Baseball: Who is the Cajuns’ Bat Whisperer?

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, June 4, 2015

 

UL head coach Tony Robichaux, left, talks to assistant coach Jeremy Talbot, center, and Anthony Babineaux during a regular season game against Alabama.(Photo: Brad Kemp/RaginCajuns.com)

 

The UL baseball team’s latest hitting coach came with a nickname.

It was bestowed by Texas A&M head coach Rob Childress, back when Jeremy Talbot was an assistant coach with the Aggies.

The Bat Whisperer.

Talbot has a decidedly different communication style than the Ragin’ Cajuns’ prior hitting coach, Matt Deggs, who, suffice it to say, is not the whispering sort.

“Their message is the same,” Cajuns head coach Tony Robichaux said. “The delivery’s way different.

“Matt was more the … attitude guy. Talbot’s more the mechanical guy. He can tinker with a guy and get him going.”

Talbot and Deggs both were assistants at Texas A&M starting in the mid 2000s, Talbot from 2005-2009 and Deggs from 2006-11, and they teamed to devise a hitting system Deggs brought to UL.

The Pack plan worked, as UL went 58-10 and made it to an NCAA Super Regional in 2014 while leading the nation in runs scored, hits and triples while ranking second in batting average, home runs and slugging percentage.

It’s still working under Talbot, as the 42-21 Cajuns – ranked No. 16 by Collegiate Baseball, despite heavy personnel losses – will play No. 1-ranked LSU in a best-of-three NCAA Super Regional starting Saturday night in Baton Rouge.

“Coach Talbot knows his stuff about hitting. He really, really does,” said UL designated hitter Tyler Girouard, who’s batting .335 with a team-high doubles and 30 RBI. “He knows how to translate it, and give it to you in a way that it’s special. He knows. He can see it. He has a feel for it, and it’s impressive.”

When Deggs left UL to become Sam Houston State’s head coach, Robichaux hired Talbot, who knew the system – centered around hitters not trying to be something they’re not, and grouped by Deggs under labels like Hitters, Runners, Bombers and Ballplayers – inside-out.

The UL head coach didn’t want Cajuns who were going to be on their third hitting coach and recruiting coordinator in four years – and who also were losing volunteer coach Lance Harville, who followed Deggs to SHSU – to start over.

He favored familiarity, and believed he’d get it with Talbot working hand-in-hand with his own trusty right-hand man, longtime associate head coach Anthony Babinaux, who works with Cajuns hitters as well and is the glue to a staff otherwise in flux.

Five other former Robichaux assistants in addition to Deggs have gone on to NCAA Division head coaching jobs: Maryland’s John Szefc, Wichita State’s Todd Butler, ex-ULM coach Brad Holland, former McNeese State coach Jim Ricklefsen and ex-Louisiana Tech coach Wade Simoneaux.

“J.T. (Talbot) was part of the Pack system,” Robichaux said. “He helped design it with Matt (Deggs).

“He helped put it in with Matt at Texas A&M, and that was one of the reasons I went with him – because I didn’t want a big change. We already were gonna have enough change with six guys out of the lineup and two of the hitting coaches gone.”

The Cajuns lost all but three 2014 starters – Girouard, All-American shortstop Blake Trahan and right fielder Dylan Butler – to the MLB Draft and/or the minors.

In stepped Talbot to work with a crew that was sold on Deggs’ high-intensity ways.

Talbot – an assistant at Jacksonville (Ala.) State and UL Monroe before going to Texas A&M, and out of coaching working in pharmaceutical sales before Robichaux called – decided right away that the Cajuns would have to grow accustomed to a different approach even though he was pitching the same product.

“I know as a coach you should always go in and be yourself. You never try to be somebody else,” he said. “Obviously Matt (Deggs) and I worked together for a long time, and we kind of played off each other.

“Personalities are different. But the offensive plan and everything is the same, because we really came up with it together.

“A lot of the terminology is the same,” Talbot added. “The recruiting philosophy is the same.”

But more than the message, and its delivery, what mattered most to Talbot was when he opted to implement what.

Timing, he knew, would be critical. In some instances, he had to wait until hitters struggled before he could help.

“It can be the right adjustment,” he said, “but not at the right time.

“I think where I had to be careful is with a guy like Trahan, or some of the seniors … not just jumping in there and trying to overhaul, (but) giving those guys a chance to do their own thing and tweak adjustments as they go along.

“That was the toughest thing for me,” Talbot added. “Once I get my own recruits in here, it will be a totally open slate. It will make my job a lot easier.”

Trahan and UL’s other elder statesmen did buy in to the new voice, though – some sooner, some later, all eventually.

“I just think it took them a little while to internalize the whole thing, even though it’s the same thing,” Robichichaux said. “That’s why as the season wore on … the hitters have gotten better, one through nine. Simply because they’re all on the same page now.”

UL made a second-half push, repeated as Sun Belt Conference Tournament champs and won the NCAA Houston Regional to earn their second straight Super Regional berth.

As four true-freshman Cajun pitchers – starters Gunner Leger, Evan Guillory and Wyatt Marks and closer Dylan Moore – came into their own, UL bats heated up.

“He’s helped the bottom half of our lineup a lot, and I think it’s just huge to have him,” Girouard said of Talbot, a Louisiana native from Labadieville.

“The base of our system is still the same. We’re gonna play the game hard. We’re gonna sprint on and off the field. We’re gonna run the bases hard,” Trahan added. “That’s why we’ve been successful throughout the season, and that’s why we have over 40 wins. He’s done a great job with us.”

In a quiet, subdued sort of way.

Realtively speaking.

“He is a bat whisperer,” Trahan said. “He can take you into the cage and fix your swing in a heartbeat.

“It took a while to get adjusted to that,” the All-American added with reference to the different delivery, “but I think we’re good now. We learned to respect his way of coaching, and everything’s been working great.”

JEREMY TALBOT FILE

UL baseball hitting coach, recruiting coordinator

Birthplace: Labadieville, Louisiana

High school: Assumption High, Napoleonville

College playing career: Nicholls State; Mendocino Junior College (Calif.); catcher and DH at Arkansas (helped Razorbacks to 18-0 start in 1996)

Other coaching stops: Nicholls State staff, 1998; Anchorage Glacier Pilots (Alaskan Summer League), 1998; Nebraska volunteer assistant, 1999; Northeast Texas Community College assistant, 2000; UL Monroe assistant, 2001-2004; Jacksonville State (Ala.) assistant, 2005; Texas A&M assistant from 2005-09