UConn coach Jim Penders interviewed for the baseball job
Source: #UCONN HC Jim Penders interviewed with #Michigan AD Warde Manuel and is now a primary candidate in U-M’s hunt for a new baseball coach. https://t.co/c7FOl6Df0I
— Brandon Justice (@BrandonJustice_) June 17, 2022
UConn connection I guess. Resume isn't amazing, but given the Big Ten's status in the baseball world and perhaps UConn's status in the baseball world, perhaps this would be a good grab for us
Seems like an inside track to the job having known Warde from his days as UConn's AD. I mean, I don't know anything about college baseball coaches, so I'm not sure how this looks - 650 career wins in 19 years is ~34 wins/year, and 50-16 this last year. So if we average ~60-70 games/season, that looks like a ~.500 coach.
Which, on the surface with incomplete numbers, seems like we should be aiming a little higher. But, again, I dunno anything 'bout no college baseball coaches...
650-431-5 is his career record. So about .600. Bakich is .558 in his career, .602 at Michigan for reference. You mention ~34 wins/year so I should note that Bakich won 35.5 per year at Michigan if we take out the Covid year. Taking out the Covid year for UConn and they’ve won 35.6 per year under Penders. So pretty Michigan-esque results from Penders at UConn.
He’s from Connecticut, played at UConn and has spent his entire coaching career at UConn so it’s fairly interesting that he’s even interested in the Michigan job.
As for “aiming higher,” Bakich was 70-98 (20-70 in the ACC) when Michigan hired him. Penders probably isn’t #1 or #2 on my preference list, but you’re not going to aim much higher than a 650 win proven commodity at a school like Michigan. Whether we want to admit it or not, the Big Ten is essentially a mid-major conference in baseball and Michigan is not the premier job that it is in many other sports. Still a very good job mind you, but Michigan isn’t realistically going to be able to go out and poach the top coaching candidates.
If you think you’re a mid major, then you are. Blows my mind people buy that load of crap just because Seth says so. I’ll give you an example: Louisville hired Dan McDonnell in 2007 when they were in the Big East; then they joined the AAC before jumping to the ACC in 2015. In 2016 UofL paid him $1.05 million per year because they saw the importance of a winning baseball program. From Ann Arbor, Louisville is a 5 hour job so it’s not in Deep South. Their athletic dept budget is about $80m less per year than UM.
The failure to pay Bakich north of $1m annually was a very short sighted and frankly stupid decision by Warde. There’s nothing holding UM baseball back from greatness other than UM itself. Go big or go home.
Notice the part where Louisville joined the ACC? A big time player in the college baseball landscape? The Big Ten is not that. Facts are facts.
Louisville needs to invest in their baseball program to compete in the ACC. Michigan gains nothing from paying that much for a coach. It’s not going to make Michigan a bigger player on the national scene and it’s not going to increase our standing within the conference. Michigan is no better of a team by paying Bakich $1.2 million than they are paying him $400k.
Whether you want to admit it or not, top ball players don’t want to come play ball in the north against teams that don’t play high end ball. Louisville may not be “deep south” but they play in one of the best baseball conferences in the nation, full of teams that are in fact in the Deep South. Michigan is simply a good program in a sport utterly dominated by warm weather programs. Bakich isn’t going to change that no matter how much money you throw at him.
I get that there are a lot of structural changes that make competing tough as a northern team, but the mid major comparison isn't a great one. We're still Michigan and have an incredible amount of resources in our Athletic Department.
It might not make financial sense (right now) to pay up for Bakich, but there are plenty of decisions made within the athletic department that are made for reasons other than strictly dollars and cents - think almost all other non-revenue sports. We could become the preeminent northern team in the baseball world. Attract all the best talent from around the greater midwest. Any big companies looking to make a pitch to baseball players in the midwest could sponsor our players.
Becoming a northern powerhouse in the country's third biggest sport is definitely worth the investment.
I don't know, so I'm genuinely asking - is there anything specifically different between baseball / softball that has allowed us to become a softball powerhouse while more or less saying baseball isn't worth the investment?
Michigan isn’t realistically going to be able to go out and poach the top coaching candidates.
I get that in the sense of *poach.* But why can't we go after someone considered *top,* or pull a guy from the MLB system that is out of the box?
I’d say with a .600 win percentage and 650 career wins, UConn’s coach would be considered “top” as much as any other candidate.
As for pulling a guy from MLB, you’d have to find a guy that WANTS that. There’s no real pipeline for college coaches going back to MLB. If their career goal is MLB manager, there’s no real upside in going to college. They’re better off remaining a bench coach or taking a minor league manager job.
My point is really that Michigan isn’t going to go out and get top candidates when other top programs are having coaching searches themselves. As much as we love Michigan and as big of a brand as it is, it doesn’t have quite the same cache in the baseball world. Still a really good program, but there’s a definite ceiling there. It would require a connection of some kind to the university to pull off a hire like that. Fetter coming back as an example. CMU’s coach not wanting to move his family across the country being another.
He's had 4 losing seasons in his 19 years at UConn, most of them early on in his tenure. The Huskies have made the playoffs 5 of the past 6 years, and while the Big 10 is a bit better than the Big East I don't think the gap is that significant that you could chalk up his success to inferior competition. He's done a good job getting UConn to being a pretty good college baseball team in a tough area to recruit.
I'm not sold this would be the best hire possible and I don't necessarily think he's going to leave his alma mater but this wouldn't be a bad choice. Like, I'm more confident this would be a good hire than when Ed Cooley was floated out there to replace Beilein a couple years ago.
Michigan is at peace with being a good northern baseball team and a mediocre national one. They (rightfully) acknowledge that the headwinds are too strong to every really make moves as a yankee school. We got very lucky with Bakich. Paradoxically, it might have been better for us long term if we sucked this year.
2019 was a total fluke.
2019 wasn't a total fluke. They were very close to the Supers this year and won two Big Ten Tournaments under Bakich.
No. Michigan is a very good Northern team and a good national team. They definitely are not "mediocre" at the national level.
I actually think you're right. Michigan hasn't been ranked much but, aside from that, I suppose one can refer to them as a good program.
I wish they would go with a young coach.
UConn people reporting this isn't true and the tweet was just deleted so this can probably be deleted as well lol.
Jim Penders says F You to the Midwest!
Click here to see what he said he'd do instead. You won't believe it!
It is jaw dropping.
Michigan should have fought harder to keep Bakich. I'm not the biggest fan of Warde with this situation and the other things that have happened recently.
What could Michigan have done to “fight harder”?
Sounds like he jumped at the job. But we could have paid him more, no? Don't we always brag about the money we have?
You would also jump at a job that tripled your salary to do the same job you’re already doing. Michigan is not (rightfully so) going to join the list of 3-4 teams to pay their baseball coach north of $1 million.
The Big Ten is a mid-major baseball conference. There is absolutely zero justification for paying a coach that kind of money to coach in the Big Ten. It’s not going to put us on par with the warm weather schools on the field.
Off all of the above... and move Ann Arbor to the warm south.
No. Find a coach who can make it sunny and 75° in Ann Arbor, starting in February.
Maybe we should talk to the people at H.A.A.R.P.. the seem to be able to change weather patterns
We could've, but as others have noted before, baseball is the #3 and maybe even #2 sport at a lot of southern schools. At Michigan I guess it depends on how you want to rank things but its probably in the 4-6 range and it would be hard to justify paying Bakich a pile more money than KBB or Hutch considering all 3 of those teams probably have similar followings
Triple his salary, which is what Clemson did and we, understandably, weren't prepared to match
I don't think you can say "M should have just paid him the same $ to stay" and think that ends it.
Bakich more than likely has some things he wants to do in his career that his chances of achieving while at M are slim-to-none. At Clemson he will make much more consistent and deeper runs into post season play and has a MUCH better chance at winning a CWS. Remember that M wasn't going anywhere this year w/o the very unlikely B10 Tourney win.
I'm not sure what the possibilities are in coaching going from college to MLB, but whatever the next rung up is from college baseball, Clemson is inarguably a superior springboard than M.
Keeping Bakich with $ would mean paying a stupid amount more than he is getting at Clemson and while maybe possible, it simply isn't smart when you have a whole AD and other coaches to consider, and Warde has bosses just like everyone who wouldn't likely be approving of that kind of decision.
He was here for 10 years. Some coaches stay forever (see Hutch) but most move around, especially when they're young to build resumes and salary. I think we did pretty well with Bakich. He stayed longer than I would've expected.
Fire Penders!
I wasn't a huge fan of the "Fire Bakich" joke. A shade too much negativity in what's intended to be a positive joke.
Still, Mr. Rules, your joke's a good one.
Fire Blue Vet!
Wouldn't excite me as much as some of the other names that have been mentioned but he seems like a good coach who's had some success at a school that isn't easy to win at.
FWIW I checked a Clemson board and many of their fans were not excited about Bakich so who knows...
Hard YES!!!
he's coaching at his alma mater.... but he's only making 250k
i suspect he'd about double his salary taking the Michigan job, but he's from CT, was a captain on UConn baseball team and probably has the job as long as he wants it.
i could see him saying, 'Thanks, but I'll pass'.
Bakich made $400k I believe for reference.
yeah, so i'm guessing they'll be paying that, or more, to get a new coach. UConn will most likely offer Penders a raise if they think that the salary is what's going to draw him away.
Are they going to interview Brandon Inge?
He left his voluntary coach position on his own so prob not.
The guy from CMU might be a good fit too.
Realistically no matter who we get it's going to be a serious downgrade.
IMO, they should have just offered Nick Schnabel straight away to keep the direction of the program intact and to keep current players and recruits on board. Young A+ recruiter and a great baseball mind with plenty of head coach interest by other schools over the last ten years, but now it's too late. I guess Jordan Bischel would be my next choice.
I would also like to see Ryan Kelley, former M pitcher and current head coach at WSU get a look.
Awesome coach and awesome person! Don’t post much but have to post this - my late brother (UM Med) was the Sports Medicine Director for his career at UCONN. He, unfortunately, can’t speak on this now but I know for a fact that Coach Penders is legit in his eyes - which makes him legit in mine (if you knew my brother, you would know that his judgment in these things is worth listening to.
This Connecticut website says a "source with knowledge of the situation told Hearst Connecticut Media that the information was “not true,” and the tweet was soon taken down by Justice. It appears possible, according to another source, that Penders may have had a phone conversation regarding the job, but to characterize it as an “interview” was an overreach."
https://www.ctinsider.com/uconn/article/Could-UConn-baseball-coach-Jim-Penders-be-a-17249400.php
Warde should take a run at Mike Bell from Pitt. He was the pitching coach at FSU when Mike Martin was head coach. FSU gave Mike Martin Jr the job when Mike Bell deserved it. He has recruiting ties all over the country, and especially in the south.