We should easily be able to fund full scholarships for the whole baseball team...

[Leeshouldveflanked]

This is why JC baseball is pretty strong in MIssissippi.... some of the marginal D1 guys are going JC because they will get a full ride compared to taking a chance on getting cut from 35 man roster and not getting any $....

[5049]

This is why JC baseball is pretty strong in MIssissippi.... some of the marginal D1 guys are going JC because they will get a full ride compared to taking a chance on getting cut from 35 man roster and not getting any $....

This is also why we should be using the JUCO system more.

Tanner Poole, Cole Marsh, Spencer Price off this team alone. Ryan Rigby, Trey Jolly, Luke Reynolds from the last few.

[Todd4State]

This is also why we should be using the JUCO system more.

Tanner Poole, Cole Marsh, Spencer Price off this team alone. Ryan Rigby, Trey Jolly, Luke Reynolds from the last few.

Poole- Role player for us who many of our fans constantly complain about.
Marsh- Middle relief/midweek starter type who has been suspended once already this year.
Price- Good closer. You can find good role player types like this in JUCO. Not really a MLB prospect though.
Rigby- Sidearm guy. Another good type of player you can find in JUCO. At West Alabama now and not really a MLB prospect.
Jolly- Not on the team anymore
Reynolds- Not on the team anymore either. Even most of those that think he should have been kept on the team understand it would have been in a reserve role and on the roster he was somewhere between player 33-38 out of 35 and may not have been on the SEC roster.

You can find some good role type players in MS JUCO. Which we do need. But we can't make a living off of it and expect to win National Titles.

You can say that USM's JUCO guys kicked our ass. But I think we all would agree that there were some obvious extenuating circumstances and none of them were in our favor. One of those was the fact that we started four freshmen in the field against a veteran team. By the time those freshmen are juniors they are going to be much better than the players that USM has.

We should follow the formula that Florida, LSU, and Vanderbilt have. Because we realistically can and it's a proven formula in Omaha.

[5049]

We should follow the formula that Florida, LSU, and Vanderbilt have. Because we realistically can and it's a proven formula in Omaha.

I agree it?s a good formula for those schools but we are not them. I disagree that it?s a good formula for us. We can?t offer the extra money.

As for the JUCOs, I did not list them to talk about each one specifically. The point is that it is a pot of talented players right under our nose within our state borders

[Todd4State]

I agree it?s a good formula for those schools but we are not them. I disagree that it?s a good formula for us. We can?t offer the extra money.

As for the JUCOs, I did not list them to talk about each one specifically. The point is that it is a pot of talented players right under our nose within our state borders

We do offer extra money- it's just that Ron Polk conditioned many of our fans into thinking that we couldn't. We've been doing it for years. We just use it in the form of scholarship money and grants and waivers depending on the player.

The money issue is incredibly overrated. I always laugh at people that come to the conclusion that guys that go to school and intend to leave after three years without a degree to play a sport are somehow at the same time enamored with Vanderbilt education. The reason they are going to Vanderbilt is because their coaches have shown that they can get them to MLB- that's really all they want to do. They had a pitching coach named Derek Johnson who is now the Brewers pitching coach who started everything for them. Now they have another elite pitching coach in Scott Brown who has shown that he can get players to MLB.

We absolutely can recruit like them- Cann was well on his way to doing that. We are probably going to hire someone else that uses that same formula. The problem has been that we've been doing what you suggested- go after a ton of JUCO's- and it has caused us to be fairly unstable- terrible 2015, win the SEC in 2016. What Cohen did was essentially the same thing Jackie did with JUCO's.

I didn't list those players to run them down- just to illustrate what the Mississippi JUCO leagues produce because those guys that you listed were some of the better players in that league. A team of mostly MS JUCO players is going to get us a USM/La Tech level squad but in the SEC which would translate to middle of the league at best with a team like what USM has now and what La Tech has had recently.

We already get the best in Mississippi out of the high school ranks- and we develop them into quality SEC players more times than not. Look at the list of players that we have had that have gone to MLB recently:

P- Graveman, Holder, Girodo, Lindgren, Stratton, Hudson will likely be up this year and was a first round pick, Pilkington will likely be a first round pick this year, Easley, Moreland, Tyler Moore, Adam Frazier, Hunter Renfroe, Rooker was a first round pick and may make it up this year, Woodruff, and Jake Mangum is a consensus top 100 prospect.

Out of that group- ONE MS JUCO player and actually only ONE overall that we've recently sent to MLB and that's Tyler Moore. If I remember correctly he went to Meridian because of grades and was a Dandy Dozen player so he was hardly in the class of players you listed. Every other player that I listed regardless of what state they were from came to MSU directly from high school. And that includes some guys that have some impressive accolades- Johnny Bench winners, SEC Triple Crown winners, All-Americans, and several first round picks.

[5049]

We absolutely can recruit like them- Cann was well on his way to doing that. We are probably going to hire someone else that uses that same formula. The problem has been that we've been doing what you suggested- go after a ton of JUCO's- and it has caused us to be fairly unstable- terrible 2015, win the SEC in 2016. What Cohen did was essentially the same thing Jackie did with JUCO's.

I mean, I just disagree, no reason to go back and forth, but I do want to debate one thing - 2015. That was caused by the sophomore class' inability to step up, not a JUCO or anyone else. That was on Dakota Hudson and Zac Houston. With those two guys we avoid the ten or so 8th inning flameouts, and we make a regional.

Really, the only inconsistent year Cohen had was 2015 and it was because of those young pitchers. Hudson and Houston were two high profile signees and we only got one year out of both, guess I could throw Vance Tatum in here too

[Todd4State]

I mean, I just disagree, no reason to go back and forth, but I do want to debate one thing - 2015. That was caused by the sophomore class' inability to step up, not a JUCO or anyone else. That was on Dakota Hudson and Zac Houston. With those two guys we avoid the ten or so 8th inning flameouts, and we make a regional.

Really, the only inconsistent year Cohen had was 2015 and it was because of those young pitchers. Hudson and Houston were two high profile signees and we only got one year out of both, guess I could throw Vance Tatum in here too

You're blaming THAT season on two guys that Butch hardly threw and when finally given a chance finished third and fourth on our staff in ERA in SEC play and had better stats that some of the guys we kept trotting out there? Take a gander and Ross Mitchell's and Preston Brown's stats for that year and get back to me. If anything we should have thrown Hudson and Houston more. The fact that one of the best hitters on that team was cut the next year says a lot about that team and what was wrong with it.

Don't look at it as a disagreement as much as it is an education. I believe Cohen knows how to win a National Championship here and the formula for that- which was why he hired Cann. And why he should hire the same type of coach with the exception that he will focus on the baseball team and not his side fling.

[MedDawg]

We do offer extra money- it's just that Ron Polk conditioned many of our fans into thinking that we couldn't. We've been doing it for years. We just use it in the form of scholarship money and grants and waivers depending on the player.

The money issue is incredibly overrated. I always laugh at people that come to the conclusion that guys that go to school and intend to leave after three years without a degree to play a sport are somehow at the same time enamored with Vanderbilt education. The reason they are going to Vanderbilt is because their coaches have shown that they can get them to MLB- that's really all they want to do. They had a pitching coach named Derek Johnson who is now the Brewers pitching coach who started everything for them. Now they have another elite pitching coach in Scott Brown who has shown that he can get players to MLB.

We absolutely can recruit like them- Cann was well on his way to doing that. We are probably going to hire someone else that uses that same formula.

Thank you. This answers my questions and confirms some things I wondered about.

[Cooterpoot]

This is also why we should be using the JUCO system more.

Tanner Poole, Cole Marsh, Spencer Price off this team alone. Ryan Rigby, Trey Jolly, Luke Reynolds from the last few.

Anybody that thinks jucos are the way to go are fools. Juco ball is weak from a talent perspective. We?ve tried it before and it failed. You can take a couple a year to fill holes from the draft but that?s about it.

[Todd4State]

This is why JC baseball is pretty strong in MIssissippi.... some of the marginal D1 guys are going JC because they will get a full ride compared to taking a chance on getting cut from 35 man roster and not getting any $....

Eh....nationally.....it's not that strong. And if anything it's watered down. The "marginal" guys you are talking about are going JUCO because it's their best option at that point. We're not losing players to Hinds and Jones.

If you have a legit minimum SEC offer- from MSU or Ole Miss- players are going to take that any and every day over a JUCO offer. It's because it's a statistically better path to the pros. Which is the ultimate goal- get to MLB- not see who can get the biggest scholarship offer.

The thing about JUCO is there is a lot of risk if you actually have a MSU or Ole Miss offer because if you take the JUCO offer there is no guarantee that you will get a SEC offer after JUCO. And you could end up at Belhaven.

The guys that get cut from the 35 man roster are always walk-ons. If you cut a scholarship player you have to play with 34 guys. Just adding that to the conversation.

Some of the guys that are legit prospects are going JUCO because they want to try to get drafted in the top 10-15 so that they can go pro and don't have any real intention of playing in the SEC or anywhere else that's not pro. Like former MSU commit Pearson McMahan. He was drafted in the 19th round and then returned to JUCO and got drafted in the 4th round. There aren't really very many of those types of players and they are a waste of time for MSU to go after because they are going to go pro. The problem is those are the types of JUCO players you need to make an impact on the national stage but again, they rarely go to the SEC or any other college baseball program.