Rumored Coaching Candidates for Michigan Baseball

Isn't that what a Michigan man is?

Just ask Rich Rod. Hot coach, some may debate his character, but definitely wasn't a Michigan Man. If you're hiring from the outside, no one with any previously ties it helps that the new coach embraces Michigan and doesn't go too far outside the lines. May differ a bit for baseball as they do not have the overall winning tradition that football does so there may be room for new approaches to get the program to that level.

I couldn't find much on Sabo either. His bio at baseball-reference.com says he "was a hitting instructor for the Dayton Dragons, the Reds' single-A affiliate in 2005." More recently, he apparently—if Wikipedia can be believed—attended the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University.

I'm skeptical about Brandon being interested in hiring Sabo given his lack of coaching and college recruiting experience.

Side note: In case anyone's wondering why this is a diary—I don't know, because I posted this on the board.

RE: Merriman, he has spent a fair amount of time in the MLB as a developmental scout so he would definitely have a good eye for talent. His expertise is in pitching as you can see. He has had many stop as a pitching coach and has a little head coaching experience. He would probably need to surround himself with a great hitting coach and other assistants. As far as him becoming the next head coach, at this point I doubt it, but you never know.

Brandon was able to do something similar with the women's basketball hire--landing an up-and-coming coach (Kim Barnes Arico) from a power conference (the Big East), even though the Michigan women's team has historically been one of the worst teams in a weak conference.

The analogy isn't perfect given how weather puts Big Ten baseball teams at a disadvantage, but Bakich has considered leaving Maryland before, according to this tweet:

@insidemdsports erik bakich interviews for Michigan job posted on PG by Kendall Rogers 2nd major interview in three years

— Bob Montville (@nhmonty) June 12, 2012

FYI: PG is the website Perfect Game, and Kendall Rogers seems to be their main college baseball blogger.

From what they've tweeted recently, both Skippers Dugout and Kendall Rogers seem to believe that Stricklin is still Brandon's top target, citing how "long" it's taking Michigan to hire someone, and using this as evidence that Brandon is waiting for someone currently coaching in the College World Series (Stricklin). That could be the case, but it's been less than a month since Maloney was let go, and I think Brandon has shown previously that he takes a deliberate approach to hiring coaches, so maybe he's just still doing his due diligence on someone other than Stricklin.

Maryland is not a place you can win at baseball.  The athletic department is drowning in red ink.  They chopped about eight programs recently (almost one third of the total!) and it was rumored that baseball was going to be one of them.  It survived, but who knows about the future?

I dunno how I'd feel about Bakich - on one hand, he's improved Maryland's fortunes somewhat since he was hired.  On the other hand, a three-legged gerbil could've improved Maryland's fortunes as they were regularly one of the worst teams in the country (single-digit conference wins, regular weekday losses and regular 15-run beatings on the weekends), and the truth is they still stink.  He's brought in well-regarded recruiting classes but they've underachieved, given those.  The top-25 recruiting classes he's brought in the last two years should've resulted in making the ACC tourney this year, and they didn't even come close.