Justin Parker has spent the last eight years bouncing around between three schools and building up each staff he’s worked with to some of the best staffs in each respective league.
He’s gone from the Horizon to the American Athletic to the Big 10 and now to the SEC as he tries to bring a physical pitching staff to South Carolina as the Gamecocks’ newest pitching coach.
“In all areas, we want to apply pressure. We want to handle pressure. I want guys that have elite stuff and we can do that through development, more now than ever with all the things we have the privilege to have with the technology, the scouting, the analytics,” he said. “With all those things we can do development faster than we’ve ever done development from a stuff standpoint.”
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After starting his coaching career at Wright State, Parker spent the last three seasons—two full with one COVID year—at Indiana, and before Bloomington two seasons in Orlando with UCF.
Since 2014, Parker’s staff’s have a 3.51 ERA with a 1.27 WHIP and an opponent slash line of .237/.320/.339.
Last season at Indiana, the Hoosiers ended the season with a 3.17 ERA, a 1.21 WHIP with opponents hitting just .202 off of his pitchers.
What Parker hopes to bring to South Carolina is a deep pitching staff with good starters and a deep, versatile bullpen.
“The old adage is, ‘Hey, let’s get to the bullpen.’ Chad will tell you he told his offense to get to the bullpen. I want the bullpen to be a nightmare when you get to it. I want guys to say, ‘Hey we need to get to this starter before he settles in and that’s the only shot we got,’” he said.
“Then balance—left handed, right handed—bullpen guys with traits to do one or two things at a right high level whether that’s get righties out, get lefties out, elevate a fastball, spin a breaking ball.”
Parker’s staffs have typically had success within a year of him arriving on campus. The next few weeks will be big for him and the Gamecock arms on the roster with Parker trying to get a feel for what he’s working with and continuing development for guys already on the roster.
“We can get guys in to the profiles we think they’re going to have success in and come at guys in waves. We want power stuff,” he said. “We want elite game managers and guys who can pitch, execute a game plan and throw strikes. We want 15 to 18 of them. Not just a couple starters and a closer.”
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South Carolina’s pitching staff last year was one of the best groups in the SEC last season but lose over half of their returning innings last year and lose five of their top seven innings-getters from 2021. The two returning are expected starters Will Sanders and Julian Bosnic.
The fall will be big for Parker and the Gamecocks as he tries to fill those vacated innings and seeing which players could potentially help this season.
“Then it’s finding those outlier qualities and putting guys in the best position possible to have success and leading to team success,” Parker said. “Then being able to stack them up one after another with depth so we never have to lean too heavily on one guy and we’re at our best at the end when it matters the most.”
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