(SB) Ongoing UF Softball Commentary

Mia did fine on defense. She is 2b and I will be shocked if that ever chnages. This team should've have been in the finals of this WCWS. It was not overrated. It never clicked. There were the injury issues and something has just felt off to me personally. I hope im wrong but I would not be suprised for unexpected things to happen.

 

Respectfully, I disagree. I don't think she's nimble enough for second base and doesn't have great range. I think she'd be better at first or third. I think she's an adequate second baseman. But not an exceptional second baseman.
You need her bat in the lineup, so she has to play somewhere. But I'd like to see us upgrade defensively at second.

 

I don't think she'll get much better. She's not mobile enough. She's 5-10, I think. So plenty tall to play first. But I figured Ava may play first.
Regardless, we need to play better defensively next year.
Also, I'm happy we got Holtorf this year. But I'm also happy that someone new will take over. We need to be stronger up the middle.

 

You can't compare Mia to Adams, Stewart, and Dewitt. Those 3 were defensive studs that could play any infield position. Mia has done plenty good enough. Yes there has been some bone head errors. But she cleaned it up a lot later in the season. Her bat makes up for her errors. Ss was the defensive spot that killed us this year and 3b at times. 3b definetley tightened up and SS did as well towards the end of the year. Its hard to replace a whole infield and expect it to be perfect because thats what we did. Mias range is not as fantastic as some. That is known but she is still plenty good enough and improved from last year. A few errors she made were becasue of being able to get to more balls.
The fact people chose to try and compare Mia to Hannah Adams or Kelsey Stewart at 2b blows my mind. Adams is a gold standard and Stewart was that before Adams.

 

Mia has made some very nice plays and has good reaction time. Her problems seem to be related to decision making and execution after she gets the ball. She is not a natural. She does have sped and height and does well at getting to and catching fly balls. She might be great at right field of first base.

 

Mia is not nimble enough or rangy enough to play second at an elite program like Florida. We should seek gold standard players at UF. You have to be elite up the middle on defense if you want to win in the way that we want to win.

 

Go get them from OU then. I dont know what else you can ask for they dont make gold standard defensive players every day. There are plenty worse defensive 2b than Mia. Look across the sport. Teams play offensive players over defensive. Hence the term defensive substitutions. A .300+ power hitter that makes more eerros will play over a .100 hitter that makes minimal errors. Its the era of the game we are in. Sophia reynoso was the last a+ defensive player with a lower BA we saw. Avery Goelz last year also. She played to give Ava rest and because her defense was that good. This era of softball is all about offense.

 

One of Mia's problem is the position of her glove. She plays balls with her glove up one high bouncing balls which hits her glove and bounces off her body. Needs to learn to turn glove over.

 

Trying someone at 3 rd and moving someone to short at this level would be a disaster. Got to go get the best SS in the country and move the second baseman to another position. In softball 3 rd base is so critical

 

please tell me why you think that this team should’ve been in the finals? I think they probably achieved as far as they can go. They are certainly not in the league with Oklahoma Texas or even Tennessee, but maybe I’m not seeing something that you are.

 

Ava did well at first base last year, it's possible she could move back there they could make Mia the DP, then they would keep her bat.
The only thing is, I think they made Ava DP so she could pitch when needed, and be in the bullpen to warm up, so she may not go back to 1st base. If she were to be back in defence, it would have to be 1st because as much as I love her, she's not fast enough for 2nd, so they couldn't swap her and Mia around.

All that waffle just to say I have no idea what they should do with Mia, apart from practice and coach her up a little. She's not that bad on 2nd!

 

Cahalan played SS at Bama because she had to. Cahalan has and always will be a natural 3b. She has forward range not lateral. Cahalan was always a 3b before Bama. They had Dowling at 3b when she came in and she wasnt moving. They lost Skylar and needed a ss.

 

I know she needs to improve. I never disputed that. Everybody needs to improve. She improved year 1 to year 2 and I expect no different next year. Assuming she is here next year. And yes she is FINE at 2b. Those others you mentioned were GREAT at 2b. There's a difference. Most dont understand how spoiled we were by all of those players. The game used to put a lot of emphasis on defense so therefore there were a lot of elite defensive players. That is not the case anymore. Elite defensive players are the exception not the norm like it used to be. Part of that is it's a lot harder to play defense now with how hot balls are coming off bats and how squared up balls are because of pitching not catching up with hitting.

 

Did you not see the talent on this team? The potential it could have when they played their best.... as they did against OU, Bama, some other games in there i can't even specifically name at the moment because im trying to process. Yes we certainly are in the league with those teams when playing to the ability that we could. This team did not play like they were capable of consistently. We should've swept OU if you recall. We did not have Rothrock against Texas. That aside. This team had all the ability in the world. The problem is they did not play as a team after the month of February except in flashes. You can have all the talent in the world but when there are other issues affecting the team they will not perform to the ability they can. It was evident.

 

It's not the squared up balls that are Mia's issue. That's everyone's issue. It's her range, and lack of body control in covering that much space. It's just not a natural fit for her. You can keep arguing it all you want. But it's pretty obvious. And this comes from someone who understands that she's vital to this team's overall success, just not at second.
@ocalaman is using some fact-based metrics including that she had the lowest fielding percentage of all the infielders this year. Idk, my man. It doesn't matter how much the game changes, you still have to be strong up the middle defensively. We had the best defensive catcher in the game, best defensive CF in the game but we were just not that good at SS and second.
Mia should move to first or maybe third if she can prove to handle it.
I like the idea of having Ava at first. She's better defensively than Walsh and has the type attitude that is good to have on the field. I wouldn't DP her next year. She's too good an athlete.
As someone else mentioned, you could also DP Mia.