It's been an eventful summer for the program that has seen Matt Williams leave for the pitching coach job at South Carolina and Derek Orndorff leave for the Director of Player Performance position at former Big South rival High Point.  Liberty had 1 active player signed from the MLB Draft and 1 high school commitment that was lost to the draft.  The program had 2 players playing on the prestigious Cape Cod this Summer and will welcome 19 new players into the program here in the coming weeks including 7 Summer additions from the portal and Juco ranks (as broken down in previous blog post).  Last but not least the Flames have added Tyler Robinson from Campbell as the new pitching coach.  Robinson has wasted little time making his presence known as Liberty has added 4 pitchers from the portal since Robinson's hire and added their first commitment of 2025 in LHP Kaleb Smith.  They also added 2 HS pitchers in the 24 class since Robinson's hire in Brayden Hill and Ty Goodson who was a Campbell commitment that wanted to follow Coach Robinson to Liberty.  

I had been wanting to take a moment to highlight how big of a hire Coach Robinson was for Liberty for a while but the busyness of Summer has gotten in the way.  Obviously, you can see the impact he's made on the pitching staff in the recruiting side as he was also the lead recruiter on Keegan Zinn who was the high school pitcher who committed late in the process and ultimately signed with the Guardians.  Robinson had spent 9 years with the Camels including the last 5 years as the pitching coach including the COVID shortened 20 season.  As you may have noticed Campbell had emerged as a power in the Big South towards the end of Liberty and Coastal's time in the league and has absolutely dominated the league since those 2 programs exited.   The Camels led the league in ERA, strikeouts and opponents BA in 3 of the 4 full years on the job.  They had 5 pitchers receive all league honors this past year and produced 2 high end MLB draft picks the last 2 years in Cade Kuehler and Thomas Harrington.  Kuehler was taken with the 70th overall pick by the Braves in the Draft just a few weeks ago and Thomas Harrington was drafted 36th overall last year.  In addition, Zach Neto the SS from last year's Campbell team was taken 13th overall by the Angels and is already in the majors.  Liberty played Campbell the prior 2 years and the pitching staffs were very impressive in person.  Robinson seemed to excel in developing under the radar players that didn't have a lot of fanfare and turning them into household names.  A lot of pitchers had big jumps in velocity but I just noticed how much weak contact his pitchers induced virtually every time I turned on the Campbell games.  They also didn't walk a lot of batters which is something Liberty struggled with this past year even though they had upped their velocity substantially.  This will be a key for this first year for Robinson.  

Liberty's last 2 pitching coaches have been hired away by UNC and USC which are 2 of the premiere programs in the nation so clearly something is working.  Personally I think Robinson was the best hire possible that was available to Liberty.  He has worked his way up from the bottom at Brunswick CC and has excelled in every role.  If you take a look at the social media posts from the Campbell program announcing Robinson's departure the parents of his players had nothing but effusive praise for his work.  It certainly hurts losing a coach with the recruiting prowess and track record of Matt Williams but Scott Jackson certainly got the best possible replacement in Tyler Robinson that I think could help take the program to the next level.  What Campbell has done down in Buies Creek has been incredible.  I think Robinson was a big piece of that as he was there through the Goff & Haire era's.  As long as HCSJ is around Liberty is always going to be a pitching and defense first type of program which plays to the dimensions of the stadium.  I'll be very curious to see what Robinson can do with Liberty's resources and recruiting budget.  If he can continue to find and develop those diamonds in the rough and land some highly touted players that Liberty has been able to grab from time to time then the best days of the pitching staff could be ahead.