State of MSU at the Midway Point of SEC play

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

Todd I will disagree on 2 points:

1) I think we should have fired Lemo last year. The logic of "We needed to give him every chance possible to right the ship" sounds fine, but it also applies to football. Should we have given JoMo a year 3? Should we have given Arnett a year 2? I think if you have. A bad coach you rip the bandaid off immediately. Waste no more seasons under them.

2) recruiting. Like you can say his recruiting is good but this is year 6. What Fr do we have that can contribute? Not a one. Who's the best pitcher on our team Lemo got from HS? Loo? We have no 3rd starter or reliably middle reliever or closer. Our best 2 pitchers (when healthy) are Kahl and Dohm, both transfers. Hitting, who do we have in the lineup that's above SEC average in talent or potential? Jordan (HS), Hujsak (Tranfer), Hines (HS), Mershon (HS). The other 5 spots are not impressive from a pure talent or performance perspective. And we're starting 3 mediocre transfers (Koehler, Long, Larry) because Lemo can't fill those spots with talent. Overall the lineup is about 9th in the SEC as far as numbers go.

I'm not against Portal plays or somehow saying they don't count as far as giving Lemo props for bringing in talent. I'm saying you're supposed to use the Portal to bring in studs and sure, fill the odd hole. You're not supposed to use the Portal to bring in sub average SEC players to fill half the lineup because you can't recruit even mediocre guys from HS to fill those spots

[Todd4State]

Todd I will disagree on 2 points:

1) I think we should have fired Lemo last year. The logic of "We needed to give him every chance possible to right the ship" sounds fine, but it also applies to football. Should we have given JoMo a year 3? Should we have given Arnett a year 2? I think if you have. A bad coach you rip the bandaid off immediately. Waste no more seasons under them.

2) recruiting. Like you can say his recruiting is good but this is year 6. What Fr do we have that can contribute? Not a one. Who's the best pitcher on our team Lemo got from HS? Loo? We have no 3rd starter or reliably middle reliever or closer. Our best 2 pitchers (when healthy) are Kahl and Dohm, both transfers. Hitting, who do we have in the lineup that's above SEC average in talent or potential? Jordan (HS), Hujsak (Tranfer), Hines (HS), Mershon (HS). The other 5 spots are not impressive from a pure talent or performance perspective. And we're starting 3 mediocre transfers (Koehler, Long, Larry) because Lemo can't fill those spots with talent. Overall the lineup is about 9th in the SEC as far as numbers go.

I'm not against Portal plays or somehow saying they don't count as far as giving Lemo props for bringing in talent. I'm saying you're supposed to use the Portal to bring in studs and sure, fill the odd hole. You're not supposed to use the Portal to bring in sub average SEC players to fill half the lineup because you can't recruit even mediocre guys from HS to fill those spots

1) Of course you disagree because you have a football mentality and that doesn't apply to baseball. Your way would have led to our baseball version of Rick Ray because no coach would have come here after we fired a coach two years removed from a NC with a pitching staff that had an ERA over 7. Then what? You "rip the band off again" because the next guy can't coach? Guess what happens to scabs if you rip them off before they are given a chance to heal- they take longer to heal. Joe Moorhead was given a chance to right the ship after he won the piss and miss and he screwed it up in the bowl game. Bad example by you. Arnett was our football version of Rick Ray. Lemonis had been to the equivalent of the BCS playoffs twice and won a NC. Arnett- not even close. Let me ask you this- should we have fired Dan Mullen after 2016 when Peter Sirmon screwed up the defense? Same thing here. Except Dan took the opportunity to turn the team around and did it and Lemonis has not. And because of that Dan was offered an extension to stay and Lemonis will be fired because of how they responded when given the opportunity. And our same top targets are in the exact same places they were last season as far as coaching candidates go. That should tell you a little about how often baseball coaches move in and of itself. Haire turned down Georgia to stay at Campbell.

2) So you're saying he can't recruit because none of the freshmen have taken over the team? FYI- Will Clark had to wait until Chris Maloney was injured to start. Brent Rooker redshirted. Ethan Small had an ERA through the roof and had Tommy John just like Grant. Hunter Renfroe looked completely lost as a freshman. Kendall Graveman got beat by Jackson State as a freshman. I could go on. Let me put this in terms that you can understand- if our freshmen in football don't contribute outside of a couple of guys does that make Lebby a bad recruiter? No. Loo is a good pitcher. Will Bednar turned out pretty good. The players in the portal are a crap shoot. LSU and you thought Eric Holman was going to be Paul Skenes 2.0 and lead them to another NC. That's not going to happen is it? I'm not sure what you want Lemonis to do. If he misses on a player do you want him to try to fill it with someone out of the portal or not? It sounds like you can't make up your mind here. Foxhall hurt our pitching recruiting badly. Stevens, Dotson, and Grant have really good potential. Highfill got hurt- not Lemonis's fault. McKenzie is not going to supplant Hines who is one of the school's top 10 home run hitters. Cupp has been hurt otherwise he would have been playing in the field over Larry with Mershon moving to second. Our best third base and CF prospects are in high school right now. I'm sure we'll go to the portal to try to fill third base anyway. Stevens should be starting at DH- that's on Lemonis. It's not because he is a bad player. Chance is a good solid college player. You need a couple on your team. He will get better over the next couple of years. Kohler got hurt in game one and hasn't hit the same since. Long hit a game tying home run in the 12th and is the team leader. Not a bad pick up. Larry is streaky. You also said that Khal Stephen wasn't any good and he's our ace. Probably will end up being a better pick up that Holman. The issue is Lemonis isn't developing these players to their full potential because he doesn't pay attention to the details. That doesn't mean the players are bad. It means they're poorly coached and underdeveloped. Don't believe me? Go look at Cade Smith and Eric Cerentola's stats in the minor leagues.

One last thing about the portal and freshmen- you're going to see less and less freshmen contribute right away because coaches knows that experience wins in the SEC. You have a classic case of "I only watch Mississippi State baseball" and no one else.

[Santiago]

If you look at the season as a whole we have improved but we are still not up to the MSU standard. Some people may say "well we should have fired Lemonis last year" but the reality is I am glad that we gave him every reasonable chance to fix the program. He can't say that- and more importantly future candidates for MSU baseball can't say that either. Support isn't just about fans although that is certainly part of it- it's also about the support from major boosters and the athletic department staff and being too quick to fire and not give chances to fix things can drive away potential candidates and make things worse. That's why my stance was to keep him for this year which I still think was the right decision for the overall long term health of the program but I always had the caveat that the expectation IF he came back was to get us to at least a SR. That has also never changed. And that's still possible. However, if you look at this team what they have done and their RPI and what's left the margin of error to even get into a regional is shrinking. And that is squarely on Lemonis. If we don't get into a regional I don't think he will be back next year. I'm thinking that if we do get into a regional it's going to be as a three seed somewhere probably with a difficult draw. The bottom line is this team isn't where it should be. And here's why I think that is.

1. Lemonis is not a very good leader. It feels like he wants or expects the players to lead themselves. That works with Jake Mangum and Tanner Allen. It doesn't work if you don't have people like that. And the coach has to lead and set the tone. Yes, there does need to be some leadership from the players but it really feels like there is none at that top and we're just hoping Johnny Long can lead us to a SR. These are 18-23 year old young men. There's probably a good reason why most generals and CEO's aren't that age.

2. Lemonis lacks attention to detail. We see this in the form of little things like our schedule being the last to be put out as fans. We also see it in the form of the baserunning circus every week. We see it in the form of the same people playing no matter how bad they're struggling. We see it in the form of bad defense last year. We see it in the form of lack of player development from year to year. The biggest indictment to me was still Johnny Long's interview after the Central Arkansas loss when he very carefully talked about how the team lacks focus for midweek games. I know he wasn't trying to call out Lemonis and was trying to send a message to his teammates but it had to make you wonder "what the hell was Lemonis doing then?" The infamous Augie Garrido videos that are the internet where he is chewing an absolutely new asshole into everyone on the team? At least one was after a midweek game that I think Texas WON. After we lost to UCA our guys probably signed some autographs and went to the Bin and picked up some college girls.

3. Lemonis is too hands off with his assistants which goes back to number one. Why was Foxhall allowed to do what he did? Why didn't he step in? And with Gautreau this year our approach is like a PG Travel Ball team. If Gautreau isn't going to tell Hines and Jordan to stop overswinging when they have two strikes- guess who needs to? Yes- Chris- YOU. We make zero offensive adjustments. And our SEC batting is actually better than OOC games because our approach is so horrendous and NO ONE does anything about it. Hines has probably cost himself at least 250K-500K because he refuses to adjust. Yes, you don't want to totally micromanage but sometimes the HEAD COACH has to step in and do something. We can't decide on a closer because Lemonis refuses to pitch a guy more than once on the weekend. It cost us Saturday. And what else does Tyson Hardin need to do to get a legit chance? He looked great on Friday. He only threw 12 pitches- he should have been available for Saturday for at least one inning. If anything he should have let Stevens pitch Friday in the 9th and Hardin the next night. And it's not like pitching these guys once a weekend is preventing Tommy John injuries with this staff.

4. Lemonis's in game feel is AWFUL. When I saw the starting lineup today I really thought someone was trolling. It's a big WTF? fest. We started a freshman who isn't a power hitter at DH with a batting average of .000. WHHHHHHYYYYY??? We put in LH pinch hitters to face LH pitchers. We put in LHP to face RH hitters. We let our submarine guy throw to LH hitters who usually tee off on submarine guys and then take him out when a RH hitter comes up- which are the hitters that submarine guys usually eat up. It's baseball 101 fails left and right and there is no common sense to any of it. Cohen did some crazy stuff but at least he could pretty much always back it up which is one reason why I liked him. Lemonis can't back his moves up though.

5. Lemonis's recruiting- actually pretty good! The problem is he is so bad in every other area no one gets developed and reaches their potential. If you want to blame the players you can- but you're off base. They have zero leadership and the leadership that is there expects them to figure everything out. Saban had five star recruits at every position and HE didn't treat his players like that. It's the same in baseball. But we're going to lose a lot of players next year- So what? No matter who the coach is we're going to hit the portal hard. We're not going to sit here and stand pat. Might as well hire someone that can identify and attract players.

MSU needs to get back to detail oriented baseball like we had under Polk and Cohen in all five phases of the game- pitching, defense, hitting for power, hitting for average and getting on base, and putting pressure on the other team with speed. And MSU fans need to decide if they want a team that plays with energy and passion or if they want a team that that plays like an Upward Rec League baseball team- but the fact of the matter is MSU baseball has always been better with players that played hard and played with energy and passion and pissed off the other team so that's the camp I'm in.

If I were in MSU's AD shoes the first two guys I call are Pollard and Haire after Vitello tells me no. Any one of those three can fix this mess and make everyone happy. We're close enough to making a regional that we're not a complete dumpster fire either plus we'll pay so we should be able to get someone good. Oh- and we don't have Cohen messing up the search either like he did the last two coaching searches.

Isn't this what many of us were saying a few weeks ago, but we would be told we were unrealistic fans, and that "we are ranked and just looking for reasons"?
It was fools gold the past few weeks and some of us were already saying all this.

[FoggyBottom]

Had long made the tag and went along his way, we had a legit shot at winning the Georgia game. Had long just did a normal bat flip instead of carrying it to 1b and slinging it at their dug out, Bianco stays in the dug out and doesn't get his team fired up. Long's DA antics have possibly cost us 2 wins.

Exactly. From the moment Bianco got tossed, Ole Miss? entire team demeanor changed and they dominated play. They got a huge shot of confidence and that incident may well serve to save their season.

[Saltydog]

I don't necessarily agree about the recruiting. I don't care what PG or any other service says, I know what I see. We don't have young position players that can step in and be serviceable backups, much less start and it's even more obvious with the pitchers. Stevens is the only youngster I see with a big time arm.

[Todd4State]

Todd I will disagree on 2 points:

1) I think we should have fired Lemo last year. The logic of "We needed to give him every chance possible to right the ship" sounds fine, but it also applies to football. Should we have given JoMo a year 3? Should we have given Arnett a year 2? I think if you have. A bad coach you rip the bandaid off immediately. Waste no more seasons under them.

2) recruiting. Like you can say his recruiting is good but this is year 6. What Fr do we have that can contribute? Not a one. Who's the best pitcher on our team Lemo got from HS? Loo? We have no 3rd starter or reliably middle reliever or closer. Our best 2 pitchers (when healthy) are Kahl and Dohm, both transfers. Hitting, who do we have in the lineup that's above SEC average in talent or potential? Jordan (HS), Hujsak (Tranfer), Hines (HS), Mershon (HS). The other 5 spots are not impressive from a pure talent or performance perspective. And we're starting 3 mediocre transfers (Koehler, Long, Larry) because Lemo can't fill those spots with talent. Overall the lineup is about 9th in the SEC as far as numbers go.

I'm not against Portal plays or somehow saying they don't count as far as giving Lemo props for bringing in talent. I'm saying you're supposed to use the Portal to bring in studs and sure, fill the odd hole. You're not supposed to use the Portal to bring in sub average SEC players to fill half the lineup because you can't recruit even mediocre guys from HS to fill those spots

Once again you are comparing football coaches to baseball coaches. It is completely different because of their recruiting cycles and also because of how potential replacements view the position. Moorhead had players fighting each other. That's not happening with Lemonis. Arnett had outside influences running the program and it was actually worse than Moorhead. Again- we don't have Lemonis listening to high school coaches for advice and Ron Polk meddling with things. That was what was going on with Arnett but with football coaches. We are going to probably be at worst a regional bubble team which is a far cry from a dumpster fire like football.

We have an upperclassman laden team. That's the primary reason why the freshman haven't played a lot. You may not see a ton of freshman playing a lot because of the portal. Stevens will be very good. Dotson will be very good. Makhai Grant had Tommy John and if he recovers he will be very good. Highfill has been injured. McKenzie was never going to beat out Hines. Cupp has been hurt but should play more soon. Mershon and Chance are essentially sophomores. When we add in more freshmen next year like Henry Allen and Dante Nori and hopefully Conrad Cason we will have enough talent to win like we expect. The talent we have now isn't bad- but some of it isn't being used properly. Especially Stevens. When that happens players will not be maximized and to the untrained appear to be "not talented".

[Pancho]

Once again you are comparing football coaches to baseball coaches. It is completely different because of their recruiting cycles and also because of how potential replacements view the position. Moorhead had players fighting each other. That's not happening with Lemonis. Arnett had outside influences running the program and it was actually worse than Moorhead. Again- we don't have Lemonis listening to high school coaches for advice and Ron Polk meddling with things. That was what was going on with Arnett but with football coaches. We are going to probably be at worst a regional bubble team which is a far cry from a dumpster fire like football.

We have an upperclassman laden team. That's the primary reason why the freshman haven't played a lot. You may not see a ton of freshman playing a lot because of the portal. Stevens will be very good. Dotson will be very good. Makhai Grant had Tommy John and if he recovers he will be very good. Highfill has been injured. McKenzie was never going to beat out Hines. Cupp has been hurt but should play more soon. Mershon and Chance are essentially sophomores. When we add in more freshmen next year like Henry Allen and Dante Nori and hopefully Conrad Cason we will have enough talent to win like we expect. The talent we have now isn't bad- but some of it isn't being used properly. Especially Stevens. When that happens players will not be maximized and to the untrained appear to be "not talented".

I am only asking but which ones are supposed to replace hines and DJ in the batting order and produce?

[WSOPdawg]

I am only asking but which ones are supposed to replace hines and DJ in the batting order and produce?

^^^ This all day. Those players are not currently on the team.

For that, we'll need to hit the portal hard for the next Brayden Montgomery, Billy Amick, Tommy White, Colton Ledbetter, Sonny Dicharia, etc (and preferrably two of these types). Surrounding a couple of these type transfers with Mershon, Chance, Cupp may allow for the M over S to field a competitive team next year offensively.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

Once again you are comparing football coaches to baseball coaches. It is completely different because of their recruiting cycles and also because of how potential replacements view the position. Moorhead had players fighting each other. That's not happening with Lemonis. Arnett had outside influences running the program and it was actually worse than Moorhead. Again- we don't have Lemonis listening to high school coaches for advice and Ron Polk meddling with things. That was what was going on with Arnett but with football coaches. We are going to probably be at worst a regional bubble team which is a far cry from a dumpster fire like football. And "how it looks to other coaches"? Come on. No coach will shy away from our job because we fired a coach that missed Hoover in year 4 and 5. If a HC candidate fears he will be that bad that late in his tenure, we don't want him.

We have an upperclassman laden team. That's the primary reason why the freshman haven't played a lot. You may not see a ton of freshman playing a lot because of the portal. Stevens will be very good. Dotson will be very good. Makhai Grant had Tommy John and if he recovers he will be very good. Highfill has been injured. McKenzie was never going to beat out Hines. Cupp has been hurt but should play more soon. Mershon and Chance are essentially sophomores. When we add in more freshmen next year like Henry Allen and Dante Nori and hopefully Conrad Cason we will have enough talent to win like we expect. The talent we have now isn't bad- but some of it isn't being used properly. Especially Stevens. When that happens players will not be maximized and to the untrained appear to be "not talented".

1) how can you cite "recruiting cycles" as being a reason to keep Lemo but not a football coach? Lemo sucked in year 4 and 5 of the Portal era. Last year was 100% players he signed, and almost entirely guys he chose to pursue.

2) it's an "upper classman laden team": I'm not asking anyone to replace Hines at 1B. I'm asking a Fr to be able to hit (DH), or replace bad hitters at 3B and 2B. Chance is also not a stud in the OF. That's 4 spots where a Fr can get in the lineup but non are capable of it. If Mershon was a year younger he'd have replaced Larry by now. If Jordan were a year younger he'd replace Chance. If Highfill was a year younger and healthy he'd be the DH. Pitching, you're placing a lot of weight that Grant is a stud. Easy to say about injured players. If Grant was healthy but Stevens was hurt you could easily talk about the "stud lefty and hitter who if he was healthy would fill the LHP and DH role"

The fact is, we have no Fr that can hit at this point in time, and no Fr contributors on the mound, despite ample opportunity and need.

[The Federalist Engineer]

1) how can you cite "recruiting cycles" as being a reason to keep Lemo but not a football coach? Lemo sucked in year 4 and 5 of the Portal era. Last year was 100% players he signed, and almost entirely guys he chose to pursue.

2) it's an "upper classman laden team": I'm not asking anyone to replace Hines at 1B. I'm asking a Fr to be able to hit (DH), or replace bad hitters at 3B and 2B. Chance is also not a stud in the OF. That's 4 spots where a Fr can get in the lineup but non are capable of it. If Mershon was a year younger he'd have replaced Larry by now. If Jordan were a year younger he'd replace Chance. If Highfill was a year younger and healthy he'd be the DH. Pitching, you're placing a lot of weight that Grant is a stud. Easy to say about injured players. If Grant was healthy but Stevens was hurt you could easily talk about the "stud lefty and hitter who if he was healthy would fill the LHP and DH role"

The fact is, we have no Fr that can hit at this point in time, and no Fr contributors on the mound, despite ample opportunity and need.

The freshman are not just bad, they look like frat boys in store-bought uniforms pretending to be players. Is the plan that the Freshman pay for personal Hitting Coaches and learn from the summer coaches? Only Stevens looks competitive. I bet Stevens at Stanford would be a Freshman All American.

Another thing, Slate Alford and Lane Forsythe have Chipper Jones / Gary Sheffield numbers compared to Kohler. This is a sign that Jake G is not close to maximizing the players.

[Todd4State]

Had long made the tag and went along his way, we had a legit shot at winning the Georgia game. Had long just did a normal bat flip instead of carrying it to 1b and slinging it at their dug out, Bianco stays in the dug out and doesn't get his team fired up. Long's DA antics have possibly cost us 2 wins.

Bianco has acted like a bitch for years. I don't know that Long's "antics" would have changed how he acted honestly.

[Pancho]

Bianco acts like he grew up sheltered in the grove

[Commercecomet24]

Bianco acts like he grew up sheltered in the grove

lol that's awesome!

[Pancho]

We can all assume that issue alone is cause for enuf concern to cut ties

[parabrave]

Todd one thing you talked about was lack of Player Development. One thing aparty to this is the defensive regression of the players. Players are supposed to be improving through the season not getting worse. 2 things that this is indicative of is bad coaching and/or the just don't give a shi^ anymore. Probably both.

[ScooterDog]

I?m glad others have seen Gotros inability to coach batters. I?ve said that all year long.

[BigDawg81]

I would fire Gotro tonight. Our hitting is horrible. I horrible. We make decent pitchers look great and have for several years. Like you stated, our approach is bad and there are no adjustments.

It?s 2 strikes before State even starts competing at the plate. Hell, half of the time the batter looks at strike 3. IMO, if the pitcher is a strike thrower, why are the batters not aggressive? They have a pitcher of a 6 ERA and they look like Greg Maddux against our lineup.

[CaptainObvious]

I'll say this and stand by it. If Ole Miss reverts back to their crappy ways the rest of the season, Bianco, who is a hell of a lot better coach than Lemonis, will be gone 2 years from winning a Natty! They will not wait for him to "fix it". If LSU continues to tumble deeper into the abyss and fail to make the tourney, Jay will be a hot seat coach next year! Red Hot!

[Pancho]

the last catcher we had was Tanner.

[Pancho]

My money is on the "can't get blood from a turnip" when it deal with kohler and an SEC bat..........