Official 2023 Nebraska Baseball Thread

[Kaladin]

The following Big 10 teams finished with higher RPI:

1. Indiana
2. Cockeye
3. Maryland
4. Rutgers
5. Michigan State
6. Ohio State
7. Illinois

 

[Baron Winnebago]

The following Big 10 teams finished with higher RPI:

1. Indiana
2. Cockeye
3. Maryland
4. Rutgers
5. Michigan State
6. Ohio State
7. Illinois

 

[Tyneb23]

I mean Childress 🤷🏼‍♂️

I'm frankly over the Bolt experiment. Next year he needs to be on the hot seat.

Also he let a fucking SEC infield leave the state.

What I have been saying.

 

[Tyneb23]

No inside info but I know it’s a combo of kids just wanting to leave the state and the allure of SEC baseball from articles written up on those aforementioned players.

These kids weren't not offered. I have a guy who tells me this shit. Coaches at Lincoln East. These coaches talk.

 

[ChocaEgg]

Fire bolt yesterday.

 

[...TrueColors...]

The numbers on this team are just insane and baffling. If you cover up the record and just look at the stats and metrics, I can’t find many in there that suggest this team shouldn’t have been good enough to get to a regional.

Offensively speaking, we just turned in one of the better offensive seasons the big ten has seen. Brice Matthews and Max Anderson BOTH had better years than Kyle Schwarber did in 2014; the year he was drafted in the top ten and Indiana went to the CWS.

If you look at 2014 Indiana and 2019 Michigan as a baseline, which are the last two big ten CWS teams, this Nebraska team was simply better offensively than they were and it’s really not even close.

Flip to the pitching and the numbers really aren’t what you’d think. ERA was 4.64 and WHIP was 1.35. Those two numbers aren’t the numbers of a shite staff. I’ll say I’d like that ERA to be under 4. But 4.64 isn’t too shabby.

I haven’t dug into the defensive numbers yet. But I would not be at all shocked if thats what tells the tale.

We hit the ball.
We pitched pretty well.
Why did we lose games the way we did if those two things were actually in pretty good shape? To me, the metrics suggest teams cashed in a ton of unearned runs on us. Which wouldn’t show up on the metrics.

 

[Jim14510]

These kids weren't not offered. I have a guy who tells me this shit. Coaches at Lincoln East. These coaches talk.

One of the two infielders that went to the SEC was offered and heavily recruited. Wasn't in the same stratosphere with NIL and SEC vs B1G in general is a no brainer.

Maybe true on some of the others.

 

[Herbie]

Let’s cut some bullshit here.
Any parent would be stupid to tell their kid to go to Nebraska over Arkansas, LSU, Vandy, Tennessee etc. in baseball.
Big 10 is a mid major that isn’t taken seriously at college baseball.

 

[Jim14510]

Let’s cut some bullshit here.
Any parent would be stupid to tell their kid to go to Nebraska over Arkansas, LSU, Vandy, Tennessee etc. in baseball.
Big 10 is a mid major that isn’t taken seriously at college baseball.

Even when we were in the Big 12 it would have been stupid.

 

[...TrueColors...]

Let’s cut some bullshit here.
Any parent would be stupid to tell their kid to go to Nebraska over Arkansas, LSU, Vandy, Tennessee etc. in baseball.
Big 10 is a mid major that isn’t taken seriously at college baseball.

Even when we were in the Big 12 it would have been stupid.

The only way you close this gap is by keeping the Nebraska kids home. You do that and you’ll be right where we want to be in short order.

This state has enough talent to support a big time baseball program.

 

[Herbie]

The only way you close this gap is by keeping the Nebraska kids home. You do that and you’ll be right where we want to be in short order.

This state has enough talent to support a big time baseball program.

It’s not really that simple with baseball.
The SEC is simply just on another lever with college baseball that no conference will compete with at all.
For very baseline — you can’t practice year round outdoors in Nebraska.
In the SEC you can. Now throw in NIL(which sec school pay very well for in baseball) those players can team up and pay for the instructors to come to them in the offseason. They don’t have to travel to florida or where ever to meet these elite trainers.

Nebraska simply can’t match sec school and even more so with nil.
If my son had an offer from LSU and Nebraska and told me he wanted to go to Nebraska because he’s a Nebraska fan I’d smack him upside the head

 

[...TrueColors...]

It’s not really that simple with baseball.
The SEC is simply just on another lever with college baseball that no conference will compete with at all.
For very baseline — you can’t practice year round outdoors in Nebraska.
In the SEC you can. Now throw in NIL(which sec school pay very well for in baseball) those players can team up and pay for the instructors to come to them in the offseason. They don’t have to travel to florida or where ever to meet these elite trainers.

Nebraska simply can’t match sec school and even more so with nil.
If my son had an offer from LSU and Nebraska and told me he wanted to go to Nebraska because he’s a Nebraska fan I’d smack him upside the head

So these kids have the resources in the state of Nebraska when they’re growing up to get to the point that they’re signing with schools from every big time conference in the nation (we have kids going ACC, SEC, etc); but they don’t have the resources they need to elevate once they get to college? That to me doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.

With as many indoor facilities as this state has now, the “they play outside all year” argument is simply no good. You can hit and throw all year long inside here.

The answer lies with what @Jim14510 is saying and it’s $$$$$$. Plain and simple, if you pay them they will come.

 

[Jim14510]

So these kids have the resources in the state of Nebraska when they’re growing up to get to the point that they’re signing with schools from every big time conference in the nation (we have kids going ACC, SEC, etc); but they don’t have the resources they need to elevate once they get to college? That to me doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.

With as many indoor facilities as this state has now, the “they play outside all year” argument is simply no good. You can hit and throw all year long inside here.

The answer lies with what @Jim14510 is saying and it’s $$$$$$. Plain and simple, if you pay them they will come.

The money is definitely part of it but you'd have to be crushing the SEC/ACC packages for kids that have a real opportunity in those places.

 

[Baron Winnebago]

Not to ask a dumb question, but are we even in on these dudes relentlessly from the time they show that they could be high level players?

 

[Herbie]

Not to ask a dumb question, but are we even in on these dudes relentlessly from the time they show that they could be high level players?

No different than Akron is in on top level recruits in Ohio.
Nebraska benefited bigly from Covid in getting Max and Brice iirc

Lot of these kids don’t want to hear from Nebraska. When they were in the big 12 is was a little better.

 

[Baron Winnebago]

No different than Akron is in on top level recruits in Ohio.
Nebraska benefited bigly from Covid in getting Max and Brice iirc

Lot of these kids don’t want to hear from Nebraska. When they were in the big 12 is was a little better.

Might as well dome the field and play hockey

 

[Tyneb23]

Just fucking terrible.

 

[Osborne1992]

The numbers on this team are just insane and baffling. If you cover up the record and just look at the stats and metrics, I can’t find many in there that suggest this team shouldn’t have been good enough to get to a regional.

Offensively speaking, we just turned in one of the better offensive seasons the big ten has seen. Brice Matthews and Max Anderson BOTH had better years than Kyle Schwarber did in 2014; the year he was drafted in the top ten and Indiana went to the CWS.

If you look at 2014 Indiana and 2019 Michigan as a baseline, which are the last two big ten CWS teams, this Nebraska team was simply better offensively than they were and it’s really not even close.

Flip to the pitching and the numbers really aren’t what you’d think. ERA was 4.64 and WHIP was 1.35. Those two numbers aren’t the numbers of a shite staff. I’ll say I’d like that ERA to be under 4. But 4.64 isn’t too shabby.

I haven’t dug into the defensive numbers yet. But I would not be at all shocked if thats what tells the tale.

We hit the ball.
We pitched pretty well.
Why did we lose games the way we did if those two things were actually in pretty good shape? To me, the metrics suggest teams cashed in a ton of unearned runs on us. Which wouldn’t show up on the metrics.

I feel like this has more to do with the run differential. We won quite a few games by 10+ runs. I count 9 games that fit in that category and some of those were wins like 18-0, 17-1, 12-0, 12-1, 18-5, and 19-5. These games are going to skew the stats a bit. When we lost it was usually closer games besides the Ole Miss, 1 Cockeye game and 1 Maryland game. This team was more of a front runner but when things got tough they couldn't figure out how to get over the hump. I blame that on coaching and lack of veteran leadership. Just my $.02

Edit: Just checked and we scored 430 runs vs 301 runs given up. You would think we would be more than 10 games over .500 based on that.

 

[PonyBoy]

Community note* the writer did not specify that you need to combine both the 2023 and 2024 class to create an all SEC infield from Nebraska. 2023 class Kozeal to Vandy, Eaton to Vols, Small to Kentucky. 2024 Fountain to LSU and Lewis to Arkansas.

All were recruited by the staff and chose to go elsewhere. Vandy basically fell in to Kozeal, never heard of him till a national PBR Event where he went ham and was offered on the spot.

This isn't an Austin Schultz, as one example, situation where they were ignored.

Shitting the bed in year 2 thwarted any recruiting momentum we might’ve had coming off a great year 1. In reality, that awful year 2 probably set Bolt back 2-3 years.

Except one small problem - Eaton & Small committed prior to the 2022 season. Kozeal is a Husker without that PBR showing while Fountain had every school in the nation after him once he opened his recruiting. Not only that, he committed to Florida State early in 2020 as an 8th grader.

All were recruited by this staff.

Olson, Kaminska, and Walsh could all be coming back

Olson 0% returning.
Kaminska 5% returning.
Walsh 50/50, he wants to 2way.

These kids weren't not offered. I have a guy who tells me this shit. Coaches at Lincoln East. These coaches talk.

Not true.

Lanik & Doggett at Lincoln East are blowhards. Especially Doggett. If it's not a LE kid, they don't know squat as not many - if any - coaches are opening up to them.

Nebraska benefited bigly from Covid in getting Max and Brice iirc

Max, covid had a small play. Don't forget Bolt was at aTm when Max committed. Max wasn't good enough for Erstad or Silva. Childress knew his time was coming to an end at College Station, the rest is history.

Brice, covid had nothing to do with it. He committed prior to it. Harvell was recruiting him at Sam Houston State courtesy of camps so when Harvell got the NU job he kept recruiting Brice and landed him.

 

[Kaladin]

Olson 0% returning.
Kaminska 5% returning.
Walsh 50/50, he wants to 2way.

Olson and Kaminska going pro? Or do they just not want to be here