A thread about a tournament this weekend: ARBSB 2026

[DrMongoose]

Lady Backs play tonight

seriously?

how does a top 5 baseball team with a larger radio network and more listeners not prevail?

that's insane

[Barton Fink]

Gotta feel bad for Phil. Guy loves baseball.

[Barton Fink]

https://x.com/i/status/2023536221423841576

[Feral]

I'm leaning to this being a mediocre year. DVH played 4 freahmen yesterday. That makes me believe he isn't happy with the line up. I don't recall him ever doing that 3 games into the season. Outside of Kozeal, our returners are high swing and miss guys. Niu is known to be a high strike out guy as well. We were abysmal the last couple days with RISP.

Pitching is suspect. As great a Gaeckle has been, he struggled starting. I like some of the guys we returned, but don't love them. I think Fisher may be the best of the bunch.

Hope I'm wrong, but that's my early gut feeling.

I said this earlier, but this squad is giving me serious 2024 vibes.

That team had historically good pitching but was terrible at the plate and ultimately got bounced in our own regional.

[HOGSRUNWILD]

How the fuck is our hitting coach still our fucking hitting coach...?

[DirkPiggler]

How the fuck is our hitting coach still our fucking hitting coach...?

Did you see how our offense performed last season?  I wouldn't have argued with firing him before last year, but no one's getting fired after the kind of season we had hitting the ball last year.

Lots of panicking going on after this weekend.  Understandable I guess given the results, but it's a long season.   In this tournament last year we scored 2 (L), 2 (W), and 8 (W) runs against similar competition. 

[BleedinRed]

How the fuck is our hitting coach still our fucking hitting coach...?

He is getting beat up on X.  For like the 10th year in a row. 

[soldiersooie]

Did you see how our offense performed last season?  I wouldn't have argued with firing him before last year, but no one's getting fired after the kind of season we had hitting the ball last year.

Lots of panicking going on after this weekend.  Understandable I guess given the results, but it's a long season.   In this tournament last year we scored 2 (L), 2 (W), and 8 (W) runs against similar competition. 

Last year was the first year I didn't want Thompson gone.  I don't know what the numbers are but hitting has been our achilles heel for years, it seems.  Happy to admit I'm wrong if I am.

[BleedinRed]

Last year was the first year I didn't want Thompson gone.  I don't know what the numbers are but hitting has been our achilles heel for years, it seems.  Happy to admit I'm wrong if I am.

To be fair to Thompson, our hitting was shit under Butler too.  With the exception of a rare year here or there, we have never had a really good hitting team.  Lefty's have been our kryptonite for as long as I can remember.  

[DirkPiggler]

To be fair to Thompson, our hitting was shit under Butler too.  With the exception of a rare year here or there, we have never had a really good hitting team.  Lefty's have been our kryptonite for as long as I can remember. 

It was definitely worse under Butler. 

If anything Thompson's issue is that players are too patient, sometimes waiting on the perfect pitch that isn't there.  Butler was default aggressive, which led opposing pitchers to get us to chase junk early in the count resulting either in strikeouts or weak contact outs. 

Nate isn't perfect and I feel like we could upgrade, but he's a massive upgrade over Todd Butler.

[jdcatty]

There sure is a lot of negativity in this thread considering we are only 4 games into the season.

[Sus-Scrofa]

There sure is a lot of negativity in this thread considering we are only 4 games into the season.

There are going to be losses much more aggravating than the game we lost this weekend.

That's baseball.

[Feral]

It was definitely worse under Butler. 

If anything Thompson's issue is that players are too patient, sometimes waiting on the perfect pitch that isn't there.  Butler was default aggressive, which led opposing pitchers to get us to chase junk early in the count resulting either in strikeouts or weak contact outs. 

Nate isn't perfect and I feel like we could upgrade, but he's a massive upgrade over Todd Butler.

I think Thompson's approach is leading to a lot of early disadvantage counts.

We have a lot of guys who are taking a first pitch strike, fouling off the second pitch, and suddenly they're down 0-2 and in protect mode.

[DirkPiggler]

I think Thompson's approach is leading to a lot of early disadvantage counts.

We have a lot of guys who are taking a first pitch strike, fouling off the second pitch, and suddenly they're down 0-2 and in protect mode.

It can, and I don't know if he's adamant that they take the first pitch or if it's the players being too selective.

The philosophy is simple and solid.  First strike needs to be dead red...the right pitch and location.  Second you expand a bit but still need one or the other to be correct.  Third strike you're defending the plate. Swinging at a marginal strike on 0-0 or even 0-1 leads to a lot of weak contact outs.  But the other side of it is that you have to be ready to take a first pitch center cut fastball (or hanging breaker/change if that's what you're expecting) and put it in Rick B's lap in the Hog Pen, because if you let that one pass for 0-1 you probably aren't getting anything else to hit hard. 

I think early on newer guys are hesitant to turn loose when they get that beautiful first pitch to hit, which puts them at a huge disadvantage for the rest of the count.  They have to have the confidence both to swing at that pitch and pass on the one outside their hot zones while waiting for something they can damage. 

[Son of Spam]

I dont know. In the first two games, we seemed to swing at the first pitch. I even mentioned it early in this thread. And usually, the first pitch was right down Broadway.

[buff2.0]

Watching pitch one go right down the middle has been a hallmark of ours for years.

[Lurk]

The Sunday game, we had 5 freshmen starting. I wouldn't panic yet.

[Gambler]

Watching pitch one go right down the middle has been a hallmark of ours for years.

And then chasing the next pitch that's 3 feet off the plate

[buff2.0]

And then chasing the next pitch that's 3 feet off the plate

Only after a dominating HR-heavy offense all regular season.

[vegashog]

https://x.com/k_sutherlandar/status/2023539040377860415?s=46&t=1CILtwND-cLx13N4QXUmTg