The problems on this team run deep and start at the top. Those of us who have watched all year have known (whether we admitted it or not) that this is not a top 10 team. Our record is fools' gold.
1) recruiting - I got worried in the fall when I noticed all three newcomers did not look good. Like should-not-have-been-offered-not good. We did nothing in the portal. I'm not sure I can trust his evals anymore.
2) Assistants - SS is a baseball guy who knows how to coach mechanics for our big bats. Our gameplans against good teams are not effective. Our in-game adjustments against good teams are non-existent. He still hasn't taught anyone other than Mia how to adjust to offspeed. Worse, we don't even seem to hunt offspeed when we know it's coming. Back to scouting and adjustments. Just laziness.
PRT has been a failure this year. The pitchers obviously haven't developed in the offseason. Every single one of them has gotten worse (though that's a MW special see below). Her pitch calling in games seems iffy. The pitchers are fragile when facing adversity.
3) MW has a pitchers problem. I've been on an island saying this, but something is going on with our pitching development and has been for sometime. Way too many of our pitchers go downhill after their first or second year. I'll just take MM as an example. Do we really think she just forgot how to throw a dropball? Something she's done since she was a little kid? She was one of the best in the country at that the last two years. Her dropball was elite. Now she just throws belt high meatballs right over the plate.
4) lineup - why in the world does KB even play? Can't hit, can't field, shouldn't have been offered. Why does KS play short? If you are going to have LG in the lineup, you have to move her back to SS. She's error prone, but she's the best we got. Why don't we ever break up our lefty lineup a bit when facing lefty aces? We're just inviting innings of nothing happening at the plate.
5) the little things - Why are we the stupidest baserunning team in America, every year? It's just sloppiness and lack of attention to detail.
I honestly think MW is realistically the best we are gonna do. He's taken us to two MNC finals. Who else would we want to replace him? No one thought Ford would piss a drop at TAMU. Are we willing to take a gamble on someone like that?
But, he needs to do a tear down on the program and do some real soul searching. And some portal searching. I'm not sure he will or can do what it takes though.