for him to try and find a third pitch he can throw (that splitter that you were talking about). I also understand like you said that splitters and change ups work better against lefties. However with a guy that throws that hard I don’t see any reason why you would ever call a splitter with 2 strikes to put a hitter away. Brody has not perfected that pitch yet and unless it’s one of his better ones with good action all it really ends up being is a fastball that’s about 10 MPH slower that a college hitter can actually catch up to.

I pray the hawks can turn this season around but even if we do our chances of getting an NCAA at large bid are slim to none unfortunately.

 

[GolfHacker1]

I think we agree more than disagree. All three starters could throw heat and get by until they figure the rest out. That's an oversimplification, and hitters would eventually end up sitting on pitches more easily than they do now.

Too much spin, not enough heat. Way too many sliders.

Why guys are brought in and when they are brought in I have no clue. Almost universally in the college game, pitchers are never ready in the bull pen. Every team I've seen this year. Drives me nuts. People a lot smarter than me get paid to figure out the analytics.

It is what it is.