Gopher Softball 2020

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Hrothgar said:
What's missing most is Brandner's bat and on-field leadership. W/o her, it's a win one-lose one team held together by 2 pitchers and 2 hitters.
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“leadership” = swagger or moxie which is what Brandner added to the team last year; along with a really big bat swung really hard.
 

Lots of stolen bases against Cal Poly. Very unusual for the Gophers to take baserunning chances.

My memory over these last 6 years or so is that we have been much more comfortable playing station to station and playing to drive some balls. It makes sense, if that is not possible this year, to adopt a new philosophy and try stealing bases and encouraging throwing errors to generate offense. Smart.
 

Ended one batter away from finishing the shortened perfect game
 

UCLA pitcher has 83.1 IP with 0.92 ERA and 0.614 WHIP and 136 strikeouts
 

Looking at the batting averages for UCLA. WOW...can see why they are ranked #1.
 


4EverAGopher said:
Looking at the batting averages for UCLA. WOW...can see why they are ranked #1.
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Combined with Faraimo being by far the most dominant pitcher in college softball so far this Spring (against a really strong schedule no less). UCLA is going to be tough to beat this year. And next year when Garcia comes back for her 10th year of eligibility after playing in the Olympics; well the NCAA may as well just give them the softball championship at the beginning of the year to save everyone the time.
 

What's the scouting report of speed/movement of Pease? Haven't been able to watch her from a good camera yet or see radar, but she's been really really good

Amber soph stats - 27-10 1.69 ERA 6.8 K/7 0.966 WHIP

Pease so far - 4-1 1.82 ERA 7.98 K/7 0.850 WHIP
 

Assuming on bunt and an error that the inning should have been over before that GS, can't make mistakes like that
 

rowdaboat said:
What's the scouting report of speed/movement of Pease? Haven't been able to watch her from a good camera yet or see radar, but she's been really really good

Amber soph stats - 27-10 1.69 ERA 6.8 K/7 0.966 WHIP

Pease so far - 4-1 1.82 ERA 7.98 K/7 0.850 WHIP
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I don’t have any official scouting report but my educated hunch is that I think Pease will be a good pitcher for us for the next three years; presumably her last two will be as our number 1 pitcher. I don’t think she has a near unhit-able change-up like Groenewagen (who does?) or power combined with unrelenting stamina that Fiser has. But she will be fine. We can’t expect a Groenewagen or a Fiser to always be on our team. But if Pease can be well supported by good spot pitching relief and some offense in the years ahead, she should get us our fair share of wins.
 



ClassOf98Gopher said:
ComoGopher, That does makes sense. Fans want their teams to win and they should. Winning makes sports more entertaining.

I don’t know Jamie and I can’t tell you that I think we will be in the top tier if the Big Ten 2-3 years from now. Maybe, maybe not. I guess my own philosophy on coaching and players has changed some over the years. I generally want Gopher coaches to be people that view their job as their dream job. I think that is Jamie Trachsel in our softball program. It sure wasn’t Jess Allister, unfortunately. Coaches can still deserve firing if they pass this threshold but I can say that is a big plus for Jamie in my mind.

Secondly, I think Gopher fans on the baseball side give John Anderson quite a bit of leash to rise and fall as we understand that it is tough to be continuously good in baseball (and softball) for a far northern team. Yet most people believe, over the long run, that Anderson has given us more wins and more Big Ten championships than our fair share. That seems like a fair way of judging success to me.

Finally, I want players that wear the maroon and gold to want to be on the team. I want them to live their team. If they don’t want to be on the team, and if they don’t bleed Marion and Gold, well there are just too few scholarships in these non-revenue sports to be giving away U of M goodies to players that don’t appreciate what our University provides them.

In a nutshell, that is part of my philosophy that has caused me to make the posts that I have. I sure do value fans who love college softball. Reading passionate fans also makes sports fun.
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a: Jamie has 100 Gopher wins
b: Anderson has 1,300
c: Jamie has 1 B1G tourney title
d: Anderson has 7 B1G titles and 9 B1G tourney titles

If Jamie can come close to replicating what Allister did she will be fine. Allister won 3 B1G tourney titles in 4 years and won a B1G title. That is the team that Jamie inherited. She took Allister's players (primarily) to the WCWS. Well done. She oddly didn't win either the B1G or the B1G tourney that year.

Allister greatly improved the Gopher program. I think she left after we got screwed and didn't get to host a regional because she thought she could never get a fair shake at MN. I think if we had hosted in 2017 she would still be here.

Allister had Merchant and Ritter. I think Merchant is an elite hitting coach and great recruiter and Ritter is an elite pitching coach. Ritter stayed here but I don't think we have anyone comparable to Merchant on the staff.

Trachsel is from MN but is not a Gopher. She may or may not be a loyal Gopher.

Softball is a 1 ace pitcher sport far more than baseball. Allister inherited Moulton and then recruited Sarah G. and Fiser. If Jamie finds her ace she will be fine. If not, things could be ugly.

Finally, any player who left Minnesota after the coaching change gets a bye in my book. All of the players who left committed to Allister. If they decided that they didn't want to play for Jamie, I can't blame them for that. Completely different cultures.
 
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ClassOf98Gopher said:
ComoGopher, I have thoughts on the Burns situation based on what I was seeing as a fan through publicly posted twitter, and clearly the current Junior class has been unproductive to the extreme - that is obvious. But I will let that go in effort to keep my post short and drill right down to what appears to this reader to be the at bottom point.

Do you want the coaching staff fired today, or at the end of the year?
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What ARE your thoughts on the Burns situation? It's an unfair tease to throw out comments like this without giving details.
 

ComoGopher said:
a: Jamie has 100 Gopher wins
b: Anderson has 1,300
c: Jamie has 1 B1G tourney title
d: Anderson has 7 B1G titles and 9 B1G tourney titles

If Jamie can come close to replicating what Allister did she will be fine. Allister won 3 B1G tourney titles in 4 years and won a B1G title. That is the team that Jamie inherited. She took Allister's players (primarily) to the WCWS. Well done. She oddly didn't win either the B1G or the B1G tourney that year.

Allister greatly improved the Gopher program. I think she left after we got screwed and didn't get to host a regional because she thought she could never get a fair shake at MN. I think if we had hosted in 2017 she would still be here.

Allister had Merchant and Ritter. I think Merchant is an elite hitting coach and great recruiter and Ritter is an elite pitching coach. Ritter stayed here but I don't think we have anyone comparable to Merchant on the staff.

Trachsel is from MN but is not a Gopher. She may or may not be a loyal Gopher.

Softball is a 1 ace pitcher sport far more than baseball. Allister inherited Moulton and then recruited Sarah G. and Fiser. If Jamie finds her ace she will be fine. If not, things could be ugly.

Finally, any player who left Minnesota after the coaching change gets a bye in my book. All of the players who left committed to Allister. If they decided that they didn't want to play for Jamie, I can't blame them for that. Completely different cultures.
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What specifically is the difference in cultures? Please explain; we'd all like to hear.
Personally, I suspect there was more about the Allister situation than meets the eye, though I don't know the specifics. Allister was in a place to take over the BIG leadership after Hutchins at Michigan and, I felt, win a National Championship someday down the line. What coach walks away from the program she has built after a great season like 2017? They could've beaten Alabama by scoring only 3-4 runs & had much to look forward to with that roster. But it was a bit strange that Allister's recruiting class after Fiser/Lindaman/Partain fell off the next year. No superstars in what's now the junior class. Did Allister feel something awry?

On the other hand, something seems unusual about Trachsel's teams. Social media hints of dissension. A ranked ream w/ starters hitting under 200. 3 catchers leaving in 2 years. Transfers filling spots that top-flight recruits should be filling. 2 fine pitchers throwing near-shutouts & still losing to unranked or beatable teams. I'm convinced that way, way more than 50-80% of college coaching is recruiting. Great talent will produce, but you have to recruit them. Gophers are still playing w/ the last shreds of Allister's recruits: Fiser, Partain, Kemmetmueller, Brandt, Gill...... What's up next?
 

Hrothgar said:
What ARE your thoughts on the Burns situation? It's an unfair tease to throw out comments like this without giving details.
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You are right that it is unfair to tease a thought in such away. I probably shouldn’t have written that at all. And to be perfectly clear I don’t KNOW anything.

I am just suggesting to sports fans, who can be a pretty hard core group of people, that maybe there are some things in life for a 19 year old that are bigger than softball. Based only on publicly posted images, I am just saying that maybe a person can be is trying to examine her place in the world and that self-examination seemed bigger to her than softball. And that is fine. Human beings are complicated and have their own motivations and priorities. Not every negative event to happen to a softball team demands that someone be blamed.
 



ComoGopher said:
Allister greatly improved the Gopher program. I think she left after we got screwed and didn't get to host a regional because she thought she could never get a fair shake at MN. I think if we had hosted in 2017 she would still be here.

Allister had Merchant and Ritter. I think Merchant is an elite hitting coach and great recruiter and Ritter is an elite pitching coach. Ritter stayed here but I don't think we have anyone comparable to Merchant on the staff.

Trachsel is from MN but is not a Gopher. She may or may not be a loyal Gopher
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ComoGopher, sports fans have opinions, and I am not claiming my opinion is right, but it just could not be more different than yours on this particular topic of Allister/Jamie.

You say that Allister left because a BIg Ten team would not be respected in NCAA seeding. Maybe a small part of it. How about the fact that she was a Texan who put on the Cardinal uniform as a player? I think that may be a small part of it too. And now the real part... money... the most likely large factor of human motivations. There is no athletic department in the country that has more money sloshing around it than Stanford...by far. They have so much tech money sloshing around that place that it is totally logical for her to think she could return Stanford softball to past glory. She never has to worry about facilities. Or academic deputies. It is just the smart play. I hate it, but it happened and it is 100 percent logical for her to have walked out on us.

I saw that Mike White left Oregon at the same time for Texas and that action decimated the Oregon softball team immediately. Allister left us and we subsequently won a B1G tourney and made the Women’s college World Series. Not a bad recovery after the head coach left. I guess it seems to me that Allister leaving could have been so much worse and it is therefore a testament to Jamie that we have held on as a pretty good team for three years after that happened.

The biggest difference we seem to have in our views is that I see the U of M softball program as a program with a lot of disadvantages (namely that our good summer weather does not line up with the college calendar while in the south the good early spring weather lines up perfectly with the college softball calendar) that need to be overcome, while you seem to see the Gopher program with the same natural advantages as the SEC programs or Oklahoma, or the PAC-12 schools. That just seems like viewing our natural situation through rose-colored glasses to me.

Lastly, I think Katie Reitcovich, is considered one helluva talent and a rising star in the softball community.
 

ClassOf98Gopher said:
You are right that it is unfair to tease a thought in such away. I probably shouldn’t have written that at all. And to be perfectly clear I don’t KNOW anything.

I am just suggesting to sports fans, who can be a pretty hard core group of people, that maybe there are some things in life for a 19 year old that are bigger than softball. Based only on publicly posted images, I am just saying that maybe a person can be is trying to examine her place in the world and that self-examination seemed bigger to her than softball. And that is fine. Human beings are complicated and have their own motivations and priorities. Not every negative event to happen to a softball team demands that someone be blamed.
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Thanks. Your response helps. I don't know a single Gophers player or ex-player personally. But I can extrapolate about "some things" being "bigger than softball." I played varsity baseball 4 years in college. None of us players were intellectual giants, but a few of us started realizing after freshman year that professors and ideas were more interesting to listen to than the single-focus baseball coaches. As our on-field results improved, some of us enjoyed it less, not the sport but the ambiance it was played in. That turned the coaches off, even though nothing was ever said. If the Gophers' catcher felt something even mildly approaching that experience, it's understandable. The disaffected athlete is not an unknown occurrence.

I felt Allister didn't fit the jock coach stereotype and there was a feeling that this was not just softball but a voyage of discovery. One year the Gopher softball players were asked on their press release, If you could spend a weekend retreat with anybody in the U softball program,who would it be? Dwyer, I think it was, answered, Coach Allister because of all the books she reads. Allister was not perfect as a coach. Much fantastic results, some disappointments. But I think she kept players in the system, which counts for much. I have no opinion on Trachsel and staff, but it's clear you only win big if you have greatly talented players who have a reason to stick around.
 

ClassOf98Gopher said:
ComoGopher, sports fans have opinions, and I am not claiming my opinion is right, but it just could not be more different than yours on this particular topic of Allister/Jamie.

You say that Allister left because a BIg Ten team would not be respected in NCAA seeding. Maybe a small part of it. How about the fact that she was a Texan who put on the Cardinal uniform as a player? I think that may be a small part of it too. And now the real part... money... the most likely large factor of human motivations. There is no athletic department in the country that has more money sloshing around it than Stanford...by far. They have so much tech money sloshing around that place that it is totally logical for her to think she could return Stanford softball to past glory. She never has to worry about facilities. Or academic deputies. It is just the smart play. I hate it, but it happened and it is 100 percent logical for her to have walked out on us.

I saw that Mike White left Oregon at the same time for Texas and that action decimated the Oregon softball team immediately. Allister left us and we subsequently won a B1G tourney and made the Women’s college World Series. Not a bad recovery after the head coach left. I guess it seems to me that Allister leaving could have been so much worse and it is therefore a testament to Jamie that we have held on as a pretty good team for three years after that happened.

The biggest difference we seem to have in our views is that I see the U of M softball program as a program with a lot of disadvantages (namely that our good summer weather does not line up with the college calendar while in the south the good early spring weather lines up perfectly with the college softball calendar) that need to be overcome, while you seem to see the Gopher program with the same natural advantages as the SEC programs or Oklahoma, or the PAC-12 schools. That just seems like viewing our natural situation through rose-colored glasses to me.

Lastly, I think Katie Reitcovich, is considered one helluva talent and a rising star in the softball community.
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I speculated about why Allister left! LOL! This is a message board! You are probably far more right than I am although if I remember correctly Stanford had offered her previously and she turned them down. I could be WRONG on that. It seemed curious to me that she left after the season with the #1 ranking and snub for hosting a regional with all the SEC love in full effect.

I absolutely have no rose colored glasses about the challenges the program faces compared to teams on the west coast and in the south. I know it is a challenge to recruit. Youth softball in the midwest is getting better and you have to identify the best players and get them. Look at the players on the 2017 roster. I just picked 2017 because that was the ranked #1 year. You can pick a year.

Partain, Parlich, and Arneson were big contributors who were not from the midwest or Canada. That roster was Minnesota and Iowa heavy. Dwyer, Fiser, Lindaman, Macken, Houlihan, and Wagner all Minnesota or Iowa players. Groenewegen is from Canada. You can build this team on primarily midwest players. When you bring in a player from outside the area you have to give them a lot of money (with limited scholarships) so you need to be right about them. I think Partain, Parlich, and Arneson are/were solid and worth whatever they got. I think Jamie did a good job with bringing Brandner and Pease in. She also got DenHartog locally and it looks Like Strelow will be a player. A few of the other locals are still young.

Yes it is harder to build a winner in Minnesota than in California or Florida. You used Anderson as a comparison. I think he has 7 B1G titles since 2000. If Jamie wins the B1G every third year I think she will be just fine! If she can win the B1G every few years, win some B1G tourneys, be competitive to host a regional, and actually do it sometimes she will have kept the program on track and maybe built on it. She made the WCWS. Awesome! This year had big expectations with Fiser, Denhartog, Brandner, Burns, Brandt, Kemmetmueller and Partain all returning from a WCWS team and Jensen hopefully coming back from an injury. For three of those players to not contribute leaves a big hole. I expected we would have a good chance to host a regional. We still could but it will be tough. I think the B1G is getting better at softball which will make her job tougher.

Good discussion 98. I think we probably actually agree more than we disagree.
 

ComoGopher said:
I speculated about why Allister left! LOL! This is a message board! You are probably far more right than I am although if I remember correctly Stanford had offered her previously and she turned them down. I could be WRONG on that. It seemed curious to me that she left after the season with the #1 ranking and snub for hosting a regional with all the SEC love in full effect.

I absolutely have no rose colored glasses about the challenges the program faces compared to teams on the west coast and in the south. I know it is a challenge to recruit. Youth softball in the midwest is getting better and you have to identify the best players and get them. Look at the players on the 2017 roster. I just picked 2017 because that was the ranked #1 year. You can pick a year.

Partain, Parlich, and Arneson were big contributors who were not from the midwest or Canada. That roster was Minnesota and Iowa heavy. Dwyer, Fiser, Lindaman, Macken, Houlihan, and Wagner all Minnesota or Iowa players. Groenewegen is from Canada. You can build this team on primarily midwest players. When you bring in a player from outside the area you have to give them a lot of money (with limited scholarships) so you need to be right about them. I think Partain, Parlich, and Arneson are/were solid and worth whatever they got. I think Jamie did a good job with bringing Brandner and Pease in. She also got DenHartog locally and it looks Like Strelow will be a player. A few of the other locals are still young.

Yes it is harder to build a winner in Minnesota than in California or Florida. You used Anderson as a comparison. I think he has 7 B1G titles since 2000. If Jamie wins the B1G every third year I think she will be just fine! If she can win the B1G every few years, win some B1G tourneys, be competitive to host a regional, and actually do it sometimes she will have kept the program on track and maybe built on it. She made the WCWS. Awesome! This year had big expectations with Fiser, Denhartog, Brandner, Burns, Brandt, Kemmetmueller and Partain all returning from a WCWS team and Jensen hopefully coming back from an injury. For three of those players to not contribute leaves a big hole. I expected we would have a good chance to host a regional. We still could but it will be tough. I think the B1G is getting better at softball which will make her job tougher.

Good discussion 98. I think we probably actually agree more than we disagree.
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We certainly agree on everything you just wrote. For me, is we can somehow finish second or better in the B1G and make the B1G tourney championship game we should have a good chance at hosting a regional - which of course would be nice.

Now Gophers, go beat UCF!
 


Emma made right decision for herself so 100% respect that. Expecting Hope makes similar post in the next few weeks to step away too
 

It appears nice to have Jensen and her freaky speed back in the lineup. I didn’t expect it so soon. I sure hope she holds up physically.
 



Como, you are right. Alister was offered the Stanford job when her mentor was released following an implosion of the program. I don't remember the details only that half the team rebelled and the coach was fired. The program was a complete cluster and would have been a terrible place to have gone at the time. BTW, Alister is a native Californian. She was in TX while her father was coaching basketball at Stephen F. Austin.
 

Hrothgar said:
What specifically is the difference in cultures? Please explain; we'd all like to hear.
Personally, I suspect there was more about the Allister situation than meets the eye, though I don't know the specifics. Allister was in a place to take over the BIG leadership after Hutchins at Michigan and, I felt, win a National Championship someday down the line. What coach walks away from the program she has built after a great season like 2017? They could've beaten Alabama by scoring only 3-4 runs & had much to look forward to with that roster. But it was a bit strange that Allister's recruiting class after Fiser/Lindaman/Partain fell off the next year. No superstars in what's now the junior class. Did Allister feel something awry?

On the other hand, something seems unusual about Trachsel's teams. Social media hints of dissension. A ranked ream w/ starters hitting under 200. 3 catchers leaving in 2 years. Transfers filling spots that top-flight recruits should be filling. 2 fine pitchers throwing near-shutouts & still losing to unranked or beatable teams. I'm convinced that way, way more than 50-80% of college coaching is recruiting. Great talent will produce, but you have to recruit them. Gophers are still playing w/ the last shreds of Allister's recruits: Fiser, Partain, Kemmetmueller, Brandt, Gill...... What's up next?
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Tough to explain the culture change specifically without mentioning or alluding to specific players.
 


What worries me most about coach Trachsel is how she might be perceived around the country. I mean for all I know she has done absolutely nothing wrong, but clearly there is a perception out there that she's not exactly a player's coach and there have been some high profile transfers and others who have simply quit the sport rather than play for her. Again, not saying any of that is her fault, but the softball community is very small, and if word spreads that there is negativity surrounding the program, recruiting will suffer tremendously.

As for this season, it's easy to get tunnel vision and focus only on OUR struggles. MANY teams are off to shaky starts. There is still time to right the ship and host a regional. I certainly hope we do because we don't want yet another trip to Seattle in May.
 

MNsoftballfan said:
What worries me most about coach Trachsel is how she might be perceived around the country. I mean for all I know she has done absolutely nothing wrong, but clearly there is a perception out there that she's not exactly a player's coach and there have been some high profile transfers and others who have simply quit the sport rather than play for her. Again, not saying any of that is her fault, but the softball community is very small, and if word spreads that there is negativity surrounding the program, recruiting will suffer tremendously.
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Who has supported your opinion of the perception of Jaime as a coach? I'm not saying she's perfect or that she is the best coach for everyone. But, really? Some high profile transfers? The only high profile transfer that I am aware of is Lindaman. In contrast, she has brought in some high profile transfers. That must count for something. She signed what appears to be a very good class this year. Her 2021 recruiting seems to be off to a good start. Could it all fall apart? Sure. Could it all result in continued success? Sure.
 

Gopher68 said:
Who has supported your opinion of the perception of Jaime as a coach? I'm not saying she's perfect or that she is the best coach for everyone. But, really? Some high profile transfers? The only high profile transfer that I am aware of is Lindaman. In contrast, she has brought in some high profile transfers. That must count for something. She signed what appears to be a very good class this year. Her 2021 recruiting seems to be off to a good start. Could it all fall apart? Sure. Could it all result in continued success? Sure.
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You all know already that I take Gopher68’s side of this particular argument but I will take this opportunity to emphasize that I honestly am not paid by the university or in any relationship with any of the coaches. I in fact am just a fanatic for Gopher softball living 900 miles away from where my beloved team plays.

From and outsider perspective the Lindaman transfer stunk, and most of you I am sure have information closer to the situation than I do. It is clear to o me based on her twitter and interviews that she was unhappy and thought Florida provided her more of a “family” for her. But others claim they love the “family” experience at the U of M. Maybe it is different strokes for different folks.

I just want to emphasize my opinion that a non-insignificant percentage of Gopher softball success is forever and foralways going to be based on luck. Patti Gasso or Tim Murphy
 

I meant to close by saying Patti Gasso or Tim Walton or Patrick Murphy would have some of the same problems coaching here as Jamie is having. Coaching in Minnesota means to have to know how to coach through indoor practice. Not every coach has experience with that. Lastly, I really wanted to Gophers to land a pitching recruit out of Nebraska named Jordan Bahl. Alas, she went toOklahoma. Bummer. But I understand the temptation that must go through an 17 year olds mine to play 30 plus games at home in a sparkling home facility. It is just tough to compete. We gotta keep getting lucky, and be a little patient during those inevitable times when we are less than lucky.
 

I live and grew up in Minnesota. Played the sport for years wherever, whenever and with whomever I could. Yes that included inside a facility at times, but also included a tournament or two in corn fields. Might sound crazy to this younger generation, but it was fun.

I just feel when you are blessed with talent and enjoy the sport you love so much why this state should become an exception. I am having a difficult time understanding where you practice or play should make that big of a difference. Call me Boomer all you want.
 

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