An open-minded Mike Bianco and a crucial series for Ole Miss
A weekend of TBA, a Kentucky scouting report and a look around the SEC
Hope everyone had a good week. We’ve got a new podcast out with Collin Brister previewing the Kentucky series, Mike Bianco’s decision making regarding the rotation, why this weekend is important and more. LBs Greg hopped on after to answer your grilling questions. We discussed flaming hot Cheeto sausage, Denver wagyu cuts and much more. You can check that out here or anywhere you get podcasts.
We’ve got some baseball, football and golf to get to today.
Bianco gives telling quote on rotation
Ole Miss beat North Alabama 20-3 on Tuesday. I have absolutely zero analysis on that game other than Calvin Harris looked healthy. He nearly hit for the cycle. It’ll be interesting to see how Bianco finagles the lineup once Kevin Graham gets back healthy because you cannot sit Harris with the way he’s hit this year. His batting average is a cool .562. The calendar just turned to April. That is insane.
Anyway, the only other takeaway from this game was a quote from Bianco when asked about his weekend rotation plans. Here is the quote in full.


In six years covering the team, I cannot recall clipping a lengthy Mike Bianco quote to share on social media or elsewhere. Not very many were worthy. He’s not always a bad interview. Sometimes he is grumpy, but he is almost always pretty matter of fact about things and doesn’t elaborate beyond what is considered a completely fair answer. Tuesday night was different. I thought this was a fascinating and honest glimpse into how Bianco views a clear problem that needs to be fixed. I also feel like he wanted to get a message out to media, fans and onlookers that he is willing to do anything to fix this. Three years ago, about a year after the Tampa Bay Rays first implemented a cutting-edge strategy known as an “opener” to start games, I remember having a discussion in the Swayze Field press box about the odds of Bianco knowing what an opener was. I think the consensus was less than a 50 percent chance. To hear Bianco even mention the idea of an opener is telling with regard to how open-minded he is about getting this fixed. That’s a good sign.
I also found his view on weekends interesting. He talked about changing his thinking, and looking at it from a ‘how to cover 27 innings throughout a weekend’ standpoint. For a guy who has been accused in the past of being too ridged, assigning roles and being reluctant to stray from them, I thought that part of the quote served as pretty strong evidence his thinking has has changed entirely.
Bianco admitting fault in how he has managed the pitching staff was also fascinating. I don’t think he has done a poor job of managing the pitching staff (I am not talking about recruiting. We can get to that another day. I mean the pieces he currently has). I just think guys haven’t performed well and it is now time to reevaluate. My opinion aside, perhaps there is some truth to it. Ole Miss has guys that have pitched well this year. It’s not a matter of having no one that can get outs in the SEC (or at least not yet), it’s been more about the starting pitching dooming them. As Bianco pointed out, the bullpen has been pretty good. There are likable pieces to the staff like Riley Maddox, Brandon Johnson, Dylan Delucia, Hunter Elliott and Jack Dougherty. The problem is only one of those names has started a game this year. That is about to change, as it should. What I think Bianco was really alluding to in this part of the quote is that the starting pitching has been terrible and that maybe he should’ve been more open-minded in how he selected the rotation to start the year, as well as a little quicker to change things up and give various guys opportunities in the nonconference schedule. This is both a good and a bad thing. There is still hope. There are viable options, but then you also have to ask how and why it was so bad in the first place, particularly considering two of the opening weekend rotation guys — Derek Diamond and Drew McDaniel — are not pitching close to expectations.
Given Bianco’s current approval rating, patting him on the back for this quote will likely induce a collective eye roll from most reading it, but I do give him credit for being open minded and willing resort to drastic measures this early in the season. With what is at stake this year, he simply cannot afford to do anything else.
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Rotation is Delucia, TBA, TBA
Bianco set his rotation on Thursday. Of all the possibilities we discussed on the podcast and that I wrote about in the newsletter, this is wasn’t one of them. I basically talked myself into all roads leading to Johnson becoming the Friday night starter, with either Gaddis or Maddox on Saturday and Diamond on Sunday. I think that will eventually end up being the case, or something very similar to to it. And while I can’t say I totally understand this move, I am also not against it. I wrote on Monday that nothing should be off the table in terms of ideas to fix this mess. I didn’t have this as an idea on that metaphorical table, but I am intrigued to see if it works. Ole Miss starters have completed five innings just once in SEC play. The production has been so bad, is there really such thing as a bad idea right now? I just want to see it play out.
As far as what I think Bianco’s rationalization of this was, I am guessing it has to do with a combination of Delucia and the opponent. Delucia’s role in conference play so far has been eating up outs and innings behind bad performances from Gaddis. Last Friday, he threw 98 pitches and covered 6.2 innings in relief. He gave up five earned runs on four hits with six strikeouts and two walks. That’s not exactly lighting the world on fire, but it’s better (and longer) than any starter has performed in the last two weeks. Delucia also put up a pair of crucial scoreless innings in the Thursday night win at Auburn in a game that looked like it was going to turn into a slugfest. His work allowed Ole Miss time and opportunities to blow the game open at the plate, which it did. I guess Bianco thinks that if this team can just get settled into the game and not have his offense trailing 5-0 when they come to the plate in the second inning, that he believes that is good enough to win on Fridays while saving basically a full arsenal of starter options for the final two games.
Will it work? Who the hell knows. I don’t hate it. Bianco also mentioned this being a week-to-week thing. This rotation is going to take time to get sorted out. Fortunately for Ole Miss, the schedule allows for that (to a degree). I also think it has to do with Kentucky losing their Friday night starter to injury on a pitching staff that has been pretty terrible this season. That had to have factored into it some. If Ole Miss was playing Arkansas this weekend with Connor Noland on the mound, would Bianco have still gone with Delucia over Johnson or Dougherty? I don’t know. I have to think he would’ve considered the latter. Remember, his quote on Tuesday was about rethinking this whole thing entirely and crafting a plan to get through each weekend. Maybe he thinks this is the best first chess move to get thru the Kentucky Wildcats. That doesn’t necessarily mean it is the right strategy against Alabama, Arkansas or anyone else. We are all so used to watching Bianco teams with defined roles that his make take some getting used to.
That’s my rationale for it. I have no idea if he thought any of this, and I am not even telling you I wholeheartedly believe it. I have no idea what to believe and what the solution is, therefore I am not going to label this as a bad idea because there are no bad ideas right now.
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Scouting Kentucky
The Wildcats are 17-9 (2-4). They took two games from Georgia last weekend in Lexington after getting swept at Arkansas to open SEC play. This team has a series win over TCU in the nonconference slate. Kentucky has a pretty decent lineup that ranks in the top half of the league in most statistical categories except for home runs. They hit for average well, walk a lot and don’t strikeout a ton. What has failed the Wildcats is pitching and defense. They have been horrible in the field and though their rotation has been better in SEC play than it was earlier in the year, the loss of ace Cole Stupp for the year after he had a forearm injury (usually means it’s linked to the elbow and results Tommy John surgery) has put an already embattled rotation in an even bigger hole.
How they'll pitch it this weekend:
Friday: TBA
Saturday: RHP Darren Williams
Sunday: LHP Tyler Bosma
The Cats went with the rare Friday TBA and then kept the rest of their rotation in-tact without anyone moving up a day in the absence of Stupp. I have no idea who they will throw. My guess is either right-handed reliver Zack Lee or lefty Magdiel Cotto. Lee was in the mix to be a rotation arm for them in the preseason and Cotto is a hard-throwing lefty that was a weekend starter for the Wildcats until he was replaced by Williams before the Georgia series.
As for the two starters we know, Williams throws four good pitches with a fastball in the low 90s. He’s an Eastern Kentucky transfer that made the Ohio Valley all-conference second team. Williams was a reliever to start the year and was inserted into the rotation for the first time last weekend. Bosma is a fastball-slider guy who has been about as run of the mill of a Sunday starter as you could imagine. He did throw six innings of shutout baseball last weekend to clinch the series over the Wildcats, so he’s coming off his best outing of the year.
Hitters to watch:
3B Chase Estepp - one of the better players in the SEC. He’s hit 8 home runs and has a 1.268 OPS. He leads the team in average, hits, home runs, extra base hits and walks. The guy can rake.
Jacob Plastiak - He and Estepp have half of the team’s total home runs. He strikes out a ton but will punish a mistake.
Kentucky is like Ole Miss in that they are figuring out a pitching staff that has failed them to this point. An injury to its ace has only made the matter worse. The Wildcats are not nearly as talented as the Rebels on the mound or at the plate. Ole Miss is the better team. Will it play like it?
Final thoughts
The next two weeks are about as fair of a test as you could possibly ask for if you are Ole Miss. Good teams win at Kentucky and good teams beat Alabama at home. This weekend, if the Rebels play well, they will win. If they don’t, then they’ll head back to Oxford in a really precarious spot. Kentucky is a terrible defensive team and the pitching has been lackluster. The Ole Miss offense should get after the Wildcats pretty good. If the Rebels struggle at the plate, we will be talking about an entirely different set of issues on Monday and drastically different expectations for this team.
As the pitching staff tries to figure things out, it needs a lift from its offense. The pitchers need margin for error and multi-run cushions. That’s what we thought this team would be in the preseason — a great offense that covers for an average pitching staff. To this point, it has sort of played out the way we thought. Yes, the rotation has been way worse than average and the offense stunk last weekend, but factoring in the bullpen and what this offense has looked like when its clicking, it’s collectively been average.
This series will also tell us a lot about the toughness and DNA of this team. How does it respond after being embarrassed on its home field last weekend? Do guys step up on the mound? Does the offense carry the team like it should? I am fascinated to see how the pitching plays out in what is a crucial weekend for Ole Miss.
Around the SEC
Let’s make some picks.
Tennessee at Vanderbilt - There is a world in which we look up in about five weeks and the SEC has a lot of parity amongst 13 teams, with Tennessee being the dominant exception. If the Vols roll over the Commodores like they have everyone else in their path, I will feel even more confident in the previous statement. I’ll say Vandy gets one here, but it’s pretty telling that I am hesitant to give a program like Vanderbilt a game here in their own park.
Mississippi State at Arkansas - Arkansas barely escaped Missouri with a series win, but the Hogs are tough at home. Arkansas takes two.
Auburn at LSU - Sneaky good and important series here for both teams. I want to pick Auburn, but the Tigers have been so bad in the field, I cannot pick them on the road in an environment like this. LSU gets two.
Georgia at Florida - Georgia has good top-end pitching. That is about it. Florida rebounds from a series loss at home to LSU and takes two here.
Texas A&M at Alabama - I am still not convinced Texas A&M is decent despite their series win in Baton Rouge two weeks ago. Alabama is like 10 pitches away from being 5-1 in the league. That feels like the story of that program the last four years. Tide get two. They need this series badly.
South Carolina at Mizzou - Mizzou showed some friskiness against Arkansas last weekend. South Carolina followed up a massive series win over Vandy with a loss to Presbyterian. The Gamecocks have had a few head-scratching losses. I will reluctantly pick South Carolina to win two, but this feels like a precarious road series for an inconsistent team.
On the horizon
I am going to get back to some spring football stuff next week
Sunday baseball recap show
Magnolia State golf update
Football feature story.
That is all from me today. Thanks for being a loyal subscriber. Send to your friends and tell them to join in on the fun by smashing the subscribe button below. It is free.