I'm Feeling Wooly- We're Going to Omaha this year

[Todd4State]

Why?

You need pitching to win championships. We have a first round pick ace. We have a guy that the experts don't know about yet because he was hurt as our Saturday guy. We have a Sunday guy that was an ace at Tulane and owns LSU. Our bullpen has at least three guys that have closer experience- and two of them lost the closer job because of injury- not performance. Our midweek guy is a fifth year senior who has some SEC and regional starting experience and has had some success.

I believe that you have to be strong up the middle- Stovall and LA are probably the best defensive MIF in the SEC. Mangum is an All-American candidate. I expect all three to be .300 hitters. Catcher is a question mark though.

I think our corner guys are going to be a couple of freshmen who might surprise some experts- Tanner Allen, Josh Hatcher, and Rowdy Jordan. And then MacNamee and Vansau will start and are veterans who I think will take a big step forward.

Gentleman- get with your mortgage broker and start taking out that second loan and get your ass to Omaha!

Hail State!

[Coach34]

Would be beyond shocking if Belmont hit .300- he is Humphries vs RHP's- cant hit the slider. But he should certainly improve this year at the plate.

I certainly think we have a shot at Omaha as well. Cant wait to start the season

[Commercecomet24]

Im feeling cautiously optimistic cause we got a great pitching staff and Cann will find a way to get runs. Gonna be a good year!

[Bully13]

My wool runneth over. Thank you. Great post.

[ShotgunDawg]

We have good pitching this year and, while it?s unlikely, don?t be shocked if Small goes higher in the draft than Pilkington.

The problem is that everyone else has pitching as well.

Arkansas has more pitching than anyone

Florida has 2 first rounders

South Carolina has Adam Hill

Ole Miss has more pitching than most anyone

Auburn has two top 50 overall picks in their rotation.

Gonna be lots of low scoring games in the SEC as their are very few hitters and lots of top 2 round pitching.

I expect Vandy and LSU to have down years. Both lack impact starting pitching

I expect Arkansas and Florida to duke it out for the title. Arkansas has the best lineup in the league while Florida the best Friday and Saturday guy.

[Bully13]

We have good pitching this year and, while it?s unlikely, don?t be shocked if Small goes higher in the draft than Pilkington.

The problem is that everyone else has pitching as well.

Arkansas has more pitching than anyone

Florida has 2 first rounders

South Carolina has Adam Hill

Ole Miss has more pitching than most anyone

Auburn has two top 50 overall picks in their rotation.

Gonna be lots of low scoring games in the SEC as their are very few hitters and lots of top 2 round pitching.

I expect Vandy and LSU to have down years. Both lack impact starting pitching

I expect Arkansas and Florida to duke it out for the title. Arkansas has the best lineup in the league while Florida the best Friday and Saturday guy.

Ahhhh, you suck uuGAIN!!!

[shoeless joe]

I will be in "show me" mode with our offense. As long as pilk doesn't have a let down year we should be good on the mound.

[RougeDawg]

I will be in "show me" mode with our offense. As long as pilk doesn't have a let down year we should be good on the mound.

This is year 1.5 for Cann. I fully expect to see an improvement on offense and further improvement into 2 full years. LSU showed improvement after 1 full year, But really blossomed after 2 years.

Pitching is always ahead of hitting to start a season, so we should be good to go and start hitting our stride during conference play heading to post season.

[Dawg-gone-dawgs]

Agreed! Let's play ball!!

[BrunswickDawg]

As much praise as Cann is getting - and it is deserved - we need to give some props to Gary Henderson. He has brought some real stability to the pitching staff after the Tommy John fest that Vern Troyer was.

[Coach34]

yep- curious to see if UPig loses some arms this Spring

[msstate7]

yep- curious to see if UPig loses some arms this Spring

Forgot about that.

[The Federalist Engineer]

This is always the case, when was the last time the SEC was weak and talent-less. Omaha has become a mini-SEC tournament. 2-Conference teams played for the NC last year.

Ole Miss always has had more paper talent than most schools for about 10 years. Even Georgia will generally have a big-time arm and two or three field-players than anyone would want

The strength of the conference means we can't freak out if we lose a road series or get shut-out by a big-time pitcher.

17 wins will be a good accomplishment in this SEC (for anyone except Florida) unless you get the easier cross-divisional opponents.

[SmokeyDawg]

How big is it for us to have 5 home series out of the other 7 sec teams in d1 top 16?

[ShotgunDawg]

yep- curious to see if UPig loses some arms this Spring

Their gonna have to lose about 5+ for anyone to notice. Crazy depth and power

Until proven otherwise, I still contend that our injury issue was far more related to having 3 pitching coaches in 1 year than anything that Johnson did.

[Tbonewannabe]

Their gonna have to lose about 5+ for anyone to notice. Crazy depth and power

Until proven otherwise, I still contend that our injury issue was far more related to having 3 pitching coaches in 1 year than anything that Johnson did.

I still think it was him pushing too much too fast. You can get crazy gains by changing things up but you run a risk of injury. Going 0 to 100 on exercises that you haven't done before is always risky.

[ShotgunDawg]

I still think it was him pushing too much too fast. You can get crazy gains by changing things up but you run a risk of injury. Going 0 to 100 on exercises that you haven't done before is always risky.

Maybe but he got to MSU in October. What else was he supposed to do?

That?s just a hyposthesis anyway. Mine is actually fact. We had 3 pitching coaches in 1 year. That?s awful when they all have different plans

[Coach34]

That?s just a hyposthesis anyway. Mine is actually fact. We had 3 pitching coaches in 1 year. That?s awful when they all have different plans

no doubt about it

Figures the year we are loaded on the mound so is 1/2 of the conference. Wont be many slugfests in 2018

[Tbonewannabe]

Maybe but he got to MSU in October. What else was he supposed to do?

That?s just a hyposthesis anyway. Mine is actually fact. We had 3 pitching coaches in 1 year. That?s awful when they all have different plans

That is a hypothesis also. It is fact that he got there late and there was sizable jumps in velocity. There are changes in coaching staffs for a lot of programs without having about half the staff blowing out their arms.

[ShotgunDawg]

That is a hypothesis also. It is fact that he got there late and there was sizable jumps in velocity. There are changes in coaching staffs for a lot of programs without having about half the staff blowing out their arms.

It’s unmeasurable.

First off, how many other teams had 3 pitching coaches in a year?

Secondly, of those teams, how many of those coaches were so drastically different in their coaching styles as what we had?