Virginia Baseball Q&A: Karl Kuhn

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Karl Kuhn has been UVA’s pitching coach for 12 years. ~ Ian Rogol

For many years, I would interview Virginia pitching coach Karl Kuhn and ask him about how he was going to fill the various pitching roles for the season. His answer was always something like “the roles will take care of themselves.” So I stopped asking.

This year, I took a different tact and decided to ask about the process of assigning roles and what exactly he and the rest of the coaching staff look for in determining which players to put into which pitching spots. The Q&A follows.

Greg: When you’re looking to fill pitching roles, how do you determine who projects in a starter role?

Coach Kuhn: I think when you’ve been doing it for a long time, you can kind of forecast and hopefully forecast people growing into the roles as well. You’ve got to look for more than two pitches. If a guy can throw more than two pitches, you figure he can potentially start, or be a very big spoke in the wheel because he can go through the lineup more than once or twice because he’s got a different arsenal. He’s got a full arsenal. So that’s something. Big, strong guys tend to do well. I’m trying to think of a starter that we’ve had here that’s been under 6 foot. I can’t really think of anybody close except for Tyler Wilson. He’s 6’1” with spikes if you really like him. So, you’re kind of looking for a bigger guy, but all these kids are big these days.

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