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What is Coach Rod doing?

6,318 Views | 48 Replies | Last: 1 yr ago by Iron Claw
parch
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4:22p, 4/6/22
I'm trying to nail down exactly what this program is about right now, or what we can reasonably sell to recruits that would get them excited to come play here, and I'm struggling. There's no reason we should ever expect to miss a regional, let alone two in a row as we seem to be on pace for.

I'm not coming at the conversation from a place of bad faith either, but I think we need to be honest about where we are and where we want to be. And the fact is that we've completely fallen off a cliff after 2019 and are now performing perfectly in line with the level of performance that got Steve Smith canned is something we need to acknowledge.

I'm not even saying we're a total embarrassment, but especially with Mack's new extension I think he's going to have to have a hard look at Rod's future here in the offseason. A couple thoughts on this miserably mediocre program right now.

1. We don't seem to do anything well or fit any kind of offensive playstyle. We're the weakest power team in the Big 12 and rank 211th nationally in HRs and we're last in the Big 12 in slugging %. We don't even attempt to play small-ball well either - we're 9th of 10 in the B12 in steal attempts, are in the bottom 1/3rd in walks and have terrible OBP.

This is a program building problem. If you don't have power (when was the last time we had someone with legitimate pop? Ludy or Muncy 10 years ago?), you adapt with what you do have. We're just sort of offensively drifting in no-man's land right now, and it shows. Feels like we're stumbling through the dark from game to game.

2. We're are fundamentally unsound, a trend that points directly to coaching. We are somehow 136th in fielding % and have more errors in the B12 than everyone except Kansas State - and Kansas State is not someone you should be sharing statistical couches with. These are drilled skills that require nothing from the opponent to do well, and we are as bad as I've ever seen on defensive basics.

3. Tyler Thomas is a breakout star this year and is, in my estimation, one of the best Friday starters in America. Behind Thomas we have maybe.... two or three pitchers I would trust not to get blown up any given night?

Our pen is tissue paper thin and once we get past Thomas in the rotation our Saturday/Sunday matchups are just the complete wild west, hanging on for dear life hoping our unreliable bats do something interesting. I'm glad Thomas is pitching like he's pitching, but if he hadn't completely blacked out in the offseason and turned into Baylor Clayton Kershaw we'd be below .500 right now.

4. This gets to the broader point of recruiting. I'm not saying recruiting rankings are the be-all end-all, but as judged by Perfect Game our 2022 class has the lowest average player rating of any team in the Big 12 not named Kansas, which barely has a baseball program.

And if you don't trust the ratings, just use your eyes - what about this program on the field excites you right now? I'm not talking about facilities or the gameday experience or the cut of their unis - on the field, what about this team makes you want to pull up ESPN++++++ and watch them duff through 9 innings?

I just think I've gotten to a point of apathy with them. They're just sort of there. There's nothing stylistically we can sink our teeth into that says "yeah we don't do that, but we do this." We don't really do anything well. Which is the problem.

Whether Rod goes after this season or not, this program is backsliding pretty hard right now. So unless he has some grand plan he's waiting to unveil, we need to start asking some hard questions about the best future course for this program.
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Bear8084
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11:41a, 4/7/22
Agree. These are all pretty good points. I'm tired of thinking we have turned the page with a big ranked win or a bunch of wins in a row only to have the rug pulled out from under me and then watch the team just get blown out or make dumb mistake after dumb mistake.

It's frustrating, and agree also that Rhoades with his fancy new 10 year deal is probably getting frustrated too.
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Johnny Bear
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2:07p, 4/7/22
If we don't at a minimum get to a regional this season which per the current trend we won't, I think Rhoades has to pull the trigger on replacing Rod - unless we've decided we really just don't care that much about our baseball program.
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MrGolfguy
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In reply to parch • 5:16p, 4/7/22
parch said:
There's no reason we should ever expect to miss a regional, let alone two in a row as we seem to be on pace for.
Given Baylor's baseball history how did you ever arrive at this conclusion?

Save for a brief 15 year stretch during the Steve Smith years Baylor has never been a consistent Regional making team, not even close. When Smith took over in 1997 Baylor had played about 95 seasons of baseball in its history; they made a Regional in exactly 5 of those 95 seasons. Five.
Under Mickey Sullivan, who i always held in high regard as a very good coach and even better human, BU baseball only made 4 Regionals in 21 years; only 2 in his last 16 years.
So far in Coach Rod's first 5 years (he's in year 6 because the Covid year shouldn't count) BU baseball has made 3 Regionals. Looking like 3 out of 6 after this season (50%)
So, in total 21 Regionals in about 115 seasons of baseball at Baylor U. That's an 18% clip.
Smith's teams account for 62% of all the Regionals BU has ever made.
Should/could Baylor do better than they currently are? Sure, but Coach Rod so far is achieving way over historical numbers for Baylor baseball. It's frustrating to watch any Baylor team struggle however the facts show that this is pretty much Baylor baseball in a nutshell.
Well I ain't no greenhorn!!
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STxBear81
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5:31p, 4/7/22
Nice research guys. Didn't realize our history was so bad
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Johnny Bear
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In reply to MrGolfguy • 10:30p, 4/7/22
MrGolfguy said:
parch said:
There's no reason we should ever expect to miss a regional, let alone two in a row as we seem to be on pace for.
Given Baylor's baseball history how did you ever arrive at this conclusion?

Save for a brief 15 year stretch during the Steve Smith years Baylor has never been a consistent Regional making team, not even close. When Smith took over in 1997 Baylor had played about 95 seasons of baseball in its history; they made a Regional in exactly 5 of those 95 seasons. Five.
Under Mickey Sullivan, who i always held in high regard as a very good coach and even better human, BU baseball only made 4 Regionals in 21 years; only 2 in his last 16 years.
So far in Coach Rod's first 5 years (he's in year 6 because the Covid year shouldn't count) BU baseball has made 3 Regionals. Looking like 3 out of 6 after this season (50%)
So, in total 21 Regionals in about 115 seasons of baseball at Baylor U. That's an 18% clip.
Smith's teams account for 62% of all the Regionals BU has ever made.
Should/could Baylor do better than they currently are? Sure, but Coach Rod so far is achieving way over historical numbers for Baylor baseball. It's frustrating to watch any Baylor team struggle however the facts show that this is pretty much Baylor baseball in a nutshell.


One thing you're not accounting for is the fact that regionals in Sullivan's day and before were a lot tougher to make as only half of the current 64 team field (i.e 32 teams) got in. There was no super regional 2nd round as the winners of the eight four team regionals were the eight teams that went to the college World Series. You still have a point, but it's not an apples to apples comparison. Plus the committed to high level athletics BU of today isn't the same BU that we were even 15 years ago, let alone during Sullivan's day - we have considerably higher expectations these days.
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parch
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In reply to MrGolfguy • 7:08a, 4/8/22
In addition to the regional field being half what it is today in Sullivan's day, it's absolutely immaterial what the program was before Smith in relation to the expectations we have for it today. It's like saying it's unreasonable to expect us to be a bowl team every year now because we were bad in the 90's. The two things are not related, let alone citing the 40's or whatever. You think a recruit cares about that?

We're not talking about winning titles here. We're talking about being one of the 64 best teams in college baseball every year. That's not a high bar, and if we have any ambition at all as a program we should not accept a program that only clears a bar set at its knees about 50% of the time.

If we can't set even that as an expectation in this era of athletic dominance elsewhere, then what's the point of even having the program. Let's just be glad whenever we receive the blessed manna of the postseason because we weren't good during the Carter administration.
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Johnny Bear
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In reply to parch • 7:27a, 4/8/22
parch said:
In addition to the regional field being half what it is today in Sullivan's day, it's absolutely immaterial what the program was before Smith in relation to the expectations we have for it today. It's like saying it's unreasonable to expect us to be a bowl team every year now because we were bad in the 90's. The two things are not related, let alone citing the 40's or whatever. You think a recruit cares about that?

We're not talking about winning titles here. We're talking about being one of the 64 best teams in college baseball every year. That's not a high bar, and if we have any ambition at all as a program we should not accept a program that only clears a bar set at its knees about 50% of the time.

If we can't set even that as an expectation in this era of athletic dominance elsewhere, then what's the point of even having the program. Let's just be glad whenever we receive the blessed manna of the postseason because we weren't good during the Carter administration.

Actually I believe we went to the CWS 2 of the 3 times we've ever been during the Carter Administration, but I get and agree with your overall point.
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parch
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In reply to Johnny Bear • 8:23a, 4/8/22
In hindsight I should've gone with the Wilson administration. Those were some hard years, hopefully recruits don't take us missing the 1918 regional as a sign the program is trending in the wrong direction.
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Johnny Bear
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In reply to parch • 11:23a, 4/8/22
LOL!!
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MrGolfguy
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11:45a, 4/8/22
You guys are funny. Did i ever mention that i miss Ferrell Field? I used to walk right in for free after a couple innings and stand right on the chain link behind home plate; great place to take in a ballgame. Can't do that at the new place.
Well I ain't no greenhorn!!
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PartyBear
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In reply to parch • 12:51p, 4/8/22
parch said:
In addition to the regional field being half what it is today in Sullivan's day, it's absolutely immaterial what the program was before Smith in relation to the expectations we have for it today. It's like saying it's unreasonable to expect us to be a bowl team every year now because we were bad in the 90's. The two things are not related, let alone citing the 40's or whatever. You think a recruit cares about that?

We're not talking about winning titles here. We're talking about being one of the 64 best teams in college baseball every year. That's not a high bar, and if we have any ambition at all as a program we should not accept a program that only clears a bar set at its knees about 50% of the time.

If we can't set even that as an expectation in this era of athletic dominance elsewhere, then what's the point of even having the program. Let's just be glad whenever we receive the blessed manna of the postseason because we weren't good during the Carter administration.
I agree. Not that it is really all that relevant but just to set the record straight. Smith was actually hired after the 94 season---95 was his first season as the Baylor HC.
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BUBBFAN
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1:43p, 4/8/22
Actually, if you are in a power 5 conference and don't win your conference tournament, you probably need to be in the top 35 to get into a reginal. Every conferance tournament winner gets an auto bid. There are quite a few that are not real good.
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parch
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In reply to BUBBFAN • 2:03p, 4/8/22
Well, kind of. A large percentage of conference tourney winners each year are already in the top 64, so they're not stealing spots from anyone.
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Jackson Bear
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In reply to Johnny Bear • 2:59p, 4/10/22
Johnny Bear said:
MrGolfguy said:
parch said:
There's no reason we should ever expect to miss a regional, let alone two in a row as we seem to be on pace for.
Given Baylor's baseball history how did you ever arrive at this conclusion?

Save for a brief 15 year stretch during the Steve Smith years Baylor has never been a consistent Regional making team, not even close. When Smith took over in 1997 Baylor had played about 95 seasons of baseball in its history; they made a Regional in exactly 5 of those 95 seasons. Five.
Under Mickey Sullivan, who i always held in high regard as a very good coach and even better human, BU baseball only made 4 Regionals in 21 years; only 2 in his last 16 years.
So far in Coach Rod's first 5 years (he's in year 6 because the Covid year shouldn't count) BU baseball has made 3 Regionals. Looking like 3 out of 6 after this season (50%)
So, in total 21 Regionals in about 115 seasons of baseball at Baylor U. That's an 18% clip.
Smith's teams account for 62% of all the Regionals BU has ever made.
Should/could Baylor do better than they currently are? Sure, but Coach Rod so far is achieving way over historical numbers for Baylor baseball. It's frustrating to watch any Baylor team struggle however the facts show that this is pretty much Baylor baseball in a nutshell.


One thing you're not accounting for is the fact that regionals in Sullivan's day and before were a lot tougher to make as only half of the current 64 team field (i.e 32 teams) got in. There was no super regional 2nd round as the winners of the eight four team regionals were the eight teams that went to the college World Series. You still have a point, but it's not an apples to apples comparison. Plus the committed to high level athletics BU of today isn't the same BU that we were even 15 years ago, let alone during Sullivan's day - we have considerably higher expectations these days.
In the early part of Mickey's tenure, the coach's office and the player locker room were not even air conditioned. It was a major accomplishment and fight to get those.
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Iron Claw
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3:44p, 4/10/22
I think we expect our other sports to be in the top 64 of their sports every year, why not baseball?
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Robert Wilson
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5:06p, 4/10/22
I don't care how bad we were historically. There is absolutely no reason for us not to be consistently in the top 1/2 of the Big 12 and making regionals, occasionally advancing out of them, and once a decade finding a CWS (realize this is fairly random occurrence, but we should get ourselves into the mix often enough to see it happen). See, eg, football and basketball. The amount of baseball talent in Texas is simply stupid. Other private schools in Texas are having a lot of success. This is just about getting in the right coach with a good vision, a high motor, and the people skills to make it run.
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STxBear81
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5:41p, 4/10/22
It's Not asking much to be honest
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TOBear
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9:43p, 4/13/22
Mickey Sullivan could out coach And out recruit Rod in his sleep! Not even close
I was fortunate to be on Mickeys first team at Baylor
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Stranger
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In reply to TOBear • 10:24p, 4/13/22
TOBear said:
Mickey Sullivan could out coach And out recruit Rod in his sleep! Not even close
I was fortunate to be on Mickeys first team at Baylor

God bless Mickey Sullivan.
I'm a Bearbacker
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Nguyen One Soon
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In reply to TOBear • 11:39p, 4/13/22
TOBear said:
Mickey Sullivan could out coach And out recruit Rod in his sleep! Not even close
I was fortunate to be on Mickeys first team at Baylor
So I would have watched you play a few games.

And bless Mr. .519.
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BBWCBear
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1:34p, 4/15/22
At what point would AD Rhoades consider a change in coaching? Can't remember when Smith left what the situation was with BU and Mitch Thompson. He seems to be doing well and I believe there was some thought of him back at the Smith departure. Would he be a viable candidate? Would he be interested? I know JC ball is not Power five, but he was here when BU had sucess and he, obviously, contributed to it. I actually was hoping he would've had a shot at it.
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CTbruin
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In reply to BBWCBear • 2:35p, 4/15/22
BBWCBear said:
At what point would AD Rhoades consider a change in coaching? Can't remember when Smith left what the situation was with BU and Mitch Thompson. He seems to be doing well and I believe there was some thought of him back at the Smith departure. Would he be a viable candidate? Would he be interested? I know JC ball is not Power five, but he was here when BU had sucess and he, obviously, contributed to it. I actually was hoping he would've had a shot at it.

Methinks the decision to replace might have already been made. And I think MItch might be a candidate. The disagreement between him and Smitty was a long time ago and I think amendments have been made. I hear both might be in attendance for the game honoring the 2012 team on April 30.
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GShack
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In reply to BBWCBear • 4:51p, 4/15/22
BBWCBear said:
At what point would AD Rhoades consider a change in coaching? Can't remember when Smith left what the situation was with BU and Mitch Thompson. He seems to be doing well and I believe there was some thought of him back at the Smith departure. Would he be a viable candidate? Would he be interested? I know JC ball is not Power five, but he was here when BU had sucess and he, obviously, contributed to it. I actually was hoping he would've had a shot at it.


If he isn't already vetting candidates there is a problem.
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parch
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4:59p, 4/24/22
Outscored 46-9 in a three-game series sweep vs. UT. About as bad a beating in a series as I can ever remember.

We're currently 4-11 in conference with nine Big 12 games left. If we finish below .500 in those nine games, which at this point seems more likely than not, that's fewer conference wins than Steve Smith's worst ever season and the fewest in at least 25 years depending on how badly we bomb.

Bitter food for thought.
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LoneRanger
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8:10p, 4/24/22
Whatever this coaching staff is doing has turned into a joke. A legit high school team could've competed better then what has been on the field recently.
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OldBurlyBear86
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9:30p, 4/24/22
The team has quit on him and his assistants. Tough to watch.

Reminds of the last games of Steele, a bunch of unmotivated kids.

I hope he can get some good interviews this summer.
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STxBear81
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10:16p, 4/24/22
You make it sound like it's the players fault. Maybe the coaches quit on the team
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BBWCBear
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In reply to STxBear81 • 12:13a, 4/25/22
BornAgain said:
You make it sound like it's the players fault. Maybe the coaches quit on the team
Either way Rhoades Bombed on this hire. Time for a change. Hope, at least, Mitch Thompson is being considered.
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GShack
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In reply to BBWCBear • 4:28a, 4/25/22
BBWCBear said:
BornAgain said:
You make it sound like it's the players fault. Maybe the coaches quit on the team
Either way Rhoades Bombed on this hire. Time for a change. Hope, at least, Mitch Thompson is being considered.


Agree on the change, but Rhoades did not hire Rodriguez. Ian did.

https://baylorbears.com/news/2015/6/12/Rodriguez_Named_Head_Baseball_Coach.aspx
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BUBBFAN
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8:12a, 4/25/22
Ian was AD, but Star was involved because of their association at Pepperdine.
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br53
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In reply to STxBear81 • 8:38a, 4/25/22
BornAgain said:
You make it sound like it's the players fault. Maybe the coaches quit on the team
When a pitcher gives up 11 runs without a mound visit, who quit who? That showed that Rod has checked out.
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STxBear81
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8:46a, 4/25/22
Either that or Rod wants to see how high his ERA can possibly get
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william
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2:04p, 4/25/22
Rhoades will get it right.

- KKM
lennybrucewasnotafraidnopenosirreebobtail.....
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Chucky38
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In reply to GShack • 4:03p, 4/25/22
Rodriguez was the 5th option when he got hired after Smith was fired. 4 coaches turned down the Baylor job. No big name coach is going to come to Baylor. The combination of tuition and facilities is to hard to overcome. You either have to offer the job to a young up and coming assistant at a big school, or someone like Thompson who would not want a big salary and facility upgrade.
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