The hard contact and the counts they were happening in last weekend made me curious to see the charts. I think there would be some conclusions we could draw from them. It just appeared that we were getting hit hard specifically when we were up in counts. So I’m curious if our opponents have discovered that whoever is calling pitches (once we get past our top two) has tendencies as it pertains to what he calls in what counts.
I don’t think it’s a useless exercise to talk about a pitching staff outside of two guys. If you asked about the pitching staff as a whole, you can’t exclude the two best. But when you start talking about where this team is deficient it is certainly the pitching staff after you get past the top two pitchers. Only having two pitchers you can count on isn’t going to get it done come postseason play.
Sure, catchers are getting input from analytics and scouting departments. My point is that I would be shocked if they’re looking to the dugout every pitch to get a call like in high school and college. They have much more autonomy. I wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more freedoms granted to our catchers in certain aspects especially if we can come to the conclusion that we aren’t getting it right with certain guys in certain counts with the way we are doing it.
We certainly aren’t going to be able to figure out what’s going wrong at a granular level. For example, I would be shocked if anyone here could make slight mechanical adjustments at a very detailed level. But we can certainly look at data and come to some pretty solid conclusions and educated guesses as to what’s caused successes and failures to this point.
That data is useless without the scouting reports and not just what pitch was called but location as well, & we're not getting that kind of information. To argue against what was called & scouted, we'd have to spend countless hours scouting every single hittter of our opponents. I'll let you in on something, most all D1 programs - and some D2 programs - have access to a database that can pull up every single scenario possible of a hitter & pitcher....
EX: what does Olson throw on an x-x count, with x outs, x guys on base, in x inning, x-x score tied-leading-losing, home v away, lhh v rhh, x hitter in the line-up. Everything imaginable, this isn't hyperbole. Velocity of each pitch, spin rate, location, tilt, etc. You can also input, as an example; when does Olson throw his 2S, 4S, SL, CB, CH & it'll spit out a %'s breakdown to cross reference the previous information.
Majority of pitching staffs in college baseball have a drop off after their Friday & Saturday guys. This isn't exclusive to Nebraska. Olson & Kaminska account for 37% of our innings pitched. Povich & Hroch accounted for 37.5% in 2021. Waldron & Fischer were the % same in 2019. If one wants to remove the numbers of Emmett & Jace, then you'd have to do the same for the next 2 highest innings guys with bad numbers to balance it out, and as of now I believe it's Schanaman & Garza. It's a ridiculous suggestion that doesn't make sense.
MLB catchers are paid professionals that have dozens of people working behind the scenes to get them that information. They aren't spending hours upon hours upon hours to do it themselves. Correct, they're not looking at the dugout because it was already done before the game by the analytics team and scouting reports, handed to them hours before a game. Which they go over with the pitching coach & SP, then go from there. It's not even reasonable to compare the two. It's an art to call pitches and I actually think that is a very strong aspect of coach Christy.
Limiting free bases. Last 2 games against SD, we gave up 19 BB/HBP. Omaha we gave up 10 BB/HBP. Pickle Smoochers, Sears couldn't throw a strike - bouncing 2 to allow them to tie & walk us off. Nichols & Illinois, Garza got lit up as the starting pitcher.
Go back and watch the NDSU game but only when Matthews is hitting. His first AB, first pitch FB. His next 2 AB's, first pitch CB. His 4th & last AB, they started him with another CB & he pounced all over it. Harvell was yelling and pointing at Marcuzzo, so it tells me not only our reverse scouting paid off but Danny had the analytics of that pitcher knowing they were gonna spin it to Brice on the first pitch once again.
Was that the wrong pitch called? I don't think so as Brice struggles with spin later in the game, early in the count - that's what the database shows. The pitcher hung it, had he got it down in the zone like Matthews' 2nd & 3rd AB, there's a good chance the result would've been different on that pitch. And this is 1 of many examples I can give as to why I think what you're asking for is unreasonable. The right pitch may have been called, but the execution could've been poor. Coach Bolt has commented on that, I believe the last 2 Garza starts in his post game comments. Sure, it can also be the wrong pitch called as it's difficult to expect anyone to call a perfect game over 120+ pitches. And I'd much rather have a college coach make that mistake than a player.
You can see Harvell pointing at Marcuzzo and it was more animated in person:
