Baseball Coach or Life Coach

So is Todd Lott lacking in talent or character?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Just1More

Just like in football (where you are into the details) the balance of fans aren't sure if it's the talent, the talent development, or something else. I think we weren't that far off in pitching. With Leger added to this staff, everything would have been different. With Robe's track record in pitching alone, we just had an off year. Defensively, we are fine. We owe Kole McKinnon more than we realize. But that was a Monica thing - another unforeseen issue.

To me, the slump that is hard to grasp is in batting and batting alone. Monica wasn't going to turn that around. We had a lot of crap at-bats. And the early base running mistakes this year were also troubling. Was it a balance of player talent misses? Was it a coaching thing? Either way, it's on Tony to sort that out. Personally, I don't think Tony would be correct to do nothing with his staff.

There is one more thing in the "talent assessment" that mirrors football. We all know it takes more than a good QB to be good offensively. But without a good QB, you're not going to be good. The baseball team is missing a big bat or two. When I say "big bat" I mean a guy that the pitchers fear. You need one or two. We had none. You need a guy that's a clear threat to jack a bad pitch out of the park. Most teams have one or two of those. They make everything else click. Our fans tend to just watch the batting rotation and expect something to materialize. If you don't have a guy like Lucroy in the meat of the lineup, flanked by some solid help, a platoon of hard working guys isn't going to get it done.

Most won't agree with me... but we may have only been one pitcher and one batter away from a seriously better team. That's on the coach to resolve, just as much as an entire under talented team. I believe it was a combination of not having an anchor guy in the lineup (who makes the rest better by his presence) and something else with plate psychology being "taught". That's on talent evaluation and a specific category of coaching.

---

But I remember people talking about these guys physical attributes and saying that we were getting "real baseball players" and things like that. All of a sudden, I'm seeing guys commenting on how small our guys look and that we don't have real physical guys out there etc..

In what other job in any industry can you be hired to run an entire department, have that department get significantly worse every year for 4 years and still keep your job?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cajun Monkee

So is Todd Lott lacking in talent or character?

---

This Todd Lott is the Kaiser Soze of our baseball program. I've never seen him but I only hear his name and don't know if he even exists...I'd like to know how many times his name has been typed on this board..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cajun Monkee

So is Todd Lott lacking in talent or character?

---

Todd Lott has conference player of the year talent at the plate. You can tell he was overthinking at the plate all year. If you have a guy who was good enough to get drafted in the 25th or whatever round out of high school, you don't need to change his whole swing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zephyr

But I remember people talking about these guys physical attributes and saying that we were getting "real baseball players" and things like that. All of a sudden, I'm seeing guys commenting on how small our guys look and that we don't have real physical guys out there etc..

---

I’d paint myself in the same manner as yourself.

I recall the same thing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cajun Monkee

So is Todd Lott lacking in talent or character?

---

I was faced with this question by a friend earlier in the year. This is how I answered it. It is possibly a character problem but a different kind of one than we are all used to. Todd Lott has always been the best player on the field. He comes here as a big time recruit, gets his swing destroyed by a incompetent coach and now can’t hit whatsoever. It has got to be very difficult to cope with that. He needs to regroup this offseason and I hope he decides to stay. With the right staff changes, he could be that hitter opposing teams fear.

I hear that Jace had Lott in the batting cage swinging the way he did in high school. Lott was killing it and Talbot came out said we don’t leg kick around here and continued calling him out in front of the rest of the team.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ole Colony

I hear that Jace had Lott in the batting cage swinging the way he did in high school. Lott was killing it and Talbot came out said we don’t leg kick around here and continued calling him out in front of the rest of the team.

---

If there’s any truth to that, the decision is easy.

Todd ended up picking his average up to about 250 toward the end of the season

Earlier this season,I distinctly remember Tony talking about how Todd needed to take a seat next to him for a while.

We proceeded to watch batters watch called first strikes, watch called third strike, experience baserunning errors that we all complain about,

Hell, even saw a first baseman (I think it was) commit two errors air is in one innng.

No one else was invited to sit next to Tony for the bulk of the season.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CajunRage

If there’s any truth to that, the decision is easy.

---

Absolutely.

And now we’re back to a line being drawn between an assistant coach and the players on the team.

An assistant coach who, by the way, is also your recruiting coordinator?

What recruir is going to want to come here when faced with this?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CajunRage

If there's any truth to that, the decision is easy.

---

1,000,000% true

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cajun Monkee

Absolutely.

And now we're back to a line being drawn between an assistant coach and the players on the team.

An assistant coach who, by the way, is also your recruiting coordinator?

What recruir is going to want to come here when faced with this?

---

Almost every player on the team hates him; fanbase hates him if Tony keeps him on the staff its only going to get worse