[CTcard]

Tom Emanski would have a heart attack watching this team. Just terrible fundamental baseball all year long. Terrible defense, poor base running and too many free passes from the pitching staff. It’s a shame that such a potent offense was wasted by these factors.

Eager has gotta go and Esquer needs to find a way to clean things up.

StanfordMatt, are you sure you are not trolling over here from the Bearinsider message board. You sound a lot like all the Esquer haters that were on that board who were talking trash, even during the 2011 season! 

Let me guess, you probably thought Rusty Filter should have been handed the keys to the car! Better yet, Stanford could have hired Mike Neu! I come from that board, only because my faith in what Esquer was doing at Cal, and now my complaints on where the Cal program is going today. Had someone on that board accuse me of being someone with Ballbuster as their handle. 

Stanford has hosted 5 out of the last 6 years with 2 CWS appearances and 3 Pac conference titles, and you think Esquer needs to go??? 
I wonder what your assessment is this morning??

I understood StanfordMatt to be saying that Eager needs to go, not Esquer. Given the spotty performance of Stanford's pitching this year, I think it's fair to question whether the pitching coach is doing a good job. Stanford's team ERA ranks something like 140th nationally and 8th in the Pac-11. To be fair, the pitching did rise to the occasion against Texas A&M.

Given the state of Stanford pitching over the season, it is certainly fair to question whether the pitching coach is doing a good job or not. My personal view, given the lack of detailed information available to most everyone here, is that this is best done by raising questions and initiating discussion rather than calling for somebody's head. But, I also understand this is a fan message board and that's how it goes. 

It's clear that Stanford pitching overall was worse this year than in recent years. Given that the team has been excellent, it is an interesting question whether the ultimate performance of the pitching coach is poor because the overall pitching was poorer or good because he managed to maintain team excellence despite issues among the personnel available. 
A second question that arises given that many recent pitching staffs have been very good, is whether this poorer year is an abberration or a sign of the way things are going. 

Eager came to Stanford with Esquer prior to the 2018 season. 
Stanford pitching cumulative ERA:
2017: 3.35   (pre-Eager)
2018: 2.83
2019: 3.62
2020: 3.50   (shortened season, only 16 games)
2021: 4.64
2022: 4.23
2023: 5.83  (so far)
Note that ERAs have been up across the board in NCAA baseball, particularly just recently. Many rumors of a juiced ball. 

Some big issues this year:
- Losing Tommy O'Rourke for the year hurt the pitching staff. His ERA last year was between Dixon's and Dowd's. He wasn't used as much as either of those two, but was used about as much as Pancer. I am sure that if healthy he would have been a major contributor this year. 
- The current sophomore class has been a problem for pitching and that will continue. It was small to begin with, only having Uber, Montgomery (to the extent he's a pitcher) and nominally Jake Sapien (who I think has abandoned pitching). Uber had a pretty good freshman year and a poor sophomore year - though he has been battling injuries all season. 
This is a hole in the roster that is going to be tough to manage. 
- For comparison, the junior class has Brunox2, Dixon, Dowd, O'Rourke, Pancer. The frosh class has Dugan, Moore, O'Haran, Scott. 

Broadly, I don't see a systematic lack of development of guys though there is plenty of variation among individuals. 
There is certainly room for criticism of the recruitment for the HS class of 2022, in numbers if nothing else. 
Walks are rising, but I think the biggest negative change in a particular pitching stat versus last year is a big rise in HRs allowed. Last year was really good for this (0.55 per game), but not this year (1.27 per game). 

It's hard to get a pitching staff "ready" for the tournament as arms get tired as the season progresses whereas batters seem to improve timing with reps and warmer weather leads to the baseball carrying further. At least for one weekend, the Stanford pitching staff seemed to have been as ready as one could hope for given the parts available. That was very good.

[CTcard]

Tom Emanski would have a heart attack watching this team. Just terrible fundamental baseball all year long. Terrible defense, poor base running and too many free passes from the pitching staff. It’s a shame that such a potent offense was wasted by these factors.

Eager has gotta go and Esquer needs to find a way to clean things up.

StanfordMatt, are you sure you are not trolling over here from the Bearinsider message board. You sound a lot like all the Esquer haters that were on that board who were talking trash, even during the 2011 season! 

Let me guess, you probably thought Rusty Filter should have been handed the keys to the car! Better yet, Stanford could have hired Mike Neu! I come from that board, only because my faith in what Esquer was doing at Cal, and now my complaints on where the Cal program is going today. Had someone on that board accuse me of being someone with Ballbuster as their handle. 

Stanford has hosted 5 out of the last 6 years with 2 CWS appearances and 3 Pac conference titles, and you think Esquer needs to go??? 
I wonder what your assessment is this morning??

I understood StanfordMatt to be saying that Eager needs to go, not Esquer. Given the spotty performance of Stanford's pitching this year, I think it's fair to question whether the pitching coach is doing a good job. Stanford's team ERA ranks something like 140th nationally and 8th in the Pac-11. To be fair, the pitching did rise to the occasion against Texas A&M.

Given the state of Stanford pitching over the season, it is certainly fair to question whether the pitching coach is doing a good job or not. My personal view, given the lack of detailed information available to most everyone here, is that this is best done by raising questions and initiating discussion rather than calling for somebody's head. But, I also understand this is a fan message board and that's how it goes. 

It's clear that Stanford pitching overall was worse this year than in recent years. Given that the team has been excellent, it is an interesting question whether the ultimate performance of the pitching coach is poor because the overall pitching was poorer or good because he managed to maintain team excellence despite issues among the personnel available. 
A second question that arises given that many recent pitching staffs have been very good, is whether this poorer year is an abberration or a sign of the way things are going. 

Eager came to Stanford with Esquer prior to the 2018 season. 
Stanford pitching cumulative ERA:
2017: 3.35   (pre-Eager)
2018: 2.83
2019: 3.62
2020: 3.50   (shortened season, only 16 games)
2021: 4.64
2022: 4.23
2023: 5.83  (so far)
Note that ERAs have been up across the board in NCAA baseball, particularly just recently. Many rumors of a juiced ball. 

Some big issues this year:
- Losing Tommy O'Rourke for the year hurt the pitching staff. His ERA last year was between Dixon's and Dowd's. He wasn't used as much as either of those two, but was used about as much as Pancer. I am sure that if healthy he would have been a major contributor this year. 
- The current sophomore class has been a problem for pitching and that will continue. It was small to begin with, only having Uber, Montgomery (to the extent he's a pitcher) and nominally Jake Sapien (who I think has abandoned pitching). Uber had a pretty good freshman year and a poor sophomore year - though he has been battling injuries all season. 
This is a hole in the roster that is going to be tough to manage. 
- For comparison, the junior class has Brunox2, Dixon, Dowd, O'Rourke, Pancer. The frosh class has Dugan, Moore, O'Haran, Scott. 

Broadly, I don't see a systematic lack of development of guys though there is plenty of variation among individuals. 
There is certainly room for criticism of the recruitment for the HS class of 2022, in numbers if nothing else. 
Walks are rising, but I think the biggest negative change in a particular pitching stat versus last year is a big rise in HRs allowed. Last year was really good for this (0.55 per game), but not this year (1.27 per game). 

It's hard to get a pitching staff "ready" for the tournament as arms get tired as the season progresses whereas batters seem to improve timing with reps and warmer weather leads to the baseball carrying further. At least for one weekend, the Stanford pitching staff seemed to have been as ready as one could hope for given the parts available. That was very good.