2015 Baseball Keys to Success

What we need:

1. Health. This should always be the default #1 for any team, any year. Preston Brown needs to stay healthy, and Collins needs to be back by Kentucky.

2. Rea needs to find a way to be productive the whole season. First off, he needs to stops pretending to look so disappointed when he draws a walk, tone down all the strutting around, and get it done. He's a leader, and he's done some good things for us, but it's time to be more consistent. I don't expect .350 and 15 home runs. I'll be happy with .275 and some good clutch hitting.

3. Britton and Robson need to show us something offensively or they are done. I've seen ocassional glimpses of potential from both, but it hasn't really happened with any sort of regularity. It sounds like we have other options waiting in the wings who can hit, so they are far from safe.

4. We need for Holland to be what we expect him to be, offensively.

5. We need one pitcher and one hitter to become a star out of nowhere. It's good for short term success, but it needs to happen every year to ensure long-term success.


What we can depend on:

1. Defense.

2. Mitchell. Wherever, whenever.

3. Fitts. I think he surprise a lot of people in his new role.

4. More lineup changes than a Lynyrd Skynyrd tour.

I'm not worried about Rea even if he struggles because we now have Trent Waddell, Cole Gordon, and Rooker if he struggles. Part of the first base problem last year was Detz struggling along with Rea and Garner not being able to play defense and striking out too much. We're much deeper than we were at first base than we were last year.

Agree with much of your post though.

With Rea, it's as much about the fact that he's a 5th year guy with Omaha experience. And having someone like that out there performing and being a leader will mean so much more than having him on the bench with his replacement doing well. Nobody is rooting for the guy more than me, but I'm just concerned that SEC pitchers will continue to eat him up.

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Originally Posted by bulldogcountry1

he's a 5th year guy

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In college baseball this is not a positive

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Originally Posted by Smitty

In college baseball this is not a positive

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Experience and leadership are huge positives. Especially when we will be depending on some young inexperienced talent. I don't expect some miraculously huge year out of rea but I'm also not goin to downplay what he does bring to the table.

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Originally Posted by Smitty

In college baseball this is not a positive

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Obtuse

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Originally Posted by Smitty

In college baseball this is not a positive

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Ross Mitchell begs to differ.

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Originally Posted by RAYn_Man

Ross Mitchell begs to differ.

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Blind squirrel syndrome.

Show me a team with a lot of redshirt seniors and I'll show you a team that won't compete.

You need freshmen ready to come in and play, solid JUCO pieces, and some good teammate types (4 year guys). You don't want a ton of redshirts in this sport. Point is we have just those 2 as 5th year guys.

Who is going to be the stopper? The guy that can shut down an inning out of the pen with the STRIKEOUT.

Lindgren was so huge in limiting runs last year in this role. Where other guys would give up contact, allowing runs, he would get the K's to stop any runs from scoring.

Maybe McCord? Paul Young is a wildcard..

I disagree with the Ross-pen plan, I like him getting the starts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Smitty

Blind squirrel syndrome.

Show me a team with a lot of redshirt seniors and I'll show you a team that won't compete.

You need freshmen ready to come in and play, solid JUCO pieces, and some good teammate types (4 year guys). You don't want a ton of redshirts in this sport. Point is we have just those 2 as 5th year guys.

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Being in college for five years is not good as far as draft status goes more than anything else. It's OK to have a few fifth year seniors but you do want three year guys as well. Sometimes four-five year guys are good leaders and good college players, but not great pro prospects. In the SEC, you don't want to rely on a lot of freshmen. Our team in 95 had the top rated recruiting class and made it to Omaha a couple of times completely missed the regionals as freshmen. One or two freshmen are OK, but at the end of the day you would rather have a team of 16 fifth year seniors over 16 freshmen 98% of the time.

It's just hard to get that many impact freshmen past the MLB draft.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Smitty

Who is going to be the stopper? The guy that can shut down an inning out of the pen with the STRIKEOUT.

Lindgren was so huge in limiting runs last year in this role. Where other guys would give up contact, allowing runs, he would get the K's to stop any runs from scoring.

Maybe McCord? Paul Young is a wildcard..

I disagree with the Ross-pen plan, I like him getting the starts.

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Vance Tatum is going to get the first shot at it.