Great article from BON summarizing an interview Pierce did with Austin radio station: David Pierce explains reasoning behind Texas staff changes - Burnt Orange Nation Good news on Tulo that he will still be around and helping just not as much as before.
Glad to hear Tulo will still be around. Woody Williams (not Allen...) sounds like a great addition. Allen to Ohio State.
When a HC prioritizes pitching, he hires Frank Anderson, Tom Holiday, and Skip Johnson. When he doesn't he hires Sean Allen and Woody Williams. Evidently that's Pierce's philosophy. I liken it to Mike Leach in football. He flat out says it - "We won't stop you. We'll outscore you."
We tried to hire Anderson. Frank turned us down. Skip Johnson and Tom Holliday are head coaches. They are not coming to Texas to be a pitching coach. The fact that Pierce did not land one of them means he doesn't care about pitching? I do not agree with your reasoning.
I didn't say Pierce doesn't care about pitching. Augie prioritized pitching, so he hired the best pitching coaches. At the same time, because he didn't prioritize offense, his teams didn't score as much. They didn't need to. Pierce doesn't prioritize pitching or he would have done the same. His approach is that he's willing to give up more runs, because he knows his team will score more. It's simply a difference in philosophy. My reasoning? Pierce has this program in a good place and in Omaha regularly. If he wanted one of the best pitching coaches available, he would have one. That's all I'm saying.
And who would that be? It's not as simple as you say. If it was, we would have Frank Anderson. Personally, I am happy with his choice of pitching coach and it is way too early to say his choice means he does not prioritize pitching. Pierce was a pitching coach himself under Wayne Graham.
I prefer someone whose proven to be successful at the D1 level. My list starts with: Joshua MacDonald, UCONN Drew Dickinson, Virginia Christian Ostrander, Southern Miss David Berg, UCLA Robin Lund, Iowa Scott Brown, Vanderbilt Skip Johnson came from a smaller school (Navarro JC), so it is possible Williams will have success at TX, too. I hope so.
While I am still not yet a fan of Pierce, I do trust one of the people he consulted on the hire and someone that knows Woody very well. I hope he can coach, groom, and develop the raw recruits. Nobody is going to be a successful pitching coach as long as Pierce leaves kids out there to get bombed. This year, I frequently referred to our bullpen as "Dresden".
I appreciate that you do have a list, so you have given this some thought. That is commendable. I think WRT WW, this is probably someone who Pierce is confident he can work with and see eye-to-eye on what needs to be done. I hope so.
I'm not sure what to make of some of your posts, they seem off. None of the guys on your list have as much experience as Woody and some have very little, they just so happen have been given opportunities to coach pitching. I think Woody will work out, he has too much experience not to but we will see. Not to say any of those guys wouldn't be successful but Woody's experience compared to them is on another level. He actually pitched in the majors on a successful level for years. None of the guys on your list played in the majors, some didin't even pitch in college. Again, not that they HAVE to but there are things that Woody is going to know from actually performing the job that the guys on your list may be able to work around but wont have the insight that Woody will have. And I'm not knocking your list but I kind of laughed. There are a couple of guys on your list that have so little experience that they shouldn't even get to scratch n sniff Woody's jock strap. I think Pierce kind of feared for his life at Texas a little bit after the ending of this season, there are expectations for this program that few programs probably have and Texas is just one of those colleges, its location to resources in baseball very few rival and Texas should be in Omaha pretty much every year or damn close to it in the off years. I think from looking at who he hired, he made dang sure its a homerun cause his butt is on the line and one sub 500 season could and should end his career here. He knew next season was going to be a rough one, i knew it, and he knew it, but hes been here far too long now to have a bad season. Rodriguez has strong ties to California and is a hitting coach and Woody, well, if you can't get Frank Anderson then I don't think you can go wrong with Woody, not many have the experience he does in the country and he should know the top pitchers in the state and our state has plenty of flame throwers to win a national title.
Since many want to really focus on player development, why not promote Todd--our Director of Player Development?
How is Tommy Harmon doing healthwise? The Royals trusted him for years to mentor and groom their AA & AAA pitchers. Isn't he living in Austin?
Where Harmon is concerned, I think a position like Patterson has in football. Special advisor to the HC or cluster fixer or whatever Chris needs to call him to get his help.
Uh, we just went to Omaha with the jacked-up pitching we had. I don't see where Pierce needs any more help.
I chuckled a little. He sure as hell needed it this past season, I'm hoping with the changes that there won't be a need for a cluster fixer next season, but we shall see.
yeah. I don’t know Woody either but you can look at his experience, track record and it’s a no brainer. The plus side is, he’s intimately connected to the state of Texas pitching. THATS invaluable to me. We shouldn’t miss on instate pitching talent.
Since my original list is laughable and having differing opinions is frowned upon, I thought I'd reread the posts about and bios of the coaching staff to find out where I went wrong. After reconsidering, here are my new and improved views: 1. David Pierce = home run hire 2. Steve Rodriguez = awesome hire 3. Woody Williams = terrific hire 4. Philip Miller = reassignment was an excellent decision 5. Sean Allen = dismissal was much over due Cliff Gustafson and Augie Garrido will forever live in the shadow of David Pierce. Forget graduation, MLB draft, and transfer portal, with this caching staff, Omaha is a no brainer. Did I do that right? From what I'm told, I have some learning to do. UT Horn Fan out.
