TN Baseball Report

2026 is our 25th year covering baseball at all levels in TN...

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

I've been doing MLB draft percentages of players who make it to the big leagues for at least 1 game - and there are a bunch of players who play less than 50 games total in their career - here is the latest full decade info on players who made it by round and by year... SLOT VALUES BY ROUND: https://t.co/xG8Cel8GPy

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

My oldest daughter Ally and her husband welcomed their second boy into the world on Monday! #feelingsblessed

[jack tate @coachtatefhs20]

RALPH SKINNER was one of the finest gentlemen I’ve ever known in my life ⚾️⚓️
As a baseball coach at Bearden High School for decades, playing at Farragut was always a challenge, but I knew that when Ralph came into our dugout an hour before the game to get our lineup, he would always walk in with a smile and a very friendly welcome and greeting. You always felt better after talking with Ralph Skinner.
Then, when he announced Starting Lineups over the Public Address system, Ralph would welcome our team in a genuine and caring manner.
Since I came to Farragut in 2020, I’ve been in the dugout with the Admirals Baseball team for every game ⚓️⚾️ That meant getting to visit with Ralph before each home game and every Post-Season game in May.
Ralph was a major part of the Admirals’ success. His final five seasons all ended with Farragut winning the State Championship. He will be remembered by everyone who knew him forever. Ralph will be missed by his amazing family, friends and the entire Admirals Baseball community.
Winston Churchill once said, “I am always satisfied with the very best”. RALPH SKINNER was the very best! ⚾️⚓️🏆

@AdmiralGameday @5StarPreps @WyntonJackson @prepxtra @West105_WFIV @jnichols_2121 @TBCAorg @ETBCAbsb @TNBaseballReprt

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

@schadjoe If you ask the outrageous taxes in LA, he may not sign for 10 mil when you can go somewhere else that don’t have the taxes California has and make double your money

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

@tnballplayers @VandyBoys @C1Brightwell That guy can flat out run

[Punchoutpitch @Punchoutpitch]

Pat Murphy did not get a real big league managing job until he was 65 years old

He has won Manager of the Year twice since

Here is his whole story

He never played a day in the major leagues himself. He was a catcher who signed with the San Francisco Giants and spent four years in the minors without ever getting called up

He was the head coach at Arizona State for fifteen seasons. He won 629 games there and took them to the College World Series four times. Before that he was at Notre Dame and won 318 more

Then it ended. He resigned in the middle of an NCAA investigation, after being told to resign or be fired

The NCAA found him innocent of the violations. What they actually reprimanded him for was his attitude toward their investigators. They called it cavalier

Here is how he describes that stretch

"I was a college coach forever, and then I had this huge injustice happen, and I thought, Why me?"

And then this, about himself

"My ego was involved a great deal more than it should have been."

So at 51 years old he went to the minor leagues

Eugene, Oregon. Tucson. El Paso. Nearly five years riding buses in the low minors after fifteen years running one of the best programs in the country

San Diego gave him the interim job and he went 42 and 54 in 96 games. They did not keep him

"I did everything wrong five times."

So he took a job as somebody's bench coach in Milwaukee. He did that for eight years

Then Craig Counsell left for Chicago, and the Brewers handed it to the 65 year old

Here is what happened next.

Manager of the Year. Then Manager of the Year again. 97 wins last season, 103 this one

And a sweep of a Los Angeles roster built to never lose a series like this

He was not some nobody they found in a parking lot. He was one of the best college coaches alive before any of this, and the Brewers handed him a roster Counsell had already built.

But he was 51 when he had to start over in the low minors, and 65 before anybody gave him a team of his own for a full season.

Christian Yelich said it takes a certain kind of player to play for him.

It took a certain kind of man to still be waiting at 65

(Via @thesportsontap)

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

@jeffbatesx The problem with that take is he’s not taking into consideration income taxes, state income taxes, which California is ridiculously high

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

quite the stat

[Ben Verlander @BenVerlander]

The Brewers are the ultimate OUTLIER

When I was diving in on the game and pitching matchup yesterday I found this. This is a statistic of the average degree of the barrel of the bat at contact point for each team.

Everything to the left is pull side contact point. Everything to the right is opposite field contact point.

29 of the 30 teams are to the pull side.

There’s just one to the opposite field. The Milwaukee Brewers.

This is wild to me. And speaks volumes to their team approach. It means the ball is traveling deeper which has a ripple effect on everything else you’re trying to do as a hitter.

It allows you to recognize off speed for a split second longer. Spit on pitches down and away. Keep pitches fair that you’re normally pulling foul. Foul line to foul line approach.

The team with the best record in all of baseball is the ONLY team doing something. And they’re not even particularly close to any other teams. That’s pretty eye opening.

Also shoutout Twins. Turn and burn, baby.

[Jared Diamond @jareddiamond]

The Brewers had the highest ground-ball rate in MLB this season. The pulled the ball less often than anyone, too. Only one team hit fewer homers.

They are the exact opposite of how modern baseball is supposed to work. They also are a scoring machine.

https://t.co/662oqERMkJ

[Jermaine Curtis @JermaineCurtis]

When I met Barry Bonds at UCLA in 2007, I wanted to know how to improve my swing.

But he taught me something that completely changed how I approached hitting.

And it had nothing to do with my swing mechanics.

He explained that pitchers typically want to establish their fastball down in the strike zone so they can play their off-speed pitches off that same location.

That makes it harder for hitters to recognize what's coming.

But here's what he wanted me to understand.

If you start hunting fastballs up in the strike zone, something interesting happens.

You begin taking more fastballs down in the zone.

You also start laying off more off-speed pitches that finish down in the zone.

And when a pitcher leaves an off-speed pitch up?

That's a mistake.

And those baseballs can go a LONG way when you hit them.

So I started applying that approach.

Instead of trying to hit every strike, I set my sights higher in the zone and looked for pitches I could drive.

And here's what happened.

My walks went up.

I started making more hard contact.

And I became more selective about the pitches I was swinging at.

All because I changed where I was looking for the baseball.

So here's what I'd recommend to young hitters who want to improve their pitch selection.

1. Hunt the fastball up in the zone.

Especially early in the count, look for a fastball in the upper part of the strike zone that you can drive.

2. Be willing to take pitches down in the zone.

If you're hunting the fastball up, you don't have to chase every fastball or off-speed pitch down.

Make the pitcher bring the baseball into the area you're looking for.

3. Don't miss the hanging off-speed pitch.

If you're looking up in the zone and the pitcher leaves a breaking ball or changeup up there, be ready to attack it.

Those are pitches you can drive for extra bases.

Now, this doesn't mean you should take every pitch down in the zone.

When you get to two strikes, you have to adjust and protect the plate.

But early in the count, you can be selective and hunt pitches you can do damage with.

Because there's one thing Barry Bonds helped me understand...

You don't have to swing at every strike to be a great hitter.

You have to recognize which strikes give you the best opportunity to do damage.

Stop trying to hit every pitch. Start hunting the pitches you can drive.

Hope this helps,
Jermaine Curtis

P.S. - If you enjoyed this, share it.

(This tells me you want more content like this)

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

@JWonCATCHING 1000% that today hitters drop the bat head when bunting a low pitch vs old days when hitters were crouched down to bunt low/mid level strikes and raised up and popped them up -

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

@jmtomsick @JeffStanek1 especially when wet or cold - as a coach we had a strategy of bunting mulitiple hitters early in the year when the field (grass) was damp/wet and it was cold - below 45 degrees - funky things happen to high school players in those situations

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

@AlexBlickle1 @JeffStanek1 i haven't seen a pitcher get pushed to the brink yet - especially starters - i haven't looked at all playoff starts but Chris Sale comes to mind as the only guy who has gone more than 6 - i'm old school, but to me if you don't go 7 its not a good start

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

@dekker @JeffStanek1 i noticed that too that there was a whole bunch more sacrifice bunting than i'd seen in quite some time - it was refreshing

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

@ButchBaseball29 i'm sure he was getting chirped pretty hard to do that but still

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

@ButchBaseball29 i could do without the post K antics... but he's good

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

@JWonCATCHING this should be an out - if that's the rule, its wrong - setting your own baseline? thats bogus

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

prob cant be done but i long for the days HS sports were covered like they were in the 70's and 80's - great game articles and stuff were available back then - i've enjoyed putting my history of TN HS baseball together and reading all the historical articles - https://t.co/RS4bfGF3Id ... sadly those are almost non existent in most large city papers in TN today

[Codify @CodifyBaseball]

MLB batting average vs. fourseamers,
2008-2014 / 2020-2026:

92-93 MPH - .273 / .276
93-94 MPH - .266 / .260
94-95 MPH - .258 / .248
95-96 MPH - .250 / .244
96-97 MPH - .241 / .237
97-98 MPH - .225 / .222

[Michael Stroup 🏴‍☠️🌊 @CoachStroup]

The person criticizing your program online doesn’t attend practice, study the film, or know your players—but they do have Wi-Fi in their mother’s basement. Everybody is an expert when they have no responsibility and unlimited access to social media.

[TN Baseball Report @TNBaseballReprt]

@BigOrangeMack They aren’t leaving, they have chosen not to participate in the football playoffs, therefore they will not be playing a region schedule. All other sports are still participating in TSSAA as normal.