Official Nebraska Cardiac Beaver Slayers Offseason Baseball Thread

[Kaladin]

I think I heard they were.

Didn't they bring back them back last year after Turd went to go suck a cock?

Don’t think we used them last year

 

[Snockered69]

Future Skers in 2025 class. RHP Ziola & C/ATH Worthley

With a half decent spring, does he even make it to campus?

 

[Snockered69]

D1Baseball Big Ten Preview

2025 Big Ten Season Preview • D1Baseball

No. 12 Oregon leads the way in the expanded 17-team Big Ten Conference as the Ducks have made it to the super regional round each of the last two years.

d1baseball.com

Projected Order of Finish
1. Oregon
2. Nebraska
3. Indiana
4. Penn State
5. Michigan
6. Maryland
7. UCLA
8. Illinois
9. Cockeye
10. USC
11. Ohio State
12. Minnesota
13. Purdue
14. Rutgers
15. Michigan State
16. Northwestern
17. Washington

Projected Regional Teams (5)
Oregon, Nebraska, Indiana, Penn State, Michigan

Preseason Player of the Year
Devin Taylor, Indiana (OF)

Preseason Pitcher of the Year
Grayson Grinsell, Oregon (LHP)

Preseason Freshman of the Year
Grant Bradley, Michigan (RHP)

Oof, Washington just built a new facility a couple years ago and projected last, below NW for that matter.

 

[PonyBoy]

With a half decent spring, does he even make it to campus?

He's going to need more than a half decent spring, he'll need to be lights out.

 

[Huskerbuck85]

Is this our donut boy? Deab on the team?

What’s the deal here?

 

[Kaladin]

 

[...TrueColors...]

 

[PonyBoy]

👀

 

[...TrueColors...]

👀

If this were a football prospect we’d say “He passes the eye test.” Or “he looks good on the hoof.”

 

[HCFord1]

👀

That’s a big strong high schooler. Fastball sounds heavy.

 

[...TrueColors...]

That’s a big strong high schooler. Fastball sounds heavy.

Looks like the kids who play in the SEC as @Faux Sean Callahan pointed out

 

[Kaladin]

LINCOLN — Rob Childress leaned back in his office chair and glanced around. His reasons for still being at Nebraska are everywhere.

Behind the NU pitching coach sits Haymarket Park waiting for warm weather and big games. To his left and right, where adjacent rooms hold the desks of two men — head coach Will Bolt and Lance Harvell — he once hired nearly 20 years ago to help launch their careers.

On a table in Childress’s office is a collection of trophies and a neon yellow T-shirt that says “Strikepumper” with a crosshair centered on a bullseye — a new such garment goes weekly to whichever Husker pitcher stays in the strike zone the most. Pictures of family that all live nearby and bird-hunting trips enshrine other features unique to the place where he works with college pitchers.

“I want to be here,” Childress said as Nebraska prepares for its 2025 season. “I’m happy here. I’m very, very happy.”

The Huskers want Childress too. His might be one reason NU hosts a regional or advances beyond the opening weekend of the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2008.

Nebraska pitching coach Rob Childress hands out the "Strikepumper" shirt to the Husker who throws the most strikes in a given week

In a time when quality pitching depth is the sport’s most valuable commodity, Nebraska is recruiting and retaining hurlers who want to work under the architect of Nebraska’s 2001, 2002 and 2005 College World Series pitching staffs. Childress then spent 16 years as head coach at Texas A&M, a stretch that included 13 straight regionals along with a pair of CWS berths and four other super-regional trips.

When A&M didn’t renew Childress’s contract after the 2021 season, Nebraska hired him that summer for an off-the-field job supporting players. He moved back into the pitching coach role last year, calling pitches as NU led the Big Ten in earned-run average and finished second nationally in fewest walks allowed per nine innings (2.91).

Childress’s name has annually come up for various openings at other programs since his return to Lincoln, though he said none have been “intriguing” enough to consider. He often says he’s here to serve — as long as he’s impacting young people, his title is irrelevant.

“I’m not chasing other jobs,” Childress said. “This is where God needs me and I’m going to give those I’m around all that I have all day every day.”

Outlier in the Big Ten

Childress is an outlier in the new 17-team Big Ten. He’s the only one with power-conference head coaching experience while only three others have led their own college programs. Childress is the league’s oldest pitching coach in a league where the average age for the position is early 40s. Some of his conference counterparts include those who were recently a Major League Baseball agent, MLB business office executive, high school coach or private-sector trainer.

Maybe the best comparison for what Childress is to the Huskers is Tennessee pitching coach Frank Anderson, Bolt said. Anderson — a Nebraska native — joined the Vols in 2018 after a run as head coach at Oklahoma State and transformed the staff into one of the nation’s best. Anderson turned down other opportunities and UT dogpiled in Omaha as CWS champions last June.

“Hopefully Rob is going to be that guy for us,” Bolt said. “He’s loving what he’s doing, he loves Nebraska and we certainly have worked well together when we’ve been together. It’s very tangible — you can see it. He’s very upbeat and excited every day to go be with his guys. It rubs off on the players.”

Childress has attracted high-end pitching talent including Friday starter Mason McConnaughey and Saturday hurler Ty Horn. A host of other current and future Huskers point to Childress as a reason — or the reason — for their pledges. Touted right-handed prospect Cooper Grace from northeast Kansas committed last August when the coach told him NU would be his final baseball stop.

“This is a guy I want to go into college with and he’s a guy I would follow,” Grace said then. “This is kind of his retirement job, so to speak."

Childress figures he’s changed some since he was Dave Van Horn’s fiery 30-something assistant with Nebraska at the turn of the century. He tells players more often now that he loves them — and means it as he embraces a more “wholistic” approach to coaching. He’s gone hunting with current pitchers like Tucker Timmerman and McConnaughey just to learn more about them.

But the East Texas native — who would have joined the military if baseball hadn’t worked out insists he demands as much as ever from his pitchers. The staff should lead the nation in fewest walks. He challenges individuals to reach a 1-to-1 ratio of hits allowed to innings pitched and a 3-to-1 ratio of strikeouts to walks.

“It’s hard to do; it’s a big ask of our guys,” Childress said. “But I found out over the years that whatever you ask of the players, they’re going to do their best to give to you. Whatever you make important they’re going to make important.”

Childress wants a fast worker — he likes the PitchCom communicators players now wear because pitchers can bear down quicker on hitters instead of waiting for hand signals. He issues a 105-question fill-in-the-blank test that pitchers must ace in January before they get their uniforms. Studying begins with “education stations” during practices where pitchers must think broadly about game situations and understand what opposing hitters are trying to do.

McConnaughey, who is garnering preseason All-America honors, credited Childress for helping develop his mental game as the righty ascended quickly to a weekend starter last year.

“I thought it was all physical,” McConnaughey said. “My first fall here I struggled; it wasn’t sunshine and rainbows. Definitely learning how to simplify the game of baseball and then understand you need to be in a competitive mindset at all times.”

That’s the old K.I.S.S. method, Childress often says. Keep it simple, stupid.

Strikeouts vs. walks

As part of the aversion to walks, Childress emphasizes a repeatable delivery for pitchers to improve command. It took hold with many last year including Drew Christo as the former top prospect began to better harness his offerings. Lefty Caleb Clark — twice deposed as a weekend starter — moved to the far left edge of the pitching rubber and dropped his arm slot in a move that “saved his career” and made him a key NU reliever for the 2024 stretch run.

The Childress Effect appears set to spread now. Others who have enjoyed major offseason gains include reliever Jalen Worthley along with Timmerman and Horn. Will Walsh, Jackson Brockett, Grant Cleavinger are also stocks on the rise.

Exhibit A might be redshirt freshman righty Carson Jasa. The 6-foot-7, 225-pounder is the most powerful arm on the staff but couldn’t consistently control his pitches until recent months.

“He’s going to be a special talent,” Childress said. “Last year I was nervous with him facing our batters because I was afraid he was going to hit one of them and break their hand or something. I’m not worried about that anymore.”

Last year’s improvements added up to the best strikeout-to-walk rate (2.98) in school history — NU’s best five seasons in the metric all-time have come under Childress. The Huskers ranked seventh nationally there last season and five of the teams ahead of them hosted a regional.

A bump in punchouts — Big Red netted 8.7 strikeouts per nine innings, ranking 102nd — could come with back-end bat missers like new closer Luke Broderick and Jasa. But that’s not the emphasis.

“I’m not going to chase a strikeout and give up a walk to do that,” Childress said. “Absolutely not. I’m going to give in and I want contact over strikeouts. And I certainly want contact over walks.”

There’s an emotional side to pitching that Childress stresses as much as anything. Every pitcher who passes his 105-question has for decades received a shirt listing various standards like “throw strikes” and “get the leadoff hitter.” Repeated five times is the word “compete.”

That attitude is what once transformed Childress as a junk-throwing left-hander at the NCAA Division II level in the late 1980s. Mid-80s velocity and four pitches didn’t translate into results until he went to “the dark side” and brought a hard edge to every mound appearance. The best pitchers he’s coached have made their outings personal too.

“I feel like if I can instill that piece in the guys who are 10 times more talented than I ever thought about being, we have a chance to be pretty good,” Childress said.

Childress plans to see it all through. He likes to bird hunt in the winter with his 4-year-old Boykin Spaniel, Gus. Family dinners are usually Sunday nights — his son, Max, is a junior at Nebraska as a student manager and bullpen catcher while his daughter, Hannah, is married in Gretna with her own 4-year-old daughter.

Spring is for pitching. Childress doesn’t expect that rhythm, now back at Nebraska, to change either.

“I’m around the people that I love and serving them and serving the players,” Childress said. “That’s what I do.”

 

[HuskerDocCo]

anyone drinkin beers before next Mondays GCU game?

 

[Kaladin]

 

[Kaladin]