Coach Thompson

[010HogFan]

Part of me used to hate playing Missouri State the past couple years because their guys could flat out hit. Especially Jake Berger. Do you guys think the uptick in the amount of hard hit balls/home runs could be somewhat attributed to the new hitting coach?

[navyhog24]

He supposedly has been teaching them new angles for swinging, called launch angles or something like that. Also, a lot of them took Benny approach in the offseason to get bigger and stronger. It's definitely paid off. Eric Cole has been on fire for one. I think he's our best all around hitter at the moment.

[Kevin]

he talked some real smack to the fans last year. hated it, then when we hired him, I thought that was the attitude we needed

[navyhog24]

He has definitely brought that aggressiveness on the base paths as well. I am loving the way we're running the base paths this season. It has definitely helped in the run production as well.

[Pudgepork]

Can't really say whether he has helped.  Almost all of the returnees were good hitters last year until late in the season it seemed they all chased bad pitches and swung for the fences in long uppercut swings.  Biggers was clutch last year with risp.  This year, not as much.  Fletcher hit much better it seemed last year and it appears his bat is coming to life.   Thru most of out of conference, the teams patience at the plate was impressive.  I do think that's where coaching is obvious. 

Cole, Koch and McFarland are definitely improved this year.  Gates, Biggers and Fletcher, not at all.  They aren't playing badly, just not hitting as well as last season.


I'd a!ways love to sweep LSU.   I really want an impressive sweep of aubie as payback from last year.   Win the series against Fla this weekend and that puts mountain of pressure on the other teams

[dotnet]

I think its pretty difficult to ascribe the improvement to one hitting coach.  All of the players are older, and have had an extra year of D1 coaching.  Who is to say another year of Vitello coaching them that they would have made similar jumps? 

A lot of guys go through sophmore slumps or come back to early after having big years.  I think biggers "only" repeating last year is a very good outcome. 

Vitello is a good coach, and Thompson appears to be very good by all accounts.  At this point, I do not think there is enough evidence to give much credit to the difference between the two one way or another (at least with hitting.  It'd be hard to top tony in recruiting.)

[SPAL]

He is going to get the credit if it goes well and the blame if it goes wrong. Justified or not, that's how it's played by most fans.

As baseball fans who understand the game, I think it's been pretty logical around here. I'm sure he is responsible for some adjustments, but like a QB in his senior year, most QB coaches just tweak a few things.

His work will be seen more with true freshman going into sophomore year.

[welchog]

He has definitely brought that aggressiveness on the base paths as well. I am loving the way we're running the base paths this season. It has definitely helped in the run production as well.

We'll disagree here.  I think we are too aggressive especially going for home.  Seen atoo many times getting a second out trying to score when the third out is caught in the outfield.  Coach HAS to know who is coming up.  Actually, the way we are hitting top to bottom, we should never waste a third base runner with one out and attempt to score.