vtfin91

Going to be a tough weekend. Need several pitchers to really step up and deliver results.

** Edited by vtfin91 at 5/11/2026, 2:50:29 PM

I think he could very possibly be as good or better than Bedford. He will improve from soph to jr year. Bedford did have experience, at unlv. I think Atuk and Sagnia's improvement will be critical. Maybe 1 or both takes a big jump in year 2, a lot of guys do. Atuk was a composite 4 star, who was raw. He and Elohim (top 75 recruit) are the types of guys who often make big leaps, and with our limited budget, that is what we banked on. Sagnia will be a soph, but he is 22 years old, from Gambia. Hopefully ater a year of US college ball he adjusts and improves as well. ** Edited by vtfin91 at 5/11/2026, 2:39:45 PM

with the pitching figured out a bit, we can win these next 3. Grim and Eisenreich stepping up, along with Clement, has been huge. I would expect to see our 9 or so best arms only going forward, starting with uncg and then Marshall leading into the final weekend. Clemson series starting on Thursday does make it a bit tricky, but suspect Renfrow and Stieg start this weekend and go 3-4 innings.

series though, we are very likely out. That's just always been the way with ncaa bids for acc - very few teams with sub .500 conference record have ever made the tourney.

start for him. He is a really good ACC catcher. Renfrow coming alive the past month has also been huge. Now we need a few of these pitchers among Eisenreich, Grim, Yagesh, Roe and Crowl to find some consistency.

buyout. Reach this deal, he saves a little face, and vt saves $1 million. Sounds like the bov guys doing more work, I like it. Letting Whit finish out his contract was not an option, what a trainwreck. Now, perhaps they take that savings and plow it into hoops nil.

disliked one particular school for many years, no teaching this old dog new tricks. Will root for another but never disliked them, and if they are playing vt then of course that all goes out the window.

as a premiere weekend starter. But certainly seems very possible, we also lost Kulick last year in addition to Marciano (who is elite this season) , plus Michel and then a few others over past 3 cycles who I assumed were maybe due to comp.

or just more pot stirring? Of course he isn't replacing Schutt .He will help fill out practices, in this day of pay for play we are not going to pay 12 guys, much less 15 which is roster size. ** Edited by vtfin91 at 4/28/2026, 8:32:45 AM

on the conference side, I would bet we are out....so 2/3, 1/3 doesn't cut it. Losing acc record, which has historically not gotten teams in. .500 in conference with very good SOS and rpi should be in. Tall order though.

12 guys. Pay 9-10 guys, with roster filled with scholly guys who may not play unless emergency. Last year it was 2 freshmen filling those roles. Guys who previously served as an 11th man on an ACC team are now becoming the #2-3 guy for a mid major and getting paid.

sport a 9 ERA half way thru the season, with his stuff. He is dialed in now, though and giving this team a huge boost.

would not be steep, at all, and he knows the system....and he's a good guy. In this day and age, why not?

but the talent on the mound is there to make a late season turn-around. Definitely 6-7 pitchers on our roster who will be drafted at some point. Some of the issue is just terrible in-game coaching decisions though, like pulling the hot reliever consistently, which usually leads to disaster.

I don't know what our non rev share total $ are (pure NIL) but it could be higher....rev share is $3.5 mil and sounds like fundraising was up recently and if so would be smart to have a good chunk of those donations funneled to NIL, so if someone said $7.5 mil total payroll it would not be surprising. Enough grumbling out there though to indicate it is likely $5-6 mil total. ** Edited by vtfin91 at 4/20/2026, 1:49:36 PM

Pitching well…with our pen situation there is a really high likelihood the next guy will have a bad day. Guys at this level pitch off confidence to get rhythm and comfort level, and stack innings. This is not Willey, it is Szefc. Really hard as a baseball guy to understand what he is thinking- I’ll bet he has had a situation like yesterday w Swift, 8 times this year where he pulled him, and I’ll bet 7 of them have been a disaster.

And it ain’t close.

pick out supporting evidence...we lived it all year on this message board. I am an idiot, as are most here.

of 16 teams that play baseball in the ACC. Maybe BC will win the CWS this year, but we are still a poor and underperforming team that makes more mental mistakes than any 5 ACC teams.

We had guys not running full speed thinking a play was over and were thrown out as a result, on multiple occassions today, is that coaching? ….absolutely. Is guys not hitting cutoff man coaching? Yes! Basic stuff, but this series really highlights the issue, stark contrast to BC. That stuff is acceptable in this program, and very clearly not at BC.

Outfielders misplayed 3 fly balls, CF missed cutoff man 3 times, poor baserunning, never taking the extra base, attempting bunts yet again. Meanwhile Bc executing in all phases, well coached lesser talented team.

Defensively. They have given Bc 6 outs in the 4th, they make some of the easy plays and none of the tough catches

to grind it out.

** Edited by vtfin91 at 4/10/2026, 6:47:50 PM

Most of the moves Szefc makes this year are just flat out bad moves. Just frustrating. We've probably squared to bunt 25 times this season and laid down 1, maybe 2 successful bunts. Why bunt, ever? We have forfeited probably 15 outs (including first 2 strikes to go 0-2) this season attempting to bunt. All in key situations with a team that can't score much normally, much less when forfeiting outs. Team couldn't execute a basic 1st and 3rd situation today, cost a run. Love seeing Cook bounce back and Daniel starting to break out. ** Edited by vtfin91 at 4/10/2026, 6:29:16 PM ** Edited by vtfin91 at 4/10/2026, 6:31:34 PM

with this group. Offensively all about lack of walks, and ability to grind out at bats, drive up pitch counts, foul off a good pitch to get a mistake you can hit. Good ACC hitters do this consistently.

but Johnson, Hammond and Hansberry were the 3 on our squad last season who have it in spades. I always relate it back to your praise for Jamon Gordon back in the day. TJ has some of that, to me. I know others on here strongly disagree, and point exclusively to metrics, but very glad to see those 3 and let's build from there.

player

Szefc should be embarrassed and would guess he is. Seeing a lot of fundamental mistakes you don’t see at this level, and seeing it frequently.

Awful all season. Just weird watching these midweeks, and every team we’ve played other than Radford looked as good as us, maybe better.

We don't hit nearly enough to win much on Friday night regardless of who pitches. By throwing our clear top 2 on sat/sun we matchup to more likely win a game. I think Szefc knew pretty quickly if not before the season, that this team lacked the pop to score against good pitching.

but our recent recruiting and performance has been so poor you almost have to consider making a move. Stanford was the worst team in the league per computer rankings. It sure looks like we wrestled that crown from them - just not nearly enough ACC level players on this team. Almost no chance to use the portal as your foundation for competing in the ACC, it has to be HS players with a few transfers filling in the holes.

Success- recruiting has been awful- we have 3-4 position players recruited out of HS on the roster who are Acc-level players. Need about 12.

the show, when you bring in a fresh reliever from our mediocre pen, they are likely to stink it up on that particular day. If you have a guy getting outs, and you don't stick with him in our situation, you are by definition a bad coach. Similarly You see Szefc walking guys intentionally and kinda realize he does not know how to help his pitching coach, at all, as those will usually score at this level. Then attempting small ball with all the (attempted) bunts this season are laughable, this is not 1986, and nobody plays small ball because these kids have never bunted in their lives, and aren't going to suddenly successfully bunt a 90mph slider. Just giving up free, critical outs - not today but a bunch this year.

That was etsu mid-week guys, not their front liners. Guys throwing for first time this year for them, freshmen projects, and just mowing down our lineup. Blame recruiting - it's been poor for past 3 cycles. A few gems, but mostly guys who are not ACC players. ** Edited by vtfin91 at 3/25/2026, 11:30:00 AM

we really lack guys who look like they are ACC-level hitters.

soon, but he has been saying that for 12 months so who knows.

to this season, but I think this series was critical to steadying things out, and ideally getting on track. This team has pitching talent, and it's been really surprising to me how poorly we have pitched until very recently. Renfrow's era is over 7, Crowl 7.50, Clement hasn't pitched, Robertson has been frankly unpitchable, which is shocking. Not sure if it's mental, and yes it is a big jump from juco to ACC. Offensively Cooke is likely the worst hitter in the ACC to this point, probably by a wide margin. Hughes has an ops of .580 which often gets guys benched at this stage. Grady hasn't played. These are our top 3 returning guys. We've been outscored for the season by almost 2 runs/game. Simply staggering numbers and yet we are in position to play our way into an NCAA bid with reasonable improvement. Reasons for optimism include the obvious potential improvement of the guys above, and guys like Eisenreich and Craytor have thrown strikes and are improving - both have potential, as does Grim. Yagesh and Roe look good, and Stieg looks healthy. Several of the transfer on offense may be starting to adjust - Gates and Daniel in particular, so there is at least hope that this offense could improve. Grube and Ball have carried the offense, with some help from Lutterman. We have played very tough competition which the computer models (rpi) love, so we sit well there, but will drop just by who we play in upcoming weeks (Stanford is last in ACC in rpi, Duke was near bottom). There is a lot of baseball to play, let's see if these guys can get it rolling. To this point, season has been borderline disastrous, so to be 4-5 in league play is crazy, team does not pass the. eye test on the field, don't see many solid ACC hitters in that lineup and pitching has talent but not much to show for it. ** Edited by vtfin91 at 3/24/2026, 6:53:45 PM