Logan Starkey
In life, there’s the good, the bad, and the ugly. So far this season, Tennessee baseball has been the ugly.
Tennessee lost a weekend series to Kent State. They were shut out by Wright State. They were dominated by UCLA. They lost their SEC opening series against Georgia. Now, they’ve been swept by a middling Vanderbilt team with the worst pitching staff in the SEC.
Fans are starting to lose hope. Former Tennessee baseball players aren’t.
Drew Beam, Kavares Tears, and Christian Moore have all taken to social platform X to defend Tennessee’s new head baseball coach, Josh Elander.
Drew Beam
No defense of Elander was more succinct than Beam’s.
“They [fans] also seem to forget in 2023 we lost 2- opening weekend,” the former Vols pitcher wrote in response to a Tennessee fan. “Then started SEC play 5-10, got swept by Missouri, lost back-to-back series to LSU and Florida, then swept by Arkansas. Twitter freaked out. Then the team got to Omaha. Winning ain’t easy in this game. There’s time.”
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
It sounds nearly identical to the start the current Volunteer baseball team is having. Early, inexplicable losses. A rocky start to conference play. That describes the 2023 team just as much as it describes the 2026 team.
Beam is right. Tennessee has time, the greatest asset in sports. Tennessee isn’t a good baseball team right now, but that could change at the drop of a hat with the right adjustments and a little momentum. Time isn’t going to freeze for Elander, but there is more than enough of it to work through the current kinks.
Kavares Tears
More than anyone else, former Tennessee outfielder Kavares Tears has defended Elander over the weekend.
Tears made six comments on X over the weekend. All six were directed at the Tennessee fans losing faith in Elander.
“You have no idea what it takes,” Tears responded to one fan who suggested Elander didn’t have the right type of “swagger” to be a successful coach.
“You don’t understand baseball,” Tears said to a fan who said Elander makes “bone-headed decisions”.
“You go do it,” Tears quipped to a fan complaining about Tennessee’s lack of opposite-field hitting ability.
Tears believes in Elander. Though his criticism of fans isn’t worded as eloquently as Beam’s, there is some truth to it. Fans don’t know everything.
It is absolutely fair for fans to criticize a coach. It isn’t fair for a large chunk of a fanbase to call for his head after 28 games, though.
Fans are overreactive. Every loss is a death knell, every win is proof that the ship is back on course.
Look no further than Tennessee basketball this weekend. Rick Barnes and the Tennessee basketball team miraculously made the Elite 8 after struggling all year? Barnes is elite, and Tennessee fans don’t appreciate him enough. Barnes’ squad, as expected, gets their hind ends handed to them by Michigan? Barnes is old and needs to go.
Tennessee fans need calmer heads. It is year one. It was game 28. Tony Vitello went 29-27 in his first season on Rocky Top. It is way too early to make a long term judgement on Elander’s future as a coach.
Christian Moore
No player better signifies the change in Tennessee baseball under the Vitello era than Christian Moore. If you created a Vitello-era Mount Rushmore of Tennessee baseball, Moore would be the second face on it next to Vitello himself.
Moore endorsed Elander after Vitello’s departure, and is sticking by him after the rough start.
“You’re actually insane if you think he ruined the program,” Moore wrote in response to a fan who claimed Elander had ruined Tennessee baseball in just 44 days.
A further indictment of the reactionary outcry by fans, Moore made it known that fans are being ridiculous.
In 2017, before Vitello ever touched the Tennessee baseball program, an 18-10 start would’ve been the best in years. Fans expecting greatness from Elander immediately are out of their minds. It is impossible to be perfect this early in your career. It takes time. Imagine if Tennessee had given up on Vitello after barely finishing above .500 in 2018.
So, What Does This Mean?
Tennessee fans need to calm down. Outrage and calling for heads less than thirty games into a season is unreal levels of absurdity.
Time. That’s what Tennessee baseball needs.
Time.
That’s what building a program needs.
Elander isn’t starting over brand new, but expecting him to take the reins from the greatest baseball coach in program history and replicate his success was never fair.
Tennessee baseball may struggle for the rest of this year. That isn’t an indictment of Elander. Tennessee baseball will not have a new head coach this time next year. It would be malpractice to even consider a move at this stage.
Take notes from Beam, Tears, and Moore. Be a fan. Rally for your guy. Believe in your team.
At the end of the day, isn’t that what being a fan is supposed to be?