Expectations for baseball season.....

[Goat Holder]

Going to go ahead and throw this out there. In my MSU sports fan life I've seen this situation probably 20 times. And seeing how we have message boards, social media, etc. to spew out ignorant opinions, I'm going to try and temper everyone's expectations of what to expect of this year's baseball team. No doubt many of the casual fans likely expect a national title. Might better reel that back a little. We were a Top 16 team last year who got some clutch hits and almost won it all. I'd expect about the same this year. We've got a pretty good 2 year increment trend going on now: 2009/10 rebuilding, 2011/12 regional team, 2013/14 regional host team. Not to mention, we're at the hardest level to break out of right now. I really don't think we'll be in the mix for a true national seed until 2016. We are good this year, and we certainly CAN win it all, but I wouldn't expect that at this point. Then we lose a big nucleus in 2015, but replace them with serious talent. Then in 2016 we're a solid title contender, at least preseason wise.

I think our season goes a lot like this (think the 96 basketball season): We'll do some good things but nothing outstanding in the early season, and drop some games we shouldn't. SEC season will start and we'll win some games but we will have a serious mid-season struggle. And most of it will be mental. We'll start to get it together near the end and win our way into another host spot.

Now, how hot/seasoned/clutch/battle-tested/etc. we are at that point, determines how far we go in the postseason. And that is determined by when we mentally 'click' during that mid-season downtown that most assuredly will happen because it's happened repeatedly during our history. Plus it's the nature of sports. Not to mention all of our success is centered upon Woodruff (who is good but not completely proven) and Lindgren, who's mental toughness, well, let's be nice and say it's a work in progress.

39-17, 18-12 SEC is about right.

[thedawg]

I have but one benchmark in which to judge the season. Put yourself into a position where you are a slam dunk to host a regional hopefully as a national seed. We should win the regional at home and after that any more success is gravy. Baseball is different there are so many variables that go into making Omaha and winning it all, but I think not hosting a regional and the season would look like a disappointment.

[messageboardsuperhero]

You can never really go into a season thinking "national title or bust." I think anyone who has that expectation isn't very familiar with the landscape of college baseball or the unpredictability of the NCAA tournament.

At the same time, I think it's reasonable to expect to host a regional and have a shot at the SEC Championship and a national seed. Looking at our conference schedule, 20 SEC wins is a very real possibility.

[messageboardsuperhero]

I have but one benchmark in which to judge the season. Put yourself into a position where you are a slam dunk to host a regional hopefully as a national seed. We should win the regional at home and after that any more success is gravy. Baseball is different there are so many variables that go into making Omaha and winning it all, but I think not hosting a regional and the season would look like a disappointment.

This is my expectation as well- host a regional (and maybe a Super) and see what happens from there.

I, like many here, would love to see an SEC regular season championship- that's not an expectation, but it's very possible.

[Goat Holder]

I agree with both of you. In actuality, to me the measure of the season's success (after the national title of course) is regular season accomplishment. Tournaments are meant to determine a champion, so who cares how far you got if you don't win. Now obviously it will be celebrated if you go a long way like we did last year, but still.

Hosting a regional is a very reasonable expectation. I just don't want people to EXPECT a national seed and a postseason run rivaling last years'.

[engie]

39-17, 18-12 SEC is about right.

Hofstra
Hofstra
Hofstra
Hofstra
Memphis
Holy Cross
Holy Cross
Holy Cross
Holy Cross
Mount St. Mary's
Mount St. Mary's
Michigan State
Michigan State
Eastern Illinois
Eastern Illinois
South Alabama
@Arizona
UC Santa Barbara in Tuscon
UC Santa Barbara in Tucson
@Arizona
Southern Illinois
Southeast Missouri State
Southern Miss
Alcorn St
Ole Miss
Jacksonville State

I don't really see us losing 5 of these.

[engie]

This is the first real chance we've had to win the regular season SEC title in a number of years. We haven't won that since 89.

We've got a real shot at being a national seed as well.

Anything less than hosting is unacceptable. Anything beyond it is icing on the cake. Hosting is the every-year expectation going forward.

[Goat Holder]

USA, Arizona, USM and Ole Miss are 5 lose-able games. But I think we'll win a few of those but drop some somewhere else. I hope you're right but we're going to have to fight the 'deal with success' battle this year, like it or not.

[engie]

USA, Arizona, USM and Ole Miss are 5 lose-able games. But I think we'll win a few of those but drop some somewhere else. I hope you're right but we're going to have to fight the 'deal with success' battle this year, like it or not.

That was already the case the previous couple of years once it turned the first time. We even had preseason commercials saying "we are back" last year.

USM is a dumpster fire at this point -- and is likely to see the end of Todd Berry after this year. We'll have far superior midweek pitching to Ole Miss, USM, South Alabama, etc... We may drop one of them somewhere -- but Cohen teams don't use the midweeks as scrimmages like Polk's did. I mean -- as of today, it seems pretty likely that our early-season midweek starter could have been a top 5 round MLB guy out of JUCO...

[CJDAWG85]

I'm not expecting NC or bust... But I think we should get to Omaha again or at least a Super Regional.

[Coach34]

40 wins
Top 4 in the SEC
Regional Host
Super Regional Appearance

Anything past that is gravy

Sweet 16 or bust