Forget Brantley as an assistant coach, how about...

[AzzurriDawg4]

Eric Young? A buddy of mine told me about this exchange on Baseball Tonight last night....this is obviously not verbatim:

Showalter was on there and he made an interesting comment. he and EY (eric young) were on the fake diamond showing everybody how to receive a throw from the catcher on a stolen base attempt.. blah blah blah.. well, EY says that he always went in hard to second to try and knock the ball out if the throw was there before he was.. and showalter says, "man, you could have played for me anyday.. well you did play for me." and EY says "What about coaching with you?" and buck says, "Well we're working on that so we'll see."

Please note that I am half joking about either of these actually happening, but it is at least an interesting comment by Showalter.

 

[state20006]

....even though he was a cheater he could hit for average and power.

 

[Todd4State]

the best coaches were guys who weren't necessarily the best players. For example- Raffo was a better player than Cohen.</p>

 

[nemsdawg]

I have sort of mixed feelings about this. There is no doubt he knows the game, but how much fundamental training does a MLB manager have to do. That is why they call them a manager and not a coach, right? When you put our program and the fact that he was the AL manager of the year, twice, could be a good combination. He would have to make some excellent hires as far as assistants goes. The new jobs that have been created could be the writing on the wall as to Showalter being the man. I am more than ready for someone to be hired so we can stop speculating and start talking about all of the things that are wrong with the actual coach!

 

[Porkchop.sixpack]

However, I do think it is odd that he is in Starkville as much as he is. I mean, it could just be the typical alumn house in his college town thing. But, the guy is around a good bit. Why is that? Your lobbying theory isn't that far fectched. Or maybe he is being courted --- either for a job, or for a big contribution, etc.

 

[nemsdawg]

he better have an all-star assistant coaches list because college baseball has a lot more teaching involved that MLB!

 

[Optimus Prime 4]

They may have an opening real soon.

 

[dawgstudent]

[No message]

 

[patdog]

he better have an all-star assistant coaches list because college baseball has a lot more teaching involved that MLB!

Showalter made his name as a developer of minor league talent. In fact, the main criticism of him is that he's more of a teacher of the game than a manager of major league talent. He'd have no problem at all adapting to teaching the game to college players. The two questions would be how committed he was to college baseball and how would he do at recruiting. Once he got the players to campus, he'd be the best teacher of the game in all of college baseball.</p>

 

[Todd4State]

if we hired Willie Randolph, a black guy, to replace Polk who never had any any black players on his roster?

Now back to reality. I do think that Showalter would probably be looking to get back in the Big Leagues. Personally, I think it would be easier in a lot of ways, and much more lucrative to manage a MLB team.

I would not be against Showalter coming to MSU, under two stipulations:

1. He quit his job at ESPN.

2. He hire top notch assistants that know how to recruit in the college game. To be even more nitpicky, I would like to get Virginia's pitching coach. He has not had a single arm injury in his career, which is well over nine years I believe. I don't have a particular hitting coach in mind, but we need to figure out who the top recruiter in the country is and go get him.

I'm not worried about his teaching for a couple of reasons- 1. He showed me on Baseball Tonight how to cork a bat. 2. He managed in the minor leagues. There is a TON of teaching that goes along in the minor leagues. The biggest difference is in the minors they are more concerned with individual player development and getting their players ready for the Big League stage. In college, it's more about winning- unless you're Ron Polk II.

So, I think Showalter could work as long as we do it right.</p>

 

[State82]

go hire the entire UVA staff and get on with it. In fact, that would tickle the **** out of me.

 

[nemsdawg]

until they actually have some time on the job. Alot of times though MLB managers would not make good college coaches. If he would be the best teacher of baseball then sign him up! I hope Byrne is reading SPS because we pretty much have everyone's background disected. It would save him several weeks of work. Just kidding, I do like finding out info on these guys that I really didnt know.

 

[nemsdawg]

Seems like this bastard can do no wrong! He needs to take advantage of his golden touch thing he has going! How in the world do you know he has not had a single pitcher with an arm injury? I would think this would have to be nearly impossible to be a collegiate pitching/head coach and take many pitchers from many different high school and junior college programs that had many different pitching programs, take them mix them all together and never had one hurt. Sounds like Gene describing Raffo and his Holy Grail of Perfection!

 

[SanfordRJones]

I don't know if it's true or not, but that's what youtube says about his pitching coach.

 

[nemsdawg]

as a pitching coach and a coaching staff! Youtube is the second greatest website ever divised. Not only can you find out information such as my being able to throw 3000 pitches this year, but you can also see just how much worse the redneck in Kentucky is as opposed to the ones in Mississippi I already know.

 

[Todd4State]

I looked up some more info on O'Conner, and actually came away more impressed with his pitching coach than anything.

I will say the biggest concern about him/his staff- in his five seasons, they have never had more than four players hit over .300. Their power numbers are low, but their ballpark is huge, but that adds even more concern about their low averages. You would think that they would get more balls to drop in from time to time.

Again, after my research, I really feel like Cohen is the best pick in my opinion.</p>

 

[SanfordRJones]

Check out Virginia's stolen base numbers. They're pretty impressive.

Rebel Bruiser might say you have a man crush on John Cohen.