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Canes Baseball Coaching Staff Discussion

Fire Gino DiMare

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Pitcher in the Rye

Pitcher in the Rye

3) Man's Law 2) God's Law 1) Mr. Murphy's Law
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I see there's a lot of discussion following yesterday's debacle regarding the coaching staff in multiple threads so I thought I'd start a thread dedicated to this hot button issue.
What do you think? Fire or retain Gino? Arteaga? Norberto Lopez? The strength and conditioning coach? Clear out the whole house?
Comment who your ideal candidate would be. Keep in mind, I highly doubt DiMare is on the hot seat. The money his family has donated is staggering and I'm told he donates his salary back to the school. In a world where most college baseball programs run at a deficit, this a huge advantage for Gino when considering replacing him.
 
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I think it's time to clean house—and am not of the opinion the next hire is Greg Lovelady, or no one else—or the sake of "keeping it in the family".

Gino DiMare "deserved" the keys to this program in 2013, as soon as Jim Morris was escorted out of the 2012 Coral Gables Regional by Stony Brook (10-2) and Missouri State (12-2).

Instead, Morris got his "gold watch" in the form of a contract extension and stuck around another six dismal seasons. Had Blake James done his job—big ask, I know—the DiMare experiment happens almost a decade ago, instead of starting in 2019.

We're four years in (minus a COVID-cancelled season which every bleeding heart believes would've been Omaha and potentially a title) and this feels like latter-year Morris-era baseball; underachieving, going into a shell, pitching falling apart, bats going cold, unclutch baseball (where it looks like everyone forgot fundamentals) as well as enough small coaching blunders to cost Miami big games.

Great, all these kids come back next year and the Canes "talent" themselves to a Super Regional—they'll eventually run into a buzzsaw with a better-coached, more fundamentally-sound, clutch team with some real heart and swag.

Look at the last two Omaha appearances—a 1-4 record and 14 runs scored in five games:

2016
Arizona 5, Miami 1
Santa Barbara 3, Miami 2

2015
Florida 15, Miami 5
Miami 4, Arkansas 3
Florida 10, Miami 2

— Gino is 111-61 (throwing out the 16-game COVID season)—finishing second in the Coastal all three seasons.

— 1-4 in 2022 postseason; 0-2 at ACC Tourney, 1-2 in Coral Gables Regional. Outscored 25-9 by NC State and Wake Forest in conference tourney; manufactured three runs at home against Ole Miss and Arizona—stranded 17 runners over two games.

— Run out of Gainesville Regional in 2021 without even having to face host Florida; 10-2 loss to South Florida and 7-2 loss to South Alabama—out of winner's bracket, after 1-0 win over South Alabama in opener.

— Lost opener to Central Michigan in Starkville Regional in 2019; fell to Mississippi State, 5-2 (needed to beat Bulldogs twice to advance.)

— 13-14 since going into VT series 27-6 with #2 ranking—six of those 13 wins were against North Dakota State, Canisius, Central Florida and Bethune-Cookman.

The billion dollar question; who wins a battle of wills—Paul DiMare or Dan Radakovich? Hard to believe that Gino gets run off after his third full season with the money his family has donated to the program, but Radakovich obviously has his own plans for athletics.

Safe to say DiMare will return in 2023, unless for some reason he doesn't want to—but anything less than an impressive run in Omaha should be the benchmark for a 2024 run. If this looks and smells like it has the past few years—long-time holdovers from the Morris era in DiMare and Arteaga—this program is going to continue looking like it's over version of the Morris era.

New blood is absolutely necessary, but because of logistics and money (DiMare family money; not program's lack of money)—can't imagine any off-season change. Better home John Ruiz throws some LifeWallet NIL money at kids to come to Coral Gables to play baseball as talent is going to have to make up for low energy coaching and unclutch performances.
 
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the problems as i see it:

1) jim morris quit coaching .... three seasons before he actually retired 😜 :D😜
2) the program had devolved into mediocrity, and we hired a coach from the failed regime. (he was partly responsible for its failure)
3) di mare is protected, so we put ourselves in a position of not being able to effectively manage him
4) he was never an elite coach to begin with, which is what this program deserves
5) not having done a proper search, means we never benchmarked his capabilities against those other coaches that might have been stronger candidates
6) the financial backing is there, but the people behind the money (i.e. Ruiz), allegedly have a personal interest in favoring Gino

the solution, (or at least some of it):

1) Rad needs to use his political capital and do for baseball what we've done for football
2) We need to clean house
3) The game evolves, but we need a regime that understands that the way to recreate excellence in Miami baseball is getting away from having 6 fat guys in the lineup all batting .272, and striking out twice a game
4) A coaching search needs to accept the possibility that the next head guy may not be from the 'Canes family tree
 
I just don't understand with all the money we supposedly have, how much Lovelady comes up on this board. Like that is your top of the list coach out of everyone? Dude is 193-123 record at UCF with 1 regional appearance. I know he had a little success at Wright St. but can we please hire someone outside of the family.
 
halocanex said:
I just don't understand with all the money we supposedly have, how much Lovelady comes up on this board. Like that is your top of the list coach out of everyone? Dude is 193-123 record at UCF with 1 regional appearance. I know he had a little success at Wright St. but can we please hire someone outside of the family.
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I’m of the mindset to hire the best possible. If the best come from the family tree, so be it; but, to solely focus on Miami ties is no bueno.

Look at all of our successful coaches:
Howard - no UM ties (alum of UK)
Jimmy - no UM ties (alum of Arkansas, former coach of OKst)
Erickson - no UM ties (alum of Montana St, former coach at WASU)
Fraser - no UM ties (alum of FSU)
Morris - no UM ties (alum of Elon, former coach of GT)

It wasn’t until Butch that we started hiring from the Miami tree, & even that was by coincidence b/c no one wanted the job. From Coker, to Shannon, to Richt, to Diaz, to DiMare we’ve been hiring less than ideal candidates to run our programs w/ UM ties either as alum or previously/currently on staff.

Mario, Dan & now Zo happened to be the best candidates AND alums, and that’s OK. If the best candidate comes from the family tree, so be it, but to just use that as a criteria is not conducive to success.
 
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halocanex said:
I just don't understand with all the money we supposedly have, how much Lovelady comes up on this board. Like that is your top of the list coach out of everyone? Dude is 193-123 record at UCF with 1 regional appearance. I know he had a little success at Wright St. but can we please hire someone outside of the family.
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Agreed. We all want Lovelady to succeed & be a corching star. However, between Bright Futures & the amount of talent in Central Florida, etc., UCF should be a consistent(read: annual) regional team. Not convinced he’s all that great of a recruiter. Is he keeping any of the Orlando area studs from going to Hogtown, etc? UCF was a better pro’grum several years ago when they had that old dude (Bergman?)that used to beat his players.
 
I think Dimare could succeed if he took on less. Meaning move on from JD and go get an offensive guy and a new pitching guy then get out of their way. Run the program, create your style but let them develop from within. JD needs a fresh start maybe whoever gets hired up the road brings him on. I think that family tragedy really changed things and I totally understand why.

Let your offensive guy coach third and you stay in the dugout. Be around the team and talk about things you see.

We need a guy plugged into VA up to Connecticut as well to start plucking more northern kids. The Jersey private schools are pumping out high level talent.

And I’m with others no Lovelady no Cooper no Laz from Nova Southeastern. Time to bring in more variety
 
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halocanex said:
I just don't understand with all the money we supposedly have, how much Lovelady comes up on this board. Like that is your top of the list coach out of everyone? Dude is 193-123 record at UCF with 1 regional appearance. I know he had a little success at Wright St. but can we please hire someone outside of the family.
Click to expand...

I don't think UM needs a baseball ***** the same way football did, so we don't necessarily have to scrap the program and rebuild. UM threw the season away with bonehead mistakes, which shouldnt be that hard to fix. Why was UM 129th in fielding percentage? Whether DiMare stays or goes, one thing for sure is that he needs to make changes on his staff.
 
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