Todd4State
03-17-2025, 12:26 AM
This weekend was absolutely frustrating for all involved with MSU whether you are a fan, coach, or a player. And the salt in the wound was the nice hospitality shoutout which I know wasn't intended to be a shot at all but it's frustrating to see that when we're losing because while MSU fans want to be nice (and I think that's fine, being mean usually doesn't have a ton of benefits) we want to win first.
There were a ton of mistakes this weekend and those have been hashed and questioned and all of that and instead of running through everything individually I'll just sum it up by saying this- there is simply not enough attention to detail when it comes to this baseball staff. Ron Polk was really good at attention to detail. Cohen was really good at attention to detail as a baseball coach of course. With Lemonis it's like "Eh. They're MSU/SEC players. They know what to do. We don't have to work on baserunning. We don't have to spend much time on defense with our catchers." And then the season starts and it's mistake after mistake after mistake every single time. And to Lemonis's credit a lot of times he fixes things by the end of the year. But by then we've blown our chance to host a regional. When we could have been hosting had things been addressed in the offseason.
There is way too much faith, patience, and confidence in college players from this staff. It's like they want to treat them like pros. But there is a night and day difference between SEC baseball and MLB. But here's the thing- if you take a road trip to Florida right now and go to spring training you're going to see guys that are seasoned and established MLB players that have made the All Star game multiple times, won the World Series- not the one in Omaha, THE World Series, and have been named to their National Team in the WBC working on basic fundamentals. There is no "Well, that's Ohtani, he knows what to do." And yeah he does know what to do- but that doesn't mean he doesn't have to work on it. So, if those guys are working on fundamentals in spring training for hours after years in MLB why the **** do we just expect guys who are 17-22 years old and their biggest accomplishment in their brief by comparison career is winning the Whitney Classic against Old ****ing Dominion and ****ing Nicholls (barely) to not have to work on it? So, really they're not treating them like pros. By not focusing on the fundamentals they're just ****ing everyone over from the player on down.
The way this team acts on the field watching them play reminds me of our teams under Polk 2. A bunch of guys that don't go out there and play baseball. They make every moment bigger than it is. They overthink everything. "Well, I gotta be the hero here and take this extra base and then everyone will treat me like Tanner Allen." Of course our third base coach isn't helping anyone in that regard either to be fair. First time I have EVER seen in my baseball life where the other team balks and we somehow get the guy thrown out at home? How the **** does that even happen? And at our own homefield you have to know how the ball plays off of the walls. Lemonis pulls guys off the field for making an error how about pulling your ****ing third base coach off the field when he ****s up again which at this rate will be Tuesday against Jackson State.
When Cohen got here as baseball coach one of the biggest things he did and was really good at was identifying the personality type of baseball player that fit his program. Guys that MSU fans love starting with Jarrod Parks really and then guys like CT Bradford, Graveman, Adam Frazier, and then eventually on to guys like Mangum, Stovall, TA, Rowdey, and Landon Sims. And I think the difference is those guys focused a lot more on winning rather than all of the other BS like "the moment" and how big "the moment" was. They wanted to win that at bat. Lemonis has a bunch of guys that act like a bunch of pussies on the field. And I'm sure I'm about to get some DM's on Twitter from some parents about that but I don't give a shit. That's what they look like right now.
And as I have said and as y'all know I have watched a lot of baseball and there is something to be said about "they can figure it out, they'll be fine, we lost to Mississippi Christian College or whatever they call it now in 1985" but at some point it becomes too late. At some point you have to perform and you have to execute. And you can point to analytics and they say that we look good and I do think this team has a lot of talent. When I see analytics that says that we're good but we're still losing then that tells me that the coaches can't identify when and where and how to use the players that they have. It's unexcusable. I can't for the life of me understand how you sit in the dugout and just watch a pitcher get blown apart batter after batter and you don't make a move? WTF? I know Parker is everyone's hero on here and he is good and impressive but he has ****ed this team over as much or more than any of the other coaches with his pitching decisions.
And I'll address the elephant in the room. Should Lemonis be fired? My response to that is the season is going to have to play out. My guess is no. That's assuming that this team starts to win games. That may or may not happen. But what I do know is the second half of SEC play is a lot easier than the first half. I will reserve the right to change my guess if this team falls apart. And I do think that is a possibility to be honest. You can lose only so many hard fought games before it starts to get to you. At some point you have to have some success as a team before things break down. We've seen that happen before in 2015 and we saw it happen in 2022. He's going to have to lose the major boosters to be fired IMO. And I don't think he is there yet.
There were a ton of mistakes this weekend and those have been hashed and questioned and all of that and instead of running through everything individually I'll just sum it up by saying this- there is simply not enough attention to detail when it comes to this baseball staff. Ron Polk was really good at attention to detail. Cohen was really good at attention to detail as a baseball coach of course. With Lemonis it's like "Eh. They're MSU/SEC players. They know what to do. We don't have to work on baserunning. We don't have to spend much time on defense with our catchers." And then the season starts and it's mistake after mistake after mistake every single time. And to Lemonis's credit a lot of times he fixes things by the end of the year. But by then we've blown our chance to host a regional. When we could have been hosting had things been addressed in the offseason.
There is way too much faith, patience, and confidence in college players from this staff. It's like they want to treat them like pros. But there is a night and day difference between SEC baseball and MLB. But here's the thing- if you take a road trip to Florida right now and go to spring training you're going to see guys that are seasoned and established MLB players that have made the All Star game multiple times, won the World Series- not the one in Omaha, THE World Series, and have been named to their National Team in the WBC working on basic fundamentals. There is no "Well, that's Ohtani, he knows what to do." And yeah he does know what to do- but that doesn't mean he doesn't have to work on it. So, if those guys are working on fundamentals in spring training for hours after years in MLB why the **** do we just expect guys who are 17-22 years old and their biggest accomplishment in their brief by comparison career is winning the Whitney Classic against Old ****ing Dominion and ****ing Nicholls (barely) to not have to work on it? So, really they're not treating them like pros. By not focusing on the fundamentals they're just ****ing everyone over from the player on down.
The way this team acts on the field watching them play reminds me of our teams under Polk 2. A bunch of guys that don't go out there and play baseball. They make every moment bigger than it is. They overthink everything. "Well, I gotta be the hero here and take this extra base and then everyone will treat me like Tanner Allen." Of course our third base coach isn't helping anyone in that regard either to be fair. First time I have EVER seen in my baseball life where the other team balks and we somehow get the guy thrown out at home? How the **** does that even happen? And at our own homefield you have to know how the ball plays off of the walls. Lemonis pulls guys off the field for making an error how about pulling your ****ing third base coach off the field when he ****s up again which at this rate will be Tuesday against Jackson State.
When Cohen got here as baseball coach one of the biggest things he did and was really good at was identifying the personality type of baseball player that fit his program. Guys that MSU fans love starting with Jarrod Parks really and then guys like CT Bradford, Graveman, Adam Frazier, and then eventually on to guys like Mangum, Stovall, TA, Rowdey, and Landon Sims. And I think the difference is those guys focused a lot more on winning rather than all of the other BS like "the moment" and how big "the moment" was. They wanted to win that at bat. Lemonis has a bunch of guys that act like a bunch of pussies on the field. And I'm sure I'm about to get some DM's on Twitter from some parents about that but I don't give a shit. That's what they look like right now.
And as I have said and as y'all know I have watched a lot of baseball and there is something to be said about "they can figure it out, they'll be fine, we lost to Mississippi Christian College or whatever they call it now in 1985" but at some point it becomes too late. At some point you have to perform and you have to execute. And you can point to analytics and they say that we look good and I do think this team has a lot of talent. When I see analytics that says that we're good but we're still losing then that tells me that the coaches can't identify when and where and how to use the players that they have. It's unexcusable. I can't for the life of me understand how you sit in the dugout and just watch a pitcher get blown apart batter after batter and you don't make a move? WTF? I know Parker is everyone's hero on here and he is good and impressive but he has ****ed this team over as much or more than any of the other coaches with his pitching decisions.
And I'll address the elephant in the room. Should Lemonis be fired? My response to that is the season is going to have to play out. My guess is no. That's assuming that this team starts to win games. That may or may not happen. But what I do know is the second half of SEC play is a lot easier than the first half. I will reserve the right to change my guess if this team falls apart. And I do think that is a possibility to be honest. You can lose only so many hard fought games before it starts to get to you. At some point you have to have some success as a team before things break down. We've seen that happen before in 2015 and we saw it happen in 2022. He's going to have to lose the major boosters to be fired IMO. And I don't think he is there yet.