Todd4State
06-01-2025, 11:58 PM
As I said earlier, this was a move that bluebloods make. Our job is simply too big of a monster for an "up and coming" assistant to handle and our fans are not going to put up with growing pains. The other bluebloods in SEC baseball IMO are LSU, Texas, and Arkansas. LSU hired Jay Johnson from Arizona, Texas hired Schlossnagle from A&M, and Arkansas hired Van Horn from Nebraska. All of those coaches had taken teams to Omaha before and two of them took their team to the CWS finals before being hired. O'Connor has done that twice and has won a NC. He has been to Omaha 7 times which is an average of about once every three years which is skewed a bit because it took him 6 seasons to get there once he built the program. He has also won 2 ACC titles and 2 ACC Tournament Titles as well. He has also had 13 first round draft picks since he has been the coach there.
One thing that stands out to me is the won/loss record he has had every year there. He took over for a coach that had a losing overall record there and has consistently won well over 30 games a year and typically his win totals are in the 40's. He has won the ACC's only National Championship since 1955 and was the ACC coach of the decade last decade.
I could go on and on but we simply could not have hired anyone with a better resume.
As fans here is what we can expect. My biggest complaint about Lemonis was the lack of attention to detail with fundamentals which cost us a lot of games the past few years. If there is one thing O'Connor's teams do it is they typically play very sound baseball. They do not make a ton of mistakes in the field or on the basepaths. I think that is going to be the most noticeable difference from day one going forward. That is something that Ron Polk prided himself on and MSU fans have continued to demand and pride themselves on is playing good fundamental baseball. Needless to say I think that will be a very welcome change! As far as the offense goes- I think we can expect a fairly balanced offense with power and maybe slightly more base stealing than we have seen from the last staff. Bunting will be about the same as what we have been doing with Lemonis. I expect situational hitting to improve which goes along with the fundamentals. I don't think we're going to hear "Well, they're SEC players they know what to do" anymore.
As far as recruiting goes I do not expect to see any drop off as Virginia's last class was ranked 16th and 26th. He has a good eye for talent and I think with more resources and less restrictions and more scholarships and NIL I think this will improve similar to what happened with Jay Johnson when we went to LSU from Arizona.
If you are expecting O'Connor to be fiery like Polk or Cohen or Vitello- that's just not him. You're going to be disappointed. But don't be fooled- his standards are high.
As far as pitching goes if we do indeed land Corey Muscara you are talking about the top pitching coach in the country who has made a name for himself by developing Wake Forest's pitching lab. If he is hired I expect some if not all of their lab staff to come with him. If it falls through my guess is we will keep Parker. Wake Forest has even less resources than Virginia and Muscara has taken them to the next level. He will be able to attract front line pitchers from the portal with our resources and NIL. We also have a history of producing head coaches from former pitching coaches- see Pat McMahon, Butch Thompson, and Wes Johnson- and even Daron Schoenrock. Being at MSU probably gives him a better chance of being a head coach in the future.
As I said earlier we should be equally as excited about O'Connor's hitting coach Kevin McMullen joining the staff as we are Muscara. He has been with O'Connor for years and he is a top recruiter and a big reason behind why Virginia's fundamentals are really strong. He has minor league managing experience with the Braves and is basically like another head coach.
Matt Kirby is Virginia's recruiting coordinator and he is also their catching coach. He has developed a couple of their catchers into first round picks in Kyle Teel and Matt Thais. AND he coaches first base which not having one under Lemonis was a personal pet peeve of mine just because it looked unprofessional having a redshirt freshman or some pitching recovering from Tommy John over there. He should be a major upgrade over Cheese.
Michael Roberts is another name I have heard and he is the associate head coach at James Madison. He is more of a baserunning guy and he has ties to O'Connor. I suspect his role would be off the field if he came because he has a history of putting together scouting reports and things like that. Plus the offensive numbers at James Madison weren't very impressive to be honest with you. James Madison is an impossible place to succeed at in baseball so take their stats with a grain of salt.
Really looking forward to the Brian O'Connor era at MSU and getting back to 2016-2021 type seasons and being what MSU baseball expects to be!
One thing that stands out to me is the won/loss record he has had every year there. He took over for a coach that had a losing overall record there and has consistently won well over 30 games a year and typically his win totals are in the 40's. He has won the ACC's only National Championship since 1955 and was the ACC coach of the decade last decade.
I could go on and on but we simply could not have hired anyone with a better resume.
As fans here is what we can expect. My biggest complaint about Lemonis was the lack of attention to detail with fundamentals which cost us a lot of games the past few years. If there is one thing O'Connor's teams do it is they typically play very sound baseball. They do not make a ton of mistakes in the field or on the basepaths. I think that is going to be the most noticeable difference from day one going forward. That is something that Ron Polk prided himself on and MSU fans have continued to demand and pride themselves on is playing good fundamental baseball. Needless to say I think that will be a very welcome change! As far as the offense goes- I think we can expect a fairly balanced offense with power and maybe slightly more base stealing than we have seen from the last staff. Bunting will be about the same as what we have been doing with Lemonis. I expect situational hitting to improve which goes along with the fundamentals. I don't think we're going to hear "Well, they're SEC players they know what to do" anymore.
As far as recruiting goes I do not expect to see any drop off as Virginia's last class was ranked 16th and 26th. He has a good eye for talent and I think with more resources and less restrictions and more scholarships and NIL I think this will improve similar to what happened with Jay Johnson when we went to LSU from Arizona.
If you are expecting O'Connor to be fiery like Polk or Cohen or Vitello- that's just not him. You're going to be disappointed. But don't be fooled- his standards are high.
As far as pitching goes if we do indeed land Corey Muscara you are talking about the top pitching coach in the country who has made a name for himself by developing Wake Forest's pitching lab. If he is hired I expect some if not all of their lab staff to come with him. If it falls through my guess is we will keep Parker. Wake Forest has even less resources than Virginia and Muscara has taken them to the next level. He will be able to attract front line pitchers from the portal with our resources and NIL. We also have a history of producing head coaches from former pitching coaches- see Pat McMahon, Butch Thompson, and Wes Johnson- and even Daron Schoenrock. Being at MSU probably gives him a better chance of being a head coach in the future.
As I said earlier we should be equally as excited about O'Connor's hitting coach Kevin McMullen joining the staff as we are Muscara. He has been with O'Connor for years and he is a top recruiter and a big reason behind why Virginia's fundamentals are really strong. He has minor league managing experience with the Braves and is basically like another head coach.
Matt Kirby is Virginia's recruiting coordinator and he is also their catching coach. He has developed a couple of their catchers into first round picks in Kyle Teel and Matt Thais. AND he coaches first base which not having one under Lemonis was a personal pet peeve of mine just because it looked unprofessional having a redshirt freshman or some pitching recovering from Tommy John over there. He should be a major upgrade over Cheese.
Michael Roberts is another name I have heard and he is the associate head coach at James Madison. He is more of a baserunning guy and he has ties to O'Connor. I suspect his role would be off the field if he came because he has a history of putting together scouting reports and things like that. Plus the offensive numbers at James Madison weren't very impressive to be honest with you. James Madison is an impossible place to succeed at in baseball so take their stats with a grain of salt.
Really looking forward to the Brian O'Connor era at MSU and getting back to 2016-2021 type seasons and being what MSU baseball expects to be!