Cws

[Todd4State]

Just hold 7th, 8th, 9th inning leads -- and this team wins 10 more games. They were both problems -- and our clutch hitting both this year and last year pissed me off for sure -- but our disconnect I believe is what we think was the bigger problem. For me, it was pitching, and it wasn't close. When MSU scores 5 runs, we should almost never lose. This year, we were 17-11 in those games we scored 5+ in -- 11-10 without considering the early season total destruction of inferior opponents. An average Ole Miss pitching staff was 23-3 in the same situation against a much, much tougher schedule. Florida was 41-3 in the same situation. Lsu 42-3. Just win the ones we actually did hit and score fairly well in -- at an average level -- and we were back in the postseason this year as a 2-seed somewhere. Add just a shred of clutch hitting -- and we aren't far from hosting this year.

The simple reality is, he's got to get it done next year either way. This used up his get out of jail free card. One thing I found interesting upon review -- we were 3-17 in night games and 3-14 in away games. We need to practice under the lights more(a baseball "disconnect" I've never reconciled -- playing at night is far different than day games) -- and we need to hold these guys' feet to the fire in the offseason to work out the vaginitis.

This is what should be obvious to anyone with any baseball knowledge at all.

[Todd4State]

I think Cohen went too far trying to take advantage of the dead ball that it screwed him when he had to change. It would be like if Football declared the triple option illegal. GT would suck next year. Cohen's offense was based on scratching out a few runs a game and letting our pitching and defense win. Just score enough that it puts pressure on the other team. Very similar to the mindset Jackie Sherrill had in football. The problem hits like in 2003 when the defense is DOA so now there is no way the offense can score enough to keep up. I think with the amount of bunting we did this year really shows how much faith Cohen had in this team to score runs. It looked like he had almost no faith that we would put up more than a couple of runs at most in an inning. It may have affected the team's mindset. At the end of games when we needed a hit to drive in a tying or winning run, all of our hitters were looking to draw a walk. I can't remember what game but Gavin Collins missed a walk off homer by about 4 feet to the left. It was one of the few times I saw a hitter look to impose his will.

Cohen seems he to went too laid back and the team lost its intensity. We seem more interested in doing shit in the dugout than stretching a double into a triple.

The thing is if football made the triple option illegal, I most people on here would think GT fans were crazy if they put Paul Johnson on the hot seat.

[Todd4State]

There's no baseball ignorance here.

Complaining about how Cohen built our team resulting in our best showing at Omaha and then wondering why we didn't change in the offseason with no warning of said change and then blaming Cohen is baseball ignorance.

It's also short sighted considering that our offense wasn't even the main problem last year.

[Todd4State]

You actually believe that, huh?

I suspect it. Either you are a horrible poster with limited baseball knowledge or Smitty. Neither one is anything to proud of.

[dawgs]

Complaining about how Cohen built our team resulting in our best showing at Omaha and then wondering why we didn't change in the offseason with no warning of said change and then blaming Cohen is baseball ignorance.

It's also short sighted considering that our offense wasn't even the main problem last year.

We couldn't hit or pitch. But better and we win 10 more games. Pitch better and we win 10 more games. IMO both need to be corrected ASAP. They problem I have is everyone (except me and smitty apparently) keeps saying fix the pitching and we'll be fine. No. Fix both.

It is my opinion that its a bit easier to coach a guy up with pitching, whereas hitters either have the talent and show promise or they don't. Pitching is definitely a more mental game than hitting. Obviously it's not black and white, you can't coach up pollo to pitch like kershaw, but pollo was an effectively decent pitcher for us despite having mediocre or worse stuff by teaching him how to pitch. Same with Ross Mitchell. Likewise, you can sometimes see a guy come out of nowhere and start hitting like a hall of famer (Ortiz, Jose Bautista), but usually you can see the talent from the beginning (Harper, trout, Stanton, Bryant). Doesn't mean they can't improve, but the tools are obvious right there in front of you, and usually they are at least above avg hitters from the get go. So what I'm saying is that I think/hope that with another year of coaching and experience we see a jump with our pitching staff. However, I don't see a whole lot of promise with our bats and I'm concerned we won't see them make a jump since not many of them seem to be showing much promise.

Also, why can't we get better production out of freshmen? With your best players leaving campus after 3 years, you have to have productive freshmen and sophomores. If not, you have an extremely shallow roster. We need to figure out what everyone else that's worth a damn is doing to get some of their freshmen to be productive.

[dawgs]

Link me to us "going further away from those types of guys" please. Renfroe didn't come to MSU as an elite power hitter. But was a guy with potential. We've got a bunch of those with power potential. Just need to have the lights come on for one or two of them.

Since the first whispers of a potential ball change -- long before implementation -- here are our position player signees.
Humphreys - power
Rooker - power potential
Ingram - power potential
Collins - power
Swinarski - power potential
Walker - defensive walkon/filler
Vickerson - singles guy
Heck - singles guy/defensive signee

Vallot - power. went mlb
Burdick - power. went mlb
Gordon - power potential
Holland - gap guy(struggled this year)
Reynolds - gap guy(began to show late this year)
Smith - gap guy
Gridley - singles guy that can mature into a gap guy
Lovelady - defensive guy
Stafford - not here long enough to know
Spruill - defensive filler

Pickett - power. went mlb
Riley - power. went mlb
Lowe - power
Alexander - projects as a gap guy
Stovall - gap guy with power potential
Mangum - CBrown clone
Blaylock - no clue
Marrero - gap guy
Poole - defensive/probably a singles guy

We've had 2 classes of bad luck in the draft with our power potential guys. Doesn't mean that we aren't actively trying to get them.

Everyone knows the challenges of being a college baseball coach. Either overcome it or find someone that will. Florida, vandy, Texas, ucla, Miami, cal st Fullerton, lsu, etc. all deal with the same draft shit. We can expound on the scholarship problems (and they do exist), but until common sense sets in, Cohen either deals with it or he doesn't and gets fired.

[Todd4State]

We couldn't hit or pitch. But better and we win 10 more games. Pitch better and we win 10 more games. IMO both need to be corrected ASAP. They problem I have is everyone (except me and smitty apparently) keeps saying fix the pitching and we'll be fine. No. Fix both.

It is my opinion that its a bit easier to coach a guy up with pitching, whereas hitters either have the talent and show promise or they don't. Pitching is definitely a more mental game than hitting. Obviously it's not black and white, you can't coach up pollo to pitch like kershaw, but pollo was an effectively decent pitcher for us despite having mediocre or worse stuff by teaching him how to pitch. Same with Ross Mitchell. Likewise, you can sometimes see a guy come out of nowhere and start hitting like a hall of famer (Ortiz, Jose Bautista), but usually you can see the talent from the beginning (Harper, trout, Stanton, Bryant). Doesn't mean they can't improve, but the tools are obvious right there in front of you, and usually they are at least above avg hitters from the get go. So what I'm saying is that I think/hope that with another year of coaching and experience we see a jump with our pitching staff. However, I don't see a whole lot of promise with our bats and I'm concerned we won't see them make a jump since not many of them seem to be showing much promise.

Also, why can't we get better production out of freshmen? With your best players leaving campus after 3 years, you have to have productive freshmen and sophomores. If not, you have an extremely shallow roster. We need to figure out what everyone else that's worth a damn is doing to get some of their freshmen to be productive.

Again, no one is saying both shouldn't be "fixed". Simply that if we only fix pitching, we will be fine and winning at a high level. That doesn't mean that people don't want to see more home runs and extra base hits. Pitching wins championships. Offense is for the fans. Not sure what your disconnect here is.

Point out a team that has a 3-4 freshmen making major contributions right now? LSU's top freshman prospect this year was essentially a pinch runner for this year. There isn't a team in the SEC that can expect to rely on freshmen and have a good season. If you have one freshman making a major impact right away, you should consider yourself fortunate. Anything more than that is an anomaly. Even Will Clark started out on the bench for us as a freshman and had to play his way into the lineup.

[engie]

Everyone knows the challenges of being a college baseball coach. Either overcome it or find someone that will. Florida, vandy, Texas, ucla, Miami, cal st Fullerton, lsu, etc. all deal with the same draft shit. We can expound on the scholarship problems (and they do exist), but until common sense sets in, Cohen either deals with it or he doesn't and gets fired.

Great. So you just listed:
Arguably the most natural recruiting-advantaged located team in the country.
Arguably most recruiting-advantaged academic team in the country.
The richest team in the country and one of the two most history-laden in one of the best towns in the country.
The team in friggin LA in a ridiculous hotbed of baseball talent.
The team in friggin Miami in a ridiculous hotbed of baseball talent.
The team in friggin Fullerton in a ridiculous hotbed of baseball talent.
The most modern history-laden team in the country and the biggest baseball revenue school in the country by almost double at this point.
None of which are hit with scholarship limitations that we are.

But you want people to believe that you are approaching it logically in throwing these names out there like we should be their consistent equals in baseball? As an expectation, this is totally off-the-wall ridiculous at this point. You are never going to be happy or satisfied.

[Tbonewannabe]

I don't know what we either teach or look for in hitters but we look different than the really good offensive teams. When we were on the same field as ULL for the regional, you would have guessed wrong if you blindly picked the SEC team. Hopefully with the shift in baseball with the new ball we go after it differently next year.

I don't think it was a fluke that we had great pitching staffs for several years but we make the title game when we have Renfroe in the 3 spot. We didn't have anyone on the team last year people were nervous to pitch to. You would hope Wes Rea but for most of his plate appearances he looked like a slap hitter.

[Really Clark?]

We couldn't hit or pitch. But better and we win 10 more games. Pitch better and we win 10 more games. IMO both need to be corrected ASAP. They problem I have is everyone (except me and smitty apparently) keeps saying fix the pitching and we'll be fine. No. Fix both.

It is my opinion that its a bit easier to coach a guy up with pitching, whereas hitters either have the talent and show promise or they don't. Pitching is definitely a more mental game than hitting. Obviously it's not black and white, you can't coach up pollo to pitch like kershaw, but pollo was an effectively decent pitcher for us despite having mediocre or worse stuff by teaching him how to pitch. Same with Ross Mitchell. Likewise, you can sometimes see a guy come out of nowhere and start hitting like a hall of famer (Ortiz, Jose Bautista), but usually you can see the talent from the beginning (Harper, trout, Stanton, Bryant). Doesn't mean they can't improve, but the tools are obvious right there in front of you, and usually they are at least above avg hitters from the get go. So what I'm saying is that I think/hope that with another year of coaching and experience we see a jump with our pitching staff. However, I don't see a whole lot of promise with our bats and I'm concerned we won't see them make a jump since not many of them seem to be showing much promise.

Also, why can't we get better production out of freshmen? With your best players leaving campus after 3 years, you have to have productive freshmen and sophomores. If not, you have an extremely shallow roster. We need to figure out what everyone else that's worth a damn is doing to get some of their freshmen to be productive.

Man how many times have I or others in this thread have had to come back and post that we want both. But the fact is the track to quicker and longer success is with great pitching. Yeah our offense needs a lot of adjustments. But by doing just one thing better on offense this year, clutch hitting or hitting with runners in scoring position, and our offense would have been better. Not elite and not still needing improvement in areas, but just that one adjustment makes our offense look much better for the year. Unfortunately, that is not always a coaching fix. Leaders and winner perform despite of coaching or even sloppy fundamentals. You can as a coach do a lot of things mentally, physically, fundamentally, strategic, game plan, etc. to try and help (how much of our problems were one or more of these issues, we have thoughts but without the privilege of seeing the team day to day outside of game results, is just that, a thought) but at some point the player has to perform. And by looking at the high draft pick failures at the professional level, nobody can accurately predict what a player will ultimately become. Just looking at our SEC numbers in conference, 7th in avg, 7th in hits, 4th in at bats, 3rd in doubles, but we were 11th in RBI. Better clutch hitting and the offense looks better. Not great but avg or little above average in the league.

[Really Clark?]

I don't know what we either teach or look for in hitters but we look different than the really good offensive teams. When we were on the same field as ULL for the regional, you would have guessed wrong if you blindly picked the SEC team. Hopefully with the shift in baseball with the new ball we go after it differently next year.

I don't think it was a fluke that we had great pitching staffs for several years but we make the title game when we have Renfroe in the 3 spot. We didn't have anyone on the team last year people were nervous to pitch to. You would hope Wes Rea but for most of his plate appearances he looked like a slap hitter.

As previously stated, we made it to the finals on elite pitching and good hitting. As far as Renfroe, he was great during the season. He hit .311 with 1 HR 11 RBI during the tourney but he only hit .157 with 1 HR 4 RBI in Omaha. He helped get us there but was not swinging his best at the end. He had 2 HR from the end of April through the rest of the season and dropped from .403 avg to .345.

[shoeless joe]

IMO most of the folks clamoring that an improved pitching staff will expedite our success, and saying that we could have been a solid to good team this year with a decent pen, are the ones with pretty sound baseball knowledge. The guys screaming that we need way more offense than pitching are the ones with an agenda against our coach.

Feel free to correct me...

[Smitty]

My issue is that we aren't purposefully hurting our pitching. They just sucked this year. Bad. Were horrible. But we weren't calling fastballs down the shoot. Obviously pitching needs more work. Has anyone actually said we should be okay with the pitching performance and need to win slugfests to succeed? Don't think so. This is the straw man that ALWAYS occurs when dealing with some of you people. You can't help but meme and straw man non stop.

My issue is that we actively coach against what will lead to offensive success. The hitting instruction and in-game offense lessens or chances to win. Now we did this with the pitchers some too in personnel choices but we have coached our offense to far less than 100% potential throughout Cohens tenure.

It's not a pitching vs hitting, which one needs to improve... They both do, in different ways. We shouldn't lessen ANY aspect of the game. But our arms this year just sucked because they sucked for the most part. Our bats sucked because we can't develop talent.

[Really Clark?]

My issue is that we aren't purposefully hurting our pitching. They just sucked this year. Bad. Were horrible. But we weren't calling fastballs down the shoot. Obviously pitching needs more work. Has anyone actually said we should be okay with the pitching performance and need to win slugfests to succeed? Don't think so. This is the straw man that ALWAYS occurs when dealing with some of you people. You can't help but meme and straw man non stop.

My issue is that we actively coach against what will lead to offensive success. The hitting instruction and in-game offense lessens or chances to win. Now we did this with the pitchers some too in personnel choices but we have coached our offense to far less than 100% potential throughout Cohens tenure.

It's not a pitching vs hitting, which one needs to improve... They both do, in different ways. We shouldn't lessen ANY aspect of the game. But our arms this year just sucked because they sucked for the most part. Our bats sucked because we can't develop talent.

I actually can agree with most of that. But what is the instruction you disagree with? Do you know what all is being taught? Without insight to our hitting instruction on a daily basis how are forming an opinion on instruction? The results sucked but that has not always been the case with his instruction. At different places. Even early in his career here the offense was not bad and we had power as well. So then you have to ask where is the disconnect? I have my own opinion of what I know of his instruction and readily admit that he and many many others have more knowledge than I do. Even if I divert away from him in several aspects.

ETA. What you are pointing out as a straw man to you is the same in reverse when many of us also point to the pitching when you harp on the offense and try to make it like I and others don't think the offense is an issue. Different sides of the coin but is the same in principle.

[I seen it dawg]

Is a straw man something in a serf game?

[dawgs]

Great. So you just listed:
Arguably the most natural recruiting-advantaged located team in the country.
Arguably most recruiting-advantaged academic team in the country.
The richest team in the country and one of the two most history-laden in one of the best towns in the country.
The team in friggin LA in a ridiculous hotbed of baseball talent.
The team in friggin Miami in a ridiculous hotbed of baseball talent.
The team in friggin Fullerton in a ridiculous hotbed of baseball talent.
The most modern history-laden team in the country and the biggest baseball revenue school in the country by almost double at this point.
None of which are hit with scholarship limitations that we are.

But you want people to believe that you are approaching it logically in throwing these names out there like we should be their consistent equals in baseball? As an expectation, this is totally off-the-wall ridiculous at this point. You are never going to be happy or satisfied.

Then let's fold up the program then. Having the best atmosphere and every on-campus attendance record in the sport doesn't mean shit apparently.

[dawgs]

Again, no one is saying both shouldn't be "fixed". Simply that if we only fix pitching, we will be fine and winning at a high level. That doesn't mean that people don't want to see more home runs and extra base hits. Pitching wins championships. Offense is for the fans. Not sure what your disconnect here is.

I don't consider being a 2-3 seed in a regional to be "high level". That should be a minimal expectation damn near every season. "High level" IMO is hosting regionals and being in the national seed discussion. It's winning 20+ games in the sec and being in contention for the conf title in May.

Fixing the pitching alone gets us back to expectations. Fixing the hitting and the pitching gets us to a "high level".

[engie]

Then let's fold up the program then. Having the best atmosphere and every on-campus attendance record in the sport doesn't mean shit apparently.

- How many games have our fans ever actually won? You really think a grill in an outfield wins a baseball game?

The fact that you put us in the category with those other teams -- right now today -- reduces your thoughts on this to a joke. The Cardinals and Royals both popular right now. Mizzou should be a baseball national powerhouse!1!1 No excuse!1!11

[dawgs]

Point out a team that has a 3-4 freshmen making major contributions right now? LSU's top freshman prospect this year was essentially a pinch runner for this year. There isn't a team in the SEC that can expect to rely on freshmen and have a good season. If you have one freshman making a major impact right away, you should consider yourself fortunate. Anything more than that is an anomaly. Even Will Clark started out on the bench for us as a freshman and had to play his way into the lineup.

Jeren Kendall of vandy slashed .291/.403/.558 with 16 2B, 6 3B, 8 HR, 39 RBI, and 18 SBs. Oh yeah and he hit a walk off HR in a park that's so difficult to hit HRs in, that we decided to spend our whole season not hitting HRs so we are better prepared for not hitting HRs in the CWS (assuming we manage to get there).

Will toffey for vandy was is also a freshman. Slashed .296/.377/.424, 4HRs and 46 RBIs.

Bryan Reynolds and ro Coleman were productive sophomores that started most of their games. So among the 9 players with over 100 ABs, vandy had 4 juniors, 3 sophs, and 2 freshman. That's the kinda class balance you want in a lineup IMO. That way you are more reloading than rebuilding. There will probably be 1-3 current sophs and 1-3 current freshmen that will be ready to take on a larger role next year, but they have 5 guys guaranteed to return that have lots of experience and success to build their lineup around.

[dawgs]

- How many games have our fans ever actually won? You really think a grill in an outfield wins a baseball game?

The fact that you put us in the category with those other teams -- right now today -- reduces your thoughts on this to a joke. The Cardinals and Royals both popular right now. Mizzou should be a baseball national powerhouse!1!1 No excuse!1!11

We have the support to build a sustainable program. Basically the equivalent of football powers putting 80-100K in the seats every Saturday.

And I'm not putting us the category with those programs, I'm saying given our resources and support, we shouldn't be that far away from those programs. This is baseball, not football or even basketball, this is baseball.