This is good news.

Now please let portal Santa deliver some badasses to the team.

We've all been good this year.

Are you sure you've been reading THIS board?

I think Kelly did a good job with the pitchers. Love the Cliff hire.

Luke The Drifter said:

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Mark Fairchild said:

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Not impressed with Kelly. Our rotation was solid when he got here. Didn't see a whole lot of change coming out of the bullpen from last season. I believe we are stuck with his buy-out if he is let go. Really impressed with the Pennington hire!!!!

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You could make an argument that the pitching staff is the only thing that improved as the season went on. Freshcorn's development was noticeable and the bullpen as a whole was better in May than in February/March. I'm not a huge Kelly fan, but it's not like his players just got more and more awful as the season progressed.

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The bats failed the mound FAR more than the other way round back half of the season. Hell, our pitching arms kept us fighting in most of our losses and if we had had even a modicum of production at AB, we would have walked away with a W.

I think Cliff Pennington is a great hire.

Wow I tune out for a minute and …. WTF! This is the best news about anything in a long time!

85AustinAg said:

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A-A Ron said:

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Now can we replace Longley

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Longley is going to stay on as Recruiting Coordinator. Talking to HS players he is well liked and respected in this role. I've heard the plan is for Earley to take over hitting duties himself.

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You know little about baseball if you think Longley should go. Guy is an absolutely great recruiter. No way Earley should let him go. Just add to the staff around him.

Kelly would be my personal choice but our pitching staff was not the problem this season. Something I just do not like about Kelly as he looks like he is one heck of a lazy person in his personal life. And his overall demeaner just doesn't sit well with me. Juvenile? Maybe so.

Only a very good thing if Earley takes over hitting. I had assumed he was very involved this season. But judging from our stats, he wasn't as this team fell off the offensive map altogether. And if he was....we are in trouble.

dcg4403 said:

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85AustinAg said:

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A-A Ron said:

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Now can we replace Longley

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Longley is going to stay on as Recruiting Coordinator. Talking to HS players he is well liked and respected in this role. I've heard the plan is for Earley to take over hitting duties himself.

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You know little about baseball if you think Longley should go. Guy is an absolutely great recruiter. No way Earley should let him go. Just add to the staff around him.

Kelly would be my personal choice but our pitching staff was not the problem this season. Something I just do not like about Kelly as he looks like he is one heck of a lazy person in his personal life. And his overall demeaner just doesn't sit well with me. Juvenile? Maybe so.

Only a very good thing if Earley takes over hitting. I had assumed he was very involved this season. But judging from our stats, he wasn't as this team fell off the offensive map altogether. And if he was....we are in trouble.

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As long as he is no way affiliated with hitting.

Pennington may have been part of the conversation with the AD, as in, you can keep your job if you hire your replacement and next year goes like this one.

94chem said:

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Pennington may have been part of the conversation with the AD, as in, you can keep your job if you hire your replacement and next year goes like this one.

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So the plan (if Earey fails) is to replace him with another first time head coach?

94chem said:

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Pennington may have been part of the conversation with the AD, as in, you can keep your job if you hire your replacement and next year goes like this one.

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Good grief, I hope that's not true. Love Pennington, but I don't want to pay for another guy's professional development and on the job training.

HoustonAg2106 said:

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94chem said:

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Pennington may have been part of the conversation with the AD, as in, you can keep your job if you hire your replacement and next year goes like this one.

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So the plan (if Earey fails) is to replace him with another first time head coach?

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Not the plan, but it's a possibility. First he's here to teach the cutoff man where to stand because they didn't learn it in 10 years of travel ball and Earley didn't teach them. Second, it's to build relationships.

See, this is why I thought Pennington might be reluctant to take the job. It would take an extremely unusual set of circumstances for us to hire an assistant (even one with Cliff's resume) off the incumbent staff if we were to fire the head coach for poor results. Being a retired major leaguer, perhaps Cliff doesn't worry much about a possible career detour.

twk said:

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See, this is why I thought Pennington might be reluctant to take the job. It would take an extremely unusual set of circumstances for us to hire an assistant (even one with Cliff's resume) off the incumbent staff if we were to fire the head coach for poor results. Being a retired major leaguer, perhaps Cliff doesn't worry much about a possible career detour.

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Yeah, Cliff can cruise right into any minor league dugout he wants, or Lance Berkman his way into hobby coaching. Here's hoping he has fire and charisma, is part of a CWS squad, and the chips fall where they may...

Man the jerseys were sweet back then. No bevel either

Heefner would've been cooler, but I'll take it.

94chem said:

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HoustonAg2106 said:

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94chem said:

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Pennington may have been part of the conversation with the AD, as in, you can keep your job if you hire your replacement and next year goes like this one.

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So the plan (if Earey fails) is to replace him with another first time head coach?

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Not the plan, but it's a possibility. First he's here to teach the cutoff man where to stand because they didn't learn it in 10 years of travel ball and Earley didn't teach them. Second, it's to build relationships.

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This is shocking, but these guys were out of position frequently. However, only a handful of orgs actually teach defense at every level (youth, jr high, HS) and Brauny's outfit is one of them. He could have done it himself.

Kingwood Park lost the state championship game last night because they couldn't execute 1st and 3rd, hit and run, or hit a cutoff man, so I wonder where this stuff gets taught.

Positioning, knowing the arm strength of each fielder, the speed of each base runner, bunt and base coverages...every team in the SEC is stacked with elite talent. We were just playing checkers too often...stuff you didn't see from any of the previous 3 coaches. The competition is too good to not be locked in, and I was very disappointed with the players not taking ownership. I suppose at times they actually didn't know stuff is possible, but they looked like sheep out there way too often.

After a while I started to expect the mistakes, but my hope was that the coaching staff would learn on the fly.. but they didn't. My hope now is that this is because they were lacking knowledge themselves, and weren't just slow on the uptake. It's okay in game 2 if you forget to decide who's covering the bag, but you get one mulligan per season. Penny had to put an end to the repeat mistakes, and convince me that the staff wasn't dumb...just limited.

A big win for the start of next season will be just having the obvious guys playing in their correct positions. If we have another Kash starting in left field scenario it would be very concerning.


And to your specific point, assuming we have the guys in their correct spots, correctly tailored practices will ensure mental lapses on defense are at a minimum. And if Earley needs help in this area, he needs to go watch Twelve practice defense and base running for their top level teams.

...and Kash didn't know how to play 1B either. But to be fair, I watched the Rangers make 3 errors on the same play 2 nights ago. 1B went for a ball right at the second baseman, pitcher didn't break on the grounder, and 2B held the ball instead of running it in. Ballgame.

Not sure I agree with that one. But can we agree he was light years better than Bindy at 1st.


And I'm not knocking Bindy. My understanding is he was a pitcher in high school. They tried that at A&M and it did not work so they tried him in other areas he had no history. Some guys can make great picks at first and some guys just cannot do it. It's kind of an art.

A 1B who can throw is a huge asset, even in 3 outcomes ball. It might even be better to hide a guy at 3rd rather than first.

I hope Pennington can wait 2 years until Earley's buyout expires.

MaroonStain said:

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I hope Pennington can wait 2 years until Earley's buyout expires.

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Why? So we can hire another first time head coach?

Have been waiting for this post.

Pennington and Earley's resume are clearly neck and neck.

Pennington > Earley

94chem said:

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...and Kash didn't know how to play 1B either. But to be fair, I watched the Rangers make 3 errors on the same play 2 nights ago. 1B went for a ball right at the second baseman, pitcher didn't break on the grounder, and 2B held the ball instead of running it in. Ballgame.

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So why are we holding college athletes to a standard major league athletes can't even meet? If MLB players make these mistakes from time to time, doesn't it stand to reason college players will make those mistakes a lot more often?

Lady Aravis said:

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94chem said:

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...and Kash didn't know how to play 1B either. But to be fair, I watched the Rangers make 3 errors on the same play 2 nights ago. 1B went for a ball right at the second baseman, pitcher didn't break on the grounder, and 2B held the ball instead of running it in. Ballgame.

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So why are we holding college athletes to a standard major league athletes can't even meet? If MLB players make these mistakes from time to time, doesn't it stand to reason college players will make those mistakes a lot more often?

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I want you to think about that a little more and see if you can answer it yourself.

BucketofBalls99 said:

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twk said:

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fav13andac1)c said:

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Don't know much about Cliff Pennington, but he was listed as DBU's recruiting coordinator/assistant coach.

His bio indicates he has been pivotal in the offense, base running, and infield.

Seems like a great hire.

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He's a little bit overqualified for the job, if we are talking about replacing Fox. It certainly seems that he's coming back for reasons other than following the optimal career development path.

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aka….'Head Coach in Waiting'?

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That's my thought. If Earley can't get it done, then Pennington is the Easy Button both as an interim guy and a new hire going forward.

TX_Aggie37 said:

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BucketofBalls99 said:

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twk said:

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fav13andac1)c said:

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Don't know much about Cliff Pennington, but he was listed as DBU's recruiting coordinator/assistant coach.

His bio indicates he has been pivotal in the offense, base running, and infield.

Seems like a great hire.

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He's a little bit overqualified for the job, if we are talking about replacing Fox. It certainly seems that he's coming back for reasons other than following the optimal career development path.

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aka….'Head Coach in Waiting'?

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That's my thought. If Earley can't get it done, then Pennington is the Easy Button both as an interim guy and a new hire going forward.

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We hit the Easy Button with our last hire. I am not interested in doing that again. I love Pennington. Absolutely love the guy. But if we don't hire a proven winner as our next baseball coach (whenever that may be), then why even bother having a program at all? If we hit the Easy Button again, that will make 3 of our last 4 coaches (Childress, Earley, Pennington) who will take over at A&M with zero combined years of head coaching experience.

We've hired a proven winner before, we can do it again. If we have to settle for a head coach with no experience again the next time around, then either our athletic department and university leaders are wildly incompetent (which is entirely possible) or there is something much bigger going on behind the scenes that all of us commoners know nothing about.

I agree I was just saying that's probably the mindset. Beyond him being a solid assistant he's probably the next guy in line.