State of MSU at the Midway Point of SEC play

[dawgday166]

Lessee ... Long is batting .250 with 1 extra base hit (the HR) ALL YEAR. He only has 9 RBIs all year. He does a pretty good job at framing pitches and blocking wild pitches but can't throw anyone out at 2nd.
And this is the MSU Poster Child for "fire & passion"?? He's barely an SEC caliber player.
His fire & passion cost us the GA game last week.

His backup, Powell is batting .294 and has 3 less RBI while starting half the games Long has started. He's actually hitting .429 in conference on only 7 AB tho.

If Long is the leader of this team then we're in trouble ... in more ways than one.
And not sure where this love affair with him is coming from but ... whatever.

[Todd4State]

Lessee ... Long is batting .250 with 1 extra base hit (the HR) ALL YEAR. He only has 9 RBIs all year. He does a pretty good job at framing pitches and blocking wild pitches but can't throw anyone out at 2nd.
And this is the MSU Poster Child for "fire & passion"?? He's barely an SEC caliber player.
His fire & passion cost us the GA game last week.

His backup, Powell is batting .294 and has 3 less RBI while starting half the games Long has started. He's actually hitting .429 in conference on only 7 AB tho.

If Long is the leader of this team then we're in trouble ... in more ways than one.
And not sure where this love affair with him is coming from but ... whatever.

The TEAM and Lemonis is saying he is the leader. And that's honestly fine. Even in MLB it's not always the stars that are the actual leaders of the team. His "actions" have been overblown. The only reason he got ejected against Georgia is because the SEC 17ed it up royally over what amounted to a push. The bat flip that he did happens every weekend and the pearl clutching Ole Miss fans have no problem with it when their players do it- which has gone on for years with that program. And the pearl clutching MSU fans had no problem with MacNamee celebrating as much or more than Long did.

How many games did Jake Mangum cost us when he hit his hand against the dugout wall against Kentucky and was out for a couple of weeks a few years ago? Our fans never had any problems with his emotion. If teams do not like us celebrating then they don't need to serve up bombs to our "barely a SEC player" catcher. Especially in a game where their starting pitcher was emotional on the mound the whole time- which I had no problem with either.

Johnny Long may not start on my team- but he can be on my team any and every time.

[MadDawg]

The TEAM and Lemonis is saying he is the leader. And that's honestly fine. Even in MLB it's not always the stars that are the actual leaders of the team. His "actions" have been overblown. The only reason he got ejected against Georgia is because the SEC 17ed it up royally over what amounted to a push. The bat flip that he did happens every weekend and the pearl clutching Ole Miss fans have no problem with it when their players do it- which has gone on for years with that program. And the pearl clutching MSU fans had no problem with MacNamee celebrating as much or more than Long did.

How many games did Jake Mangum cost us when he hit his hand against the dugout wall against Kentucky and was out for a couple of weeks a few years ago? Our fans never had any problems with his emotion. If teams do not like us celebrating then they don't need to serve up bombs to our "barely a SEC player" catcher. Especially in a game where their starting pitcher was emotional on the mound the whole time- which I had no problem with either.

Johnny Long may not start on my team- but he can be on my team any and every time.

He'd be my bullpen catcher.

[BrunswickDawg]

Lessee ... Long is batting .250 with 1 extra base hit (the HR) ALL YEAR. He only has 9 RBIs all year. He does a pretty good job at framing pitches and blocking wild pitches but can't throw anyone out at 2nd.
And this is the MSU Poster Child for "fire & passion"?? He's barely an SEC caliber player.
His fire & passion cost us the GA game last week.

His backup, Powell is batting .294 and has 3 less RBI while starting half the games Long has started. He's actually hitting .429 in conference on only 7 AB tho.

If Long is the leader of this team then we're in trouble ... in more ways than one.
And not sure where this love affair with him is coming from but ... whatever.

This is where you have understand that our outside view is not reflective of what goes on with the team. Powell would likely have won the spot - but he's been dealing with a concussion. So it's hard to lead when you don't play and in the case of a concussion get held out of team activities.

Johnny Long is not a problem. As T4S says - we loved Mac's bat flips and fire so why are we clowning on Long? Well, it's because they lost. But I totally get what Long is trying to do. He's trying to motivate and engage the team and appears to be the only one doing it. I'm not going to dog him for that.

Todd's post is pretty spot on.

[The Federalist Engineer]

Lessee ... Long is batting .250 with 1 extra base hit (the HR) ALL YEAR. He only has 9 RBIs all year. He does a pretty good job at framing pitches and blocking wild pitches but can't throw anyone out at 2nd.
And this is the MSU Poster Child for "fire & passion"?? He's barely an SEC caliber player.
His fire & passion cost us the GA game last week.

His backup, Powell is batting .294 and has 3 less RBI while starting half the games Long has started. He's actually hitting .429 in conference on only 7 AB tho.

If Long is the leader of this team then we're in trouble ... in more ways than one.
And not sure where this love affair with him is coming from but ... whatever.

Long and Powell are emergency backups for Ross Highfill. If RH were healthy, we would only have seen Long versus SWAC teams. Long was also a backup or co-starter at Pitt, so that's the reason he's playing. No other option in the roster.