Matt Williams has been coaching in baseball for a long time with a handful of teams. He\u2019s seen a lot of success in his 18 years of working with pitchers before heading to the Gamecocks\u2019 program.<\/p>\n
But while he\u2019s done a lot of good, he hasn\u2019t coached in the SEC Before. It\u2019s a different type of beast. Only one team batted below .270 this season. Ten of the 14 teams made the NCAA Tournament. <\/p>\n
While Williams, South Carolina\u2019s newly-hired pitching coach, has never coached in this conference, he understands what it will take to be successful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the biggest thing is attacking the plate. Especially in this league, if your stuff doesn\u2019t play over the plate then it\u2019s going to be tough for you here,\u201d Williams said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI want to make sure we\u2019re attacking the plate, we\u2019re being aggressive. Our approach is going to be aggressive. If your stuff\u2019s not playing then we either got to look at making some changes, some adjustments. Just finding the right stuff to play over the plate is going to be the big thing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
[Get news from GamecockCentral via email]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s a strategy that Williams has used before and seen good results with. In nine seasons at the Division I level, his pitching staffs have averaged 8.55 strikeouts per nine innings. Opposing teams have hit .248\/.347\/.364 during that span.<\/p>\n Excluding the COVID-shortened season, his staffs have had an ERA below 4.50 five times with a sub-4.00 ERA four of those years.\u00a0<\/p>\n Before coming to coach the Gamecocks, Williams had coached at UNC Wilmington and Liberty, where he seemingly got the most out of his arms. He\u2019ll be looking to do it again with the Gamecocks.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, it\u2019s looking at things. Maybe there\u2019s some characteristics on a certain pitch that may fit in our bullpen. Maybe their fastball\u2019s got some outlier characteristics or their breaking pitch is really good, and we can see them in a role,\u201d Williams said. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just kind of us watching them and seeing what the metrics say and envisioning something down the road and just making a decision on them.\u201d<\/p>\n [Subscribe to GamecockCentral\u2019s YouTube page]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n At the same time, Williams will be working with 18 to 22-year-old kids that most likely learn differently from one another. And he knows that. <\/p>\n \u201cSome guys learn in the weight room, some guys learn just talking mechanics and some guys learn in the bullpen. Some guys can learn with metrics. It\u2019s a different deal getting to know each individual guy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s still unclear how Williams will utilize his new pitching staff. Many players still have to decide if they\u2019ll return to the Gamecocks\u2019 program next year or head to the professional ranks. He said it\u2019ll be a \u201cyear-to-year thing\u201d when making those decisions.<\/p>\n \u201cYou find out what pieces you got going through the fall. I mean, some years you may have guys that are starters that get you deeper in games and you don\u2019t have to use the bullpen quite as much,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes you have guys that maybe you have to piece the game together. I think that really will be determined with us going through the fall and finding out what pieces are there.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Matt Williams discusses pitching philosophy, working with new staff<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matt Williams has been coaching in baseball for a long time with a handful of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Discuss South Carolina baseball on The Insiders Forum!<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n